Lessons for Leaders

Welcome to Lessons for Leaders. Can you believe it’s episode 100?

The goal has always been to share lessons, learnings, tips and advice and even when things got tough with it, I’ve enjoyed it more and I’m proud to be able to say I got to 100.

Many of my regular listeners will know that my girls are the reason I do what I do and my eldest girl is about to make me a Granny next month so it seems like a good time to pause the episodes for a while.

This last one is a very special episode, with my other amazing girl joining me at the mic to ask some of the questions you, my listeners sent in. I really hope you enjoy it.

I’ll be back in the autumn. In the meantime, there’s plenty of topics in the back episodes for you to dive into.

Keep sending me feedback, loves, takeaways and requests for topics in the meantime.

As always, thank you for listening

I hope this is helpful for you. Please do share any feedback or any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

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This week I'm sharing top tips and conversations that I have frequently with people in organisations to help them know how to persuade leaders to invest in wellbeing.

We're covering:

What to do to persuade your leaders

The 3 R’s that I like to go with organisations I work with.

Why we need to look at revenue in different ways and I dive into specifics here to give you a head start.

How to highlight the risks to an organisation

Why it’s important to include reputation in this persuasive detail too.

It’s easy to say wellbeing can help to reverse employee burnout and reduce stress, turnover, and absenteeism.

Often dismissed or seen as nice to do. Is it really essential. Is it something worthy of budget or resources.

Promoting an environment where it’s ok to talk about mental health and encouraging good wellbeing is simply the right thing to do. Unfortunately, some of your senior colleagues won’t agree or will be more focused on investing in business projects that they deem to have a clearer ROI. The good news is that whilst not everyone will see wellbeing plans and training as a business critical issue right now… there are strong reasons that it MUST form part of your core business strategy.

You just need to find what IS the focus of your senior people so that we can determine how do we convince, persuade, or justify the time and expense on wellbeing.

Company executives want to know that any new program, including wellbeing, is going to support the bottom line of the business and its long-term growth.

I share in more detail how you can do that. So have a listen.

If you’re looking for support for your wellbeing plan, coaching for your leaders or training programmes that not only helps your leaders, managers and employees enhance their wellbeing and performance but also gives you the tools and strategies to ensure senior buy in from the outset – get in touch.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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This week I'm joined by Gemma Woodward who is People & Culture Manager for Netsells in York. We are talking about leadership and autonomy. Listen in for:

What are the benefits of allowing autonomy.
How leaders can encourage autonomy in their teams.
Where leaders get it wrong with a top down leadership and how it can affect their people and the organisation
what's one key thing that people should remember about autonomy

Key comments and take-aways

A top down leadership can create a fear of coming forward and fear of making mistake, their ideas and decisions might be more beneficial than they think.

People have a valuable input to give a different perspective and do add value.

Businesses will tell you they trust you but don’t really demonstrate that.

If we want to retain staff, enhance talent and develop people it’s really worthwhile for organisations to create a team culture that also makes them an employer of choice.

Culture is not defined with free tea and coffee and ping pong tables anymore.

We need to move away from the thought process of ‘it’s quicker if I do it” because we create a bottleneck in the process and means you’re not passing on knowledge to the team.

Use mistakes as a focus to learn from rather than beat someone up about it.

How can leaders enable more automony in the workplace?

We need to recognise that everyone has a different way of working and different levels of creativity.

There is a saying that there is strength in numbers so I believe we should embrace that by working collaboratively and learning from each other.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

Connect with Gemma on LinkedIN

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What on earth is back to the floor?

I start with that and why I'm covering the subject (it was inspired by my wonderful friend and leader Tina. So I'm also covering today:

Why is it important to know first hand what’s happening on your shop floor

Some real life examples and stories of how back to floor worked, and how it didn’t

One really, really important question to ask yourself

I share stories from my experience in corporate and Tina's feedback too to give real life examples - some are funny, some are lovely, one is a little shocking!

Here's one of the key things ....

Without that interaction, engagement and visibility not only would you feel unappreciated and disconnected from the business, but you wouldn't know or understand your position in the organisation, what you should be doing and what outcomes you should be striving towards.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com. Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week on the podcast I'm talking about Why it's Worth Investing in Stress Awareness.

I wonder if you've ever had a time when you've ever felt stressed and known what would help ... but not bothered to do it????

This is just one of the reason why I'm sharing information that can help you make a decision on whether it's worth investing in stress awareness.

I cover:

What is causing Stress in the workplace?

How Will Stress Awareness Help Your Organisation?

How Does Stress Impact Productivity?

Is it Worth Investing in Stress Awareness?

Ways I can support you or help for you to do it yourself.

Stress is a word that we have heard so many times over the last two years. In fact, if you asked many people I am sure that ‘stressful’ would sum up their experience of the pandemic.

April is Stress Awareness Month, and with the easing of lockdown restrictions, many are finding themselves back in the office or adapting to a permanent working from home or hybrid working environment. With this comes benefits, but also many challenges.

The last two years has changed how we connect and communicate, and although it’s also taught us resilience and shined a spotlight on our ability to adapt, it’s also impacted our emotional, psychological and social wellbeing.

Employers have a ‘duty of care’ to ensure that employees are not subjected to excessive stress in the workplace, this also means arming employees and leaders with the tools they need to manage stress effectively.

As well as costing businesses money through work-related stress and mental illness absences (£26 billion per annum in fact), stress thought to be responsible for almost half of working days lost in Britain due to health issues.

Listen for more details, ideas, information and discussion on this topic.

Ask me about my Stress Awareness Workshops or grab my DIY pack.

This is a pack full of factual information, instructions and resources so that you can implement your own Stress Awareness and activities with your workplace and colleagues without having to think up ideas. There are also posters and images to share in your own newsletters along with a quiz and some conversation topics.

Or, to find out more about my Stress Awareness Workshops get in touch now, spaces are filling up fast.

I hope this is helpful for you. Please do share any feedback or any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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Two years since the UK locked down from the Covid 19 virus. In fact pretty much the world locked down.

It changed so many things

About how we live
How we work
Connections & communication
Wellbeing – what were thankful for – fear / perspective
Resilience

Have you looked back at those pictures from cities that were empty and streets that were bare? I know I have. There were bits that I loved, bits I didn’t love.

There was a significant difference in how people viewed the lockdown. Some loved it. Some hated it. For some it was frightening, some if was delightful. Some missed people, some enjoyed the space.

However over time those views change. This is an important lesson to remember.

However hard we think things are at the time, they will change. It’s important to look back and see how far you’ve come, what you’ve coped with and how you’ve managed. These are great ways to reflect and learn the lessons.

I share reflections, lessons, learnings in this episode.

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In honour of International Women's Day, I’m here to give ideas of ways that you can support women in leadership roles. There can be a number of reasons why there are less women than men in leadership roles.

Data from the House of Commons found that companies led by women outperform those led by men - but despite this, we're very far from achieving gender parity in the workplace

I share information about

Break the Bias

Unconscious biases, opinions, beliefs are formed early in our childhood. We learn these from family, friends, people of authority that are social messaging about boys and girls.

Encouraging women to pursue leadership roles and supporting those who are already leaders is beneficial for the workplace as a whole.

Improve Confidence

Many women don’t apply for specific leadership positions so work to improve confidence can be really helpful at this level.

Improve Language

When I say this I mean changing the way that we are speaking up / giving time to be heard / not talking over the top of people

Establishing meeting etiquettes to ensure everyone is treated fairly during meetings, that all have the opportunity to speak and be heard.

Listen for the story I share about how I had to have conversations about language being used so that I could keep a strong mindset about the work I was doing.

Male Allies and Cheerleaders are hugely important and I talk a little about this too.

Mentoring

Coaching

Women's Networks

Are all important factors and get in touch if you want more info on my services for these but listen in to how these are different and how they can help support women in leadership.

Finally,

Pay the same – if you’re not closing the gender pay gap then you’re missing one big thing.

Companies with female leaders perform better than those led by males, House of Commons data has revealed.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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This week I'm talking to you about why empathy is crucial for great leaders.

I cover :

What is empathy

Why does it matter in leadership

Whether empathy can be learned

How it can improve performance, create connections and

What you can do to be more empathic.

Why empathy is crucial for great leaders and what is empathy anyway? Empathy is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experience of others. So it's about truly feeling what the other person is feeling.

You know I often talk about how we don't 'do' emotions. But empathy is about connecting with emotions and feelings.

Why does empathy matter?

If we were to do a list of successful leaderships skills, empathy would rarely be included, but it's essential in my opinion.

I'm often asked the question "can we learn empathy"? It's often thought that we either have it or have not. You'll have to listen to the episode for the answer to this one!

Listen more for the ways that you can improve empathy.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

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Do you find it difficult to say no to people? Perhaps it means you end up being busy, stressed, over-committed? Often when we struggle to say no to people it can leave us feeling used, put up-on, juggling too many things. Are you the one who ends up working late because you’ve said yes to others, yet you’re the one with more to do?

This episode is for you where I talk about

Say no and establish healthy boundaries

How to handle the fear, stress, worry and guilt

The surprising reason that saying no is good for you

Key phrases that you can begin to use to get you started

Why it’s not always about you

Suggestions to think about helping you with easy ways to say no

It's important to be able to say no so you feel empowered while still maintaining your relationships with others. Saying no helps you establish healthy boundaries and enables others to have clarity about what they can expect from you.

When you struggle to say no, look at what’s going on when you feel like this? What feeling or emotion comes up for you when people ask you do something? Perhaps there are past experiences and situations mean that you’ve learned it’s easier to say yes than no.

For many it’s a worry or fear about what others will think.

Consider the other situation – you say yes so many times that you end up worn out, then there’s really no chance of you saying yes to anything if you’ve made yourself poorly! Focus on the benefits of saying no.

Apparently the Mayo clinic has done research that concludes that saying no can help to reduce your stress levels and increase your happiness.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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This week I'm sharing tips and information about De-stigmatizing Mental Health. I share key points on:

Why mental health is stigmatized
How stigma brings shame and what that looks like
How it will impact on your organisation
Good news on the wider impact of investing in destigmatizing
Key things that you can do and examples too

When we prevent people talking openly and transparently we also prevent those who need it from having support.

Stigma brings shame. Listen in for information about how people respond then feel ashamed and what the impact will be on your organisation and how it can impact absenteeism, presenteeism and attrition.

Mixed anxiety and depression has been estimated to cause one fifth of days lost from work in Britain.

May 2021 Office for National Statistics, reveals that depression rates have doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic began

The good news is that it’s not just about investing in wellbeing and culture it's helpful for everyone. Listen in for the explanation of the work I did in schools when my kids needed extra support that was helpful for all children, not just them.

The same is true in an organisation so what you get is happier, more inclusive workplaces where people feel accepted and want to come to work.

Let’s not forget that stress and mental health works on a sliding scale and you never know who might slide up that scale to a point of difficulty and who might get a ton of crap thrown at them for longer periods so that they stay at the top end of that scale and hit crisis mode.

What can we do?

I talk about the education, training and culture that can be impacted.

Language is huge and I share how you can impact this.

People need to feel safe enough to talk and that they will be heard. They don’t even need you to understand them or be able to stand in their shoes.

I share a couple of key phrases that help you to help de-stigmatize mental health and support your people.

As well as language they hear at work there’s also a language going on inside their own head based on their own upbringing and experiences. They might be ashamed, believe they’re weak (this has been said to me often) think no-one will understand or don’t want to show a vulnerability.

My daughter both think they can hide their worries and concerns. Yet it shows in their behaviour.

It takes the entire team to work together to make progress and consistently send the message that there is no stigma or shame around mental health.

Even then, don’t be offended if someone still struggles to talk to you. It’s not you. You can still help.

As the stigma lifts and the culture changes, the sense of shared trauma and experiences are making it easier for people to talk not just about their own struggles, but to recognize those issues in others.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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Since this week is Children's Mental Health Week, I'm sharing some of my top tips and experience that I've used with my own children and hope will be helpful for you too.

1 in 6 children and young people have a diagnosable mental health problem, and many more struggle with challenges from bullying to bereavement.

50% of those with lifetime mental health problems first experience symptoms by the age of 14.

This is why we need to equip young people with skills to build emotional fitness, improve their wellbeing and manage their emotions.

Talk at every opportunity.

You can use car journey's, meal times, walking to school or going for a coffee for opportunities to talk about the day or something else.

If they’re in a mood or had a rough day, get them talking so that throughout the conversation they can change their perspective on the day. Perhaps they begin to realise it wasn't the whole day that was bad.

3 Key Phrases

I share my 3 key phrases that work in all sorts of situations that ensure we calm down the brain and stop people and children being defensive.

Remember to Tell Stories

I shared in the last podcast episode about the power of sharing stories. What you’re demonstrating is

You are not alone
I felt like that once too
I know what you mean
Over time things change

Why side by side conversations are really powerful to ensure that there is no pressure to make eye contact and reduces any confrontational feelings.

Help them figure out their own struggles.

Listen in to the explanation of this and why and how this builds resilience. I give examples of questions you can ask and what can happen when you do this so that they move out of catastrophe and doom and gloom situations.

Self Esteem is often a tough one to build.

I share some simple and effective tips so that you can talk about the good things that they do, rather than how they are as a person. Listen in for examples.

Finally,

You’re not supposed to be your child’s therapist, but you are supposed to be their confidant, their safe place, the person they come to.

However difficult it is for you – it’s going to be so much harder for them.

I hope this is helpful for you. Please do share any feedback or any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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When we tell stories there are areas of the brain that light up and create feel good chemicals and reactors in the brain that mean that stories are retained much better than just facts or figures.

Listen to the information how it creates different responses and connections in the brain that increases empathy and also increases trust.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

There is five times more brain processing when we tell stories than when we just tell facts.

This is why I tell stories in my podcast and in my speaker sessions and workshops so that the tools tips and advice I give can be retained better and are more relatable.

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Paul McGregor joins Emma to talk about Challenging the Stigma of Mental Health.

Paul is a Mental Health speaker and founder of Everymind at Work.

Listen in where we talk about

The key reasons Paul does this work in the mental health space
What we mean by a sliding scale of mental health
The biggest mistakes organisations make
The big thing that helps to tackle stigma
The one thing Paul says we need to think about.

Listen to Paul talking about his business

how he got into talking about mental health
how they partner with organisations on Mental Health and
the key product of having an app that provides support.

Plus he shares more info and reasons why his key mission is to help employees to feel safe about the challenges because of the stigma around mental health.

Paul shares some of the detail about how he handled the death of his dad.

Listen to the conversation about the stigma about therapy and Paul and Emma share their experiences of therapy.

“mental health is a difficult for thing, especially for men to talk about”

Listen to Emma’s short story about a client of hers with crippling anxiety and how he said “I don’t want to be seen as weak”.

How do we provide support to people in organisations to stop them before they’re needing time off.

Why there is need to embed into strategy and culture.

Paul talks us through examples of his first tip to everyone (that I completely agree with) Start with Why! Why are you looking at mental health support? This is where to start with plans, rather than what you are doing.

Listen to the conversation about the importance of senior leaders sharing their stories or struggles and how it can be so powerful and create trust.

The one big thing that helps to tackle stigma (get employees sharing).

Get in touch with Paul at

http://www.pmcgregor.com/

https://everymindatwork.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmcgregorcom/

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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I'm sharing some insider secrets and top tips about the conversations I've been having. Im' sharing some of the trends I've seen and the issues that people tell me they have in their organisations.

I also share some of the top requests for wellbeing and the one top tip that I have that includes my free gift to you too!

Did you know that 45% of employees reported feeling emotionally drained from work since the pandemic began?

Listen in where I share one particularly interesting aspect of wellbeing that I had not thought about and hear what I did to help some law and housing organisations be able to cope with this issue.

January and the New Year always seems a fitting time to think about goals and changes for the year ahead, and this is why I share my ONE thing I think you need to think about when looking ahead for 2022. My 7 steps to Winning Wellbeing pack is a pdf and podcast episode sharing key aspects that need to be included so that you don't need to think about it. (see links at the end)

I run through some of the top wellbeing workshops that I'm delivering right now and why these are being asked for.

Finally, don't forget to ensure that you equip your leaders to be able to support your people. I'm getting more enquiries from people looking for leadership coaching so that they prevent burn out and are able to support their people, so ensure that is included too when you are looking ahead in 2022.

For the 7 Steps to Winning Wellbeing Plan listen to this episode.

Contact me at emma@emmalangton.com for a copy of the pdf guidance on the same subject.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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It might feel like a time to hibernate and stay inside with the damp cold weather, the long January with credit card bills coming from Christmas spends, but I’m here to share some easy and simple ways you can boost your mood.

Listen in where I share four key areas that you can focus on that boost different 'feel-good' chemicals of

Endorphins - the feel good chemical

Dopamine - the reward chemical

Oxytocin - the connection boost

Seratonin - the mood stabiliser

If it feels overwhelming, don't worry, listen right to the end. I share if you do just one thing - I share one activity that will hit 3 if not 4 of the feel good chemicals I've mentioned.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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This week I’m sharing my 7 steps to successful planning. Whether this is for you personally or a wellbeing plan, leadership plan or other plan in your organisation listen in for my tips that cover:

Reasons to think about why you are creating your plan
The importance of breaking the planning down
How accountability can be really powerful
The secret to making plans a success
It’s important that you look at where the barriers are to ensure that your plan is successful.
This one of my key pillars of resilience that I deliver in all my workshops that is also essential to success planning.
Finally, how to ensure all this does not seem tedious when you start

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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I’m sharing a recap of the top 5 episodes for 2021. These are the podcast episodes that have had the highest listens throughout the year and I though it useful to recap them for you. People are often asking me which I should listen to first, so this will be a helpful way to dive in to the most popular ones and get you started, or enable you to recap any that you missed.

Even if you heard them before, it’s often useful to get a reminder of key messages …. It’s so easy to forget these things.

The most listened to are:

LFL18 Boundaries for Leaders

Good leadership boundaries enhance workforce behaviour, stops workforce behaviour from being pulled down taking away from its values, mission, purpose, and results.

Listen to why boundaries are my favourite subject and why I think they are so essential in business, organisation and life.

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/14615294

LFL21 Preventing Leadership Fatigue and Burn Out

Although this was published back in June, it’s still relevant now and I expect it will be right through 2022. I’ve been hearing of lots of people experiencing burn out, extreme fatigue and people struggling. So this is going to be so helpful.

Burnout characterised by “emotional exhaustion” and usually attributed to the professional role you have, therefore, maintaining work life balance is vital to prevent burnout.

The difficulty though is that often fatigue and burn out happen because leader DO love their jobs, or feel a sense of responsibility or struggle to delegate – in fact there can be a host of differing factors. Because everyone is different.

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/14933069

LFL15 Resilient Leadership: My Six Pillars of Resilience

This episode gives you an insight into my resilience workshops and training. In January one organisation has booked me to deliver 8 resilience workshops for their organisation that incorporates 5 x one hour sessions for all staff and 3 x 2 hour sessions for managers. If you want an insight, go over to this episode and here me talking about

what resilience is
how resilience impacts you in leadership and your employees
what are my six pillars of resilience

Leaders are expected to be able to run and lead in their business and to be able to do it well. Accenture concluded that

"Resilience may be the new criterion for professional advancement"

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/14288750

LFL38 7 Steps to a Winning Wellbeing Plan

This is a process I go through with organisations when we’re looking at creating their wellbeing plans. January is a great time to put this in place … but it can happen at any time of the year. If you’re not on my newsletter, then get signed up because the January edition will be giving away more info about these 7 steps too.

To listen to the episode, you’ll hear I'm talking about the 7 steps that you can take to create winning wellbeing plans in your organisation and sharing exactly what would be good things so that there are not just knee jerk reactions and plugging gaps.

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/17590712

LFL13 Managing Stress During the Lockdown

This episode is not just relevant for back when we were in lockdown. It shares what common stress responses look like, so that you can spot the signs. I share what we need to do with the stress that ensures we don’t stay with that stress response for too long. We must give ourselves time to accept, react and adjust. Then we create a new normal.

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/13888967

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

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Not all of us get oodles of holiday time over Christmas. After the couple of years we’ve had it’s important to set boundaries and ensure that you get time for you and time to prioritise and enjoy Christmas in a way that works for you.

Regardless of how many days off you have, the Christmas season is a time to switch off, properly. It’s the middle of winter, energy is low, and the Christmas break is the closest our fast-paced culture comes to hibernation.

We all need time to switch off and refuel. Every learning and growth cycle includes a period of quiet, a period for rest and recuperation. It allows us to come back stronger, renewed, ready to go again.

So if you want 2022 to be your most effective, powerful, satisfying year yet, it starts now by setting Christmas boundaries.

Here’s how to do it:

Prioritise
Limit Work Time
Make Time for Fun
Have an Escape Plan
Let Go of Perfect
Be Present

Listen in for my story about how I let go of perfect and the different perspectives I learnt from that experience.

Listen right to very end for my Christmas message to you too.

If you enjoyed this episode, please do leave a review and share on social media so that more people can enjoy the tips and advice.

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This week I'm joined by Louise Westra and we talk about

Why you need to ensure you put you first.

How to look out for compassion fatigue and what you can do about it.

Why work-life balance is still important but needs to be appropriate for each individual

The reasons Louise wrote her book You First

Get Louise's Book HERE

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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Connect with Louise on Linkedin

Connect with Louise at her Website

You First: Your Body, Your Needs, Guilt Free

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You're not alone right now if you feel frazzled and burned out.

I’m hearing from a LOT of people that they’re struggling right now. Some are even contemplating leaving their jobs because of pressure and burn-out.

Burnout characterised by “mental, emotional and physical exhaustion” therefore, maintaining work life balance is vital to prevent burnout.

I talk through

why we need to pay attention AND what to
how to look at what will restore your energy
why boundaries are your friend
why it's still important to make time for support and socialising
how you might need to rethink delegation

Choosing just one of these 5 ways to improve burnout will be beneficial for you. I'd love to hear from you to know which one you chose.

I’ve been working with a number of organisations to successfully deliver virtual trainings on stress management, work life balance, boundaries and resilience – so contact me to discuss the needs of your organisation now or book direct into my diary for a complementary discussion for coaching and 1;1 support too.

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Joanne is a change coach and qualified accountant and we’re talking today about why leaders need a positive mindset.

Joanne briefly recaps her career journey and how she recognised that she loved the people stuff but kept going with her original career path of accountancy. When she was running a women’s network she realised she could do this everyday but did nothing about it. Later she saw the benefit of coaching within leadership.

She realised she wasn’t being fulfilled in her career but was working on a mindset of keeping going.

She talks about how she re-trains in coaching and left her corporate career and set up her business helping people to realise how they can do more and follow a different path.

Emma talks about how often we can resist deviating from the expected path and how we don’t stop to reflect and re-assess what’s going on.

Joanne shares how we live a life of circumstance quite a lot of the time and it wasn’t until she realised that she was letting other people dictate to her about her career and what path she should take, even though she was frustrated most of the time and wanted to do things differently.

You can’t be at your best if you’re worn out, exhausted, unhappy. It just doesn’t work and Joanne found out the hard way.

Where does Joanne think the positivity comes into being a leader?
Why you need to ask people what they expect.
Joanne’s interpretation of being positive and why it’s not all happy jazz hands
Why we need to be willing to change or take action or ask for support.
Listen right to the end for the tips to be more positive.

Buy Joanne's Positivity Planner HERE

Find Joanne at https://joannecoaching.com/

And on Linked In at https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannecoaching/

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Today I’m sharing top tips how to work smarter

How to work smarter so that you are able to focus better and get more done without the long hours or pressure
Why taking a break is just as productive as working harder

Recent discoveries in neuroscience show how we can better manage our brain to improve the quality of our work experience and general sense of wellbeing.

Set routines - they are not just for children! Listen in to how having routines can be hugely helpful.

Use a different way to set priorities

Why you really do need to take brain breaks.

Finally I bust a myth about multi-tasking and you might not like hearing it, but please do listen.

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Sally Coulden joins me today to shares her key tips for managing change.

Sally is founder of Red Dog Glass Design. Sally is currently on her 11th career!

We talk about:

Why you need to surround yourself with people who are better than you
Why you should ask for what you really want.
Listen for a way to cope with failure and change
Why good communication is important

Listen in as she talks about how she’s using her art and skills to create extraordinary spaces in the world.

The one key thing that she says is important for a leader and any business.

Sally explains that she gets bored quite quickly and runs us through all her career changes from midwife to scientist to research and development consultancy and then on to transformation and change.

She then went to art school and needed to think about what she can do to earn some money and used her business brain to develop Red Dog Glass Design and look at getting into households.

We talk about how empowering it can be for listeners to hear of the many career changes so give confidence that careers can change and evolve.

We talk about how Sally feels it’s important to surround yourself with people who are better than you. You can’t be an expert at everything. Have confidence in yourself that you’re good at what you do and have confidence in others too.

Surround yourself with people who are good at what they do you surround yourself with more quality.

Sally shares how sometimes these feel like a big jump but is great once it’s done.

Do work that you find exciting.

Get in touch with Sally at:

sally@reddogglassdesign.com

https://www.reddogglassdesign.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-coulden

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This week as part of Mens Health Month I’m sharing easy ways to get people to talk.

Here’s the top ways I share, probably every week, with clients and organisations to help to get people to talk. These are not exclusive for men, but they do work really well for men, women, children, spouse, partner, boss … anyone you like!

It’s so important to ensure the you have the right approach to get people to open up and feel safe to talk to you. By saying the right approach, I’m not saying what you’ve been doing is wrong, per se, it’s just that there are better ways. Keep listening and I’ll explain.

Whilst it might seem like there are awareness days, weeks and months for everything and you might get to the point where you feel saturated by all these times, it is important to recognise that they are here because they are needed. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything.

One in four of us will experience a mental health problem each year. For men in particular, it can be an awkward subject to talk about, for many people, man or women it can be heard, because of the stigma, but you don’t have to be an expert.

Listen for the different ways we can encourage conversations and get people to talk

Notice - it's about noticing the little clues, not necessarily the big ones. Hear more about this.

Ask Twice - Asking twice gives someone the opportunity to get past the initial I'm Fine response.

Listen Carefully - this is listening to hear, rather than listening to fix things or provide solutions.

Question Gently - There are 3 key phrases that I use frequently in workshops and with clients every week.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know if you use any of these tips and how you get on with them.

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For November stress awareness week I'm sharing simple and easy top tips to overcome work related stress. I'm sharing:

Why you need to put a start and end to your day
The reason you need to prioritise
Why you should not take breathing for granted
The important of making sure you get moving
The reasons you need to be speaking to people

Whatever your job role, stress is something many of us contend with. I think we can all agree that the last 18 months have brought new stresses to our lives, that certainly weren’t in our job description. Whether you’re working from home, working hybrid or fully back into the office, this episode will be relevant to you.

With stress awareness week throughout November, organisations are using this as a focus for a boost to wellbeing workshops to support their people, reduce stress and improve performance and raise awareness.

So the good news is that you don’t have to have a stressed out workplace, so helping yourself, or encouraging implementation of these tips will enhance the support you give your people so that they can cope with these challenging times.

Listen in to this episode for top tips on easy ways to overcome work related stress.

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Nicola is a coach and neuroscience expert who helps leaders to ‘find their fire’ and lead with passion. She joins me to talk about why leading with passion is so important. We discuss:

Why passion matters with leaders?
What is going to help you be passionate outside of work for those energising energies?
Passion is not necessarily all about work
How you can make Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs work for you.
Why Nicola is passionate about people taking real ownership of their diary.

Listen for ways to spot when you’ve lost your passion.

We dive straight into discussions about how we revert to patterns of behaviours and how the brain works to stop us seeing the good things in life and the achievements we have made.

Nicola shares an exercise she does with her clients to help them recognise the wins and reignite the passion within us.

Could you write 50 reasons why you’re great at what you do? This is something Emma has her clients do.

Nicola shares her experience of corporate career and how she grew through the years and wanted more in life and ending up struggling with severe anxiety and depression. It was her learning in neuroscience that really made a difference to her.

Listen in for her explanation of her journey and what helped to bring her where she is today and how she has fallen in love with coaching and what her mission is for the next 10 years.

13.00 Nicola shares why she thinks passion matters for leaders.

15.45 Emma shares her tips for people who feel exhausted and overloaded so that they can get their passion and energy back.

18.00 Hear Nicola’s tips for finding your fire and passion and how you can create your own version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

21.00 Nicola and Emma talk about boundaries and how important they are and the decisions you can make and how to identify if they are not working for you.

24.00 Listen to ways you can look for clues that show you’re not feeling passion.

Your passion lies in your purpose.

Connect with Nicola on Linked in

Find Nicola's website HERE

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This week I'm sharing Why Your Support Network is Essential for Wellbeing

Why a strong support network will help you through stressful times
We break it down to look at professional and social networks
What steps you can take to improve your professional network
How your social network is also great for boosting your wellbeing
Why it’s never too soon to cultivate these important relationships.

A strong support network can be essential to help you through the stress of tough times.

Studies have shown that isolation and loneliness are associated with a greater risk of poor mental health and other health problems.

There can be a number of signs of struggling with wellbeing and these can be found on other episodes in more detail. As a brief overview this might be:

Tired, exhausted, not sleeping, are possibly commonly known ones.

Worries, anxiety, being tense, irritable, on edge, short tempered.

Difficulty concentrating, struggling to make decisions, being forgetful – these all indicate that your head is full up!

Physical symptoms might be there but not as noticeable as burn out signs.

IBS and gastrointestinal disorders, headaches, problems with immune system and even just getting ill really frequently – more frequently than the next person.

There are a couple of significant areas that you can look at improving your support.

Professional and personal.

Lets take professional first.

These might be support from your boss, a coach, a mentor, your co-workers and also others in your industry.

So how do you improve these areas?

Look at who you have or what support you have in these areas.

What is missing?

What do you need more of?

Then you make a plan to fill those gaps.

Listen in where I explain more about how you can do that.

Friends, family members, co-workers, and can all be potential sources of social connectivity.

You might be wondering – really Emma. I want to progress professionally what does family and friends have to do with it?

Often these people are your biggest cheerleaders. Even if they don’t understand your job, or your pressures, explain to them too what support you need from them.

I share how you can improve your social network and why it's important that you make the effort once in a while to do that.

Finally I share about the benefits of being with people has on your wellbeing so that you can ensure that you get the most from the time spent in your networks.

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This week I'm in conversation with Jacqui Jagger who is a leadership and mindset coach.

She shares the reasons why she’s passionate about supporting newly promoted managers.

Why we need to ensure these people do not get their confidence knocked, rather than built up

the difference between a people focussed organisation and a performance focussed organisation

What is needed for people who are newly promoted?

The one question Jacqui asks all the people she works with.

Jacqui’s tells us a little about being promoted in her first director role and having the benefit of being supported by a coach. She shares how she loved to opportunity to lead, how she felt supported and was loving life. Later she recognised that for a lot of newly promoted leaders the reality can be different if people don’t get the support for what they need.

People who are great at what they do and get promoted can have their confidence knocked (rather than built) because of the expectations of leadership. All too often they can be knocked off their pedestal and talent is wasted as a result. For businesses and individuals Jacqui’s passion is to help them understand the practical steps they can take to embrace the leadership and be confident.

Emma talks about her frequently used phrase of “there’s no middle management manual” and that often people get promoted.

What is it that makes Jacqui really passionate about supported newly promoted leaders?

For so many they get promoted relatively young or for a lot of the organisations I work with might be SMEs or founder led so that the person leading the organisation may not have had that support themselves. What that lead to is that they know what they don’t want to be like as a leader. They don't always start from “what do I want to be like”. If they don't build those relationships and that network early in their leadership then it can be hard to go back and redo. It’s much easier if you can get off the blocks running. Having a role model and being able to ask key questions right at the beginning of their leadership is great. I love seeing times when people start to make that shift and ask themselves those questions rather than trying to be someone that they’re not.

Emma talks about how leading with authenticity is helpful to ensure there is less stress and anxiety and that we sometimes have pre-conceived ideas of needing to be a certain way as a leader. She shares a story about the British Army changing the way they lead and that it’s good for businesses everywhere.

Jacqui shares a conversation about the difference between a people focussed organisation and a performance focussed organisation. The difference is not that they don’t care about performance, it’s that they recognise that performance comes from stretching people and by providing resources and ways of working that don’t add to chronic stress and promoting burn out. The old model of leadership that looks at results only, promotes a sense of fear that means people end up with a lack of confidence but struggle to put their hand up and say they need some help.

Listen in where we talk about how praise and encouragement is one of the undervalued skills of leadership. It can often feel soft and fluffy and in Jacqui’s experience, when people are encouragers rather than critics the impact is enormous. Jacqui shares a story of her brother’s achievement and how big the impact was when he was sent a thank you email from the CEO.

Emma shares experience of recognition schemes in corporate environments and whether that’s about the team and their abilities or the manager who has taken time to use the recognition system and processes in place. This is where a look at culture across an organisation is needed as well as support for leadership and management.

What is needed for people who are newly promoted?

Jacqui shares one of the things that doesn’t get done is the setting of expectation.

“You can’t beat someone up for failing to meet an expectation that you haven’t set”

So often there’s an assumption that a person understands what is expected of them. If it’s not tested and checked that that is the source of frustration and disappointment and can stem from thinking you’ve been clear that they know what to expect.

Have I been clear?

Do they feel they have permission to take action or show initiative?

As a leader it’s so important to focus on the important and not get confused with urgent where a timeframe can move.

There’s one question that Jacqui asks all the people she works with:

“What do you want to be remembered for?” and from that, will come out some of those behaviours and ways of being that will make it possible.

Connect with Jacqui on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqui-jagger/

On her website www.beyondboundariescoaching.co.uk

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This week's episode is sharing Mental Health Awareness Tips so that you can:

-Identify mental health issues -Understand behaviours and and spot common signs -Know how to converse with employees and understand needs -Have confidence to handle difficult conversations When pressure gets too much, outcomes are not positive – for the employee, their family, other team members and in your organisation as a whole. Therefore pro-active management of emotional health and wellbeing needs to be a priority so that it enables higher levels of performance – more easily.

Listen in as I share some of the causes of stress and pressure.

I advise you to think of a situation when you felt stressed or under pressure. Then think about the areas impacted on how you were feeling. What might it have been like for your line reports? I cover some causes that might be helpful for you.

Some of the signs of stress and pressure and poor mental health are covered too. Listen when I share some ideas of areas that indicate signs that you might see in your people.

Mental Health struggles can produces a range of signs and symptoms and one person’s symptoms may differ greatly from another’s. In recognising the impact, the focus is on changes in how the person usually is. Symptoms can be categorised into physical, behavioural, psychological and emotional some of which are talked about on the podcast.

Remember there’s still a stigma about mental health.

It vitally important that you actively look out for opportunities to initiate a conversation with a team member, if you suspect that they may be struggling, so that you can start to offer support sooner.

On the podcast I share key ways that you can start the conversation and handle it well.

I share other key ways to support your people with

open questions

active listening

using silence

providing reassurance

Signposting without feeling the need to fix things.

Talk to me if you want to know about my training on support individuals or managers on Mental Health or even stress awareness.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

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Tracey Matthews joins me on the podcast to talk about authentic leadership.

How it can sometimes be a scary place to be but also the reasons why it’s so valuable to be that authentic leader

We share how authenticity can go beyond leadership in to other areas of lives

The lessons Tracey has learnt over the years

Where to start if you want to be an authentic leader too.

Tracey joins me on the podcast to talk about authentic leadership.

We talk about how we education needs to reflect that times have oved on and incorporate different skills, technology and environments. It’s beyond education and a leader is about helping people to grow and develop to be the best that they can be.

Tracey shares what she thinks it takes to be an authentic leader.

It can sometimes be a scary place to be. It means there’s a core set of values, principles and these are brought into our leadership and that you’re prepared to share and communicate those things that important and being strong enough for those to shape the way you are as a person.

We talk about some of the values that people have and thinking about having the resiience to be able to cope with people sometimes disagreeing with you. If you are trying to be something that you’re not, then that lack of congruence becomes apparent. Tracey the lack of congruence seeps out of every pore and people begin to get a sense that things are not right by recognising body language and tension.

Emma explain about some of the subconscious things that can happen when we are not true to ourselves and the reasons why we need to be authentic as leaders.

What made Tracey passionate about authenticity of leaders. Tracey is passionate about education and how it can shape lives, through her own journey and also through learning and adapting throughout her own career, which she puts down to a variety of education. This might have been through courses or networking and learning from people.

Part of Tracey’s MBA was studying on leadership with lots of models and authentic leadership has stuck with her, With the authentic leaders it’s about making sure that we reflect on previous experiences and understanding “what is it that makes me the best that I can be”. For Tracey, she has been at her best when she has felt very aligned. When she has left an organisation when she’s felt there’s a mismatch with values.

The human element of people being aligned to Tracey has shown and been rewarding when people have followed her through her career. Those connections are exactly what we need as human beings and form the basis of what we need survival and then that builds trust and feel safe to be ourselves.

Emma explains about the feeling safety that runs through our core subconscious level. When we have connection, trust and safety there’s so much more that can happen in a team and workplace that breeds amazing things through culture and growth and more.

Listen to Tracey’s explanation of someone anticipating going into a meeting and where we want our people to feel that they are the experts and are able to tell things as they are.

We talk about the correct use of power that enables people to be vulnerable and the positive and negative opportunities for using that power. Authentic leadership means being able to use that power appropriately.

Authenticity goes beyond leadership into being a good colleague and being a good customer. Tracey talks about her listening to Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits book and the learning she took from that.

Listen for Tracey to share her one place to start to be an authentic leader and how that needs to be a journey of discovery and knowing your own values.

Connect with Tracey:

The Career Colleges Trust https://www.careercolleges.org.uk/

Tracey on Twitter: @TLMatthews

Tracey on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceymatthews1/

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People: Revised and Updated: 30th Anniversary Edition

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This week on the podcast I'm sharing about Leadership Compassion and

Why it’s important
The reasons why it’s not being soft
The small things you can do that have a big impact
What to know so that you can guard against compassion fatigue too.

There’s always going to be differing views about leadership skills, compassion and whether it’s too soft. I’m hoping this episode will get you thinking about things differently and enable you to support your teams and do your work better.

Being compassionate is not something we’re born with. It comes from a considerate behaviour, kind gestures, generous actions here and there that can make someone’s day. Even the smallest moments can have a big impact.

Kindness and compassion go hand in hand and enable you to be a leader that people feel that others can relate to, you’re accessible and approachable.

A lot of organisations have done work with their people to encourage their people to come forward and say if they’re struggling. Some organisations are finding that middle managers don’t know how to deal with these things.

Similarly there are people who are helping supporting, and often it can feel like they have become overloaded. Compassion fatigue can affect those in the most dedicated of professions.

Why should we be compassionate?

When we’re compassionate it creates connections

You create stronger connections

Connections improve trust

Trust enhances loyalty so people feel they can come to you with issues.

Then you have collaboration regardless of levels of management.

Compassion is not the be-all and end-all – there needs to be leadership compassion with a whole other leadership skills.

Compassion can be being supportive with mentorship, guidance too.

When we express appreciation for what people have done, recognise accomplishments, or difficult moments, pressurised meetings and share your appreciation for them doing what they do.

Listen to the story of Emma’s girls being confused with the recognition she was given and the discussion that took place.

Sharing compassion means people want to turn up for work, there’s a better workplace environment. So compassion is often about making people feel comfortable around you, having positivity, flexibility and support. That way people will come to you with concerns, issues and problem. So people with come to you because of what you do, rather than just because you’re the boss.

The other side of this is compassion fatigue.

The condition is often described as ‘the cost of caring’ and can lead to a struggle to empathise or feel compassion for others. Often there are people are in key areas of work who become the front line for others to offload their emotions or deal with emotive or traumatic situations.

It’s classed a a deep emotional and physical exhaustion. It’s also called secondary trauma and it’s something I’ve been talking about a lot through the pandemic because people are picking up cares, concerns, difficulties through out lockdown.

Therapists and counsellors are often trained to have key ways to be compassionate without absorbing all the feelings, being overloaded and carrying everyone else’s emotional feelings. In HR, people professions, you’re not given this level of training.

It’s important to look for the clues and know if you recognise those feelings immediately.

So that you know if you’re feeling run down, worn out too often?

Make sure you know you’ve got tools and skills to reduce those feelings and reduce the stress levels so that you’ve got quick and effective ways to keep yourself back at your best quite quickly.

Remember it’s not your job to fix things. Yes be compassionate, support and sign-post.

Talk to me if you want to know about my training on this subject of compassion fatigue.

In summary, it’s important to be compassionate, but ensure that it’s not detrimental to your own energy and wellbeing.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com

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Today I’m joined by Tina McDonald who is a workplace trainer for leadership and management apprentices. She talking today about how leadership is not about you.

Listen for some fabulous info about how Tina trains our leaders of the future.
A great example of influence, empowerment and changing culture
What common themes does Tina see with Leadership?

I think you’re going to love this episode

Tina works at Milton Keynes college with apprentice managers at Level 3 who are on a journey of improving themselves as managers or potential managers across the course of a year.

It’s quite gruelling for them and Tina spends 12 months highlighting all the great things about leadership and turning them into leaders she would want her children to work for.

Emma shares a popular phrase of her about there is no ‘management manual’ because people get promotions because they’re good at what they do but then they don’t have the additional skills to lead and manage people.

Tina shares that it’s not about ticking boxes but understanding what the boxes are there for so that you’re doing 70% of the job really well and 30% is the leadership stuff that no-one understands until they actually do a qualification.

She shares an example of aligning a SMART Goal around making a cup a tea. And the conversation flows about knowing where to improve, to increase performance, carry out good evaluation, reviewing goals, looking at targets and seeing if things are fit for purpose.

Tina talks about the value of leadership models on such as evaluating and giving feedback but following a model so that it’s done well.

The lessons learnt are always “I won’t do that again” and it might be simple but without the training and support they will end up with no-one who wants to work for them.

What common themes does Tina see with Leadership?

In operational management they look at operational strategy and look up. Where do they want to be, how do they know when they’ve arrived. You can see the fear come in because they know there’s a task to do at the end of every learning. They realise quite often that some of the senior managers don’t always have a clue what they’re doing.

We also look at culture in the workplace. She uses Charles Handy’s model because it’s simple. They get to start to see how cultures become a concrete thing that they think they cannot change. It can be damaging if it’s not the right fit for the organisation

Tina shares a fabulous example of how one of her apprentices made a change in the workplace as a result of a talk that happened on her course.

The reason Tina is passionate about ‘it’s not about you’ is because these are the leaders of the future. If they’re not passionate about that, they don’t start the course because they don’t like the work that has to going into it right from the beginning. Those that do get to the end, realise they’ve learnt so much about themselves, they’re doing for everyone else, not just themselves.

Leadership allows people the self confidence to do things, try things and not carry guilt or shame around the decision and actions that they take or the things that don’t go well.

Connect on LinkedIn with Tina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-leigh-mcdonald/

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Common topics / situations and requirements for leadership in post covid world.

Common leadership qualities that people are looking for and are needed to support your business and your people
Why culture is important and how you might re-look at that
How great communication brings people into the fold
What you can do to build trust
Why burnout is such a big thing to watch out for alongside your other mental wellbeing plans
The common options people are using to develop this leadership in a post covid world.

These are some of the things I’m seeing in organisations – and of course, some of the things I’m being asked to supply too.

Now, if you’re thinking as you listen to this that you might as well switch off now, well, I’m not high enough up to influence this – wait. There’s some podcasts coming that will help change your mind about this, so listen on here and get the full picture.

Leadership skills

Obviously, having great leadership skills is a given. But what does good leadership look like?

With the continuing of remote working, hybrid working – whatever type of working format is happening, it has become imperative for managers to develop strong leadership qualities to manage teams remotely, inspire and bring out the best in them.

Culture

Build a culture that people want to be part of.

Lots of people have been telling me they’re feeling flat, low, fed up … a common phrase was “lost their mojo”. Part of this is because of lockdown and the covid situation – there’s no connection, working all the time, lost enthusiasm etc.

Listen in to why building culture is important in helping this and what you can do.

Communication

Communicating in a way that engages people, draws them in, takes them with you and means they want to share information with you – good, bad and ugly – also means you’re ahead of the game with situations in the workplace.

Good communication creates trust.

Listen for more on this.

Burnout

This is important to listen to. If you've got people saying they're feeling low, fed up then grab the other podcast on burnout and make sure you're implementing things that help prevent burnout.

How do we lead in a post covid world?

I share the common development and leadership plans I'm seeing and working on with organisations so that you can get an idea of what's topical and working at the moment.

If you want to talk to me about any of this, get in touch at emma@emmalangton.com

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm talking about leading with empathy. I share with you

The reasons why empathy is really important, and now more so than ever before.
The benefits for your people and your organisation
The one misunderstanding about empathy
The three types of empathy and the benefits and pitfalls of each of these.
Is it possible to have too much empathy?

It’s never been more important to lead with your teams with empathy. Our people have been going through huge challenges – as indeed have you - let's not forget that – you’re included in this. The challenges at work, at home, with family, friends. People are dealing with overwhelm, burn-out, illness, loss, uncertainty and anxiety about the future and what that looks like – the list goes on.

When you’ve got all that to deal with why on earth am I talking about empathy?

Empathic leaders bring huge benefits to a team. By showing understanding and sharing empathy it means

The team perform better
They can be honest and open at work
More likely to embrace new situations and new ways of working
More gets done

What do I actually mean by empathy?

It’s the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Yes Emma, well, I’m nice to people isn’t that enough?

Often people think being nice to someone is being empathic but in reality is so much more than that. Yep, being nice is important but true empathy requires greater depth.

When you lead with empathy you consistently demonstrate an awareness of that persons feelings and emotions. It’s as if you step into that persons’ shoes, you feel it yourself (almost) I’ll explain more on that in a moment.

Psychologists identified 3 types of empathy and I share what this means, the benefits and pitfalls of each AND how you can enhance each of these empathic skills.

Cognitive Empathy

This is about understanding thoughts and emotions in a rational rather than emotional sense.

Listen in for an explanation and example.

Emotional Empathy

This is about really getting to know someone as a whole person.

Listen in for an explanation and example.

Compassionate Empathy

This is where there is a combination of cognitive and emotional empathy. However, compassionate empathy motivates us to take action to help the person or situation.

Can We Have Too Much Empathy?

In short, yes we can. Listen in for the explanation around this and what to look out for to guard against this.

It's often called compassion fatigue and I talk more about how I'm providing training and workshops on this for many organisations I'm working with.

To summarise, incorporating empathy and emotional intelligence into your management style is a skill that can be learned just like any other.

Talk to me if you want to know more about how I can help you and your organisation with this.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I share the benefits that can be seen individuals and across an organisation when a coaching culture is embedded.

Listen in for:

My tips on corridor coaching

Explain the coaching continuum and how you can use it easily

Some recent trends in coaching in organisations I’m working with too.

Leadership coaching is often very well recognised as being something that adds value to businesses through higher productivity, better engagement, and improved effectiveness.

How good would it be to have that kind of support for everyone in the workplace?

That’s what happens when we create a coaching culture.

By creating a coaching culture we are enabling your organisation to function in an environment where employees feel support to provide feedback, ask questions, encourage their own thinking .. for example to figure out problems and come up with solutions. It creates situations where there is opportunity for shared learning, for people to use their individual skills rather than being a ‘one size fits all’ kind of workplace.

Corridor Coaching

Listen in where I talk about "corridor coaching" and how you can make that work.

Rather wait for specific meetings, 1:1’s and reviews, you can provide opportunities for these conversations literally .. to take place in the corridor or at the desk.

The Coaching Continuum

Listen to my really simple way of looking at coaching with the idea of a continuum of Ask, Suggest, Tell. Hear my explanation of getting this to work and where you need to be on this continuum to ensure coaching culture works.

Often we prioritise senior leadership coaching. The areas we forget about are HR and middle managers. What happens then is that we will struggle to have these coaching conversations running right through the organisation because we don’t have managers coaching the people right through the company.

By shifting coaching to be the most predominant management style you can make it a success. That also means supporting all managers with coaching and I’m often asked to provide coaching for middle managers. At the moment, group coaching is working really well for them so that they develop coaching skills and leadership skills as well as build peer support and develop and enhance essential leadership tools.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary

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We can often forget to celebrate successes and this can have a negative impact on our teams.

Listen in for 4 key areas that are impacted - in a good way - when we celebrate success.

There's tips and ideas to help you think about how you can quickly and easily and celebrate successes within your workplace or your team.

We often talk about carrot or stick approach to motivation. I don’t need to explain about how much effort it would take you as a manager or leaders to keep beating a stick at someone. Compare it to how much effort it will take for you to dangle a carrot and have them do the work to reach the carrot.

Don’t let the different way of working stop you seeing successes.

Apparently the no 1 reason people are unhappy isn’t about their pay it’s about how valued they feel. When leaders and managers don’t acknowledge a persons’ contribution, effort, progress, help or support, then people get to the why bother attitude.

By celebrating successes you’re uplifting the positivity in the team. You’re helping them to keep their eye on the things that go well rather than the things that are not done or that didn’t go well. Instead we’re focussing on achievement.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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There’s a misunderstanding of what it means to be resilient, and the resulting impact of overworking.

I share information and ideas about how you can recharge your resilience levels in different ways and how you can find ways to get little pockets of holiday like moments so that you bounce back from difficulties or exhaustion as quickly as possible.

Daily recovery from work is crucial to maintain high levels of well-being, performance and resilience.

We learn early on in our lives that we must work hard. Be dedicated. Put in the hours etc.

Keep calm under pressure

Manage shifting priorities – all those things we put on our cv.

And yes we can do this, but we also need to have tools in our toolkit to help us keep going for the long term.

I share

two key areas that people hardly ever mention in my workshops that are completely relevant to resilience.
why it's not just about your physical health
what to avoid if you want to help your body recover and recharge
how to tune into what will work specifically for you
why you need to calm your brain as well as recharge your body

Listen to my other episodes on the theme of resilience too with

How Self Awareness is Crucial for Resilient Leaders

How to Strengthen Your Support Network

Why You Need to Revisit Your Vision

If you have questions, get in touch.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/20

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Self awareness will help you to know what you love to do and what you struggle with.

I’m talking more with organisations who have leaders who have risen through the ranks and are great at what they do, but they struggle with leadership skills. That affects their resilience and their confidence. They slip back into doing the doing rather than leading effectively – mainly because that’s where their comfort zone is.

Self awareness is about knowing strengths, weaknesses - yes we can all answer these questions in interviews but do you really know about those for you personally and where your strengths and weaknesses are with the way you lead and interact with others?

Listen for key examples that I share in my workshops and webinars.

How you can easily begin to raise your awareness today.

How being more self aware enables you lead with more confidence.

There's a couple of great examples of real life clients who worked with me and raised their awareness and the impact it had on them.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/20

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Martin Roberts is a Wellbeing Lead in Lloyds Banking Group and recently set up his own company Keep In Mind.

You’re going to love listening to him, I know I do, and we talk about how to get beyond ‘’I’m Fine’’ or ‘’I’m Okay’’. We both share some personal experiences to give you real life approaches that work.

Martin’s journey has driven him to significantly raise the profile of mental health and wellbeing at every opportunity. Through both his role as an award winning Mental Health Lead within Lloyds Banking Group and as founder of Keep in Mind Ltd, Martin shares talks, presentation and strategy plans on mental health and wellbeing subjects.

Martin shares briefly how he had his own mental health challenges and was frightened to tell anyone he was struggling.

He did the most important thing and said 3 important words. I need help.

This journey from there led him to be a Mental health Lead at Lloyds Bank Group and start his own business called Keep in Mind.

Why we don’t need a suit of armour
Need to be our true selves
Create an environment for colleagues to be able to have a conversation
We need to bring the whole person to work.
Listen differently
How the rollercoaster of covid is continuing
Why silence is absolutely golden and how to use it well
If you can only do one thing, listen for the one thing that Martin thinks we need to do.
Ask Twice

These are not just for the workplace – it’s for friends, family and anyone else you know too.

Finally, remember Martin’s key phrase – it’s not life changing – it could be life saving.

Martin offers bespoke talks, presentations and strategy design so get in touch if you need that.

Get in touch with me for leadership coaching, wellbeing training and workshops that help you communicate well, support your people, reduce the stressors and increase resilience so that you too can have the potential to create that ripple effect we talked about.

Martin's Website: https://keepin-mind.co.uk/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/keepmind25/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/keepmind25

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/martineroberts/

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Listen in whilst I share the reasons that listening is so important for leaders. It doesn’t necessarily come naturally to us.

I share

👂 The benefits of honing your listening skills

👂 Some information that may help you understand why leaders find listening tough

👂 My 8 top tips to help you improve your listening skills

👂 Including the whacky but really effective one I’ve been sharing with my clients and in my workshops for year.

Listening is a skill that can only be learned and refined through social interaction

Pick just one to practice for a week and see if you notice the difference.

Genuine listening is such an important skills for leaders. It helps build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy.

When I trained as a therapist, then later a coach there’s a TON of importance put on listening.

It’s about listening to hear, listening to understand, not just hearing the issue or listening to fix.

Listening is a critical part of building good relationships.

When you take the time to listen to someone, really take the time to listen properly; it shows you value the person, which is the ultimate form of respect. If you look bored or interrupt the person while speaking, you’re showing that you don’t really care what the person has to say.

To become an effective leader, listen to my tough to hear advice about what might be stopping you listening.

Active Listening

I explain what active listening really means

Then I 8 simple but additional ways to help improve your listening skills.

Pick one of these to practice for a week and let me know how you get on.

Listening is the most important skill a leader can have. It is the basis of so many other skills and traits that make up a leader. So be sure to make improving your listening skills a priority.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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“Wellbeing” is one of the hottest words in business today as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic

As we are in World Wellbeing Week – I’ve been talking to individuals and companies who are looking for further support because their plans are not necessarily having the impact they desire

Today I’m sharing the key themes I’m hearing from companies that I talk to.

How they are looking at more strategic plans
The top areas of focus for managers
The one worry that organisations have coming up.

I don’t need to remind you that the effects of the pandemic has changed people’s lives over the last 15 months.

The massive shift to home working, exacerbated stress, mental health issues but there’s also been some positives.

There’s no doubt that things have been difficult.

I’m now seeing that organisations are wanted to get a better approach to what they’re doing.

These are the key themes I’m hearing from companies that I talk to.

These are predominantly in Professional Services, Law, Financial areas, but also Tech, and education are common areas I talk to too.

Dealing with Change

The continuous change we've had over the last 15 months has been hard for people.

Listen to me explain more about that.

Make sure managers are equipped to help people deal with change.

How to Talk to People

This is no joke. People are saying to me – I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know what to say when someone does say they’re struggling.

So organisations have done a great piece of work to get their people to come forward and say they’re struggling because there’s been focus on it.

Do your managers feel comfortable having conversations with people about their mental health? Consider training and guidance to increase their confidence.

Support the Supporters

Whether it’senior leaders, HR department, MHFA or whatever, ensure you have support in there to help those who need it.

Listen to me explain what I mean by this and how you can ensure this is in your organisation.

Be Strategic

We spent time doing sticking plaster workshops and plugging gaps reactively throughout covid – and that’s totally understandable – and was needed.

Now though, organisations are moving away from reactive and being pro-active in looking strategically at their overall wellbeing plan.

Revisit my 7 steps to wellbeing episode for more detail about how to do this and listen in to this episode for a short recap.

Coaching and Training

Are your managers equipped to have conversations in an effective way, to go about the management in the right way? Ensure they are trained to have the right behaviours to nurture trust-based relationships with team members.

Healthy Boundaries in a Hybrid World

The companies I’m working with are investing in support for healthy boundaries because they are seeing that working hours are merging into the evenings and weekends, leaving their employees struggling to switch off or feeling under pressure.

As we bring in hybrid working it's important to ensure you're supporting your people with tools and techniques to maintain healthy work boundaries.

If you'd like to discuss how you can

enhance your company wellbeing plan
discuss virtual and in person training options
ensure your leaders are on board to support the Workplace Wellbeing

Message me directly on emma@emmalangton.com or visit www.emmalangton.com

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Who do you go to for support? This is so important now, since we've been moving through lockdown and our support networks have been restricted. So this week I'm talking about how to strengthen your support network.

When we have people we can talk to and reach out to for support it lessens the load of what we are going through.

It also boosts our mood and feel good chemicals

This week I’m sharing how I get people on all my workshops thinking about support networks differently.
How support has benefitted me personally and
How you can think about gaps in your network

Dictionary definition of support network
“a group of people who provide emotional and practical help to someone in serious difficulty”

I believe they don’t have to be in serious difficult – it’s important to have a support network at all times.

When we were going through the adoption process they asked about our support network. We had to detail it out and it was something I’d never thought about before.

Listen in as I explain the differences I found with my support network during the adoption process and later life.

Find out who has been the most supportive person for me with great supportive qualities such as:

Listening

Not dismissing things

Sharing a story

Helping me feel it wasn't just me

Listen to the things I did when I realised I needed more support for adoption and later when I retrained too and why I felt compelled to do those things.

I really understand the value of support.

So today I want you to think about who is in your support network.

When I deliver my training on resilience, mental health, challenging conversations all of them have a section about your support network.

When we have people we can talk to and reach out for support it lessons the load of what we are going through – just like I did with the adoption support group. You don't have to explain, they just get it.

These are the common areas I look at with people and you can hear on the podcast more info around these too to help you consider if you need to strengthen the support there.

Family

Friends

Colleagues or Co-workers

Manager or other leader

Mentor or coach? (and listen in for the difference between a mentor and a coach)

Spiritual

Community

Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. Relationships that create love or trust and provide role models and offer encouragement and reassurance often help boost a person’s resilience.

Loneliness can take a toll on both mental and physical wellbeing. Having meaningful relationships through a support network helps us feel connected and valued as well as being able to learn from each other and feel that we’re not alone – even when surrounded by people we can feel alone if we feel like no-one understands or is not on our wave-length.

Who is in your support network and what types of support could they offer you. If you’re not getting the types of support you need, consider where this could come from.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to increase your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me an email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diaries.

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When morale is low it’s really difficult to get people involved and motivated and can feel like pushing boulders up hill. So how do you boost morale in your team without is costing a fortune?

Listen into the episode where I share about

Spotting the signs and circumstances
What you can do about low morale
An example of a client I worked with
Why you need to find out what’s really going on, rather than guessing
Several ways you can boost morale in your teams without it costing a fortune.

Differing schedules could hamper projects and delay work because colleagues may struggle to meet and communicate plans.

Listen to the varied list of things that you might be able to spot or identify in your team or workplace so that you can begin to look at the levels of morale.

"When we listen (and really listen) to what's going on in the workplace we can then get to the route of the problems rather than just guessing."

"You (or whoever is doing this) needs to listen and be like a detective. They’re looking for clues and info that will lead them to the solution."

Let people know that you hear them is the next stage to boosting morale. All this takes is time and feedback. I share on the podcast words and phrases you can use that help with this.

Then encourage engagement so that you raise productivity levels.

Listen in for a little exercise you can do that demonstrates how mood can lift us or drag us down.

"mood is contagious and it can have a ripple effect if people are fed up and miserable"

Celebrate Achievements!

This doesn't have to be a big aware ceremony! Small regular things like people's birthday, successes, individual efforts go a long way to boost morale.

I talk too about how corridor coaching and building trust by small powerful conversations help boost morale as well as enhancing performance and deepening knowledge.

Many orgs I work with already have a great wellbeing plan but bringing in someone like me to delivery training that is needed, supported, informative and helpful is a great way to help them to help themselves. That way you show you care, they see that you care and as long as you’re walking your talk then there’s a universal message coming across.

No point saying organise this and that, and then sending emails at ridiculous times of night or expecting people to be in on their day off or

No point working all through your holiday and telling them to take time off when you’ve given them massive targets and things to achieve.

That’s where the training for healthy boundaries or resilience is important right now. To help them cope with hybrid working and getting back to whatever the state of play is for now.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE
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If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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After the last year of pandemic, lockdowns and firefighting, this is the perfect time for you to revisit your vision.

On this podcast episode I explain why you need to revisit your vision and the where it can be helpful for you, your team, your business and your future.

When I was delivering a resilience workshop last week there were lots of people saying they’ve lost their mojo. This is why revisiting our vision is key to giving ourselves meaning and direction; it's what pushes us forward. This gives us the reason to get up in a morning.

Research says when you’re engaged and have purpose, life becomes easier, less complicated and less stressful.

By focusing our attention externally, and giving us a constant source of activity to channel our mental energies into, purpose means that we spend less immersed in the associational chatter of our minds — the chatter which often triggers negative thoughts and feelings.

Listen in for more detail on the reasons it's a good thing to revisit your vision and a brief summary of how you can do this.

I share the detail behind my vision, that drives my purpose and motivates me each day - so listen in if you're as nosey as me and want to know a snippet of the story behind my business.

Finally, recognise that many leaders often struggle with being able to visualise that vision, which is why in my workshops I walk them through a visualisation to be able to get really clear on their vision and the reasons why it's so powerful.

I'd love to know what your vision is so drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com and let me know.

If you want to ask any questions or get some help and advice, let me know that too.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I speak to Kelly Dunn. Kelly is a Scarborough based recruiter and is also one of the top 5 consultants in the UK for permanent recruitment. She is an expert recruiter who sources top talent for temporary, permanent and fixed-term contract roles across many sectors, including: Accountancy and Finance, HR, Office Support, Marketing, IT, Construction and Engineering.

Kelly recently conducted a survey about the effects of the pandemic on the businesses across north and east Yorkshire and we talk a little bit about what she found interesting. Kelly found that what she had expected from the survey was actually very different in the results - ‘Inspirational’ and ‘optimistic’ are key words found in her explanation of her results.

We also discuss the types of resilience support there is at the moment for employees. What kind of support networks do employees have available for themselves? Looking after ourselves during the pandemic is incredibly important so you should try and find what kind of support you are missing, and how you can fill that gap in.

Accessibility is going to be an important part of the business world moving forward. Why should businesses only hire people in their area when the talent pool can be much larger to grab from? With a ‘working from home’ policy, more people will be able to work to a much higher efficiency.

We discuss more of the statistics that Kelly learnt from her survey. Listen more on the podcast to hear how this may relate to you or your business.

You can find Kelly at:

Website: https://kdrecruitment.co.uk/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyannedunn

Kelly’s White Paper: https://bit.ly/2RNfZGw

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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After mental health awareness week last week, I’m talking today about how to keep the focus on mental health going throughout the entire year.

Now, if you’re wondering (or even groaning) at the thought of having this on your to-do list all year round, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Get employees to know you’re taking MH seriously
Easy ways to make that happen
Key ways to ensure you’re walking the talk
A terrible example of support – so that you don’t make that mistake
What your plan should include

We do have to recognise that mental health needs a continued focus because it is the leading cause of sickness absence in the workplace.

Therefore, with the pandemic highlighting the issue and workplaces opening up more it is not surprising that employers are starting to look more closely at the crucial role they play in supporting the wellbeing of their staff.

We know employers come in all shapes and sizes, with different working practices and environments. all organisations, whatever their size, will be:

equipped with the awareness and tools to both address and prevent mental ill-health which is caused or worsened by work
equipped to support people with a mental health condition to thrive, from recruitment and throughout the organisation
aware of how to get access to timely help to reduce sickness absence caused by mental ill health.

I talk to companies who I can often split into two groups

Have wellbeing plans in place but then struggling to find dedicated targeted support for specific areas such as stress, burnout, sleep, financial.
Have bits and pieces of ideas and activities but no clear plan pulling things together.

Now, before we go on, I want to congratulate everyone who has things in place because there are still a ton of companies who haven’t even started.

In addition, HR and leaders are often doing these plans in addition to their usual role, although it’s great to see some companies having specific wellbeing leads and separate roles, not everyone has the ability.

If you want to talk to me about ideas, plugging the gaps, meeting the specific needs of your company, enhancing daily, weekly, monthly behaviours and embedding into organisational value so that you are getting a strategy, policies or plans sorted, then please do get in touch. Looking at overarching strategies has been something I’ve done for a long time, since back in my corporate days, so I’m happy to help.

How do we get employees to know that the focus on mental health is serious?

Start with focus groups (I can run these for you) or surveys. Find out how people are, what they need. Designing your plan with input from employees boosts buy-in and gives you a clearer idea of the support they might need. Building your plan with input from employees from across the organisation builds their commitment to supporting their own mental health and that of their colleagues. Trust and integrity are key drivers of engagement.

Train your managers with how to confidently have conversations with your people so that 1;1’s actually do take place regularly and when they do, they are effective, not just paying lip service. If you’re back in the office, these can be on the move, out of the office / workplace environment and often get to the crux of the matter more quickly too.

Walk the talk. Encouraging staff to work sensible hours, take full lunch breaks, rest and recuperate after busy periods, avoid working at weekends and take their full annual leave entitlement can all help avoid burnout. AND make sure you do that yourself. There’s a ton of benefits of demonstrating this but also in delegating, and trust your teams when you’re not there (which is in my plan for future podcast episodes).

What’s available? When your people highlight a struggle what do you do? You might have had my training on confident conversation and spotting issues, but then what? Your mental health at work plan should detail what support is available to employees if they are experiencing poor mental health whether it is due to problems inside or outside of work.

Listen in for my story of a terrible experience with an EAP.

I talked previously about the 7 steps to winning wellbeing plan, and in order to create a positive culture where people feel able to talk about their mental health. Make sure your plan is formally written down and will show your current and future employees that you care about their wellbeing.

For expert guidance and support for employers who want to support their staff’s mental health. Please contact me.

often, employees are scared to talk to their manager and problems can spiral. Your action plan should aim to raise awareness of mental health by:

embedding mental health in induction and training
celebrating key dates in the mental health calendar
running internal communication campaigns

Senior leaders should promote employee wellbeing by:

speaking out about mental health
supporting a campaign to encourage all staff to take lunch breaks and work healthy hours

When staff feel involved and well informed about what’s happening in the organisation, it increases motivation and helps people understand how their role fits into the bigger picture. Your action plan should set out how you will involve staff by using methods such as: • staff surveys and focus groups • staff forums and diversity networks • engagement steering groups • monthly or quarterly performance review meetings

Your mental health plan should outline ways in which you provide staff with learning and development opportunities including: • coaching • training

hold ‘lunch and learn’ sessions’ – these are a great way to support staff to take their full lunch break away from their desk

Organisations need to send a clear signal to staff that their mental health matters

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

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This week, I share my interview Scott McLennan. Scott is a Regional Manager at Santander, and has been in that career for 12 years. Scott came on the podcast to share his thoughts on how leaders should be striving for balance, and how leaders should be more willing to show vulnerability in order to show others that they can be open.

This episode discusses how emotion in the workplace can have a ‘domino effect’ upon the other members of your team, and then onto your client.

Scott finds that with his position in the company, and the responsibilities that it holds, it is important that he is authentic as it is extremely important to his team of 165 people.

The world isn’t perfect at the moment, and it can feel like the hierarchical status of businesses have plateaued; like everybody is now on the same level at the moment.

Scott shares a story about this in which he shared some of his stories of failure with his colleagues, and how they felt that he was more a person instead of a title, after the fact. Being truthful in the workplace as a leader can help with performance.

We also discuss motivation in the workplace. Motivation can be a difficult thing to find while in the workplace, but we share some of our own ways to keep motivated and happy, even in times of difficulty - ‘It is so important to keep doing positive things, even if you don’t have to, because it helps you feel much more energised’

Listen to the podcast to hear this and more as we delve deeper into boundaries! A topic that I love talking about.

You can find Scott McLennan on his LinkedIn profile:

http://linkedin.com/in/scott-mclennan-97a6a627

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Enhancing Mental Health Support is hugely important to our psychological and emotional health.

With the effects of lockdown we've been missing out on nature and dealing with additional stressful situations in our life.

In this podcast I talk about

What Mental Health Is.

Why do we want good mental health?

In a life and work environment it helps people cope with stresses of life and it means people have meaningful contributions to the workplace, to their life and their family.

I've been sharing ideas of how individuals or organisations can create a week of nature activities across Mental Health Awareness Week.

Listen in for these tips and ideas or get in touch to get a copy of the ideas that you can implement. These can be for the workplace, for individuals or for your family.

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This week I'm sharing my top 6 ways to support someone who is stressed.

I’m often asked, how do I get someone to see they’re stressed?

What can I do to help them?

I’m sharing the reason why other people often notice stress levels before you do.

The differences between men and women when they’re stressed

6 key ways to support someone when they are saying they’re ‘fine’, just busy or whatever else.

In my private coaching (and hypnotherapy) I get wives contacting me all the time saying my hubby needs help, my hubby needs to see you. The thing is that we can only help people who want help themselves - or who SEE that they are stressed.

Listen in for information about how stress builds up over time and my real life example with the reasons why we don't always see stress building in ourselves.

Maybe you’ve already tried to persuade them to do traditional things like take a holiday, let someone else do that work, switch off early – or even at a regular time.

So what can you do instead? Listen in for the 6 ways I explain you can support someone who is stressed

Recognise
Be Available
Listen
Normalise
Encourage Activities
Have Fun

Each of these ways to support someone when they're stressed will increase the soothing, feel good chemicals and ensure that these people know that you're there for them.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on or if you have any questions!

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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With stress awareness month running through April, I'm talking today about why Stress Awareness in the workplace is still needed.

Even though we might think we are all aware of stress, according to the Mental health Foundation 74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope.

I’ve been busy with my stress awareness workshops and stress awareness support packs so this week I’m sharing information about the pack so that you can learn

What I include
Why I decided to develop a stress awareness pack
Key things to be included

And listen right to the end for a very special offer.

With stress awareness month running through April, organisations are using this as a focus for their wellbeing workshops to support their people, reduce stress and improve performance.

What is needed in a Stress Awareness Pack? The pack includes different elements of support, information, tips and activities so that you can embed the learning about stress, symptoms and causes so that your employees learn to identify stress early, in themselves and others, and enable them to be proactive in managing their issues.

If you listen right to the end, I’ll be popping in a discount code at the end for every listener.

Why I put together the Stress Awareness Pack The people I speak to e.g. Jo at a law firm told me was that they are time poor and wanted done for you wellbeing resources from a trustworthy source. They didn’t just want to go to google they wanted curated content that they can rely on.

Bob at Tech company - they want to deliver programmes to their people that are tried and tested and have a proven impact. They also wanted information and resources that people can come back to time and again and have on hand, on their intranet and wellbeing area exactly when their people needed them.

Who is the Stress Awareness Support Pack for? It’s for busy HR consultants and business leaders who haven’t got time to research, learn and deliver information about stress awareness.

It’s for people who want to augment their stress awareness activities.

Tackling the early signs and symptoms of stress via a complete employer wellbeing programme is simply good business practice. Not only should it help to prevent long term absences due to stress but by putting in place real solutions to tackle the problem, employees will undoubtedly feel more valued too.

What Should Be Included in Stress Awareness in the Workplace? If you’re looking to implement initiatives around stress awareness in the workplace and want to be able to keep the momentum going throughout 2021 and beyond then the stress awareness pack has everything you need to do this yourself.

Create engagement, improve understanding and share your commitment to raising awareness across your entire workplace in a fun and informative way.

Support to Promote Stress Awareness:

Ways to promote the awareness and ideas to encourage participation so that there is a positive impact on employees which reduces stress absence, presenteeism and staff turnover.
Instructions that you can simply print, copy and paste so that you’re able to implement the stress awareness activities with your employees without getting stressed about it yourself!

Stress Awareness Fact Sheets and Checklists :

Easy to identify aspects to look for so that you can identify areas of stress within the workplace and key identifiers to look for so that you can eliminate workplace or people issues and improve performance, reduce attrition and ensure you maintain top performers.
A stress management checklist so that managers and HR can survey the workforce and gauge levels of stress in your workplace so that you know where to target improvements for better performance and work relationships which improve employee happiness and wellbeing.
Signposting for national resources, helpline and websites so that managers can direct people to support or display posters in the office, on your intranet and newsletters.

Stress Reducing Tools, Tips and Techniques:

A guided relaxation plan that can be used in a group or individually to aid rest and recovery from stressful situations.
A breathing technique that will enhance a pause in the individual and calm down the internal nervous system.
Other tools and techniques to choose from that are proven to reduce stress and enhance focus and improve performance.

Stress Awareness Activities:

A quiz to share knowledge, learn and provide interactive learning in a fun way that also embeds information firmly in employees minds.
30 activities so that you can provide tips and tools across your chosen timeframe (usually a month) so that effective strategies can be learned so that stress can be more easily managed and controlled
Five discussion topics so that you can implement opportunities for conversations in the workplace. This will ensure that you raise awareness and understanding and reduce the stigma of talking about stress.

Listen to the podcast for more information about exactly what's included and how it's helpful for your organisation.

Listen right to the end for a special offer for all my listeners to get a fabulous discount code to apply to your own pack.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week, I chat with Charlotte Turnbull. Charlotte is Head of Employment at W Legal. Charlotte has a passion for helping businesses to create great places to work; to promote healthy workplace culture and improve employee engagement.

In this episode, we discuss how the workplace can be a kinder place for the employees. According to a LabourForce survey shared by Charlotte in today's podcast, there are 828,000 workers suffering from work-place related stress, depression, anxiety which has led to 17.9 million working days lost. Meaning, that this is an incredibly important part of our lives that we and employers must address. We delve further into this and discuss some possible solutions to this national health issue.

“employees need to feel they can speak up and go to their manager”

“we need to stop the idea that stress is a sign of weakness”

“managers can actively monitor what their team is doing - are they taking proper breaks? Is there a culture that breaks are acceptable”

“there are some really simple changes that employees can do to get the best out of their people”

“there are rules and regulations around working hours and some organisations have completely ignored this. Not only is it breaking the law but leads to poor mental health”

Charlotte says, “We spend so much time at work, it’s really important that the workplace is somewhere where we’re happy” and it is so true. Not only should we keep going for our own reasons, but we must also be happy while doing it. We should feel more flexible during this awkward time so why are the stress levels still high?

We also discuss the cultures that we gain from the workplace. Such as replying to emails after work time. Those who have listened before to the podcast have heard me talk before about setting up those healthy boundaries. Adding an email signature, making clear your beginning times and your end times, setting up filters for emails to get back to. These are an important part of setting healthy boundaries and we go further into this.

What can managers and employers do to support their workplace environment and to get the best out of their employees?

Charlotte also shares her one thing for employers to focus on and to save money.

You can find Charlotte at:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotteturnbullyallop

Twitter: https://twitter.com/legallottie

Website: https://wlegal.co.uk/

The Workplace Wellness Club:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/workplacewellnessthatworks

The Workplace Wellness Club- a place to discuss all things related to Healthy Workplaces: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13931841/

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Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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On this episode I’m sharing some of the questions to consider as well as key ways to help your people return in a smooth and stress free way that keeps engagement and productivity high.

There’s lots of people I’m talking to where leaders are wanting people back to the office now, soon and quickly.

Individuals are already asking me for tips on how to cope with that so stress levels are definitely rising.

I share some of the questions and concerns that I've been hearing on my workshops and calls so that you can be aware of them too!

There are key ways you can help alleviate the anxiety of people in your offices and workplaces that you'll want to have a listen to.

Also think about what messages you want to get out there from your Directors or leadership team.

That means you need to think about ways to share plans in a way that reduces the stress of returning to the workplace.

Perhaps you have an 'all hands call' or create a briefing to go out everyone that answers key questions and includes the little bits of information such as what they do about getting coffee.

I know it sounds like a lot of work but if it calms people down, gives them what to expect and creates a sense of knowledge and sense of control it will be worth it in the long run.

When we don’t have info or we have bits missing our brains full in the gaps with stories. Often those stories are full of risk and danger and doom and gloom. So whatever you do to alleviate that is going to be good for you and good for business.

People work better when they know what to expect. You take them with you on the journey rather than drag them behind.

Assess the risk of stress and anxiety on your people. They’ve been out of office for 12 months some of them.

Do you have a stress risk assessment? There’s ones on HSE. You might need it.

Encourage all line managers to have 1:1 check ins and remember to ask twice how they are and how they’re feeling - and ensure active listening.

This help, support and advice is in my Mental Health Awareness for Managers workshops so get in touch with me if you want to talk about what that looks like and how it can be implemented in your organisation.

In a recent study by Beneden Health their results say "there’s a stark difference between what employers think they are doing and what employees think" – that’s not good news!

They also said "More than half employees don’t feel their mental wellbeing is a priority"

Helping your managers be able to help your people will reduce the levels of stress anxiety and Mental Health issues. That in turn makes a better workplace practice, policies and performance.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Are You Stress Aware?

Even if you think you're doing OK, have a listen to this episode because #stress can creep up on us!

It's better to know the signs, than risk burn-out / illness or worse!

Listen in for my (slightly whacky) explanation of how stress creeps up on us.

I share some of the signs and symptoms you might experience

Why it's good for you that you become stress aware.

How you can spot it in other people too so that you can deal with them better in your workplace or in your relationships.

The one top tip (for this episode at least) that you need to do and then don't forget to tune in to the rest of the month when I go into more detail about the help and support you can put in for yourself and for others you work or live with.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/20

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week, I talk to Jay Unwin. Jay is a mental and physical fitness coach, speaker and author of Fit Body Fit Mind. He delivers seminars and workshops to companies who are looking to improve the fitness and wellbeing of their people. Jay specialises in habit and lifestyle change, rather than the typical ‘diets and workouts’ approach of much of the fitness industry

Jay and I discuss the idea of adapting to the current lifestyle. How does it relate to being strong, or tough? Using ideas of Charles Darwin, Jay relates the idea of adaptability in our changing environment to how we can support ourselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our stress levels in relation to the pandemic is an important thing to think about at the moment. With that feeling of ‘fight or flight’ becoming a general concern on our everyday life. We also talk about identity, the ideas we have about ourselves, and how we can perceive ourselves in a different way

Jay shares his beliefs in positivity during this difficult time. “Being positive is going ‘Stuff is really hard sometimes, but that’s okay, we can deal with it as it comes’”. There may be plenty of doom and gloom to go about during this time, but what we do with ourselves is important in how we can feel - “It’s the small habits that are most likely to hold up against adversity” – and it could not be better said.

You can find Jay Unwin at:

Website: www.fitbodyfitmind.online

Twitter: @TheRealJayUnwin

LinkedIn: jayunwin

Instagram: therealjayunwin

Email: Jay@fitbodyfitmind.online

You can find Jay’s book, Fit Body Fit Mind, here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08QLY97WD

And take a listen to his podcast:

https://Anchor.fm/therealjayunwin

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Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

Fit Body · Fit Mind: Ditch the Fitness Bullsh*t and Build a Bulletproof Lifestyle

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In this episode I share why Zooming is so tiring as well as 7 top tips to help you be more efficient, more effective and much less exhausted

I talk about what happens in the brain that cause you to be so tired - that way you can guard against it.

Listen in as I run through the 7 top tips for setting boundaries to prevent zoom fatigue.

I talk about

Is a Zoom Meeting Really Necessary?

Why you need to ensure your focus is in the right place and share my PONDER acronym that helps you to keep meetings efficient and effective.

Agendas are really important and not just a nice to have.

Setting Boundaries to Prevent Zoom Fatigue

Have a listen - to why you need to keep clear start and finish time and how to handle people being late to the meeting.

Why you need to have 25 or 50 minute meetings rather than 30 or 60 minute durations.

How you can effectively block times for no meetings in you day or in your week and why you should.

What happens in your brain when you're distracted, so listen in for reasons why you need reduce distractions.

My two final tips talk about turning your camera off and how that helps you be able to concentrate better and why you should even consider picking up the phone instead!

I hope that's helpful. If you have any questions let me know!

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/20

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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So many people talk to me about boundaries and have difficulty setting them

The reality is that if you struggle to say no to people or to have conversations where you need to point out difficulties or draw the line about what’s acceptable and not acceptable, then you’re going to have people walk all over you.

But the reality is that if we end up saying yes when we really don’t want to, don’t have time, or any other reason, then we end up feeling resentful, we’re repeatedly programming ourselves that our feelings, time, our priorities don’t matter. Are we really saying that we don’t matter? I hope not, but sometimes perhaps we are.

The Mayo clinic has done research that concludes that saying no can help to reduce your stress levels and increase your happiness.

Reframe How You Think

Saying no isn't mean or selfish, it's about rethinking that and recognising that you're honouring commitments you already have.

You're setting expectation and setting out what's ok and what's not ok for you too.

I like to say boundaries create respect.

Listen to where I talk about how boundaries can enable you to create time to pursue other interests.

Say No to working all hours.

So my interpretation of this is that it’s OK to say – I’ll respond during the hours of x and y.

When you set your working hours, publicise them, tell people about them.

Draw a line through your diary. Whether that’s for a weekend, holiday or just a lunch break or other time when you know you need to concentrate without interruptions .. put a line through your diary. Then you can have a simple phrase … I don’t have availability at that time. I don’t have availability that week.

Be factual.

It’s not personal, it’s work. If you’re on social media or in groups, clearly set out when you are available. Tell people what you expect from them and what is not acceptable. State this in your client calls or contracts too.

Communicating clearly includes learning to be comfortable saying NO to people

Too much waffle and they will pick holes in what you’re saying.

No excuses – you don’t really need to give an explanation, and often when there are excuses, you give people space to try and persuade you otherwise.

No is complete a sentence. Which I love. Sometimes that’s all you need. That’s pretty concise! But if you’re already feeling guilty or worrying about how No will be received, you’ll need a bit more help.

The podcast episode gives real life examples of how you can say no with ease.

A word of caution though - be ready to have to repeat your no.

You're going to have to repeatedly set your boundaries and say no to people who always want to push for a little more or to persuade you to do something. It will take time for them to get the message.

That doesn't mean you're not doing it properly, it just means they need to hear it more than once.

Saying no won't be easy if you're used to saying yes all the time. But learning to say no is an important part of simplifying your life and managing your stress. And with practice, you may find saying no gets easier.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/20

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email emma@emmalangton.com. Or head over to find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week, I’m talking to Anthony Taylor. Anthony is an author, coach, trainer and speaker on the subject of mental fitness who works with companies to get the best out of their employees while focusing on their wellbeing. Working on 'Mental Fitness', his program works on three key points based around Mental Resilience, Emotional Intelligence, and Mental Health.

We discuss the words we use in the workplace such as 'mental intelligence' and how we might make these terms less threatening to hear. We also talk about how we moved into our careers, what difficulties we faced and how we overcame them. Boundaries is a topic we discuss plenty of in this section. What boundaries should we put in place for ourselves in the workplace? What is a healthy boundary in this day and age? This is something we must all work on if we want to be successful in our businesses.

We talk about how boundaries are not just physical but also needed mentally too.

Anthony shares a story of how he overcame a difficult part of his business life in which his brain would never really switch off after work, and then how he burned out from the underlying stress.

“I was constantly sharpening the sword, but if you're constantly sharpening the sword you'll wear it down; and that's what I ended up doing. I was not switching off my brain”

This is a really important story to hear if you are a manager or a business owner as you should understand how this stress and anxiety in the workplace can affect anybody. Especially if you are in a stressful environment during these strange times. No-one on this is planet is that essential that you can’t have a few hours off.

You can find Anthony Taylor and his services on his website and social media’s here:

Website: www.threefifty9.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonytaylor-mentalfitness/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntTaylor72

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Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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In this episode, we discuss why boundaries are so essential in organisations and how they help you gain time, energy, and lower stress levels. I love this topic, and I love talking about it.

There’s often a misunderstanding about what boundaries are, boundaries are the foundation of healthy relationships and a strong sense of self-worth. Boundaries set out what is ok and what’s not ok; they stop you being mistreated and help you to be both clear and consistent. Implementing boundaries will in fact lower stress levels and help you focus, enabling you to have the time and energy to get things done. How can you do this?

Recognise what your biggest struggles and strongest values are. It can be different for everybody. Adding boundaries to your daily working life is how you can manage this to lessen burnout and your struggles. We place so much value on how we are perceived in the workplace. Covid-19 has caused us all to think about our values and what is most important to us like our health, time and family.

Recognise and perceive your values and set up a routine for yourself. Routines are not just for children, they can also be incredibly helpful for adults too.

Communicate clearly and learn how to say no! I always say to people that ‘no’ is a complete sentence. The more you waffle, the more you leave yourself open to be persuaded. Saying no is a large part of how you start setting up boundaries. Lastly, don’t apologise for pushing back.

In this episode, you will learn how to:

Identify struggles and values
Create a routine
Communicate your working hours
Don’t be afraid to say no and don’t feel the need to make excuses
End your day and do something you enjoy – create a clear breaker between work and life

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Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm sharing why kindness is great for wellbeing.

Listen in when I talk about

Why kindness elevates your mood as well as other people’s.

The science behind random acts of kindness without getting too geeky about it

How kindness can help reduce stress and improve

4 easy ways to be kind to yourself.

Our brains are wired for us to be kind to each other. This stems back to very ancient days when we lived together in tribes, when we needed to get along, help each other out. It was part of our survival strategy.

When we are kind to other people. It releases the oxytocin hormone. Oxytocin in commonly known as the love hormone (which is nice an appropriate for the month of February – when we talk about love a lot because of Valentines day). When we get the feelings of love or positive regard from those small acts of kindness, it releases that feel-good chemical and oxytocin it lowers blood pressure. So it’s really good for keeping us healthy.

Did you know that kindness can help reduce stress and improve our emotional wellbeing – because it changes how we view things, or we feel less troubled or we feel not so alone.

Studies show that helping others is linked to increased feelings of wellbeing. It reduces stress, improves self-esteem, boosts confidence and can promote changes in the brain that are linked with happiness.

That’s for them AND for you too!

I talked in last episode about helping with exhaustion as we’re all pretty fed up and knackered now. This lockdown isn’t helping the situation.

As human beings we are often good at beating ourselves up. We are great at feeling guilty, at doing the must / we should chatter to ourselves.

So I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself today and over this week. Think about the words that you say, the things that you do, check if you’re beating yourself up about something!

Here’s 4 easy ways to be kind to yourself. Which one will you choose?

🥊Don’t beat Yourself Up – we’ve all done things in the past that haven’t gone well or could be better. The trick is to see what you can learn and be kind to yourself about it.

😀Smile at someone – think how you feel if someone smiles at you. We never know how much a simple smile or hello can brighten someone’s day. Smiling is infectious. Use it to spread kindness.

🥾👠Stop Judging – it’s easy to judge others by what we see – but what about what we don’t see? If we were to talk a mile in their shoes, I wonder how we would react and respond. Try and stop yourself from judging when you notice it happening. It will also mean you’re less judgemental of yourself too.

👍Offer Help – is there someone you can offer to help? There’s always someone struggling and as a nation we do often struggle to ask for help – so how about offering it?

I’m not here to give you more on your to-do list, but picking just one or two of these things this week and seeing what the impact is would be a kind thing to do.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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What To Do When You’re Feeling Exhausted We all know work life balance is crucial for fighting work fatigue and yet we're living in this environment with the pandemic and juggling all sorts. There's difficulty in setting proper limits in the working day and resulting in blurred boundaries, struggling with priorities and exhaustion.

So I'm talking to you this work about:

Why you shouldn't be so hard on yourself
How you can switch up how you prioritise (because traditional ways are not applicable right now)
How you can work with noticing your energy levels
How to put downtime back into your day, in a different way
Why it's really crucial to take more breaks, but how you can do that.

The Fatigue and exhaustion isn't about just being physically tired, it's also about being mentally exhausted too.

Nearly everyone I talk to are finding that their energy is low, motivation is low and they're generally feeling exhausted which results in:

Difficult to concentrate
Hard to focus
Lack of organisation
feeling stressed, anxious, fed up

It's difficult for our brains to be able to focus really clearly when we've got so much going on and so many differing priorities. Plus we haven't got the connections and interactions that we used to have in social or work setting that increase the feel-good chemicals.

Top Tips to Help You Feel Less Exhausted How Do We Prioritise When We're Feeling Exhausted? The usual ways of prioritising have gone out the window in current times with what is, quite frankly, completely bonkers lifestyle.

Listen to the podcast where I go into more detail on this, but in essence I'm sharing:

Why we need to start small with some tasks so that it feels achievable and clears same tasks to give breathing space.
The book "Eat that Frog" talks about doing big things first, however when we're exhausted it's better to motivate and energise ourself with smaller tasks for about 30 minutes.
Make sure you're using traditional overwhelm strategies which mean getting it out of your head and prioritise (even if it feels like priorities are changing rapidly.

Listen in where I expand on some options and different ways that you can prioritise that will work for you. And how you can work with energy levels as well as priorities.

Look at how to time block and put your effort into chunks of the day. Then fit this around rescheduling your day so it feels you can do and also accommodates any childcare and schooling needs alongside your work priorities.

Save smaller and easier tasks for short time blocks or when your energy is low.

Listen in where I talk about motivating yourself with a 5 minute rule to raise your energy levels and work around that exhaustion.

Why You Might Still Be Exhausted Even Though You're Sleeping Well This could be a whole episode in itself.

Have a listen when I touch on this briefly about key areas to watch and reasons why you're still tired and exhausted and what you can do instead.

The Best Ways to Add Downtime to Your Day When You're Exhausted Lots of people are working in the evenings for various reasons around the personal circumstances. I cover some in the podcast.

Spending downtime on mobile phones, laptops and doing emails in the evening is not as helpful as we might think. Have a listen to why this impacts on our ability to get a proper rest and adds to the feelings of exhaustion.

Whilst it might seem counter-productive, I really recommend you take more breaks. Fit these in where you can and often these are not in the traditional ways we've been used to.

I share more on the episode about how you can start with five minute breaks and a quick list of ideas of what you can do.

Balance and Boundaries are Crucial for Fighting Exhaustion So many of us feel like we don't have time to takes breaks or prioritise rest time. We feel like we're too busy, feeling guilty, under pressure to allow time for balance and boundaries.

Talk to me about my workshops and training creating Health Work Life Boundaries if you want this for your organisation. I also work with individuals and groups to provide coaching on this too.

Don't be hard on yourself. Please put in some time to switch up how you prioritise and take some more breaks.

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The best ways to find time to talk to people. It coincides with the Time to Talk day. It doesn’t matter how you have conversations, with people, a quick text, a social distanced walk, they all have the power to make a huge difference to how people feel and their mental health.

This week on the podcast I’m sharing how you can encourage

Everyday Conversation
Work Conversations
Social Conversation

I also include my top tips to get people talking and sharing real conversations that are helpful to their mental health and wellbeing (and yours too).

Listen for me sharing about a conversation with my hubby about corporate health and safety training. how it's forgetting to include Mental Health and Wellbeing as part of Health and Safety.

I share a real life story of where conversations, checking in and looking after an employee could have prevented an accident.

We look at the options you have and ideas for you to implement conversations in those three key areas.

Find out what is happening that makes me so proud.

Don't forget to stay tuned to the end where I share my top tips to get the best out of conversations and time to talk so that they really get the results you need. And they help you feel good in the process!

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

Or head over to contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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The True Cost of a Wellbeing Plan Is wellbeing essential yet in your organisation or still a nice to do?

On this episode I'm talking about reasons why putting wellbeing at the heart of your business has a massive impact on business success and bottom line.

The episode is packed full of the info and key things I'm sharing are:

How you can build a business case to persuade leaders
The stats and info that will support your case (so grab a pen)
The key information to enable you to measure outcomes, create stats and track the ROI.
Which are the most vulnerable demographics that you can watch out for
Compelling reasons that help you assess the true cost of a wellbeing plan.

In this episode I'm taking a look at costs associated in organisation with the wellbeing plan or costs associated with not having one! In essence – it’s the price you might pay if you choose not to invest.

Whether you’re building a business case or trying to persuade board members, business leaders and your c suite, then grab a pen. This episode is for you.

I have these conversations all the time with HR and Wellbeing leads so listen in where I give a real life example of the way to change thinking and direction to present information in a way that hits the spot with your leaders.

I share the options of different reasons why you might want to encourage your leaders to invest in a wellbeing plan.

These range from:

Improving company brand and enhancing PR

Impacting direct and indirect business costs such as healthcare, EAPs, absences and attrition.

Deloitte 2020 say 62% of managers feel obliged to put work needs ahead of staff wellbeing

The cost to UK Businesses every year according to Deloitte report in 2020 is:

£8.6 billon in Staff Turnover Costs

£6.8billion in Absence costs

£29.3 billon on presenteeism costs

25% of employees fear the consequences of opening up and talking about their Mental health and wellbeing issues….. I’ve seen this with clients and share an example on the podcast.

I also share other ways that ignoring wellbeing can be costly to your business and can guard against any employment and tribunal claims too.

Get in touch if you have any questions or if you'd like some help and support with your wellbeing plan, with a brainstorm session, some tips and advice to enhance your plans or information about my coaching and wellbeing training.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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7 Steps to a Winning Wellbeing Plan This week I'm talking about the 7 steps that you can take to create winning wellbeing plans in your organisation and sharing exactly what would be good things so that there are not just knee jerk reactions and plugging gaps.

A quick run down of the 7 Steps to Winning Wellbeing areas we look at in the episode will be:

Issues
Needs
Benefits
Barriers
Creating the Plan
Implementation
Review

I'm talking to HR and Wellbeing leads who are looking at the wellbeing plans for their organisations and with the pandemic it has become more important to look at and support people in organisations.

I've created these 7 steps to winning wellbeing during the time I've spent working with organisations.

Issues You need to know what's going on, what you need to fix and what issues you have that you already know about. Is it high absence, people not talking or something else.

Think about why you are creating this wellbeing plan so that you are delivering things that are helpful for people.

Do you have senior leadership buy-in - because this is important.

Identify You really need to ask your people. Whilst I can say what's going on with trends and issues with organisations, but if you want to hit the spot you need to ask your people. It also builds trust, they feel listened to and that they are valued.

This can be done with questionnaires (I have one) or you can run your own, buy in packages or have me create and deliver for you.

Run focus groups (or I can run them for you!) and you can be listening to employees and ask where they are struggling (this is one of the first questions I ask on my webinars.

What team do you have around you - is there MHFA, EAP, OH or wellbeing champions? What are the policies in your organisation already - are there others that you want and need?

Who is responsibility in your organisation, do you have budget and what return on investment is needed?

Benefits Think about the benefits that this wellbeing plan will bring to the organisation.

It might be benefits to the employer in reducing absences or attrition. It might be benefits to the employee with a boost of morale, helping them to be happier, healthier (all of these have an employer impact).

It might be about improving performance or all sorts of other reasons and then when you have these 3 plans, then the benefits will be part of the communication plan that will encourage people to be involved.

Barriers Looks at the barriers to success. If you haven't got leadershp buy-in then it's likely to be a barrier for you.

How are people feeling?

Will you make these trainings mandatory or voluntary?

Will you be raising the question about the stigma of mental health? How will you be careful that people don't feel ashamed of their difficulties?

Make sure you're not doing too much too soon and throwing all things at people or mixing too many different topics and subjects. If you do this it will create confusion and people won't know what 'thing' to do first.

So it's important that you look at where the barriers are to ensure that your winning wellbeing plan is successful.

Creating Your Winning Wellbeing Plan When you create your actual programme, look at how it's going to work and what it will look like. Whether that is about having a monthly focus, doing things yourself, brining in people with expertise, using webinars, lunch and learn sessions, half day workshops, group coaching, 1;1 coaching is all part of the options you have.

Monthly themes that I work with are:

Stress and anxiety
Resilience
Mens health
Menopause (listen how this isn't just a women's issue)
Mental health (both support people, and helping themselves)
Working well fro home
Creating connections
Self care
Fitness
Sleep issues
Burn-out
Overwhelm

One organisation came and said they needed time management but when i dug around on the issues, there were stressed and overwhelmed people so they needed stress management to be able to focus and work more efficiently and effectively. So this is why it's important to really understand the issues.

Implementation The easy bit (I like to think) is running the actual wellbeing programme. What are you doing, how is it going to run?

Are you brining someone in (like me)? I have a wealth of connections with people in menopause, finance, fitness etc so that I can help find people to support your organisation.

You also need to think about how you are communicating the programme to make it a success and make it attractive that people want to get involved in. You might have wellbeing champions who can talk about it or you share information in newsletters, team meetings and on your intranet. Posters used to work well, but at the moment with no-one in the offices, we need to think differently about this.

Some organisations run competitions and get enthusiasm going that well.

Once you get to this point, your wellbeing plan can run smoothly and it's worth putting the effort into the planning and steps 1 to 5.

Review At least quarterly, if not monthly, I recommend looking at the wellbeing plan. How effective is it for your employees. Has there been an improvement from your earlier figures and needs?

Have you got a return on investment (this can be of your time, the employee time and the investment of any external people too).

That gives you a whistle-stop tour of 7 ways to create a winning wellbeing plan.

If you have any questions about this or would like some support then get in touch with me and I'd be happy to fix a call and have a chat about this in more detail.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Why we need to stop throwing money at wellbeing

Welcome Hannah Beko to the Lessons for Leaders podcast.

Listen into how Hannah got into wellbeing by accident.

The reasons why we need to stop throwing money at wellbeing

What you should do instead and why

We discuss the stigma, with chat and examples of our experiences

Hannah, a practicing lawyer, had been self employed for years and was doing well, but then realised she was ticking every box suffering from symptoms of stress.

She started to have panic attacks and realised this was ridiculous. She left big law to enjoy life more and not enjoying this and not feeling like she was coping. This meant she got interested in stress and wellbeing.

Hannah needed to find how to make the business work for her and the family.

She realised there are so many other lawyers that are in that position and read the statistics and understand how bad stress and wellbeing is so bad in the law.

In a previous chat Hannah and I were talking about the similar issues and struggles we see in the area of law and Hannah said she wanted to talk about

"Why we need to stop throwing money at wellbeing" which is what prompted the episode.

Listen to why Hannah gets passionate about this subject.

What other countries think about how the UK is dealing with mental health & wellbeing

Some quotes from the episode:

“Whatever people are doing right now for wellbeing … is not working”

“We need to equip people so that they know what they can do themselves”

We talk about sticking plaster and tick box approaches and why company approaches have got to be more than this.

“I might be talking to people about time management but really, they’re completely overwhelmed and they are struggling to keep going each day”

“so many people are in overwhelm right now and on the edge of burn out that I’ve stopped the workshops and switched to focus groups and group coaching to meet what people need”

There’s a stigma about mental health and wellbeing and it’s a big concern that it hasn’t changed enough yet.

It’s all about the conversations. Ask people – what help do you want – what are you struggling with right now -what support do you want?

You can get in touch with Hannah at her website or on Linked In

https://authenticallyspeaking.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahbeko/

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Mental health and wellbeing doesn’t have a holiday at Christmastime. More so this year - it’s important to take care of your wellbeing.

Top 10 Tips for Fantastic Festive Wellbeing I’m sharing 10 quick and easy tips to help you stay well and enjoy the festivities.

Listen in for life experiences, personal stories as well as proven tips.

I want to help you go into Christmas break in a way you can enjoy it, but come out the other side feeling rested and ready for 2021.

If you’re a manager or HR in the workplace, it’s also important that you have conversations and signpost people to support services that are available for your staff. Encourage your people to do at least one of these tips for wellbeing, even if it’s not all of them.

Encouraging people to take proper time off is important that you lead the way and send positive messages that give people permission to look after themselves and take care of their mental health and wellbeing.

What Are My Top 10 Tips for Fantastic Festive Wellbeing? Routine Try sticking to a kind of routine even if you’re not at work. Now I don’t mean still getting up at 5am and working to midnight – or whatever it is that you do, but keep to some form of usual sleep and waking hours is helpful to keep your body clock on track. Routines are first thing to go out of the window during holiday times.

Having a routine means there’s less to think about in each day.

Hear more about how routines help with productivity, certainty and coping with change in the podcast.

Boundaries Mental health professionals and self-help gurus put a lot of emphasis on boundaries because they’re the foundation of healthy relationships and a strong sense of self-worth.

Boundaries are my favourite subject and I explain how to say no easily, how boundaries create respect and why they are helpful at Christmastime.

Avoid Comparisons Listen in for the great story about the comparisons in our street and how they backfired! It was funny. It also helps to explain why comparisons are not helpful and why you should give yourself a break and take the pressure off yourself.

Connections I’ve talked previously in episode 34 about enhancing connections. This year more than every it’s so important. Make time to connect and be in touch with other people and listen in to why it's important for your wellbeing.

Time For YOU This is your holiday too. Make sure there are things that you want to do, films you want to see, places you want to go (OK I know that’s limited).

I explain in more detail on the podcast how you can set aside time to get a day or an activity that you like doing.

Also make sure that you have time for you to rest and repair and get ready for whatever is coming next in 2021.

Keep Active It’s so easy to slump on the sofa and eat too much and watch films but try and make sure you do something every day – it’ boosts your serotonin – the feel good chemicals and helps to release the stress chemicals that have built up over the year we’ve had.

Food and Drink Try not to over indulge throughout the whole holiday. Get some good healthy food and lots of water to keep you hydrated and flush out the toxins of stress, alcohol and processed foods so that you look after your body and feel better in the long run.

Breathe! I talk about this all the time on my workshops, training, coaching and on many other podcast episodes.

Taking a breath creates the space to calm down your brain, it calms your internal system from the guilt and pressure and whatever else is going on and allows you space to think clearly.

I know this all sounds simple – but you actually have to do it!

Sleep Getting enough sleep is a no-brainer - but yet many of don't do it. Or the stress and anxiety keep us awake - so reducing those things, with the tools I've mentioned all sit hand in hand.

Listen in for more tips and reasons why getting enough sleep is powerful for your wellbeing, mental health and reducing stress.

Ask for Help If you’re struggling with doing everything over Christmas, then please, please do ask for help. I know people won’t always do things the way you want them done, but they will get done.

Listen in for the thing that my husband does which is helpful ... but also makes me need to leave the room!

Asking for help is a sign of strength. Ask for help too if you need personal support for your mood, mental health or anything else.

I'm here for you and so are many other people and places. Don't struggle alone.

Christmas wellbeing really IS achievable and enjoyable! Stick to my top 10 fantastic festive wellbeing tips and you are sure to go into the New Year feeling good!

I wish you a wonderful Christmas!

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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How do you prevent the pre Christmas slump?

People are often de-motivated or distracted with xmas
December is the shortest working month there’s the pressure to get things done before the ‘big break’
If your people are already feeling isolated and disconnected how will that impact them when they’ve got the business shut down or time off over Christmas and new year.
With the lack of connection, xmas parties and the stressful times - how do we keep engagement and motivation high?

This week on the podcast I dive into how we can

How to Keep Employees Motivated before Christmas Although some of your staff may be winding down, others will be working frantically to make sure everything gets done before the break, dealing with a remarkable amount of pressure – no doubt not helped by their more relaxed colleagues.

It might sometimes seem as though pressure is actually making people more productive as holidays approach. Isn’t this a good thing – you might ask? Well, maybe not. They may be productive, but they may not necessarily be happy.

And if they’re not happy – what will they do? Lose motivation. Become unhappy, even look to leave – yes even with unemployment high that won’t stop them applying for other jobs.

I spoke to one company who had 3 resignations just last week.

An essential first step to ensuring your people remain motivated is understanding the pressures they’re facing – there’s more to holiday mode than you might think, particularly in December.

Staff aren’t just distracted by the fun of the festive season or rushing to get work done – there is a variety of anxieties and worries that can take hold at work all year round, but become increasingly pressing as the year comes to an end.

Employees are More Stressed in the run up to Christmas Research finds that the Christmas period is often the most stressful for employees, and one survey in 2016 by Sodexo found that 23% of UK employees feel more stressed in the run up to Christmas.

Think about why that stress and pressure is there …

December is shortest working month so there is a pressure to get things done before the big break – there’s this enormous “finish” for Christmas and finish for the year, not to mention end of the quarter / end of year.

Then personally for them, there’s financial worries and pressure to be ‘the best’ Christmas and get all the gifts and things.

All this can mean they’re losing sleep, coming to work tired and perhaps distracted, this leads to presenteeism or absence.

All this has been around for employees every year in December, but after the year we’ve had this could be exacerbated by the worries and stress and pressure of distanced Christmas and who can go where in what Tier.

Consider The Impact of Winter Wellbeing on Motivation On top of that, we can consider winter wellbeing and their physical health or ill health – with coughs, colds, flu – it’s talked about all the time during this pandemic – the affects of winter on health.

Illness caused by winter weather is a cause of workplace stress for 16% of UK employees according to the Office for National Statistics most recent report into sickness absence at work; coughs, colds and flu account for 26.2% of the 130 million-plus working days lost to illness each year – and these illnesses are particularly common in the winter.

Christmas Can Demotivate Employees Research has found that almost half of the UK’s workers will go into work despite feeling unwell. An ill worker is definitely not a motivated worker and there’s a huge risk of illness spreading to others, knocking even more employees out of action for a few days.

A YouGov survey found that 21% of people (that’s one in five) dislike Christmas, while research elsewhere found that 54% of employees dread the office party. Imagine what people will feel like with a pressure to join in the so-called fun activities.

How do we Keep Employees Motivated before Christmas? Celebrating Success We’re a nation brought up on being polite, don’t boast, be nice the other person, so when it comes to celebrating success it can feel a little boastful and big headed – but it’s important to ensure that achievements are recognised otherwise people become disengaged and unmotivated.

You can celebrate success and create a positive working environment by:

Continually praising and congratulating individuals during virtual team meetings
Internally publicising good work, for example, on the intranet
Sending a card or gift in the post – even if it’s a thank you note for a great piece of work, or finishing a project or delivering .. whatever.
Remember that fun is meant to be spontaneous, so yes you can plan some events and situations, but you can make people enjoy it. Remember the stats about the xmas party. If you are going to celebrate anything other than success, ask them what they’d like. I know you won’t get a fully consensus – gosh I remember trying organise xmas parties and events and it was never easy – but do ask people.

Even if people seem shy or bashful or even embarrassed, they will still get a hit of the reward chemicals that make them feel good about their achievements.

Offer Opportunities for Professional Development There’s nothing worse than trying to do a job without the right skills or equipment. Sometimes those skills might be personal skills or knowledge skills and if that’s the case then your employees will likely feel overwhelmed, stressed or undervalued. That will definitely lead to motivation issues.

Employers can fight against both these problems by ensuring that staff benefit from training and know-how

If you’ve already done great onboarding and induction plans (because that’s definitely the place to start) then you can:

Arrange remote training sessions to be given by senior staff or external providers – ask me about my training.
Ask team members to give a short session on a subject of relevance, for example, an industry update or a recent issue which they resolved
Provide mentors to junior staff

It is important that employers engender a team spirit and encourage their employees to build positive relationships with each other.

Although it is no longer possible for employers to host away-days or in-person events, employers can ensure their employees are happy

Enable Autonomy It is important that employers give some autonomy to the employees. Letting them have a sense of control over what they do and when they do it empowers them and motivates them to do the job. It shows that you trust them to deliver. Obviously if there’s been some micro-managing then that will need working on but they’re going to be more motivated and respond far better if you let do the job they need to do without breathing down their necks.

There’s nothing more than anyone wants right now than a sense of feeling in control. This virus has taken the element of control away from all us, so giving a choice, control and a certain level of autonomy is a definite sure fire way to increase motivation.

Recognise Mental Wellbeing Employers should recognise that the shift to home working has been, and continues to be, a stressful experience for many. Lack of room at home, children interrupting Zoom calls, dogs barking over conference calls, whatever the reason, life at the moment can be hard.

Employers need to make sure that they:

Ask staff what is going well, what is not and what they are struggling with. That gives you a clear starting point for helping them in the right place to improve mental wellbeing and motivation.
Remind staff of any external resources which are available to them – many places are offering ‘drop in’ styles coaching sessions that are available ad-hoc and often with me / external providers – so talk to me if you want help with that.
Be flexible, to the extent that business needs allow, and understanding of individuals’ personal circumstances

Wellbeing Check In and Surveys

I keep saying this.

Do a survey, formally or informally. To check in on them – although get the timing right. A well set out survey with good questions can provide you with a wealth of information.

Ask on team calls / meetings how they are. How they really are and if people are quiet, flippant, I’m fine, then call separately to check up on them.

Not everything will go perfectly. Some people will be critical. Solicit and welcome feedback. A critical component to engagement is employees feeling that they are heard. Soliciting feedback demonstrates your willingness to listen. Also, let employees know how you acted on their suggestions.

To finish up:

Remember that the dictionary defines motivation as a reason to act in a particular way. It is a desire to accomplish something. One of the most important functions of management is to create willingness amongst the employees to perform in the best of their abilities.

It’s the little things that count. Let your staff know they are valued through simple gestures such as saying thank you or through small gestures such as buying some Christmas treats for the office. Consider granting flexible working if people want time off for school events and other things.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm sharing why it's important that we stay connected in the workplace and how to make that happen in pandemic times.

Think about it, if people feel disconnected then they get stressed and fed up, they feel undervalued, struggle to cope or feel isolated. If that happens how will that impact how they feel about their job or their manager?

On this podcast episode I share 6 ways I managed to keep my old corporate team connected and working well even with the toughest of bosses and stressful working conditions and that was before I knew about the psychology of connection!

6 Ways To Enhance Connections in the Workplace We spend a lot of our time at work, so the relationships we have whilst at work can have a positive or negative impact on our stress levels, performance and happiness levels.

You only need to think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - Where belonging, safety and friendships comes straight after the basic human needs and it’s an important factor in motivation too. We need to be connected and have that feeling of belonging. That’s not just in personal lives but in work lives too.

Connection is also included in Mind’s 5 Ways to Wellbeing. Being social creates we need interaction with others. When we promote strong connections in the workplace then it can have a positive impact on happiness and performance.

How Happiness is Important in Reducing Stress in the Workplace Listen in where I share how happiness is important in reducing stress and how it makes that happen too and why it's important to ensure that the connections you do arrange are attractive to people.

I’m always talking about how stress and pressure increases presenteeism, absences, and as we head into January we need to remember that this is prime time for people leaving their jobs. All that New Year, New Start thing, people don’t want to put up with being miserable in their jobs, or feeling alone or unsupported. If they feel like that, they will look elsewhere – even in times like now where there’s a lot of unemployed and risks of redundancy, people will still look for another job. So don’t sit back and be complacent about this.

I talk on the podcast some more about complacency – employees who have friends and social connections within work tend to be more loyal and more engaged at work. That’s what we want isn’t it? Social connection provides a sense of unity in the office, that creates a place of trust, loyalty and respect.

I once worked for a director, when I managed his support office. He was known for getting results, but was also incredibly difficult to work for - demanding, particular and sexist.

However, the team I had, we pulled together

How My Team Enhanced Connections in my Workplace Some of the things we did back then – I now realise just how important they were and because since then, I’ve trained in the neuroscience, psychology, attachment areas, I can see exactly why it worked. Let me share what we did and how that can be adapted into what you can do too – even during the pandemic.

Supportive Connections Reduced Feelings of Isolation There was support by collectively talking and sharing our difficulties with him.

Many of us were in the same office, but not all of us, and we had opportunities when he wasn’t in to – well honestly – moan, complain and share. However it’s proven that not just talking about out issues is supportive and helpful, it’s also good to know we’re not alone in the situations. Create time for discussion and look at what’s difficult – what’s not going well. This is also an opportunity to share what does work. One of the guys had an amazing at changing the subject and appearing to answer his demanding questions, without answering it.

Social Time Enhanced our Connections in the Workplace We regularly went to the pub on a Friday – there was one below our office and so it was called the lower meeting room! Now I know we can’t all go the pub anymore, and even without lockdown, remote working teams need different ways to connect – not everyone drinks – so I’ve worked with organisations who are sending little parcels of tea bag, coffee sachet and biscuit and asking employees to join for Tea at Three on Tuesday or something like that. Be mindful of those who need to collect children or who can’t join at 6pm at the end of the work day because of other commitments in the home.

Keeping Fit Enhanced the Connections Some of the team would go to the gym together after work, or go cycling. They didn’t particularly cycle fast apparently, it was another opportunity for chat, offload, put the world to rights. It was a connection time. Now I know it’s so much harder now with people in remote working situations and distancing, but you can encourage sharing of wellbeing / fitness challenges and activities. Share best picture from their walk – a remote walking club perhaps – a distance running club – ask them obviously – this is always my message – that I will bore you to death with, but these are ideas for starters.

How Laughter Enhances Connections in the Workplace Laughter is incredibly stress reducing and creates connections. This man we worked for was extremely particular and when he was visiting anywhere he had things planned to the finest degree. What the chauffeur would do, where they would park, who he would speak to. I once took an itinerary and basically ripped it to pieces with my sarcasm. I had them driving him up the steps into the foyer and things like that – obviously you had to be there at the time but it was funny – possibly a bit naughty but funny. We found ways to laugh even through the toughest of days. So what can you do – to create fun and laughter that promotes connection – a quiz / joke club / share the worst story about particular topics, their most epic fail.

Increase Positivity so that You Enhance the Workplace All the staff came to when they were struggling or when he’d been particularly awful to them. Whilst listening and supporting and soothing the situation, I often would walk down that corridor, take a deep breath, pull my shoulders back before walking into the office with a big smile on my face. Doesn’t mean I necessarily felt that way but I was leading positivity from the front. I didn’t realise at the time that these things can be contagious and setting a tone for positivity can – almost create an air of positivity. We have what’s known as mirror neurons in our brain that do what they say – they mirror the mood or situation we’re in – so if you’re leading and you smile, jolly along, use a sing song type voice you can take people with you on the positivity platform. Doing this encourages positive conversations and interactions, rather than negative ones. We really can change the mood like this.

Sharing Breaks Enhances Connections in the Workplace We used to bring in cakes and biscuits and sandwiches – you’ve probably done the same – when you used to be in an office. Now obviously these will need to be at home / distanced etc. But you can still arrange to sit down and share together. Maybe a weekly team breakfast can work and add some fun into that too.

Being Kind Enhances Connections in the Workplace. Watch the John Lewis Christmas advert – it’s demonstrating the need for a little kindness and I talk more about this on the previous episode about How Kindness increases performance. Find ways to spread kindness. A thank you note, a well done email, a bit of ‘this was great this week’ on some of your calls / meetings / newsletters or weekly round up notifications.

The most important thing about Connections The most important thing thought about connections – give this your undivided attention. If you’re having lunch. Have lunch. That’s all.

If you’re having tea on Tuesday – do just that. No multi-tasking please.

When you give the connection time your undivided attention, you’ll enhance their feel good chemicals and your own.

To finish, building connections in the workplace doesn’t mean we have to be best friends with everyone, but it is about creating an environment where people feel included, connected, supported so that there is trust, belonging and mutual respect. Connections further enhance wellbeing by creating feelings of being valued and that improves self esteem and self worth. That’s got to be good for the individual but also for your organisational wellbeing plan

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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Why You Need a Winter Wellbeing Plan Many people are talking about feeling low, fed up and struggling. That’s why I’m talking this week about why you need a winter wellbeing plan in your organisation, what you can do to get that started AND how you, as an individual, can boost your winter wellbeing and what are they key things to encourage others to do too.

Looking at a Winter Wellbeing Plan is important right now, because if we help you to be able to support yourself or to support the people in your organisation then you and your people will feel better. This has a positive impact on your own performance and well being and the performance of others.

I've been working with a number of organisations to successfully deliver virtual trainings on all sorts of Wellbeing at Work topics such as:

Working Well at Home
Healthy Work Life Boundaries
Mental Health Awareness for Managers
Mental Health Awareness for Individuals

Everything I deliver is very practical because (you'll know if you listen to my podcast) that I am all about making things easy and giving you top tips that you can take away with you.

Some feedback that I had recently said

I have been to a few webinars and this is the only one I have actual takeaways Emma knew her stuff had a good style and was real and I will take on board many items from her presentation she actually made me feel good and bright!

If you'd like more information then get in touch with me about providing this for your organisation.

Working through the pandemic is challenging for many different reasons - and those can differ from person to person - that's why it's important to take time to refresh our routines and look at the winter wellbeing plan.

What can employers do to make sure their winter wellbeing plan is effective and fits with the overall strategy? Conduct Employee Surveys and Research I see so many social media posts where people are asking “what can I do to boost engagement / bring some fun / get people together” My answer every single time ... Ask Them.

Surveys are incredibly valuable to help orgs understand what staff want AND what staff are struggling with. However asking the right questions means you’ll get specific answers and information rather than broad generalised answers.

It really is the only way to get information. It’s also the best way – if you survey regularly to track improvements and monitor the impact of what you’re providing.

Talk to me if you want info on surveys.

Promote Initiatives Well Whatever it is that you decide to put in place ensure employees know what you’re offering.

How are you going to tell people when so many are still working from home ? The usual poster on the noticeboard isn’t enough. And people needs to be told more than once- how many times have you read something and had a great intention to do it / look at it – then forgot or got time overtaken by other things? It’s the same with other people too. That's why you need to ensure you promote your initiatives really well.

Implement Year-Round Wellbeing Plans People won’t take the time to engage in a fad and a one off thing. Your winter wellbeing plan and initiatives are an integral part of any wellbeing offering, it is fundamental that wellbeing schemes are run throughout the year rather than just as standalone seasonal promotions - otherwise you won’t get the results you’re hoping for. I shouldn’t need to tell you this – you know this right?

Wellbeing and winter wellbeing needs to be part of your business year round. Talk to me about creating an entire annual wellbeing plan.

How Can You Boost Your Own Winter Wellbeing? There are things we can do for ourselves and each other which really can help.

Think about how are you feeling...

Are you taking breaks?
Are you sitting for long periods?
Are you staying hydrated and eating well?
Do you have a good work life balance?

Listen in to the podcast where I share what I've noticed in myself and what I'm doing about my winter wellbeing during lockdown.

Regulate Your Diet I’m not a dietician but I think we all know we need to eat what’s good for us – so protein keeps you full, balances blood sugar, keeps your head clear and focussed.

Reduce the caffeine and sugar - I said this on a webinar last week about Managing Stress and Anxiety to Improve Performance and someone said about cutting out coffee and how hard it was. So there's more about this on the podcast but in essence, cut down the intake.

Limit the News The news is often a constant source of bad news and limiting the amount of news and social media you read can really help your positivity and mental wellbeing.

Stay Connected I’ll be talking about connections in the next episode, and they are hugely important – so find a way to meet someone, go for a walk, I keep saying it’s ok to meet at the supermarket!!

Create Coping Strategies Go back to previous podcasts where I talk more about this.

Top 3 tips to handle stress
Work Life balance
Improve mental health.

Get Out and About Think about the time of day you get out an about and be active – remember the morning and evenings have no daylight. This was traditionally the time of year we went to work in the dark and came home in the dark – now we don’t even go out!

When working from home it is very easy to sit at your desk all day and not move, however making sure you are staying active is extremely important both for your wellbeing and for your health.

If you can get out in daylight – great and it will boost your Vitamin D which is good for mood so that’s a bonus. If not – try and get out and about anyway doing something.

Sleep Not getting enough sleep can affect your physical and your mental health. Establish a bedtime routine to help you relax before you go to bed.

Get Support If you find you are struggling, reach out to those around you, whether that be family, friends or something else, please do reach out.

I hope that's been helpful and you can see valid reasons why you need to create a winter wellbeing plan, for yourself and your organisation. It's vital to improve employee health and motivation, which increases performance and also vital for you as an individual to support better mental health and boost your mood.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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How Does Kindness Increase Performance? Kindness is not about being weak and fluffy!

This week I'm sharing how kindness increases morale and raises self esteem and so it has a positive impact on mood and performance.

I also share how the contagious effect of kindness works so that you get increase performance as well as a happier workforce.

If you're a leader, manager or don't even have a team, then keep listening as there are also a few words specifically for you too – so even if you don’t have a team – it’s well worth a listen!

When we have so much going on in our lives and we are all dealing with (or even struggling) with the effects of the pandemic it can be easy to forget to be kind and instead be focussing on what's urgent or not's going well.

I talk in more detail some of the themes I've been seeing and hearing with the organisations I've been working with.

They've been asking me to delivery virtual workshops on

Work-life Life Boundaries
Managing Mental Health
Resilience to Get Through Tough Times

and many more.

When a Manager Shows Kindness it Increases Performance When other witness acts of kindness, or experience it for themselves it increases the feel good chemicals and positivity.

When we create a work environment where thank you’s and well done are common place then it models and encourages others to do the same.

Listen in for specific ways and easy ideas on how you can boost the mood and raise positivity levels in the workplace and within teams.

I give a great example of where my daughter was given thanks and was left confused, rather than uplifted. So that's one to avoid!!

Kindness Increases Your Own Performance too! We're often good at beating ourselves up and talking negatively to ourselves. So I want to ensure that you are kind to yourself.

Think about the words that you say and the things that you do and then listen in to the top tips of how you can boost your own feel-good chemicals and performance.

Find out the one crucial thing I insist you take OFF your to-do list.

If you are struggling, then do reach out to me, a friend or someone else.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance or that of your teams so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary.

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As we enter into Lockdown 2 in England and if you’re else where then you’re probably already experiencing more severe restrictions. After going through a first stage lockdown in the summer, you or your employees are now feeling more stressed and anxious than ever before with worries about what will happen, will they cope, will it only be a month.

We've also seen a rise in publicity around the detrimental effects of the pandemic on mental health and wellbeing. This makes it both informative and sometimes slightly alarming!

On the podcast this week I'm talking about how you can create habits that eliminate stress. I talk about how to:

Increase positivity so that focus isn’t all on the negative things in work and life
Easy ways to support brain breaks
Common issues I’m hearing from organisations that are detrimental to mental wellbeing AND what you can do instead

All this gives you and your team quick ways to get a sense of achievement which eliminates the stress and boost positivity and performance.

Listen into this third podcast in the mini-series about stress. As we come to the end of November's stress awareness week I'm sharing details about changing habits, supporting you and your teams to think differently, be more positive and reduce the worrying.

I'm also sharing some of the common pitfalls that a lot of individuals are experiencing when working from home, but also sharing the feedback I received on two corporate webinars.

Hear about how powerful and supportive it was when people on my webinar began to share their experiences which was helpful to others who attended too.

You can also hear about the simple tools and techniques to increase your self esteem, your feel good chemicals so that you get a sense of achievement, which in turn, increases your motivation.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This episode brings you the top 3 tips I share with all my clients so that they can manage and reduce stress and anxiety levels quickly and easily.

Listen in for:

The number 1 thing you need to calm your internal system.

A quick and easy way to change the worry habit.

Why you need to create a routine and the reasons it's helpful in managing stress

I explain why I talk about stress tips so much and how stress affects our brain and our performance.

If you're not sure what the difference is between stress and anxiety then have a listen and I explain that for you. Lots of people get confused and don't know the difference.

"one off occasions of feeling stressed or anxious are perfectly normal"

"there are a lot of ways you can incorporate this tool into your everyday life"

"this can help us manage the uncertainty that life can throw up and help us cope with unpredictable periods of time"

"trying to remember things can be really stressful and can be overwhelming ... so having this tool means we don't have to think about these any more"

"you don't need to do the same as everyone else, you need to find the thing that works for you"

Everyone is different - so what stresses one person will be exciting for another. It's important that you know what affects you so that you can do something about it and feel in control

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm talking about what really happens when we're stressed. We all think we know about stress, but there are some key identifiers that can help us to catch stress before it becomes a problem, so this will be a useful reminder.

Since it's Stress Awareness Week on 2-6th November, this episode is the first in a mini-series about stress. I'm sharing information about:

What really happens when we’re stressed
Symptoms of stress and how to spot stress in yourself and others.
Common causes of stress in both work and personal life

It’s definitely a stressful time and I won’t deny that there have been times when I just wanted to hide under duvet with a book and come out when it’s all over, but really, that’s just not possible.

I share some key statistics about work related stress that are up to date and my be of interest to you.

I also share some of the key things that I'm doing in organisations right now to help them handle stress and support employees to improve their situation and be happier and therefore more productive.

I’ve prepared a Stress Awareness Pack to promote stress awareness within organisations so that you can support teams to reduce stress, improve productivity and create happier, healthier more engaged teams and workplaces.

If you’d like more information on the Stress Awareness Packs, just send me an email and I'd be happy to help.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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It's National Work Life Week and it's a great opportunity for both employers and employees to focus on wellbeing at work and work life balance.

This shouldn't just happen for one week though!

When there is good work life balance then wellbeing is improved and there is less stress, better attendance and more productivity.

Contrary to popular belief we are not always more productive by working longer hours!

I talk through the 5 key areas I believe are needed to ensure that you can incorporate plans and actions so that you or your people, particularly if working from home, can manage the day to day operations and also be supported in a way that enables to function at home in a positive way with minimal impact on productivity and mental health.

This podcast episode gives you an insight into the areas covered in all my Work Life Balance workshops and training sessions.

The key areas in all my training are:

Routine

Values

Boundaries

Communication

Self Care

There's more detail in other podcast episodes about Boundaries and Communication if you want a deeper understanding.

My Work Life Balance session has been designed to incorporate the specific values and needs of your company so that implementation happens smoothly, staff are happier and so that you have a more productive (and profitable!) workforce during this time.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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The months of lockdown and loss have had a huge impact on us all, and prioritising mental health has never been more important than it is now.

Focusing on mental health and wellbeing is needing to be an ongoing part of everyone’s plan.

In honour of World Mental Health Day on 10th October 2020, I produced this podcast episode to share my Top 10 ideas for quick and easy activities that you can do to improve you mental health.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, overloaded or just simply worn out and fed up, there’s nothing worse than someone adding MORE things on your to-do list!

So try picking something that you feel you CAN achieve and give it a go.

I've sectioned the tips into areas so that you can choose depending what you need:

Creating connections

Get Moving

Learn New Things

Self Care

Remember we are all different, so different activities suit different people at different times. Do what you need.

I also refer back to my previous episodes of Resilience and Raising Mental Health Awareness

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm talking you about Raising Mental Health Awareness.

It's World Mental Health Day On October 10th 2020 and then closely followed by Stress Awareness Week for the first week of November.

I'm sharing ideas of things you can do yourself or in the workplace / with colleagues to take the first steps to improving mental health.

There’s some ideas if your HR or a manager

I'm also talking a little about how you can support leader performance too.

I share information on what I'm doing but also give you insights to what other companies are providing so that you don't have to dig around for ideas.

Mind are focussing this year on the theme of 'do one thing' so I share ideas about what these simple things can be to get you started in improving mental health.

Some quotes from this episode are:

"Don't talk about the war, worries and women's problems is a stigma from long ago that we're still having deal with"

"If you’re struggling to ask to for help, think about how YOU respond when someone asks you for help"

"Don’t just listen to what they say, listen to HOW they say it"

I share some information about using some elements of 'restorative practice' to do wellbeing check-ins with your team.

If you're planning on getting someone to share their mental health journey then you can email me so that 'doom and gloom' chats can be avoided.

I also share why it's good for managers and leaders to share their journey or situation and how you can boost the mood of your employees by sending thank you cards, gifts or other things.

Of course, if you want a speaker or wellbeing trainer to deliver a something then book a call with me.

Here's an idea of what other companies have booked me for and you can hear more about why connection and loneliness is important in my previous podcast episode.

Stress Awareness and Stress Management
Preventing Blurring of Work & Home Boundaries
The 6 Key Pillars to Ramp Up Resilience
Creating Quality Connections & Reducing Loneliness
Handing Emotional Offloads without the Baggage
Managing your Mental Wellbeing

I share how you can support leadership performance too, since I've had many phone calls and emails and bookings from HR and Wellbeing leads because they have staff who are finding things difficult at this time and it's affecting performance.

Listen in for ideas on what I provide here and what other companies are doing too and why it's good for your overall wellbeing plan.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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People tell me they are struggling with the amount of time that they’re spending on their own - being at home all the time and not going out to work.

Whether we're on our own, or whether we've got busy households but we’re working all the time and juggling kids and just not getting social connection.

it's affecting a lot of people, because we are meant to have interaction. You know we're wired as human beings for interaction.

The need for interpersonal relationships is a basic need of all human beings. That is why the need to spend time with others and to be accepted by them is a basic need for our psychological well-being

Researchers in child psychology have concluded that human infants are born with the innate motivation and ability to seek contact with others. Throughout life this ability and motivation is maintained and might even be enhanced with age.

There's officially a a loneliness epidemic in the UK, with 2.4 million adults reporting being lonely, according to a recent study by the Office for National Statistics.

As we communicate less in actual face to face social interactions we start to lose some of our most valuable communication skills and even younger people are coming to me feeling a lack of confidence or feeling uncomfortable in social situations or just missing the connections of people with lockdown and working from home.

Listen in to WHY we need connections so much

HOW you can create connections that that have impact and leave you feeling good.

What happens when we get quality connections so that you can ensure you maximise the impact of the connections you have.

Why you need to stop multitasking on calls and what to do instead.

If you're a HR or a leader what you can do to gauge people's mood and enable quality interaction with your teams.

When you know what happens mentally and physiologically you can ensure you re-create those situations with ease.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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I’m hearing from more and more people who are feeling anxious, stressed or struggling in some way during the Coronavirus situation. It’s completely understandable.

People who are socially isolated or juggling all things or getting anxious about how long this pandemic is going on for or even getting anxious to go back out into places now that lockdown is easing.

If you’re managing people – it’s well worth a listen too because it will give you the understanding about what’s going on and make it easier to manage.

The world is a complex and sometimes a confusing place and never more so than during a pandemic when the situations are ever changing, and even guidelines can be confusing.

It’s pretty tricky right now with the Coronavirus in our lives and seemingly everywhere we turn.

Even I’ve had rough days, and had to use all my tips, tricks and knowledge to ensure I’m able to stay calm, sane and get me-time in a house that’s permanently occupied. Having two teenagers with additional needs and no break from them has been interesting.

I’ve not been anxious myself during this time, but I’ve definitely got stressed. However, I’m talking about anxiety today because I’m hearing so much about it right now. Anxiety is a form of stress that a person can go through physically, mentally and emotionally and situations can genuinely feel are out of control so that they generate feelings of panic and anxiety.

Yet, I also recognise that there are many people out there who are struggling because they’re on their own.

In my coaching this is all too apparent as I see more clients who are socially isolated or lacking confidence in being able to communicate or even getting anxious to go back out into places now that lockdown is easing.

So often we focus on the difficult and bad experiences in life, we’re wired to notice the negatives.

The brain is hard-wired to scan the horizon for anything that might be a threat to us – it was always the key to our survival in days gone by. Nowadays the threats aren’t of a big bear coming to eat us, but our brain is still hard at work analysing, making us aware of the negative, and looking to see how it can keep us safe. Unfortunately, as we get older, we become more fear-based.

Being exposed to prolonged stress can both cause and worsen mental health problems, leading to other issues such as tiredness, irritability, poor concentration, poor punctuality, sleep problems and so forth. Identifying and tackling the sources of anxiety can prevent such issues spiralling.

If anxiety becomes commonplace and regular response to daily events, and this is where it turns into a problem. As a leader or manager you need to be empathic (rather than ignoring or being dismissive). So, tell them you understand they must feel worried or anxious and that it’s OK to have those feelings.

Things are so much easier in life generally when we have a plan, or can see an end in sight. Right now, we don’t really have a plan or an end to this.

We are moving in strange and unfamiliar phases and now more than ever we need to learn to go with the flow.

Often when I work with people who have long-standing anxiety, it shows up in a variety of ways …… planning everything to the nth degree is a common one – so is insomnia.

Just to explain … often people are trying to control their external environment, so they plan, plan, plan everything around them.

The other way anxiety can affect is us that it completely stops us in our tracks – and mean we struggle to get anything done – often talked about as procrastination and mental blocks.

With insominia – whether people realise it or not, it’s their brain knocking on the inside saying ooh remember this, or that. We need to look at this. There are ways to reduce the brain needing to do this so that you can focus in the daytime and not night-time.

Three key ways you can help yourself with the corona anxiety are explained in more detail on the podcast but in essence:

Breathe

Breathing is go-to advice from many coaches and wellness experts, I know. I’m not unique in saying this! But it’s ALWAYS my number one tip … because it’s SO helpful. Breathing deeply, taking long breaths that feel like they go down to your belly rather than just in your chest. This releases calming chemicals and send a message to your brain to slow down. It helps release physical tension and gets oxygen flowing round your system so you can think more clearly. Plant both feet firmly on the ground, put one hand on your stomach and breathe.

Rehearse

When we visualise an event or situation happening whilst in the therapy room, the benefit is that when we do it for real our brains believe we have already done it. So it is easier and more comfortable. When you increase these new social outings and activities it becomes easier and easier.

Build confidence

So with this process, I will be helping you to feel assured and at ease. You can gradually build your self-confidence on the solid foundations we have already laid down.

Doing small but easy to manage activities and getting back out there is the only way to build confidence. However it’s so much easier to do when we calm down our internal system first, reduce those feelings of anxiety, and mentally visualise or rehearse these ways.

It is a bit different – going out with masks on, but you do get used to it.

If you’re telling yourself you hate it and can’t do, then your brain will believe this. So do be careful of what you tell yourself too.

It will be tiring. When you brain is on constant alert and scanning for perceived danger, as I mentioned, your brain is going to be working overtime.

So if you’re at the stage of going out, going back into work, bringing staff back into your workplace - be mindful of this and be empathic and understanding. This is really the only way to create permanent change in levels and increase confidence whilst keeping anxiety down.

As a manager, leader or HR it can sometimes be confusing when people you work with are not performing as they used to or are struggling with something that seems unusual for them. However, when I explain about the way our brains work and what happens with anxiety I can see people getting that understanding and often in 1:1 sessions my clients will be “oh, so I have this member of staff and they’ve been doing this, so might they be anxious” Yep

Or they say “ oh my goodness, I was struggling to understand why Bob wouldn’t do ‘this’ when I knew he was more than capable … this really helps me to understand”

It might be then that there’s a degree of flexibility can that be incorporated to bring down the anxiety whilst still bringing people back into work.

Or as an individual, it’s about trying things out but not putting pressure on, set targets, yes, but not so much that the anxiety spikes up again. Everything is going to be some much easier when you do things from a place of calm.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at http://www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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This week I'm joined by Nick Bradley.

Nick is a successful businessman having worked in investment banking and management consultancy for 30 years. He has a passion for inspiring individuals and businesses to achieve their purpose.

He has a new book out, "Zero To Authentic Hero - the 7 key steps to become a true leader". This is a compilation of what Nick considers to be the top seven mistakes made by Nick and ex colleagues and clients when taking their first leadership role.

His objective is to help leaders avoid these mistakes by raising the awareness of them as well as providing strategies that you can put in place to overcome them.

I must admit, these are also things I see too with the leaders I work with.

There’s seven key areas in the book, which Nick runs through briefly and then we focus on two that Nick would pick out as being essential.

Understanding Beliefs
Clear Purpose
Living Core Values
Skill Set
Communicate with Clarity
Live your legacy
Building Your Resilience

Some of the highlights of this episode are:

The secret to driving behaviours in the right way!
How you can get light bulb moment that enable you to see what’s going on, be open to change and improve the way you lead and behave. This also means you get more out of your team as a result too!
What leaders need to do to communicate with clarity and why it’s important to do. Learn reasons why you should and should not get the communication right.
Why you need to get clear on your purpose
Reasons why resilience is so important

“The first one I talk about? Every single time is about having a clear purpose, because I believe having a clear purpose then drives so many other things. activities. So if you get that right up front, everything else becomes so much easier.”

Nick gives a great example of how the Swedish Road Traffic Agency added purpose to their messaging and really made a difference in their communication, engagement and reasons for their road traffic restrictions.

“Once you've got that purpose, you can then build your strategy of what we're actually going to do, and your vision of what it will look like when we get there.”

The seventh step in the book is about building and resilience to what you do. Part of that is actually planning and scenario testing what might happen in your business and what might happen to your people. So you're better prepared before it happens instead of just having to be resilient when it does happen to you.

“Being resilient during that firefighting phase, as you say, is so difficult, frustrating. And I kind of like to ask people why are you now be able to successfully rise from the ashes without actually asking why you were on fire in the first place?”

Nick has four areas in his gateway for resilience.

“the four gateways for resilience for me at least our sole, physical, mental, and social, yeah, and it's all about balance between the four of them. Don't just go and exercise all the time. Don't just go and read a book all the time as it were, get the right balance, whatever that balance is, you might not be 25% across all four, but whatever that right balance is for you.”

Nick is giving away a free copy of his book to all listeners of the podcast. You can get your copy from his website (link below) and find him on these other social platforms.

Website: https://www.mandalaleaders.com/store

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickBradley7

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickbradley7/

Excitingly, this month I'm delivering several virtual Business Boundary workshops to help companies support the issue of blurred boundaries.

With so much time at home, the end of the work day is blurring into home life with many people struggling to switch off - physically and mentally.

This also means many are struggle to be engaged and ready to start the week, because weekends have blurred into weekdays.

Setting clear boundaries enables everyone to switch off so that they get the rest they need so that when they are at work, they are more productive, happier and healthier.

Clear boundaries for customers or clients also reduces stress and sets our clear expectation: this creates respect and improves relationships.

So if you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com . Or head over to my website at www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

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As the Covid-19 situation continues and businesses plan and adapt working patterns HR and Business Leaders must ensure that mental wellbeing remains a high priority in their plans.

Leaders, HR and all levels of the business will need extra help, support and guidance on looking after themselves and being able to spot issues and support the workforce.

Some companies have plans in place for the return to office space, yet many companies are telling their workforce there is no intention of a return to office until September or later, if at all. Whilst these are intended to be clear messages, it can still contribute to employee stress - and reinforces their fears about the future.

The impact of continued remote working, alongside additional pressure of a difficult work life balance, isolation and schooling is adding to the worry, anxiety and associated mental health issues that were already contributing to difficulties within workforces.

Let’s not forget, that BEFORE lockdown there were already 1 in 4 people likely to have some mental health issue in their lifetime. Research from Benenden Health in May 2020 said

“over a third of respondents feel the pandemic has been damaging to their mental wellbeing”

Mental Health issues are often hidden - but have a huge cost to companies if left undiscovered or not dealt with. Particularly in areas such as:

Poor employee morale
Low retention / high attrition
The cost of high sickness absence

Focusing on mental health and wellbeing needs to be a continuing part of your business plan and HR or Wellbeing Leads need to be ensuring that the plan is well delivered. As Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the CIPD, said “Employers have a fundamental duty of care for physical and mental wellbeing under the Health And Safety At Work Act,”

It’s no longer acceptable to just have the focus on one week of the year, or believe that a few posters about drinking more water and having a cake sale for a mental health charity is going to cut it. (Yes, I really was told that a cake sale was 'everything' one company was doing!)

What can you do to improve Mental Wellbeing? Survey Your Employees Regularly Have an adequate survey that enables you to gather good feedback so that your employees know you are taking their mental wellbeing seriously. It also means you’re not guessing about their strengths and difficulties so that you don’t waste money on plans and training that is not needed, as well as ensuring you are meeting their needs. Remember, it’s not enough to just do the survey, you need to ensure you’re responding to the outcomes too in order to increase morale and gain the savings that you would like to see.

Provide Training and Expertise Getting external support for training, coaching and learning will equip everyone from the Board down to be able to spot signs of stress and struggle in themselves and learn what they can do about it.

For some companies who already have a wellbeing plan in place, they benefit most from workshops designed for specific topics. Companies that I work with, often have great overall wellbeing plans in place, but have needed additional support in areas like boundaries, resilience and work life balance, especially during Covid-19 and those workshops have helped them complete their wellbeing implementation.

Educate and Upskill Your Managers Bringing in specific training will enable you to educate your managers to spot issues, raise any concerns and know how to be supportive and empathic so that they can catch issues early and turn around the negative impact of any situation before presenteeism or absences hit.

It might be that your Board level executives need coaching or a high level training session so that they understand the impact of trying to work in a stressful environment and learn the best ways to support the workforce, demonstrate buy in and improve morale.

Knowing how to talk to employees and making time for one to one conversation is crucial in building trusting relationships that result in managers being able to support employees with early interventions.

Improve Work life Balance Think about what good work life balance looks like for your company. Are flexible working patterns possible - are they really possible logistically or is there a block on the idea just because of a fixed mindset or because it’s what you’ve always done?

The Beneden research said

“more than half of parents whose mental wellbeing has been impacted say balancing working from home and childcare was having a negative impact on their mental wellbeing”

The companies I’m working with are investing in work life balance support because they are seeing that working hours are merging into the evenings and weekends, leaving their employees struggling to switch off or feeling under pressure to get through an incredible workload as well as juggling childcare. However, they also tell me that even those without children are struggling too because there is no differentiation between the workplace and home.

Be Flexible There’s no one size fits all. Depending on sector and role, the impact and need will be different.

Key workers and front line employees will have had different experiences to those working at home and juggling childcare to those living alone. We also need to take into account the different perceptions of people, some are more adaptable and resilient than others.

Support the Supporters HR and support workers in your organisation may have had additional pressure because they have been supporting others. It’s important not to forget that. So ensure that HR and managers also get the training or support they need so that they can continue to be there for others.

Overall, companies are working hard to implement wellbeing plans - but with the arrival of Covid-19, it's important to be responsive. The Benenden report also said that over a third of respondents said they would like more employer support, so by revisiting and revising your wellbeing plan you can make sure that it has the best potential for success and ROI.

If you'd like to discuss how you can

enhance your company wellbeing plan during Covid-19,
discuss virtual training options
ensure your leaders are on board to support the Workplace Mental Wellbeing

Message me directly or click here to arrange a call.

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Leaders often thrive with a challenge, however when the challenge is a prolonged one, such as this period of the Covid-19 crisis, leaders need to ensure that they are able to sustain the test of time.

Prioritising mental wellbeing is just as essential for leaders in a time of crisis as it is for your employees.

Failure to look after one’s self can result in fatigue and burnout.

Burnout characterised by “emotional exhaustion” and usually attributed to the professional role you have, therefore, maintaining work life balance is vital to prevent burnout.

The important thing is to ensure that you know what affects you and, more helpfully that you’re able to spot the signs in your leadership team too.

There are things you can do to ensure that you implement a balance that supports your performance (so it isn’t about working less necessarily) but working and living in way that supports your overall professional and personal wellbeing.

Spot the Signs There can be a number of signs – IBS and gastrointestinal disorders, headaches, sleep issues, problems with immune system and even just getting ill really frequently – more frequently than the next person.

Admitting that there is a problem can be a tough one for the leaders I work with. Often they come to me because they know they are struggling, they can’t quite pinpoint a specific area where the struggle starts or the look for one key area. They also come to me because they don’t want to admit to their CEO or Board that they are struggling.

The thing is that often it’s not just one thing. It also doesn’t mean that you have to stop work or do less – as we’ll discuss – it’s often about doing things differently.

The key is to acknowledge that there is an issue and once you’ve spotted the signs then you’re half way to solving the problem (as long as you do something about it).

Do Away with Decision Fatigue Decision fatigue happens when there is a prolonged situation that is stressful and demanding. The thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex can become overloaded and worn out – essentially. What that means is that basic functions and decisions, judgements and strategic thinking are clouded and it’s really difficult to make a decision. A leader who is under pressure to make difficult or severe decisions each and every day can find they have increased difficulty doing so. Even simple decisions such a what to wear, what to eat can become a problem.

Barack Obama apparently only wore blue and black suits so that he reduced the decisions he had to make there and keep his brain free for the bigger decisions. Have you ever found you get the best ideas or decisions in the shower or when you’re out for a walk? That’s because you’ve taken that mental step back and given your brain chance to rest, recover and then it’s able to decide.

This is why I teach all my client’s ways to take those brain breaks, with breathing techniques or relaxation or even just adding in healthy restorative time as I’ll talk about in a moment. By creating a brain break, you’re better able to make decisions.

Address the Stress Making a plan to address the stress and looking at any underlying cause for the stress is key. Leaders usually like this idea because they are goal and action focussed. However the tough stuff starts when they have to look at themselves!!

Looking at personal and professional activities and areas where there is struggle, things that are missing, what needs more, what needs less enables you to make a plan.

This is where we look at adding in healthy restorative aspects and for this we are talking about looking at different areas of your life. Physical, emotional, mental, sometimes spiritual. This includes, social aspects – where is there fun in your life? What support do you have – is there one friend or a group of friends where you can be totally honest and say today was a nightmare?

Are you eating well or grabbing stuff on the go and skipping meals?

What’s your sleep pattern like – or are you awake at 4 in the morning?

Do you take time off – properly?

One chap I worked with got told by his family that they knew he wasn’t listening to their conversations to they used to add in random crazy sentences, like there’s a pink elephant coming now and see if he noticed. They got lots of fun and hilarity from it – he missed it all.

When you’ve assessed all this, you need to establish some goals and address the gaps and blocks. I really would advise here, that you have some accountability strategies to help make the plan really effective and get the results you want much more quickly.

Master Your Mindset I always say, you can’t control what happens on the outside, but you can control what happens on the inside. By that, I mean that you are in control of what you think, how you think and that impacts how you respond. So working on your mindset means you can make the changes that help you work on any fatigue and prevent burnout.

Do you need to rethink delegation? Sometimes in coaching we look at what’s stopping someone from delegating – it can be personal for everyone, but it might things like lack of trust, not wanting to be let down, thinking it’s easier to do it myself. You don’t need to a superhero. I often ask ‘ what’s the best thing you can do to develop your team” and the answer is often “give them responsibility” So then I ask when are you going to do that.

It might be that you need to look at boundaries. My favourite subject and need to say no to things instead of yes… or yes instead of no (particularly if someone says, shall I look at this).

What will happen if you’re not there? If you’re doing everything yourself then things will fail anyway. If you allow others in to support and work with you then you’re setting yourself up for wins.

There’s a million ways we can change our mindset – and exploring what’s going on with yours is the first step. One client is never the same as the next, that’s why I LOVE working with leaders.

The combination of the above has wide reaching effects on their team and often the entire company, because it changes their approaches and they are more likely to promote a good work life balance across the organisation too. Because they see the value in how work life balance enhances productivity and performance, rather than being something that is about working less.

I've been working with a number of organisations to successfully deliver virtual trainings on stress management, work life balance, boundaries and resilience - so contact me to discuss the needs of your organisation now or book direct into my diary for a complementary discussion with this link

If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

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On the podcast this week I'm joined by Andrew Digwood who is a Partner at Rollits in York and also Chair of York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce.

We talk about all things embracing changes in business and wellbeing during the Covid-19 situation.

We talk about

Why we need to get off the hamster wheel.
The heartening story of how one business has survived the crisis and been able to develop an idea that was previously on the back burner
We need to be willing to explore and implement ideas
As business leaders we need to think about adapting the wellbeing plans.

It’s a longer than usual episode but stay with it, and listen out for the powerful tool that can unlock conversations.

Some quotes from the show are:

We’ve had to accelerate some of the ways we do business and work with clients.

Being forced to shut down, having time to think has enabled us to plan and get another side of the business off the ground.

The businesses that will come out of this best are the ones being lead by people who are willing to embrace the changes necessary to adapt

Getting your most engaged employees to think like business owners, so that leaders listen to the staff about how to adapt and drive business forward.

I do wonder how many businesses employee wellbeing strategies have survived the test of these circumstances.

We talk about how do we manage to stay connected in these times.

It’s easy to get lost in your own echo chamber of challenges, we all have our own difficulties

Finding people with similar experiences and realising they are not on their own

Why we want to ensure that some sort of workplace continues to exist, so that we continue with collaboration and sharing ideas.

Some degree of working from home can be the perfect counterbalance to busy office environments and be helpful for Mental Health.

You can get in touch with Andrew using the following links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-digwood-88707115/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewDigwood1

Email: andrew.digwood@rollits.com

Finally, I want to let you know that recently I've been working with a number of organisations to successfully deliver virtual trainings on
- Work Life Balance
- Stress Management
- Increasing Resilience
- Working at Home with Children
- Working with Effective Boundaries
- Leading and Communicating in Challenging Times

so contact me to discuss the needs of your organisation now or book direct into my diary for a complementary discussion with this link https://emmalangton.com/contact/

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Now more than ever before, empathy is important. Leading teams who are coping with huge challenges at work, at home with friends, family colleagues- we are all learning to cope in different ways. Some are dealing with illness and loss.

As lockdown reduces and more people are being unfurloughed or beginning the stages of going back to work, schools going back, shops beginning to open, there are, understandably more uncertainty and anxiety surrounding what the ‘new normal’ will look like.

Being able to show empathy and that true understanding can bring huge benefits to a workplace and culture.

According to Business Solver’s 2019 “State of Workplace Empathy” study, 90% of employees say they’re more likely to stay with an empathic employer, and 87% of CEOs believe empathy is linked to financial performance.

Empathy has many benefits. First, it feels really good. The pleasure centres of the brain light up when we are empathically heard and understood. It reduces stress and fosters resilience, creates more trust, promotes healing.

What do we mean by empathy? Quite simply, it's the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

How can we be more empathic? I’m nice to people – isn’t that enough? No, not really. Sorry to be blunt! Empathic leading needs greater depth than just being nice. It needs you to be consistently demonstrating an awareness of feelings and emotions of other people. It’s as if you’re feeling for yourself, so you’re able to imagine standing in their shoes.

Now, there’s a caveat here. You don’t have to jump into their shoes – or as I like to explain – you don’t need to get into their pit of doom. You need to stay on the sidelines so that you can help them get out of that pit of doom, but you need to IMAGINE what it must be like.

Four Key Ways to be more Empathic Listening Listening is one of the most effective ways you can demonstrate empathy to other people. In the high speed world on online tech we spend less time listening to one another. Sending texts, emails etc doesn’t need listening. It doesn’t use our ears, it uses our eyes. Start using your ears. Listen to understand rather than listening to respond.

Stop Stop talking and avoid interrupting. I know you’re busy. But whatever this person is coming to you with is important to them. Give it the time and respect.

Also don’t judge. If you’re judging that person, you’re not stepping into their shoes, you’re staying in your shoes and looking at them. You don’t have to agree with them or align with their actions or values, you just have to listen and understand their perspective.

Also be OK with silence. Silence is really powerful and help the other person focus their thoughts, align them and allows their brain to process. So stop filling the gaps or second guessing.

Open Up Just listening to someone isn't going to build a bridge between the two of you. When working on camera, allow people to see you face. It helps for better connections and enables you and them to see virtual clues. I’m doing this so much more now on my online training and webinars and encouraging others to put their camera on and connect with proper eye contact.

Focus Outwards Focus your attention outwards. So focus more on the other person than yourself. You might be busy, have a ton of things to do, but if this person has called, text, messaged or opened up on a video call. Then stop everything else and focus on them. Nod, smile, look interested.

You only have to do this for a short period of time to get amazing results. Remember what I said about this lighting up part of the brain and reducing stress, promoting resilience, creating more trust, promotes healing.

Carrying out these four key areas will enable you to have supportive conversations with your teams.

Riess says that having an empathic leader “energizes a team, makes them want to come to work, and makes people feel like they’re all in it for the good of the company or the good of the mission.”

Ensuring empathic leadership means an improvement in employee engagement and job satisfaction.

Whilst I recognise that all employees need to return to work or the workplace now that things are opening up, being supportive around anxieties, worries and concerns will be more beneficial in the long run, rather than leaving you dealing with sickness, absence, presenteeism or even attrition.

Pick one area that you want to improve on and or try a new approach with a colleague or member of your team.

Increasingly I've been working with a number of organisations to successfully deliver virtual trainings on stress management, resilience, work-life balance, boundaries and more - so contact me to discuss the needs of your organisation now or book direct into my diary for a complementary discussion.

Alternatively you can email me to discuss working with you or your workforce on emma@emmalangton.com

Finally, if you enjoyed this podcast, please do go and leave a review, it helps enormously for the podcast to be found by other people.

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Great boundaries set the culture and expectation of an organisation so that they set the standard of performance within a workplace. This is then easily disseminated down the workforce so that they too have good boundaries in their own work ethics and both personal and professional values.

I’ve just done a piece of training to a law firm on boundaries and work life balance. Now boundaries are becoming a webinar and training topic that is really popular right now. As you listen to the episode, you’ll see what impact good boundaries make so that you can have a productive workforce with great values and still be looking after the mental health and wellbeing.

If you want to talk to me about boundaries in your organisation or for yourself, book a call.

Listen to why boundaries are my favourite subject and why I think they are so essential in business, organisation and life.

Boundaries enable us to clear and consistent.

Boundaries are not about being rigid, strict, harsh or punitive. Neither are they something flimsy or non-existent. Boundaries will need to be firm, fair and clear.

Boundaries create respect.

Good clear boundaries that you maintain and live by, provide the foundations to you and your business.

There are business, leadership boundaries and personal boundaries.

When leaders create boundaries that can drive a culture that sets standards and enhances performance.

Know Your Values

When clear on the values for the organisation. Who will you work with, what the goals and purpose is, what behaviour is allowed, you build that culture for the organisation.

Get Clear on the Essentials

These are both personally and professional essentials. It might include who you work with, what work you do, where you work, how you work.

There will be essential personal aspects too so don’t forget to include these (such as work-life balance).

Communicate Clearly

The thinking and beliefs of the organisation need to be delivered by the leaders. It also impacts how everyone works together.

When leaders know what they are 'for' and 'against' and can communicate clearly, you can stop any negative emotional climate in an organisation.

You can clearly set what you will and will not tolerate and so enhance team working and performance.

When you set that with your workforce, you can tell people what is acceptable and what is not - do this in a really factual way for example "that is not acceptable, what I want to see is this"

This increases high performance and better communication and enhances the performance of everyone.

Mindset

When leaders step up it sets out clear expectations and reduces anxiety and uncertainty so that the workforce is empowered to do their job but within the boundaries and structures.

Good leadership boundaries enhance workforce behaviour, stops workforce behaviour from being pulled down taking away from its values, mission, purpose, and results.

Think about what boundaries you demonstrate as a leader.

Where are your boundaries setting expectations for others around you.

And if you have any questions about today’s episode, I’ll be happy to go through anything that you need to hear.

Don't forget to leave a review about your key take-away from the podcast.

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This week I'm joined by Jodie Hill. Jodie set up Thrive Law in 2018 in order to ensure everyone can Thrive in the workplace. She is an advocate for mental health and has the #One Mind campaign to ensure mental health risk assessments are mandatory in all workplaces. We talk about:

Two key areas that are affecting Mental Health during Covid-19 times.

We also talk about communication and how people can feel they are only being checked up on. Jodie explains how she gets the balance of communication within her team.

She also talks about how she forgot to put her own mental health strategies in place in the early days and ended up a bit of a mess. Now she has a really clear routine and boundaries in place.

Emma talks about the things we need to keep simple.

Jodie talks about how it is so important that we don’t compare ourselves to others as we don’t know what is going on for them.

The other problem is social media and will look at it and think “I’m not good enough”. We have to be real.

I talk about how I was only watching the news once a day.

Jodie mentions how consistency is key. There is a lot of information, we need to consider how does it apply to me and who do I trust? And shares the feedback she’s had about her daily emails and why they are working and why they’re helpful for mental health.

Jodie and Emma talk about the anxiety of going out, being in shops or the workplace or other aspects of lockdown that bring up emotions and worries.

They discuss what is needed from leaders to build trust and demonstrate resilience and calm demeanour so that calmness is contagious which helps our mental health and wellbeing. Jodie can empathise with people because she is trusted and she is open about her mental health. You can only do that with trusted leadership.

By story-telling and being vulnerable her team tell Jodie that they trust her.

Leading through a crisis is so important and we need to remember the HR people and managers who need support there too because they are taking the burden themselves, so we need to make sure that they are supported. They might not need a lot of support, but the communication being in place is really helpful.

Jodie talks about all the things you can do right now even if people are furloughed and how to be inclusive at this time to impact on mental health. There are challenges that need thinking about.

and finally, that we need to be able to see the positives in this time.

Below are all the ways you can connect withe Jodie

Join tHRive Club Facebook Group here
Join our newsletter here
Access to our COVID 19 Advice Tool here and our free Coronavirus email
Links to our social media are:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Instagram

If you want to get in touch with Emma then contact her HERE

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In times of crisis or change our leaders needs to communicate well. To communicate well, they need to do this often. Doing both these things is crucial to create trust in a workplace.

Times of change within organisations can be tricky and the next few phases of lockdown are going to bring change and uncertainty. In order to lead this time well, organisations need to prioritise communication and staff wellbeing first – it will pay off in the long run. In this time of crisis, where the change is so uncertain, everything relies on trust.

The World Happiness Report from 2013 found that there was less negative affect on people’s wellbeing, even during economic downturn, when there was high levels of trust and more social connection.

Remember, trust isn’t going happen overnight. It takes consistency. Just think about children, as a parent (aka their leader) we need to follow through with promises or consequences. I never told my kids anything too far ahead, partly because they would get so excited and it would create more questions (similar to the lockdown plan) but also in case something went wrong and we couldn’t deliver – this ensured there was trust in what we said we would do, will happen.

When we are young, we learn tell if someone is being untruthful. It’s evolved within us as a form of self- protection to help us survive. So the key message is: don’t say things you can’t follow through on.

When we communicate honestly, several purposes are served. It calms fears in employees, reinforces trust in an employer’s integrity and allows the opportunity for emotional support for everyone.

For a leader, when they understand the psychology around the fears and worries that people have when encountering change, it makes it easier to work with and incorporate into their plan. It enables leaders to include or respond to negativity and concerns.

When people have an idea of what is going to happen, or clear understanding that not all information is yet available (rather than thinking things are being kept from them) it calms their internal systems, reduces to stress, anxiety and worry. When leaders communicate often and build trust it means employees are more positive and trusting about areas of uncertainty.

If you mess up, make a mistake or have to change what you’ve previously said or planned, then own up to that. It takes longer to build trust that it does to lose it!

Providing structure to the communication also builds trust. The UK government provides that structure in their communication by delivering updates at 5pm each day. Organisations can do similar, daily or weekly. Many companies are sending daily briefings and updates, but there’s value in live communications too where-ever possible.

Giving employees the structure so that they will hear from leaders at a certain time, in a certain way with the knowledge that they can trust the content will calm anxiety, stress and the emotional impact of the situation. This helps them feel supported which, in turn, creates more trusting and more productive teams.

Effective communication, especially in a crisis tends to be based on three things (which we’ve also seen in the UK Government briefings).

Admit the problem or situation (The Why)
Tell people how you are fixing it or what you are doing
Inform comprehensively and continuously

However, underneath those three key areas, I expand on some of that in more detail on the podcast.

Also, if you don’t know. You don’t know and say that. You don’t have to be the leader with all the answers. Sometimes we don’t have answers and it’s ok to say that. At least that way your employees don’t think you’re hiding things and it shows your human side.

It’s ok for leaders to admit they don’t have the answers – trust and honesty in our communications is about being as transparent as we can.

Reducing employee fears and building trust in leaders, greater honesty and transparency in communications also means employees know the “what’s in it for me” part of the change, re-structure, or crisis plan. Being honest with your staff not only breeds trust, it gets them on board with how you are going to get through it.

And if you have any questions about today’s episode, I’ll be happy to go through anything that you need to hear.

In the meantime, don’t forget to leave a review and get in touch if you need help with communicating with your leaders or workforce at emma [at] emmalangton [dot] com.

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I'm talking about

what resilience is
how resilience impacts you in leadership and your employees
what are my six pillars of resilience

Leaders are expected to be able to run and lead in their business and to be able to do it well. Accenture concluded that

"Resilience may be the new criterion for professional advancement"

With business and economic challenge the way a leader handles pressure is likely to have a huge impact on performance and success of an organisation. So resilience is critical to survive the challenges ahead, during and after lockdown.

What is Resilience? When I ask this in my training and workshops, people say

Keeping going
Staying strong in hard times
Mental toughness

Resilience is an important personal attribute that can have a wide-ranging influence on your personal wellbeing and your performance at work.

It’s more than your bounce-back-ability. For me, it’s not about how well you keep going, it’s about how well you adapt. As Charles Darwin said

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change. “

Good news is that resilience is mouldable. You can build your resilience, you can re-shape it which means we can all develop resilience.

The Link Between Leadership and Resilience Leadership stress and resilience has been explored extensively. Stress related illness and personal issues feature highly with leaders and studies show that around two thirds of leaders are affected. Yet, the other third successfully thrived, despite leadership challenges. What seemed to set them apart was their adaptability and the skills that combined to enhance a resilient mindset.

Leaders can also have a direct impact on the resilience of their workforce and employees too, simply with the way they react and respond to challenge and change.

Six Pillars to Resilience 1. Vision and Purpose Do you have vision and purpose for yourself and your company Giving ourselves meaning and direction is what pushes us forward. This gives us the reason to get up in a morning. Research says when you’re engaged and have purpose, life becomes easier, less complicated and less stressful.

It might be worth revisiting this.

Awareness Our awareness of ourselves and others around us will affect how we respond and how we view the situations we are challenged with.

When we are aware, we know what is a challenge or what is stressful and what is not. Then we can adapt and decide how we deal with it. We can incorporate tools that help us to be regulated, calm or positive. This will all have an impact on our mental health, stress and resilience.

Listen in to the podcast for tips around this …

Awareness isn’t just about what your find difficult. Knowing what lift you means you know what you can do quickly and easily to recharge.

Support There are few aspects to the support we have and need
Having a network around you
What support do you have and what do you need?
Not being afraid to ask for help

When we have people we can talk to and reach out for support is lessens the load of what we are going through. Having people to talk to also creates connection and we all need connection and to feel part of something. It stems from our tribal days.

It can also mean we don’t feel so alone. Many of the leaders I work with do say they feel alone.

Loneliness can take a real toll on both our mental and physical health. Having meaningful relationships through a support network of family, friends, colleagues and other social groups helps us feel connected and valued.

Who is your support network and what types of support they offer?

4. Attitude What is your attitude like when presented with problems to solve?

One method to reframe your thinking about successes and failures. When things go wrong, someone with an optimistic or positive attitude will tend to see the problem as a way of learning, or that identifies things that didn’t work.

Attitude is also about looking at what we can control and influence and what we cannot.

Listen to the podcast to find out what I used to say to my managers to help them have a more resilient attitude about change.

This way of thinking can be learned and developed, so that it’s much easier for us to reframe, be positive focus on what we can control.

5. Thinking Styles There are some well known thinking styles that we automatically kick into. Are you the avoidant ostrich, the one who sees catastrophes or the rational thinker?

By identifying and understanding your thinking patterns and this self talk, or ‘limiting beliefs’, you can learn to challenge them and change how you react to challenging situations.

Emma explains some ways you can challenge your thinking patterns and beliefs.

It's also good to change the idea of making mistakes to being something you can learn from rather than a problem.

This all helps leaders to have a set of skills that support the process of overcoming difficult situations, challenges and set-backs.

Coaching can support leaders in this too!

6. Health Although this is health – I mean both mental and physical health. Your mental health will improve with your increased awareness and adapting your thinking style as I've already mentioned.

With your physical health - exercise has been correlated with stronger levels of resilience. This is be due to the effects of endorphins and feel good chemicals improving mood.

It's not just going to the gym, since they're closed during lockdown anyway. We have the one hour exercise allowing in the UK. We need to use it.

It can also be having a walk, dancing, an upbeat or calming music playlist

It might be something upbeat and with people or something quiet and relaxing or alone.

Work out what boosts your energy levels and what drains you. Find things that you can fit into your life without feeling that you MUST do or that you will beat yourself up about if you don’t achieve it.

We also need to think about diet and nutrition. It's easy to eat junk, and people are talking about more snacks and more baking. Balance this with healthy food too.

Do you get enough sleep?

If you never give yourself chance to recover from the busyness and challenge of your day, then you’re going to be running on empty.

So that's my six pillar of resilience. But I'd like to add that with all of these be reflective. Effective learning is when a person progresses through different stages by being reflective.

David Kolb's 1984 learning cycle is useful for this. You can even use this about your day, a week or a specific challenge or situation.

Have the experience
Review the experience
Summarise learnings, what did and did not work.
Plan for Improvement next time.

The Final Science Bit:

The good news is that recent neuroscience studies now know that it’s never too late for our brain to develop or change. Neuroplasticity means that the brain forms new neurons and connections until we’re 100. We can even grow new neurons at any age and also prune back old learnings and neural pathways too. This means we can re-wire our brain and remove things that we are not serving us well.

It’s a practice. It’s called practicing resilience for a reason. Every day we have the opportunity to continue with our resilience and change the brain’s default way of operating. It might take effort and focus but it is absolutely is possible to do change the way we think and the way we respond so that we increase our resilience for the long term.

If you would like to tell me one thing that you will do from this episode, email me at emma@emmalangon.com .

If you need help personally or for your employees to reduce their stress, increase resilience and wellbeing (even if they're working remotely!) get in touch.

The link to the survey I mentioned is here

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How do we manage teams and lead well in these strange times when our teams are working remotely? I asked Sophie Edmond on to the podcast because she’s been doing some work about managing teams remotely and talking about what good looks like.

Sophie is a leadership expert and works in organisations to develop leadership capability for top talent. We talked about:

Communication
Duty of Care
Being Flexible
A top tip if people are struggling

All this results in being kinder and ensuring we have that human element to managing the teams.

Communication Her number one priority is about communication. There’s lots of different ways as a manager to communicate with the team. Have a communication charter. Agree some guidelines, whether it’s over skype, teams, zoom; agree what the format would be – for example,

listening well
only one person speaking,
giving a hand signal if you want to say something

and it’s important that everyone is involved in agreeing that.

Clear structure and boundaries are so important that everyone gets a chance to be heard and this can mean that sometimes the people who are not always the loudest will still get a chance to speak and be heard.

Setting up a team whatsapp group or making use of the other technological tools and share photos or detail of the home set-up.

Having consideration of different people’s personality and even whether they are introvert and extrovert and where do they get their energy from. Communication about what works for each person is key.

Emma shares a little of her current set up that has provided interesting dynamics during her home working environment and the discussions they have.

Duty of Care As a line manager they have a duty of care, even during normal times, and also now in the different circumstances to work virtually. The duty of care is really key that you ask the question “what can I do for you, how can I support you”, so it is much more than what have you done today … where are you with x work.

This will pay forward, because when we are back in the office, the duty of care taken by a line manager will mean you staff have felt well supported.

Emma talks about how she has conversations about being a curious leader. Emma had the pleasure of sitting beside a female captain from the army who told her that even the British Army are changing the way they communicate, so that the command and control is no longer relevant or effective.

Emma talks about being curious with using different sentence openers such as “help me understand” “tell me more” and “I’m wondering” stops people being defensive. Since our stress levels are up anyway right now, we need to be careful about how people respond and use the communication and a manager’s duty of care to check in on their people as a human being.

Be Flexible Sophie mentions that as a society and a working world we need to be kinder and have that human element. Even around the fact that we need to appreciate children (of all ages) that people work when they can. Which might early in the morning, before children are up and then in an evening when things are quieter. There may be other examples of a day, depending on the children’s age at home.

We are in times of being adaptable and flexible and appreciating that people will get work done when they can.

Emma reflects that when she worked in corporate there was evidence that people were more productive in working from home because people did not stop for a chat on the way for a coffee and that people will work different hours, but still very effectively.

It needs to be recognised that the manager might not be available too.

This brings us back to the communication charter and set boundaries and structure so that there is a chit chat at 11am, for example, as if they are chatting at the water cooler. Maybe someone has baked cakes or put some music on.

People still need the social element and to be OK without always being watched and monitored. Productivity may increase but also be respectful of that and recognising and praising people.

Listening Recognise if people say they are struggling.

Zip the Lip

Once you’ve asked the question. "How are you today." Zip the Lip and let them speak. Listening is so important.

We need to listen without jumping in, problem solving or thinking of the solution, so that we have to listen to hear what people are really saying.

Being able to listen and to be listened to is really important.

Agree Objectives When managers are worried about productivity and performance, Sophie recommends that managers need to agree objectives for that week. Not too far in advance right now because things are still changing daily . Using SMART objectives is key, but realising that these might need to be flexible. Check in with the team and see how things are going. Say to people that it’s ok to have downtime, or agree a group activity, even setting up a book club. Who moved my cheese is a great book about managing change.

Be Kind Find different ways to look after, communicate, be kind, be flexible and help manage our teams in these challenging and adjusting times. Be mindful of who you have in your team. Some people will have struggles, so listen, be flexible with them.

You can connect with Sophie here:

https://sophieedmond.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophieedmond/

Finally, I want to remind you that I'm still open and here to help and support you during Covid-19. I'm delivering all coaching, webinars, training and workshops online, through video conferencing. Get in touch to discuss your needs at www.emmalangton.com/contact.

The link to the questionnaire mentioned on the podcast is HERE.

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The irony that we are in lockdown during April is not lost on me. April is Stress Awareness Month The Mental Health Foundation discovered that in 2019, 74% of adults felt so stressed that they were overwhelmed and unable to cope (and that was before the current challenges that we're facing!) April is always a busy month for me, delivering stress awareness workshops and sessions to organisations who want to support their employees and give them coping strategies for the year ahead. With this year looking so different, I've decided to run an online Managing Stress Training session on Tuesday 14th April 2-3pm (UK time) This is for a small group of individuals who want: * Simple tools to manage stress so that you can think more clearly * Strategies to stay calm so that you can function more effectively * Easy things that increase your resilience so that you’re able to cope with the coronavirus crisis and the impact it's having on you as a worker and family member

It’s just £50 per person to join and I’m keeping the number of attendees small so that the session will include aspects that are personalised and specific for you. https://bit.ly/stressLI In today's episode I'm talking about how we manage stress during this strange lockdown period, how we can recognise stress, what we can do about it and tips for the adjustment period too. I don't deliberately mean to stress you even more, however - I want to share some facts, and my thoughts on this because sometimes getting information and changing the way we think about things is a key part to coping with stressful situations. The answer to the question everyone is asking — "When will this be over?" — apart from gawd knows - is going to be the same answer I used to give adoptive parents when they were dealing with traumatised children..... erm, it might be never be over completely. Sorry to burst your bubble The other question ... when can we get back to normal. What does normal usually look like. What will it look like in the future. It won't be the same. This is going to bring about change. There's going to be change in how we work - maybe more companies, having been forced to accept working from home, will see that it's possible and people / staff / workforce DO still get stuff done. There's going to be a bigger need for looking after mental health. There's going to be changes in how we connect / keep in touch There's going to be changes in all sorts of things that we haven't even thought of yet - NHS, health, shopping, schooling - surely? we can't possible go back to 'how it was' - people have died, people have lost jobs, people have changed and adapted. This is how it is. We change and adapt, but rarely go back. What do common stress responses look like? * A tight feeling in your chest * Poor memory or struggling to remember everyday things * Difficulty sleeping or waking up through the night or early mornings * Aches and pains for seemingly no particular reason – tight shoulders, clenched jaw, stiff back

or perhaps you're eating chocolate, crisps, carbs and rubbish .. oh and alcohol too! The survival aspect creates the stress response, so our bodies release cortisol (the stress chemical) that makes us crave CRAP (Carbs, Refined food, Additives and Processed food). It's supposed to keep us going whilst we run from the tiger (so to speak) - the only thing is, in modern day, we're sat at our desk, on our sofas, in our cars etc, so we don't burn it off!!! So, we need to calm the internal system. To do this, we need some deep breathing. I talk about it all in more detail on my Managing Stress trainings and webinars ... (there's one happening on 14th April if you want to join or know more) but I also provide a guided relaxation on these because they've been so helpful for people in the recent weeks. What Do We Need to Do with the Stress? Whilst this totally normal it’s also very hard. This will be happening because of the build up of pressure / change / emotions. It’s really important -where you can - to be able to own and admit the difficulties. Remember it’s ok not to be ok. Just as long as you don’t stay in that place for long. Allowing time for a good moan / offload / cry is helpful then it creates space to smile, laugh and do the the positive uplifting things. Know that you are not failing. Let go of all of the ideas you have about what you should be doing right now. Instead, focus on your physical and psychological feelings and what you can do about them. Some people are outwardly active and like to keep busy when they're stressed and anxious. Others stop, freeze, struggle to do anything. It's all normal I'm definitely a hide under the duvet and read a book person. Any response is fine - just know what yours is and don't try to keep up with others who have a different response! The Adjustment Period No-one really feels good during a stressful situation and that's OK. Find ways to stay connected. Pick up the phone - don't just text or email or message Use video calling because eye contact is incredibly connecting, more than we realise. When you've calmed your internal system, with deep breathing, rest, or working off the stress chemical, then you look at your adjustment better. In time your brain can re-set - it will begin to look for opportunities / things to do / different ways to respond. Switch off the 'keep smiling' and 'power through' stuff on social media. Ignore the neighbour who has re-decorated his whole house already!! Your mental shift and adjustment will happen when it's right for you - the more pressure you put on yourself, the more stressed you'll make yourself and then you'll need to go back to point 1 of this podcast! There WILL be a range of emotions that you go through. I spent a day crying last week. No particular reason, just the whole sadness of how it's changing people, places, how we life, my business and personal stuff too. But it's OK to cry, get upset, be pissed off. Allow the emotions to be there, it's part of the process - the adjustment, healing, acceptance. We might be on week 3 of lockdown, but this is just the beginning. As The Queen said, we'll meet again. And we will. Give it time. We must give ourselves time to accept, react and adjust. Then we create a new normal, for a while and hopefully not too long! Before you leave, don't forget to go over a leave a review. Share this with people who will find it helpful. Check out the Managing Stress training session HERE Email me or book a call using this link if you want to talk about working with me on 1:1 basis or getting me to help your workforce.

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How are your stress levels?

What is your resilience like at the moment with the Coronavirus?

How do we manage to work from home and balance the kids and schooling and the workload too?

On this episode I turn my attention to how we can still perform even when the kids are at home.

Please do share the podcast and leave a review as it helps other people to find this and we need to get helpful tips and advice out to people that need it – especially during this challenging time.

How do we keep our stress levels down, manage the kids and still be productive?

I talk about how I started my business when I adopted my girls and they struggled to go to school every day, so I needed to learn really quickly how to manage these situations.

I spent quite a few years winging it and we are all winging some element of this situation right now.

As a school governor for 10 years I do have some insight about school practices and expectations and how schools run, so I share my insight and thoughts on all of this.

Of course, I will be talking to you about what we do with our stress systems, we things get tense and how we cope with them.

If you want some particular help with this get in touch with me. I’ve been working on line and through video and webinar facilities for a lot of years so this is nothing new for me. So get in touch if you want to know how I can help. If the stress is getting to you, if you’re feeling overloaded, if it’s stopping you from sleeping or don’t know which way to turn book a call.

I can help you with some tools to manage the stress, some strategies to stay calm and a plan for coping with the challenging coronavirus situation.

Book a link straight into my diary at https://emmalangton.com/contact/

We need to remember that everyone is in the same boat. This is not just you and it will come to an end, even if it seems endless right now.

Be kind to yourself and take the pressure off yourself too. You don’t need to do all things.

Stay safe, stay sane, stay connected.

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These tips for working from home are being mindful that situations can change and are changing in the current Coronavirus crisis.

Therefore working from home isn’t necessarily going to be the same as when other people have been used to work from home. Emma mentions that she can already hear her husband downstairs and is not used to that!

With schools finishing, there are going to be additional things to consider and that is a whole other podcast (so watch out for that).

Some of this podcast was inspired by Fiona Ibbetson's infographic from her company Get Ahead VA it was great to have her on the podcast too to share her ideas and chat about why they are useful from a neurological and psychological perspective.

Write a To-Do List.

On a Friday try to plan the following week, even if then that plan needs to change as the week goes on.

The list writing gets the information out of our head and stops our brain feeling the need to remind us.

Emma talks about how she is seeing the tremendous pressure in business and across HR and so writing things down is a key piece of advice that Emma gives when overwhelm hits. You can get her free download here www.emmalangton.com/overwhelm

Do the Big Job First

Within the plan, ensure that the biggest of most difficult job is planned to be done first each day, so that you are not distracted by that one thing. By getting it out of the way and done first thing in the morning.

The book Eat that Frog talks about the reasons why we need to do the biggest thing first. Often Emma encounters people who like to clear up the little things first and then eventually do the big thing.

In the podcast, Emma explains the reason why it’s not a good plan to leave big things to the end of the day in how your brain functions best. But also we get a sense of achievement early on in the day which is helpful for us.

Time Blocking

Time blocking ensures that you break down your day into different blocks and chunks of time and different activities. For example, Fiona said that usually she would have a day when she is networking or doing 1:1 meetings, although this has now changed and is online.

“We cannot put business on hold, so online is the way to do things”.

Set Up Your Mindset

Setting up our mindset is important and even though it might sounds strange, getting dressed is important. We will not have the same mindset if we’re sat in our pyjamas or sat in bed.

Getting dressed and choosing the environment is absolutely key.

Having a dedicated and clutter clear workspace is helpful for you to keep a clear head too.

Reduce Distractions

Where possible and turn off notifications, but set aside time and a time limit on when we keep up to date with the situation.

Choosing time in the day where you are checking emails or checking for updates is hugely important, not just for productivity and concentration but also because the frequency of updates about the Coronavirus is anxiety raising for a lot of people.

Keep Moving and Take Breaks

Give ourselves the time to move away from work too, perhaps going for walk and reflecting on each day and ensuring you are getting opportunities to keep moving away from the desk or workspace.

Keep Routines

Try to work within our normal working day and Emma explains what happens subconsciously about what happens with routines, structure and boundaries. It also calms down our internal stressed systems about all the uncertainty and change.

Have Clear Boundaries

Clear boundaries mean we set for others what we are doing and what to expect. This could be for customers, clients and also family members that are in the house and workplace with you. The boundaries can be flexible but need to be clear.

Communicate and Connect

Communication is also hugely important, because it’s easy to email people rather than chat or pick up the phone, or have a video call if you need to talk through a problem. We are wired for connected and need to ensure we have that connection.

It’s also helpful when we are able to read body language and hear tone of voice and therefore be more supportive and have clearer understanding of conversations. It also increases our feel-good chemicals when we have positive interactions.

If you have any questions or want some help and support during these challenging times then get in touch with me at emma@emmalangton.com or head over to my website at www.emmalangton.com and you can find the contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary.

Stay safe.

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Curiosity might have killed the cat but it doesn't have to kill your leadership and workforce!

How good would it be to have leaders in your company to be more productive, more effective and able to break down the barriers so that communication and problem solving, is easy.

Well, the thing is that leaders, often want to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise but don’t always warm to having curiosity in the workplace, Researchers said only 24% of cure people feel curious in their jobs on a regular basis, and 70% of people that they have to say there are barriers to asking more questions at work.

We were some of generations are brought up in a culture where you just don't question. The people above you are in charge of you and we did as we were told. The thing is that we need to change the way that we speak to people.

Even the British Army is looking at the way that we speak to people, they no longer have that Sergeant Major kind of command and control authoritarian approach to work in.

So to support people in the very best way to help to be able to make a difference to both how they perform and the output that you get. We need to implement curiosity in our businesses and particularly in our leadership.

We are all born with boundless curiosity. But as we grow older, there's a kind of conflict that often springs up in us with that kind of dampens the curious spirit and instinct is tempered by our desire to conform to fit in.

So we stop asking questions, because we learn over time that it kind of is made us look stupid or it's made us stand out, or we stop putting ourselves in positions where we might be open to uncertainty, and therefore feel vulnerable.

When we think about the questions that we asked when we ask why there's a part of our brain that goes into an alert system, it senses judgement, or danger and then often those people that were saying ...

"Why has this gone wrong?"

"What is it that's happening?'

"What can we do better?"

"Where can we make a difference?"

People become defensive, even if they don’t look like they are, inside they become defensive, they're feeling that vulnerability. They're thinking, have they done something wrong is it their fault. They feel responsible or in trouble.

So when we bear that in mind we can then know exactly what we're working with and how we can work around it. When we rephrase some of those questions we can change the way that we approach the question and it becomes less confrontational, and much more curious.

So some of the really key phrases that I like to tell the people that I work with. I wonder I wonder what's happening here. Tell me more about that. So instead of why did this go wrong help me understand well what happened here. So these are ways that we can be less confrontational.

We know body language is important and a tilt of the head in that curious questioning way also helps, as well as a slightly higher voice. It calms our internal system.

Curiosity helps eliminate stress. Staff worry less about what they can't do and instead get curious about what can be done.

Curious people tend to be more proactive and curious about solving problems or looking for solutions to issues.

Curious people come up with ideas more easily and then approach difficulties with a can-do attitude.

Leading with curiosity rather than authority might need personal development, coaching or support, but the results are reach much further than just your leadership team.

One client of mine said she used to speed round the office barking instructions and it got her into trouble with complaints about her attitude. Becoming curious actually saved her time because she didn’t need to go back and apologise for being abrupt or smooth over ruffled staff.

When your leaders are able to embed a culture of curiosity in your workplace then what you get is all the above and better relationships with employees. When there are problems staff reach out to you and often with options or solutions.

Research shows that feeling we are able to learn and retain information more easily when we are curious.

So we’re empowering the workforce. Enabling them to be more engaged, which brings a happier workplace

A happier, curious workplace means you retain them for longer too.

Don't forget to grab you ticket to my Talking truths conference. It will enable you to improve your performance lead effectively grow in confidence and make a positive impact on the professional and personal growth of you, and any team that you manage without compromising your well being. www.emmalangton.com/events

Please remember to leave a review and share with anyone you think might be interested.

Email any questions to me emma@emmalangton.com

See you on the next episode!

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With so much option out there for learning and development, and such a lot of online facilities why should we bother with the time and expense of an in-person conference, event or workshop?

If you really want to enhance your development, then in my view, some in person conferences are essential. Here’s why.

Stronger Connections

Connections are more powerful than we realise.

There’s nothing more powerful than a group of like-minded people in the same room.

When I work with leaders they often tell me they feel alone.

Good conferences have opportunities for attendees to mix and mingle, form new relationships, and strengthen existing ones.

Personalise Your Learning

When you’re there in person, you can ask questions that are specific to your business struggles or from your company

At events people will often share their ideas or strategies and you can make a bee-line for them at the break too.

New Perspective

A new or different venue can open up a new way of thinking and looking at things.

"There’s a model in coaching that’s called perceptual positions. The point is that it guides you through looking at situation from your own point of view, that of a colleague or manager and then someone else, perhaps a mentor or client. It gives you new perspective about your work and encourages you to ask questions differently. It’s similar at a conference"

Confidence

Going hand-in-hand with the previous reason, live events force you to break out of your comfort zone.

When I went to a Global Leadership event last year, I wrote down this:

“I’m in a room full of inspiration people, leader in their areas, but so many comments about being insecure, not confident and struggling in some way."

Yet, they felt comfortable, confident enough to be sharing that at the conference. They got support of like minded people. That increases your confidence too.

Invest in Yourself

It’s admitting that you’re worth it. It’s admitting that you still have things to learn. That you can get better, that’s a good thing. We’re always learning.

It’s an investment in yourself, your career, and even your company.

The Talking Truths conference will enable you to improve your performance and lead effectively. You will grow in confidence and make a positive impact on the professional and personal growth of you and your team, without compromising wellbeing.

www.emmalangton.com/events

email me at emma@emmalangton.com

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Today we’re going to explore leadership habits - the routines and disciplines we all have that either help or hinder our leadership impact.

"The good news is that leadership is a set of skills and behaviours that we can all learn and develop."

Leadership is what we do every day that helps us to achieve results through people. And psychology has taught us a lot about how to change our behaviours and to develop new skills.

"Those other people are not here, so we can't do anything about them. What we need to work on is you"

If you want to make a change to your habits and routines, the first thing you need to do is look at what you already do and decide what you want to do differently, what you want to change .

In the same way, we can have healthy and unhealthy leadership habits that we can identify through feedback and by paying attention to how we’re spending our time.

When you’ve identified habits you want to change, or new habits you want to develop - involve others. Their feedback and encouragement will make all the difference.

I talk about the DisruptHR event in York on 11th Feb that I'm also talking at. You can get tickets here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disrupthr-york-2-tickets-62315892512

I felt like a celebrity this week talking about details of my #Talkingtruths Female Leadership event is at www.emmalangton.com/events

Book a call with me to talk about how we can work together on your habits and leadership skills https://emmalangton.com/contact/

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On this episode I'm talking about 3 key things I believe are necessary for a good leadership mindset.

I ask some questions so that you can consider some of your thinking styles and the patterns in the way your mind works.

I talk about how you can train yourself to be more optimistic and more positive and we really can re-wire our brains.

When we're aware of our self-talk and whether we focus on positive or negative then we're much more able to notice what we say, so that we can change it and make a positive impact on ourselves and others we lead.

Changing your behaviour without changing your mindset will mean you get more tired or stressed and it's not sustainable because it doesn't come with ease.

When you change your mindset first then the behaviour flows more easily is natural and sustainable.

It has a positive impact on the way you lead and how you influence and impact others.

Details and tickets for the #Talkingtruths Female Leadership Event are at www.emmalangton.com/events

Contact me at emma@emmalangton.com with any questions, comments or to ask about working with me.

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This week I'm talking about how to boost your mood.

The third Monday of January is known as Blue Monday - the most depressing day of the year apparently! This is because Christmas is over, the credit card bills come in and often there's not much to look forward to. Sounds a bit doom and gloom doesn't it.

These three key areas are where you can focus and increase your feel-good chemicals to boost your mood.

"I was surprised when companies told me their staff talk more these days about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and want help with their staff for this"

Get Back Into Routine

You might think you're in your routine, and that might mean the times in the day are in a routine back at work - but if you're still feeling sluggish and eating up the Christmas chocolate then it will affect energy.

Sometimes it's a bit of effort to do the usual routine things because it's dark and cold.

Putting in a little bit of effort will give a bigger pay-off to boost your mood and get you fully back into the routine.

Make sure you get enough sleep too. Let's face it, we can cope with anything when we've had a good night's sleep.

Boost Your Feel Good Chemicals

Find small things you're pleased about. That might be noticing the daylight a little earlier in the day. This can boost your mood.

Keep the blinds open in the office to let more light in as possible.

Create interactions so that you boost your feel good chemicals. It is a hibernation period and smile at people, say hello to people you see frequently. I do this with other dog walkers. We are social mammals and it lifts our spirits.

Do Some Exercise

This is not necessarily join the gym so that you’re increasing the credit card spend!!! Getting out for a lunchtime walk means that you’re making the most of any of the daylight that’s around.

Physical exercise is linked to good mental health too. We need both.

If you want to talk to me about sorting out your goals and plans for 2020 then book a call here www.emmalangton.com/contact

Get your tickets for the #TalkingTruths - Female Leadership Event

www.emmalangton.com/events

Two of the speakers have been on the podcast previously, heres the links to their shows.

Gemma Stow https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bbp52-do-what-you-cant/id1406200331?i=1000446948548

Susie Ramroop https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bbp50-what-drives-you-to-change/id1406200331?i=1000445841970

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This episode will be helpful if you are wondering whether to invest in yourself or if you want to build a case for your manager as to why you need some leadership development or if you want to build a case to get funds to pay for attending my conference.

Tickets available at www.emmalangton.com/events

Why should we invest in leadership? Often companies say to me that they can't see the return on investment, it's too difficult to track results and some say they don't work, so why should they let people have time out for the coaching, mentoring or training.

Performance In a survey, 75% of leaders said leadership development is very important for creating a competitive advantage.

Can you carry on running with the cost of poor leadership? or with leaders who are unhappy, disengaged, making poor decisions.

"It's much more cost effective to develop existing leaders than to bring new people in"

Optimising people's performance, expertise and improving performance will increase productivity and have a direct impact on the bottom line.

"A leader who is sharing the vision, mission and values of the company can be crucial for the goals and objectives of the entire company"

We attract and retain talent by investing in them. "People don't leave their jobs, they leave their managers"

Investing in leaders can have a domino effect through the company to retain talent, invest in that person and also have direct impact on other people.

"Managers play an important role in employee welfare"

Investing in leaders can increase their resilience. "Leadership development increases people's ability to look at things more positively and respond in a resilient way"

Investing in leadership across the board in talent pools and different leadership levels, you're unlocking talent and resilience across the company for when things don't go to plan.

Times of Change A good leader will be able to respond to times of change and bring employees along with them to navigate change and increase people's ability to respond well to change.

"Leaders can be made"

These points and tips can be helpful for you if you need to persuade a manager to invest in your or why they should fund you to attend my event.

Don't forget to get your tickets for the event:

Talking Truths: The Female Leadership. The event for career women looking to gain more confidence in their roles and establish a better work/life balance in 2020. We've got some great female leaders attending (and speaking!) and would love to see some attendees from WIT. It's going to be such a great event for learning practical mindset and wellbeing skills that you can bring back to the organisation - and network with other local leaders too. There's more detail at this link HERE. www.emmalangton.com Contact me to discuss working with me or bringing me into your workplace for leadership development or training your workforce in resilience.

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Is this the right time to make new year resolutions? This is something Emma talks about a lot - is the New Year the best time for change?

If you struggle with motivation in these dark months and short days, then maybe this is not the right time. If you feel obliged and that you 'must' or 'should' then it might not be the right time.

If you're spurred on by the new time of year and feeling motivated then it can be a good time.

"the 17th January is the date when most people ditch new year resolutions"

Maybe there is a better time to make some goals.

Think about different areas of your life and score how they rate in successfulness for you and are there areas you'd like to change.

Pick one area for now that you want to focus on. Rather than spreading yourself too thin or doing too many new things.

Listen to the examples Emma gives about the work she did with clients and the questions you can use to assess those goals.

"What does success look like for you?"

"How much personal control or influence do you have over that goal?"

"What would be of real value to you?"

If you decide that you're not making any New Year Resolution right now - that's OK. Just own it.

Get your limited edition advanced ticket price for the #TalkingTruths Female Leadership Event here https://emmalangton.com/events/

Book a call with Emma and ask your questions or make an enquiry about working direct with her for 1:1 coaching, business training or workshops by getting in touch via her website at www.emmalangton.com

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Welcome to Lessons for Leaders, Episode 3

This week I'm talking about End of Year Reflections and what you can do in that funny time between Christmas and New Year.

I still want you to take time out to relax and enjoy, but I'm also giving tips and prompts to help you to reflect on what's gone well this year - and even this decade!

There's tips on the reflections to make it really effective for you.

Don't forget to subscribe to the episodes and leave a comment or review so that others can find the podcasts too.

Here are details of my Female Leadership Event that I talk about, ticket sales are limited and there's a special offer at the moment, so buy them quickly! http://bit.ly/36wlAmC

In this episode I talk about what I used to do in my corporate job in this time between Christmas and New Year where I sorted out some bigger jobs, did some re-organisation, created different structures to help me hit the ground running in the New Year.

These were usually things that needed much more time and often uninterrupted time.

Taking time to reflect can also need more uninterrupted time.

"It's really important, as leaders and coaches, that we take time for self reflection to look at what's going well in ourselves and our business"

"Taking time to reflect is one of the best ways to increase productivity, positivity and really shift your mindset too"

"Self reflection enables me to look back at what's gone well, what could I do differently and also rehearse dealing with things or responding differently in the future"

This is the end of a decade! Review how your year has gone or even how the decade has gone for you.

When I reflect over the last 10 years, I didn't even have my business at the start of the decade - I was retraining.

Some short terms goals back then were to work one day a week and support my kids. Now I work more, and support fabulous leaders and corporate companies with coaching and providing wellbeing training with workshops and courses on resilience, work life balance, change management and conversations that are effective.

What can you recognise and give yourself some praise about?

"when you praise yourself, it helps you to be motivated"

"motivation is increased when you thank for your staff"

I have just sent out thanks in my newsletter (you can get a copy of that here

"I'm not encouraging you to take your staff to the pub!"

Take time to acknowledge what's going well and what's not. You might look at different areas in your life and recognise if you have the balance, if you're frustrated, enjoying those areas or not getting enough.

Look at what you need to let go of. "all work and no play might mean you need to let go of some things, or delegate"

Do you need to let go of things that are not serving you well?

When you look at your reflections see what you can learn and what you are letting go of.

What questions do you need to ask yourself to help you move in the right direction Even if you want to be happy ... what does happy look like and what do you need for happy to be there? Then you know where you're going and what you want to put into your life to make these shifts.

You can keep coming back to this over time and it might make things clearer.

Think about what you're grateful for Listen in when I explain what those things are for me.

"Write down 3-5 things you're grateful for every day your brain will naturally see more of the positive things in life"

Take time for you If you didn't get the tips in the last episode, then skip back and catch up with Episode 2 here.

A lot of leaders do say they feel lonely at the top and don't have people they can chat things over with.

"I really want you to be able to spring-board into 2020 meeting your own goals and needs"

Remember to share, leave a review and subscribe.

Send me any questions that you have or any key reflections that came up when you did this exercise. https://emmalangton.com/contact/

Have a wonderful time off between Christmas and New Year

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Emma talks this week about the fact that the majority of workers will cut short festivities to work at some point between Christmas Eve and January.

How can you get good time off and get a rest?

The most important thing that Emma often work with is setting schedules. The leaders Emma works with are people who are used to working all the time.

"Scheduling is more effective than trying to multi-task"

Give yourself the chance to have undivided attention on those activities you feel you need to do at work. This can apply to family members, kids and partners too.

"undivided attention means you get through work faster, less likely to make mistakes and be more efficient"

Set some times that are non-negotiable. We all need down-time. These can be things like an hour to yourself, date night, some time with the kids. It all helps to reduce your stress levels and increase your relaxation time.

Emma talks about what she does to give herself an hour of relaxation, fitness and re-set time and take herself off to the beach.

Set some boundaries and limits on the emails and work time, so that you also learn to say to "no" to things that are not a priority.

"Learning to say no can be a challenge, but keep it simple"

Think about plans that you make and preparation that you do.

Lead by example and set the example for your people. Show that you do know how to switch off and stay away from emails.

Plan, prepare, schedule and take the time off.

"Don't be a Scrooge; a good leader needs good emotional intelligence" Check in with yourself and your people if you catch yourself being grumpy and realise the impact of your grumpiness.

"I know it's supposed to be Ho, Ho, Ho but it can be a really difficult time for many people"

Be realistic and understand what you and your team or workforce can do, so that you make sure that as you go into the lead up to Christmas that you give yourself a break too.

Contact Emma via her website at https://emmalangton.com/

Details of the Female Leadership Event are at https://emmalangton.com/events/

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This week, Emma is talking about what will help you deal with the pressure that can build up in the lead up to Christmas so that it runs as smoothly as possible for you.

She's been hearing from her clients about the pressure of the Christmas holidays and need to get everything finished and completed before Christmas.

Deal with Overwhelm and get stuff out of your head. Get the overwhelm guide here.

"Write a list - it's good enough for Santa, so you can do it too!"

"Put your biggest task at the top of your list and do the emergency or most difficult, the sense of achievement means the other things are so much easier".

Be Kind to Yourself and to other people.

"We should be wrapped up and hibernating at this time of year, so give yourself a break and use positive language"

"We have mirror neurons that mean we mirror what we see around us and so can be grumpy and negative if faced with that from others"

"When you smile your body naturally relaxes"

Lets Talk about Gifts

"what gift can you give to someone else?"

"the biggest gift you can give is the gift of time"

Give someone some time, have a chat, say hello

Emma tells a story of how she speaks to a lady at the bus stop every single day. It can really help boost the feel good chemicals.

Ask for Help

"people are happy to assist if you ask for help"

"it's about keeping boundaries in place so that you can ask for help and also say no, if you need to - even Santa has helpers"

This is your holiday too, so as you get into the lead-up for the holidays think about what you want to achieve and what you need to do beforehand. Hopefully this gives you a few actionable tips that get you feeling better about the holiday.

Please do leave a review, so that people can find the podcast more easily.

Get in touch with Emma here

Buy a ticket HERE for the Women in Leadership Event in York in February 2020.

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A re-launch of Emma Langton's podcast with a name change (from The Business Balance Podcast). Since I work with coaching senior leaders to increase positivity, performance, productivity with strategies for stress reduction, work life balance it made sense to change the name to Lessons for Leaders.

There will be episodes released every Thursday, so subscribe and come back soon.

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This week I talk to Gemma Stow. She loves to help empower women to step into the spotlight. Gemma works with lots of Introverts from corporate and entrepreneur worlds and helps them to “find their fierce” and inner confidence to be yourself and do things in a way that is good for you.

Emma asked how Gemma manages to do things in her own way in her business. Gemma shares what she realises about how she managed in previous businesses where she had other people to do things she was no comfortable with

Gemma talks about being an introvert in business with the challenges that brings.. A great example is networking with the cringe about the small talk and now she does her own events that listen to what she wants.

There comes a point when we have to let ourselves shine and do the things we find difficult.

“No-one can be as passionate about your business than you”

They talk about how Gemma manages at big events and how an introvert feels seeing others at events, preparing before, but not afterwards and the “introvert hangover” and how to feel grounded again and get the balance and how self-awareness is so important.

Gemma has an “Introverts Inspire” podcast and she is passionate about getting rid of the stereotype and labels around introverts and talks about what she wants people to be able to ditch the labels and use their skills to their advantage.

Gemma’s key message would be to say yes to things and trust that you can do what you can’t.

You can find Gemma on

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmastow/

Get Gemma’s podcast HERE

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introverts-inspire/id1467770708

Gemma’s website

https://www.gemmastow.com/

Don’t forget you can get my free workbook 7 Steps from Overwhelm to In Control HERE.

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A confidence and leadership coach with a background in leadership and management and helps people with performance and growth. Nicoletta joined me from Italy to talk to me.

I asked Nicoletta to join me to share her journey to success after climbing the corporate ladder and now running her own business. Nicoletta talks about how she wasn’t confident at all and felt very much afraid of making mistakes and looking like a fool. Partly this was due to speaking her second language, but it wasn’t all.

She worked in Ireland for a Fortune 500 company and was looking for promotions, bigger job, bigger company because it “seemed like the right thing to do”. She realised she wasn’t happy, she didn’t have good role models in the business, so she realised that it didn’t align to what she wanted long term.

She felt stressed out, close to burn out, but tried not to complain because she had a great job and great friends.

When she made the moved to open her own company she felt more aligned with doing what she wants to.

Nicoletta realised her priorities were all wrong after her mum died and it started a seed of through processes but it still took her 3 years to make the changes in her work and life.

She knew that if she had her own company her values would be different and she would be able to focus on her priorities and get them aligned. This wasn’t possible within the company she worked in

If you’re not aligned any more then people become disengaged and in big corporations especially it is expected that people want to move up. Yet Nicoletta had a lot of friends and colleagues that were happy staying where they were. They were happy with that they had.

Nicoletta talks about building a baseline for their confidence with her clients. This helps them to connect to something that helps them feel confident and create a benchmark around how they feel and they can recognise how confidence feels for them It is different for all of us. From that she builds on what makes them happy and where they can replicate that confidence.

She does the same with success. Which part of the work do they do, so that they feel that success. Then look at what they could do to get more of that

Nicoletta talks about being OK that we’re not good at everything. It’s OK if we need to learn more, it just means that we’re a beginner in some areas. So we can re-frame and connect again to what we want to do.

We talk about our Inner Critic and setting boundaries and sharing goals as well as being open to feedback.

Listen in to an exercise that Nicoletta talks about to focus on goals and success and how helpful it can be your future plans. She talks about

Visualise what you want
Try the things you think you want
Allow yourself the possibility to go back and don’t be afraid to change your mind.

Nicoletta has a podcast called Poise to Shine. You can find it HERE

Nicoletta’s Facebook Group is called the Confidence Tribe

Nicoletta's website is: https://nicolettamura.com/

Don't forget you can get my free workbook 7 Steps from Overwhelm to In Control HERE.

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Listen into the conversation with Susie where we talk about what drives you to make changes in life and what helps her know she has balance in her life.

I met Susie at an event and we seemed to connect and have stayed in touch ever since. Susie coaches high performers, is a speaker and writes for Families magazines.

Susie was a high performer and tried hard to be that high performer. One day she was told that if she wanted to be good at her job she needed to do less. That was confusing for her!

Her boss had just got a coach and enlisted someone for Susie too. It helped her to see where there were barriers with her team and herself.

However she had to quit a job when she was bullied. Although she says she’s so grateful about that episode because it helped to catapult her into full time coaching.

Susie talks about how she listens to how people talk and can pick up on language that people use based on logic and how they think they’ll be judged, rather than what’s going on in their gut and their core beliefs.

Emma and Susie talk about how using the word “should” can come from beliefs that are formed and we can change that language and it can help us think about things differently.

They both talk about how seemingly unpleasant events like bullying and other difficulties can bring gratefulness and change in our lives. As a previous life as Director of Innovation Susie says she should have been comfortable with change and new. Yet when she was bullied she was on the cusp of her comfort zone and this woman gave her what was needed to make the step into setting up her own business.

“How many times will I put myself through situations that clearly do not suit me anymore.”

Susie responds better by having a good strong reason NOT to do things any more. This is more compelling for her than vision boards. Vision boards are not enticing enough or uncomfortable enough to drive you forward.

The conversation flows onto what is valuable to both Susie and Emma and how it’s worth investing the time to what actually brings you joy and where you want to invest your time, energy and money.

We need some of the little things in life to help us keep that balance. We can’t always take a spa day or a holiday to reset and recover ourselves. A lot of men say they’re OK when they go to the gym, but it’s not possible if they have an injury. This is why Emma says take a walk in your lunch break or find some basic things that can create that balance for you.

Susie talks about being aware of using ‘things’ to anaesthetise feelings, and how she began noticing patterns when she’s not as happy as she could be. She’s realised that if she doesn’t leave the house her mood is not what she would want it to be. If her step count is low her mood is not great. She makes a commitment to herself that she will do 10,000 steps. She recognising how she will feel if she hasn’t met that commitment and that will drive her to go for another walk.

This is also relevant to people who don’t leave the office and making sure that people know when their mood diminishes. The commitment being made to valuing ourselves is about doing something without a significant reason other than for you.

Susie talks about how she pays attention to where things may becoming a habit but in a thoughtless way. She talks about trying new things, mixing up routines, trying new sports, ordering different food so that you keep things fresh, build your mindset and get comfortable with new.

Asking how does it make me feel and does it add any value are two key questions she asks herself.

This brings back to the values and what is driving the change.

Emma explains how she uses this method to see her through the menopause. Making choices about whether she drinks wine or values sleep more.

The one piece of advice Susie gives is don’t fake it. Find people around whom you feel safe.

Have courage, be kind and know that we don’t have all the answers.

You can find Susie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/susie-ramroop-mindset-coach/

and also look at Susie’s help sheet to find out Why You’re Playing Small at http://susieramroop.com/playingsmall

Don't forget you can get my free workbook 7 Steps from Overwhelm to In Control HERE.

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This week I'm talking about blame on the podcast. I'm covering why it happens, how we can handle it and how we can change it.

There’s such a society around us these days, with politicians, news, well, anyone really looking for “who is responsible”. But it isn’t just a recent thing. Often it can be as a result of experiences that go deeper than just society and circumstance right now.

Why do people blame? Learned behaviour: Sometimes we’ve learnt in our early lives that this is what we do when things get tough. It can be from parents, leaders, influential people in our childhood. If we don’t learn to take responsibility, and learn to look for who is at fault and who to blame, then that’s what we will do. Often without realising.

Feeling Out of Control: Often if we feel so overwhelmed, or upset and the emotions are running high and we feel out of control, then we try and regain that control by blaming others. Ultimately, what’s going on behind that is fear. It might not look like fear, but you can bet it will be!

When the fear kicks in we can become defensive and feel that we’re under attack. How would you protect yourself from that attack? Of course, you fire back.

Avoidance: What happens here is that someone is struggling with how they feel on the inside, but trying to control the outside circumstances or people. That’s never going to sort things out.

So when someone is avoiding looking at their own situation, refusing to accept responsibility, it might be about failure, confusion, getting things wrong, misunderstanding the list is endless, then they don’t want to look at the negatives in themselves, they project it outwards instead, so look for who to blame.

Elevated Status: Sometimes you might see someone putting someone else down. I didn’t do that because they did or didn’t do this. They are blaming someone else for their situation, error or circumstance and by putting someone else down, they’re elevating their own status. Thing is that people see through it. It’s not attractive. They also don’t want to be on the receiving end either.

“When you blame and criticise others, you are avoiding some truths about yourself”

Deepak Chopra

So if you’re on the receiving end of someone who likes to blame what can you do? Definitely don’t rise to the blame situation. It will only add fuel to their fire. The more you try to reason with a blamer, the more ammunition you give them to fire back at you. However pragmatic you think you’re being, they’re not on your wavelength, so don’t engage.

You might want to put some distance between you and them. That’s not always possible,, but it can help to ease the negative situation when blaming happens.

Later, when things have calmed down, have a conversation with them, obviously without doing any more blame! Tell them how you feel. Use lots of statements that include "I" statements.

When that happened I felt this / that.

I feel really upset when you blamed me for that missed deadline because I did work late / everything I could to help meet that target.

It’s not about any more blame or right or wrong, it’s about your opinion is that you felt xyz. It’s difficult to argue with an opinion.

Also see if you can look at the facts of the situation with them. See if there are any truths in what happened. You need to use careful, curious language, like the wording I mentioned in episode 44 about curiosity and also episode 42 about giving and receiving feedback.

If you have found yourself blaming then beginning to recognise that you do this, is the first step. If that’s you, well done for knowing you do it.

Then begin to look for solutions:

OK this happened, so now what?
What can be done?
What can be learned?

When you begin to pick up that responsibility for your own actions and feelings, then you’re really taking ownership of you. To accept you.

No-one is perfect. We all mess up.

Being aware of our actions and making steps towards change is always going to be better than blaming.

If this is valuable to you or to someone else, the please share this episode or book a call with me HERE to talk about how to make that change.

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What do we mean by a balanced life? Isn’t that going to be different for everyone?

Well, yes it probably is but for me, and I hope for you it’s going to be about having a happy, healthy mind and body. That then enables us to focus on having good habits which then lowers our levels of stress, anxiety, pressure.

Whilst often we can talk about wanting to be happy and healthy, for me this means emotional health too. That’s why I talk such a lot on the podcast about our mindset, our actions, how we respond and react.

Physical Health It’s all very well going to the gym regularly or some other form of keeping fit. We might eat healthily – much of the time at least. We might work hard, do a job we love, strive to be a good person, be helpful, be kind. But what’s the point of doing all that if we are still getting stressed and anxious about it. Worse still, if we are not properly giving ourselves time to rest, recover and re-charge our batteries.

Mental Health I’ve talked previously about all sorts relating to the subjects of mental health. It’s not just about self care. It’s about changing your mindset, having great boundaries, saying no to things (so that you say yes to others). All this reduces your stress and anxiety levels, so then you have more time, more energy to do things we love, just because we love them. Or even doing nothing. Yes, that’s allowed. Give yourself permission to do those things without guilt, pressure or other expectation.

Enjoyment How often do you do something you just love to do. It might be reading, drawing, singing, dancing – the list can do on.

New Learning When did you last learn something new – that wasn’t work related?

The trick with getting the balance in life is to ensure that we incorporate things we enjoy doing – just for the sake of it, for fun, for relaxation, for pleasure and balance it with things that we …. I hate to use the word … but things we must do.

Responsibilities We all have responsibilities, like work, paying the bills, looking after kids / family, but we need to get that balance between those things and the fun and joyful things. They often end up last on the list.

I don’t mean burn the candle at both ends so you can fit all this is. It’s a matter of prioritising or scheduling or just giving yourself permission. That way you ensure you don’t burn out or become ill.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton

Priorities Recognise what your priorities and values are and then plan accordingly. These can change over time.

One of my clients came to me for help in the confidence to go for promotion. Then found out his wife is expecting, just after we started working together. This baby has been a long time coming and so he’s shifted his priorities a little and is going to wait a few months until the baby is here and stay in his current role, rather than be overloaded with expectation and commitment. New job, new baby, new routines, all the new that comes with both those, do not necessarily want to happen at the same time. He made a choice.

Make Plans Sometimes you have to plan to do the must-do things and the fun things. Often if we don’t plan and put them in our calendar then weeks and months go by and nothing has happened. You’ve not met those friends, you’ve not started to read more even though really want to. Putting it in the calendar – not every day – but some days, means it’s more likely to happen.

But if other things happen, something unexpected, then you’re able to go with the flow and change things without stress or frustration. Then those times with friends, or the dancing or whatever can often be re-arranged rather than never happy at all.

We can’t plan everything, and I wouldn’t recommend that. But we do have the power to choose that we do, when we do it.

Focus Your Energy When the kids were little, we were fighting with social workers to get additional help for them. It was hard and we were getting nowhere. I was getting incredibly stressed by it and the kids needed a lot of my time, but the fighting needed a lot too. It was emotionally draining.

One day I realised that I needed to put my energy where I would get the best outcome. Fighting a system of protocol and red-tape was not going to change things. Focussing my energy on the kids could.

You can too. Decide where and how you can focus your energies. Physical and emotional energies. It might need a change of mindset, just like I had to.

It will lead to a less stressful, more balanced life.

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How often do you compare yourself to others and then get the negative emotions that follow? With the online world of facebook, Instagram and everything else, there’s a lot of information out there about what others are doing. And this can have a big impact on how we feel.

It’s not just in the online world though, it might be that you’re comparing yourself to a colleague at work, to the friend, a neighbour … the list is endless.

The thing is, we can’t control what others do, so we have to sort this thing out with ourselves.

So how do we stop comparing ourselves to others? Identify What's Going On The first thing is to start to identify when this happens. Really notice it and recognise what’s going on, not always with them, but very much with you too.

Is it a certain person that brings up the feeling with you? What is that feeling?

Is it a certain place or situation? What is it that’ going on with you?

Is it when you see someone’s apparently happy life or affluent lifestyle?

Have you been feeling like this for a long time or were you perfectly fine an hour ago, before you saw this thing / situation?

How do you feel. Really. Be honest with yourself. Are you jealous, feeling uncomfortable or not good enough? Is it a deeper feeling of shame, guilt, inadequacy?

The thing is, when the emotions kick in, for any reason at all, then we stop performing and the stress levels go up and confidence goes down.

When you start to identify what’s going on and you bring it into your awareness, then you can do something about it. That self awareness, whilst a little painful, can help you to work on the emotional turmoil that you're experiencing when comparing yourself to others.

Assess the Situation You might want to make a list or write out your feelings or emotions about these times.

You might want to take some time and give it some thought to ponder on what’s going on with you and the reason for that.

Make Some Decisions and Choices Then you can make some decisions and informed choices about what you do next.

It may be that you avoid certain situations. That’s fine, depending what the situation is. Although there’s always going to be situations where you’re at risk of compare yourself, so eventually it’s hard to avoid all of them. But if you keep looking at people with cars or houses you can’t afford or wandering round the designer shops, then you can avoid that.

You might decide to use the comparison to motivate you to achieving what you want to, or getting where you want to be. That’s fine if it creates a vision for your goals and targets. However if you’re comparing a happy family picture on facebook to your grumpy teenager family – or as I did at one point, family life, when I couldn’t have children, then the plan for motivation isn’t going apply as easily.

Remember that all is not how it appears. You’ve no idea the number of clients who have come to me with stress, anxiety, pressure, fear of failure, imposter syndrome and all sorts. Yet outwardly they look successful, like they’ve got it all together and are doing well in their career (whatever that means).

I had one client who was a millionaire. Had his own business. Gorgeously huge house. Did he have it ‘all’? Perhaps. But he was desperately unhappy and had struggles with his business and family dynamics.

I was in a mastermind group a few years ago and one member said, You’ve no idea how I feel. I have these voices in my head telling me how rubbish I am and no-one likes me, I can’t possible network and put myself out there. I stopped her and shared what I’d seen, from the outside looking in, last time I’d seen her at a network event. She had appeared to own the room. A big smile, chat, sometimes a hug, people coming up to her, she worked that room. After intros, when she told people what she did, lots of people wanted to talk to her. I reminded her that other people can’t see inside her head.

Have a think about a time when you found out something about someone and you were shocked. Maybe they were anxious or afraid of something and you had no clue. Maybe someone had a change in their situation and admitted they were struggling and you thought they looked so happy or had it all together!

All is not as it seems.

You are not them. Whatever the shiny, happy picture. You are not them.

They don’t have your …. Fill in the blanks here. They don’t have your patience, your strength, your mindset, your ability to do maths, your writing skills, your humour, your knowledge about xyz. We can go further, they don’t have your husband, wife, kids, house, job, smile, sparkly eyes, grumpy mornings, grumpy evenings … you get the gist.

Comparison means you are focussing on the the wrong person. Them. You need to focus on you.

Recognise what skills, attributes, qualities you have. Be grateful for what you have. Begin to notice things each day. Even the small things. Be grateful. It’s a simple thing that can often be overlooked. It re-wires your brain to see the positives, when done regularly. When you are regularly grateful for what you have, what you’ve achieved, however small, you recognise your successes and feel so much better about yourself that it doesn’t matter what others do.

A flower does not think of competing with the next flower. It just blooms.

Be YOU. You are unique. We are all unique. Give yourself permission to accept you as you are be blooming fantastic.

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It’s my podcast birthday this week, so even though I’m only on episode 46, I’ve been publishing for a whole year! I had a break during November and December when my lovely mum died, but other than that, I’ve been publishing an episode a week since last July.

As a way of celebrating the year of podcasting I'm asking for you to give me a little gift of a review on the podcast on the I-tunes Podcast app.

Now, I know lots of people have struggled with this, so I've given some tips on the episode and here for you too.

Open the I-tunes Podcast App.
Search for my podcast
Tap the image that comes with my podcast
Scroll down until you find "Ratings and Reviews"
Then find the tiny bit that says "Write a Review"

There you can leave some lovely comments about me and the podcast show. You can use your name or a pseudonym

I read out all the reviews on the show too so if you tune in you might hear me mention your name!

Note: If you listen on another device such as stitcher, googleplay or spotify, please leave a review there too, it just shows up differently for me.

If you listen on my website page, then leave a comment at the bottom of the blog text.

Top 10 Episodes I’ve also given you a Top 10 of the episodes this week, to give you a highlight and help you understand what other people are listening to. Also there might have been a time when you wanted to go back and listen to any you've missed, or if there was something you meant to do after listening and life took over and you forgot, now's the time to do that.

Here's the top 10:

Each title enables you to click the link straight through to the episodes.

BBP39 Getting Through Tough Times

I cover in this episode some ways to help you get through tough times. There’s also a funny story about how I trained my husband to help me by listening and not trying to fix everything.

BBP21 Successful Goals

This was a great episode that I did at the start of the year, but revisiting your goals and making them successful is something you can do at any time of year.

BBP31 An A to Z of Strategies for Resilience

I think at the time of recording I didn’t manage much for the Z but lots of people came up with suggestions after I published. But you need to have things in your daily life that help you with that ‘bounce-back-ability” so that you can manage and not just ‘push through’.

BBP4 Creating Great Business Boundaries

Of course I love that boundaries is a popular episode and I give lots of information about great business boundaries, but it’s not just in business, because I talk about people who struggle to switch off, need to respond to texts, messages, emails at ridiculous hours of the day and night.

BBP37 When You Worry Too Much

There’s a fantastic tip in this episode where I talk through using a “worry chair” to alleviate the worries. Rather than trying to ignore the worries, we can train our brain to recognise the moments and have tools to use to stop the worry getting out of hand.

BBP32 Being Equipped for Difficult Situations with Nicola Richardson

This was a fabulous episode and the top 10 guest episode with Nicola. There’s a fabulous chat that we have about some difficult situations and details of a course that Nicola provides.

BBP2 Creating Your Happy Place

This is my most favourite episode. I use this all the time, when things are difficult, when life gets too much or just when I’m at the dentist, waiting for something and even travelling. It talks through how to create your happy place.

BBP6 Dealing with Overwhelm

There is a free guide to go along with this too, to help you deal with overwhelm. You can get it here at www.emmalangton.com/overwhelm and get the download. The episode talks you through what to do too.

BBP10 The Power of Visualisation

The interesting thing with visualisation is that you can trick your brain to believing that ‘thing’ has already happened. So when you go to do something for real, your brain thinks you’ve already done it, so you are much calmer, more confident and actions become more automatic.

BBP5 From Self Doubt to Self Belief

The Top spot on the Business Balance Podcast is talking about self doubt to self belief. There’s also a free guide for this at www.emmalangton.com/selfdoubt This is something I work with an awful lot and I run through the steps I use with all my clients.

If you’re ready to work with me, then contact me and lets talk about how you can move from self doubt, get out of overwhelm, learn visualisation, set your goals, create great boundaries, stop the worries and be awesome.

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This week I’m joined by Stephanie Bosch, she has worked in corporate banking for 12 years and knows what it feels like to put on a mask and experience the darker side of leadership. She says that instead of living up to our best selves, we can sometimes feel like misfits and people who just don’t fit in because we can’t express themselves and therefore hold ourselves back. Her mission is to teach leaders how to ‘use the winning tactics of the bad guys but with compassion and authenticity”.

There’s such a lot of similarities with the people Emma works with about the things that hold people back and the talk of ‘putting on the mask”.

Stephanie talks about her journey through banking in Germany and leaving after 6 years to go into management consulting and recruiting. She did this until she met her husband who lived in London, so came to the UK.

She started her business and now focusses on those who feel they are not fitting in or being annoyed by bad leadership. So there’s an interesting discussion point there about people who move up the career ladder because they are good at what they do, but don’t have the training or skills to manage people and be leaders.

“People don’t remember what you say, but remember the way you make them feel”

Stephanie also talks about company culture about career progression that leaves people frustrated or struggling with their job because they don’t have the people management skills, even though they’re good at other aspects of their job.

Stephanie talks about how she recognised that she wore a mask herself through her career and felt like she didn’t belong. She felt like she has two different lives, between corporate and personal life, even having two different wardrobes.

She talks about what did after this realisation to develop her confidence in herself.

Stephanie has a series of interviews called “Ditch Your Mask” and explains why she uses the term and how she can now look at helping people. Often we are too close to be able to see things for ourselves and the culture we work in can shape us, with formality and structure in big companies.

Stephanie talks about how to Ditch Your Mask and the first step is to be aware that there is a mask and feel a need to want to change. Change is difficult and uncomfortable so we need the reasons to want to change. Then figure out where does the mask not fit me, so identifying where it does not fit us and how do we want to be. Stephanie always wants to make sure that people feel safe a ready to change. It might mean small changes about the way we show up, for example, speaking up or stopping people pleasing. This enables you feel better about who you are.

Also figure out who you want to grow into and how you want to be. This is not about picking a role model and copying them, but identify aspects for yourself. Then getting a plan about when and how to ditch the mask. But we need a strong reason why because this can be an uncomfortable process but then instead of feeling exposed, you can do this with confidence.

We talk about being vulnerable and how this is not about the pity party, but being clear on the reason behind showing up, being clear on your own values and ensuring that it sits in line with your own values and how you want others to feel.

Have you thought about what your values are and then do they run through everything that you do?

Emma shares about her values and what it means and how it runs through her company as a great example of getting to the core of your values and ensuring they are well defined.

It’s important to share learnings, but not getting into the “Pity Party” but also being clear on sharing learnings. Emma shares her reason for her business, which isn’t about the pity party but recognising the importance for sharing a story and this is also a reason for doing what she does. Then it means she can share the learnings, and share the experiences, without woe me.

Stephanie talks about how we teach best what we need to learn. She has learned over the years that you cannot just numb negative emotions and put the mask on. She would tell her younger self that

“It’s OK not to be OK”

Sharing struggles and sharing joy is important. It would be good if she had learned this when she was younger. Life without emotions is just so boring. Emma talks about how there can be no filter with emotions, so if we numb down the unpleasant ones then we will stop the joy too.

Stephanie’s one piece of advice would be to really take your time with ditching the mask, whilst making yourself aware of the things that are not fitting and working for you. Don’t be led by other people’s standards and instead, figure out what you want and how you really want to be. Doing this can challenge your thinking and enable you to do things that stretch you and see if you can enjoy those things.

You find Stephanie HERE and her YouTube Channel, Ditch Your Mask is here. with all the interviews she has done (including one of me!).

As ever, if you want to get in touch with me then drop me an email here or book a call with me to talk about how my coaching can help you perform at your best.

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Curiosity is the impulse to seek new information and experiences and explore novel possibilities is a basic human attribute.

Curiosity is something that we're born with. Listen as Emma talks about how a toddler or young child demonstrates that natural curiosity. All those questions, and exploring and no holding back on whether things are right or wrong. They’re just amazed and interested in everything. Emma often says that brains are like sponges, taking everything in and learning at an amazing rate. A young person is like a little learning machine and part of this is because of curiosity.

Curiosity is often the first point of the learning process, with a gradual move from a conscious to an unconscious action. Emma explains this more on the podcast.

Research shows that curiosity improves our ability to learn and retain information.

Curiosity means we explore, try, learn, invent. Just think about all that exploration and what if that has resulted in high rise buildings, mobile phones, computers, aeroplanes, travel in space.

Apparently Einstein used to say

“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious,”

Curiosity is a mindset that can be activated. Curiosity is the fuel for inquiry, learning and discovery – that’s why it’s critical for you, personally, professionally as well as for business and organisational growth and innovation.

Leaders who curiously observe what people say, what they do, and seek to understand deeply what matters to them find the most valuable problems to solve. In my coaching with business leaders we often have discussions around human behaviour and how the brain works because these leaders are curious about their teams and staff. Why do they do that? How can I get / improve / change

Is your company a ‘curious’ organisation? Putting curiosity at the heart of your organisation helps boost employee wellbeing.

When we are curious, we view tough situations more creatively. When we ask questions and genuinely listening to the responses it improves relationships and some research has shown that ‘curious’ companies said they were happy at work compared to just 45% in the ‘non-curious’ organisations.

Why do we refrain from being curious? There can be a number of reasons we shy away from being curious or asking questions, but essentially because we fear we’ll be judged incompetent, indecisive, or unintelligent. Plus, time is precious, and we don’t want to bother people.

By asking questions, we promote more meaningful connections and more creative outcomes.

Another way that you or any leaders can model curiosity is by acknowledging when they don’t know the answer; that makes it clear that it’s OK to be guided by curiosity.

Encourage questions - any type of question. Even the daft or silly questions.

Open up questioning and curiosity. Some of the ways I first learnt to do with is with the kids.

Listen as Emma explains that asking 'why' kicks off a part of the brain that jumps into fear, judgement, panic. So starting your sentences with curious questioning helps calm down the brain so the person is not in a state of panic and reacting in a defensive way. This is some of the most common conversations I have with clients.

Curious questioning often works well with a tilt of the head, and even a slight sing song voice, or as if you’re thinking out loud.

Listen in as she explains how you can use the different ways of questioning with the following examples:

I’m wondering

Help me understand

Tell me more (a favourite of Brene Brown)

I’m curious - of course, its an obvious but valid one

I can see that ….

Correct me if I’m wrong. This gives the other person the opening to explain and is similar to help me understand but can sometimes be good if you’ve been exploring a lot of information and you’re trying to summarise or gather thoughts.

When leaders create an environment of curiosity, they inspire their employees to ask questions, to learn, and to seek problems and solutions for themselves.

When employees are curious, they are open to discovering new things, and this leads to better insights, understanding and creates opportunity for problem solving and innovation.

WHEN DID YOU LAST FEEL CURIOUS? WHAT IF YOU FOLLOWED YOUR CURIOSITY?

Contact Emma here to let her know when you were last curious or if you want to ask any question or provide feedback.

To book a call with Emma and get curious about how coaching will help you use this link.

To vote for Emma in the business awards she mentions on the podcast (voting open until August 2019) click here and look for her name in both Business Service and also in Health &Wellbeing. Emma says "I'd love it if you would vote in both categories for me, it only takes a minute".

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Are you saying yes, instead of no because you’re a people pleaser or because you end up feel guilty?

For many it’s a worry or fear about what others will think. I’ve previously covered the fear of rejection in episode 16 and just last week talked about giving and receiving feedback.

When you hear me talk about boundaries – which can be a lot – what I say is that boundaries teach respect. So by having great boundaries and learning to say no means that we show people and ourselves that we are not a pushover, we treat ourselves respectfully too.

Apparently the Mayo clinic has done research that concludes that saying no can help to reduce your stress levels and increase your happiness.

How can you say no? A key element is to ensure you’re concise. Too much waffle and they will pick holes in what you’re saying.

No excuses – you don’t really need to give an explanation, and often when there are excuses, you give people space to try and persuade you otherwise.

At work, if your colleague or boss asks you to do something extra. If you’re going to struggle then stick to the facts and point out, if I do this, then that will happen. What would you like me to work on first? What would you like to let slide from the deadlines? I used to do this all the time. Sometimes they forget all that you’re doing, or don’t stop to think about your timelines and deadlines and workload. All you’re doing is pointing it out and helping them to remember.

If you're asked if you will do a baking for the school or some other thing – often they sound like a small thing, but reality is it’s not a 10 minute job.

I don’t have time and would hate to let you down, so I’ll have to say no.

If they try to persuade just repeat the same.

I just don’t have time. Sorry.

See how concise that is? No excuses.

You might be thinking “oh gosh, doesn’t anyone else every do these things” I get you. But don’t say it out loud. Then that’s the resentment showing through.

Keep it simple.

No I can’t, I have something else arranged.
No, I’ve got a prior commitment
Sorry, I don’t have availability to fit that in

If you get asked to contribute to a charity event / sponsored thing at work and it feels like everyone is asking you right now then ...

Thanks so much for asking me. I’ve already given to a few charities/sponsorships this month. I’ll bear this in mind for another time. Good luck with everything.

This doesn’t directly say no. So it’s a great one if you struggle with the word, but you’re still clear and leave no room for any persuasion or them to try to and re-negotiate.

Now, if you truly believe that these people will be upset with you, then they’re already not respecting you and your time and your values or limits. So really, that’s an indication about them, not you.

Anyone that gets upset, moody or is just expecting you to pick things up really isn’t bearing you in mind at all with this. You have a right to say no without having to explain all the time.

If all else fails, do the “I’ll get back to you:. Let me check that and let you know gives you the ability to get away from the situation. You can assess. Take deep breaths. Formulate your answer and deliver later, not too much later, when you’ve had a bit of space to practice saying no.

Give yourself permission to say no without the pressure, guilt or worry.

This might take practice. But it will get easier and you’ll feel so much more confident too. Confidence of anything comes with practice.

What will you say no to this week? I’d love you to message me and let me know, or book a call and let talk about your boundaries and self worth.

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BBP42 Giving and Receiving Feedback

How good are you at taking feedback or even giving feedback?

Yet another podcast episode inspired by the activities in the BB House with GCSEs taking place. Emma talks about the conversation she has with her daughter when reviewing the practice exam papers. She struggled with some feedback and said ‘I know that you’re right, I just don’t like to hear it”

It’s often common that many of us don’t always like to give or receive feedback.

We need to make sure when we give feedback, we are clear, concise and definitely not unkind.

Whether you’re a business owner, a leader in business or need to give or receive feedback in any other place in your life. For many of us it can be difficult to give feedback or hear it.

When I was in corporate work, we gathered 360 feedback. It looked at what went well, what wasn’t going well, what can be improved. This type of information can help us to improve.

Many of us struggle to receive and give feedback. We can dread the thought of giving or hearing feedback. That phrase about constructive criticism provokes a feeling of dread, fear or unease.

Feedback done the right way, with the right intentions can help us to improve our understanding or performance. Sometimes it means we need to do a bit of personal work or even stay calm enough to be able to hear it.

Emma talks about the way she asks for feedback in her coaching business and gives examples. Some of the questions that Emma asks, helps her to know what needs are being met and what can be done to improve, so that we do not settle into situations and stop the progress.

When you’re thinking about feedback, make sure it will give you information that you want, even if it’s difficult to hear.

Feedback should not be about giving surprising information. Especially in the workplace. Emma talks about quarterly 1:1 meetings to ensure regular updates. It can help to ensure you’re working on track and not going down a path that is not helpful.

Ensure feedback is really clear and specific. Stick to the facts with feedback. Sometimes you might want to say “this might be hard to hear” to pre-empt that it might be difficult but there is a better response. Be factual and keep the emotions out of the feedback.

Be clear about what you mean. Be exact with the information, perhaps about the piece of work, is it accurate, or is the person to friendly or too casual. Being exact means that person knows what they need to tweak or change to correct and adjust.

Ensure you don’t generalise or over-exaggerate. Using words like “all” or “never” means it’s probably not true, so try not to use phrases like this.

Give feedback from a person-centred approach – using the work I. I felt this, I saw this. When we use “you” it can seem accusatory and can seem like we are wagging a finger in their face, so keep the feedback to I heard / I felt.

Use a feedback sandwich. This starts with a positive piece of feedback, then the negative, then finish with a positive. If it’s just negative feedback it can feel like an attack and the other person gets defensive or disheartened.

If you’re asking for feedback. Be careful. Sometimes some people ask for feedback and don’t like the information or answer that they receive! If you’re asking for feedback, bear in mind there will always be more than one opinion, sometimes that might not be what you want to hear.

Emma shares a story about people sat round a table and someone asks for feedback, but the response was not what was expected. It made for a difficult situation.

Whatever the emotions that arise as a result of feedback, you’re not responsible for other people’s feelings. Ensure your feedback is helpful and constructive.

But don’t ask questions if the answer might not be what you want to hear! Sometimes we need to take a deep breath, take on board the information and decide what you will use and what you will not.

As a final helpful point, Emma advises that you make sure you get feedback from people you respect and that are invested in you too. If someone is on opposing sports team, then their opinion and feedback is not going to align.

Often if clients get a tough piece of feedback Emma advised them to go and look at a book review. Pick a book that you’ve read that was great for you, notice the reviews that align with your views and also that there will be other negative opinions there. Sometimes there will be feedback (often that we haven’t asked for) and it might not be applicable.

You have a choice about what you listen to, what helps you grow and move forward.

Get in touch with Emma to book a call or email any feedback.

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What do you do when you love making money but it’s never supposed to be talked about?

This is the conversation I have with Sarupa Shah who always knew she had healing qualities but also had an MBA. She knew she wanted to make money in her business.

Emma talks about how refreshing it is to hear the conversation about being comfortable talking about making money. It’s not about making money in a mercenary way. This is something Sarupa had to rationalise, even from the times in her corporate world where people couldn’t believe how she was able to make the money from the experience she had.

“Particularly as women, we want to say we’re not doing it for the money, but if we are not doing it to earn money, then there are no brownie points for doing this.”

Money is simply an exchange of value for value. We pay for something we need and the person receives that value. It provides a commitment. We can all go on free calls, free webinars and never implement anything because we have no real investment, other than the time we have spent. Money is a stronger investment.

Emma mentions how she talks a lot about the mindset and the beliefs we grow up with and how this can affect our beliefs about money too. When Emma digs deep into the beliefs about money and some of the experiences they have and the examples they give about what they think about money, it sets the value for themselves and the belief about how money comes around.

Sarupa doesn’t talk about spreadsheets and spending but from that point of the relationships with yourself. Money is an ally that will enable you to do the things you want to do, homes extensions, holidays etc. When the people we work with are invested they are more likely to implement, grow and receive the work we do with them when we invest, respect and appreciate ourselves.

“It’s just me, why would anyone want to pay me for that?” A can of worms can open up and every belief we hold can come to the surface.

Emma talks about the belief of “if you work hard, you will do well” and Sarupa talks about how she believes we need to work smarter. Sometimes we need to look at the reality and assess whether we are really turning up to our desk to productive work, rather than the constant thinking in our head, doing it all and feeling like nothing is working. There’s no rhythm or consistency because people are not really showing up in their work.

Did you have one turning point that made you realise you can change the way you think about things or was it a series of things that happened? Sarupa shares that she was a terrible employee but when she was running her own business she came to realization that she was running off her savings and had to remember that her family used to call her “lucky devil” who always believed she could make things happen.

She could see she was making a difference in other people’s lives and wondering what was wrong with her then. Her money work was born then, she had a lot of judgement about being wrong or greedy and had to deal with that.

Emma shares her experiences of her network when people ask to work for free, or for the exposure or a reference. Sarupa shares that she’s not a fan of trading skills because the energy and investment becomes imbalanced. The exchange of swapping money is really important and allows us to grow with that investment.

What steps do the listeners need to take to build on the money story? It’s about being honest with ourselves and look at the story you are telling yourself. Take a long hard look in the mirror and look at what’s not working, what can you do about moving through the uncomfortable feelings and the other stories that come up. Being able to be honest and allowing yourself to get support in. Stop looking at getting support in as being a failure. We need to give ourselves the support we need and explore the inner work about our value, our courage and addressing the stories, beliefs, excuses and fears.

That way we explore and break old patterns and change habits so that we do things differently. That way we can write a new money storey.

Where to find Sarupa Shah The Abundance Aunt Column in the Spirit and Destiny Magazine

https://thesoulagentblog.com/ has resources and information on Sarupa’s work.

To get in touch with Emma, you can contact her by email and book a call to talk about how to help you perform at the next level without the fear doubt or overwhelm.

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How often do you undervalue yourself? What is not often clear is that our own sense of value, our self-worth comes from our very core. It’s about our inherent belief we have around our value. However, it also sets the standard for how others value us. How family, friends, relationships value us often comes from the messages we give out and the value we have of ourselves. So, what can you do to value yourself more?

We all have some sort of value to offer. Yes, we do. Even if you’re reading this and dismissing it. We all have a value. Even if you’re thinking “isn’t it a bit boastful or bigheaded?” Well, no. It’s about being realistic about who you are and what you offer. That’s what I mean when I say it comes from your core. It has to come from inside you.

If you look at external recognition and validation for the value you offer in any situation then you’re going to get a mixed response – because we’re all different. One person can tell you you’re amazing and great and another person will think that thing is only mediocre! Ouch!

Maybe you’ve been fixing your value on what you earn, on your income, on the flashy car, on getting approval from someone or even the number of likes / shares / comments on social media. (I know we see this a lot with teens, but it doesn’t always stop there does it).

When we recognise our faults, we know we’re not perfect but then we also know areas to develop and work on. That’s a good thing.

Here's 5 ways you can start to value yourself more. Be Kind to Yourself By this I mean that we forgive ourselves for mistakes and struggles. It’s easy to get things wrong, to forget things, to get cross with the kids. But if you beat yourself up and go back over things for days, you’re focusing on the negatives and mistakes you’ll be punishing yourself for days. Be kind and accepting of yourself.

Listen in for the example I gave about changing perspective on a mistake and what I did with my daughter so she didn't beat herself up.

Also, don’t put yourself down. If you’re someone who says “I’m just xyz” when asked what you do. Please stop. You are not "just" anything – you are a unique, valuable, and wonderful human being who matters.

Put Yourself First Well, at least put yourself higher up your list of priorities. It’s a bit like the old oxygen mask scenario isn’t it. If you don’t put your oxygen mask on, you won’t be around to help others. This is something I’ve talked with clients a lot this past week. Sometimes you have to recognise that you need sleep / food / time out otherwise those other things just won’t happen! So you put a value on you – whether you’re the lynchpin, the organiser, the calmer-down, the one who delivers. If you’re not well, none of that stuff will happen.

Stop the comparisons Gosh this is such a destructive way to be yet so many people do this. In my work I see and hear lots of others who would appear to have a great job, fabulous business, some other things that we might admire but it’s not always the be-all. The thing is that you only get to see what they want them to see.

I’ve worked with WAGs, millionaires, senior businessmen, musicians oh the list goes on. All would appear to ‘have’ the idyllic life. Let me tell you that there was a reason they came to work with me and it wasn’t because life was rosey. It can be a tough one, but really work on accepting yourself for who you are.

Celebrate Your Successes This is not about boasting and oversharing. This is about getting real honest, decent feedback from people around you that you respect. When we get used to sharing the good positive achievements, we also are able to get validation about our value, our contribution. Remind yourself of the things you’ve achieved. Keep a notebook if necessary so you can look back through if times are tough or if you need help remembering. If someone pays you a compliment, say thank you. However uncomfortable you might feel. Practice saying thank you.

Do Your Development There are lots of ways you can increase your development. This blog and The Business Balance Podcast is one way! So well done for tuning in or reading. Even better if you’re taking action.

One of my business buddies talked the other day about listening to podcasts and writing notes. That’s awesome. But there are blogs, books, videos all sorts of things you can do to increase your development. You might want to develop your fitness, develop a skill – they don’t all have to be work related.

If you’d like to talk about how to increase your value, confidence, self belief or reduce the stress, doubt or overwhelm then I’ve got just two spaces right now for 1:1 clients. Book your call here to talk about what’s going on with you and let see if we’re the right fit for each other.

To finish I’d like to say a thank you to those who have left a review of this podcast on i-tunes. If you want to get yours read out then go over and leave me a review.

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BBP39 Getting Through Tough Times

What do we do when things get really tough and we feel like there are too many challenges and so much difficulty that we think we can’t deal with it? In the business balance house it’s GCSE time and there is a lot of pressure on my daughter, on teens generally, but also it’s tough for the parents when trying to balance the teen pressure, behaviour and timescales.

Also, when I think about how I balanced the household, business, family when my mum was ill. That was tough. There can be lots of reasons that we have a lot going on and things feel tough.

So what can we do to help us get through tough times. Here's a few things I discussed with my daughter around GCSEs and with clients recently too.

In the podcast, I go into more detail on each of these, but this gives you an idea:

Keep a Perspective We can beat ourselves up quite easily about trying to do all things. We can lose perspective about timeframes too. Break things down. Listen in for the example I give where the exams feel too much and how we broke it down from seeming like big challenge of 6 weeks, to being 17 days. It changes the perspective and keeps it more positive. I also change the countdown to my holidays, as I explain in the episode. So you change the perspective to change how big, how far away, how much it is that you have to do.

Focus on What You Can Control This is what I used to do in corporate with transformations and change. People got stressed about the plans. We can’t change what senior level decide. We can’t change what the government decides about GCSEs. When we recognise what we can change and what we can’t, then we have to go with the flow.

Can we influence things? If you can influence with the effort you put in, the way you show up, by doing the revision, then yes we can influence this.

If there is nothing you can do, then perhaps you need to let things go. I let it go about what our government decides our kids at school need to do with exams! If it’s to do with your job then maybe you decide you can change and control by looking for another job, stepping up in area, getting coaching, learning something else to go and get another job or promotion, or, you need to let things go.

Set Goals or Rewards When you focus on the outcomes, your big why then it can help to drive you forward. Sometimes it feels too big to focus on the bigger picture or importance, so it really depends where you are and how you think. For my daughter, getting GCSEs, it’s about where she wants to go after this, to sixth form and university. Also for her, I reminded her that she’s got a longer summer from June after the exams and she can spend time doing other things.

For my client, listen in where I explained about how I talked about making a plan, having a goal even if you don’t like having things nailed down in fine detail. Having a time set ahead you can see in your diary that there is a time for your goal and reward.

Be Kind to Yourself Give yourself a break. The thing that will get you through these tough times is being kind to you and enabling you do some of the things you love, just as much as pushing ahead on the tough stuff.

Know You’re Not Alone For my daughter I reminder her that there’s all the children in her school and across the country! That’s a lot of children. When we know we are not alone, it calms things down and we remember it’s not just us.

Listen in the Emma explaining about how many people she sees with the worries, stress, anxiety and tough times. That’s a lot of clients who have had struggles. You are definitely not alone.

Talk to Others This is part of knowing you’re not alone. When we reach out we often get feedback that says “I’ve felt like that too”. The important thing is to listen. It’s not about fixing their problem, it’s just listening.

“A problem shared is a problem halved”.

Listen as Emma tells the story of how she had to offload when the kids were little and needed to train her husband to be able to listen and not fix or solve the problem.

Hopefully this is helpful. It’s not intended for someone with severe mental health issues, but times can get tough and we need to be able to change the way we think about things to feel like we can cope.

If you feel you need someone to talk to then do get in touch or call and speak to someone.

If this has been of value to you, please leave me a comment or a review and share with someone else to help them too.

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Our inner beliefs and the perceptions that we have of ourselves can play a big part in keeping us stuck, keeping us small. They limit the belief that we have about ourselves and our abilities.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the majority of beliefs will have become programmed within us from an early age. A young person aged between 0-7 years old has a mind like a sponge. The mind’s whole purpose is to soak up the information from all around us. It’s how we are programmed, how our brains work and how we learn.

The information that we take on board, can come from everywhere in our lives, everything we see, everything we do and everything that is said to us. All of our experiences, circumstances and the people around us – family, friends, parents, teachers and others shape our beliefs. So does society, television, books, games… the list can go on and on! You get the idea.

Forming Our Beliefs We form our beliefs from positive statements we hear, positive information and feedback we receive, we create positive inner beliefs which help us to achieve success. However, negativity also influences our beliefs, negative feedback and negative comments can create negative beliefs which hold us back and limit our success. These negative or limiting beliefs become the things we believe about ourselves. Whilst these beliefs are not necessarily true facts about ourselves, they are things we we believe to be true.

For example if someone says “that’s stupid” or “that’s not enough” then we often assume that statement is about us, especially at a young age. It might have been said about an action or piece of work, but at a young age, there is no ability to differentiate, so it is assumed that the comment is about ourselves.

Naturally, our brain fills in the gaps between what we see, what we hear and what happens around us. Then we may start to form a belief about ourselves that we are stupid. That young person may begin to believe “I am stupid”. This then becomes a self-limiting belief which gets in the way of us achieving our goals, whether we realise it is happening or not!

How Belief Affects Us There's a story that I tell people who work with me - listen in for that.

We learn these beliefs and if we don’t change them, they become who we are. In order to break free, we have to change those negative beliefs to positive ones. As long as you believe that you cannot accomplish something, you won’t accomplish it. Your inner beliefs define who you are, but inner beliefs can be changed.

When we are able to let go of that belief about ourselves, we are able to see things differently, approach situations differently and respond differently.

If you ever say, “I can’t…” then that is a limiting belief. It is not true, but if it is your belief than it becomes true.

“I can’t go for that promotion because…” As long as this is your belief, then you won’t get the promotion, because it's probably easier not to try. It's safer to stay where you are.

Those fear responses that we have are designed to keep you safe. However sometimes the safety isn't about life and death, it's just about being at ease or comfortable.

"I can't possible ask xyz ... what if they say no?" This is a common one and I've talked in episode 16 about the fear of rejection.

Identifying Beliefs Stop to listen to the words you use and the messages you say to yourself or others around you. What reasons are you giving for not being able to do something? Here’s the things – at the end of the day, these reasons, they’re actually excuses. Oooh I know that might sound harsh. These excuses are going to be based on your limiting beliefs. If you want to make changes and keep moving forward and onwards then I’m sorry, we’re going to have to look at the tough stuff. So listen to your words. Write them down if necessary. Then take it up a level to find an overall belief.

One of my beliefs was about being judged. Listen in to the way that bothered me and what I did about it.

How to Change Limiting Beliefs When we work on our limiting beliefs, things in our everyday life start to change.

Identify the belief Listen to the words you are saying and the excuses you are making.
Accept the belief Recognise and accept that this is your belief. Write it down and own it.
Challenge the belief Question it, challenge it. Is it really, really true? Is it true NOW? What if this really just does not apply or if you got it wrong when you were little?
Look for evidence Start to look for evidence that this belief is not true. Maybe if it’s I’m not good enough, get out all your certificates of training or your pay slips or look at your family. Does it really show that belief?

5.Create a new belief Write this down too. Next to each negative belief write a new positive belief.

For example:
Limiting Belief: I cannot speak in front of people; I am too shy.
New Belief: I am a good speaker and have information that others will want to hear.

Every day look at your list of new positive beliefs and say them to yourself – out loud!

Say them to yourself whenever you are feeling a lack of confidence. You may even want to list them on a note card to carry around with you so they are available throughout the day. If you keep saying them, they will eventually become a part of you. You will have changed your inner beliefs to positive ones.

What success or progress could you achieve when you stop limiting yourself through your beliefs?

I’d love you to let me know in the comments or send me an email.

If you loved this episode, please do leave a review and sign up for my newsletter to get this in your inbox at the next release date!

If you want to talk about working with me then book a call

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What can we do when we worry too much?

This episode is inspired by the help I've been provided for my daughter whilst she's worrying about her GCSE's. It's not just GCSE's that cause worry these days. There's so much pressure in daily lives that what works for my teen also works for my clients (and vice versa).

When you find the thoughts go round and round in your head, what do you do? Ignore them? When we do that they make our head busy, we can’t think straight.

Here's what we can do when we worry too much.

Recognise Them First we need to recognise they are they are there.

Listen into the explanation Emma gives about how worries are like a small child vying for attention. Eventually, we need to turn out attention to that child and listen.

We need to do the same with our worries. Recognise they are there.

"Train your brain to recognise those nagging moments"

If we continue to pretend those anxious thoughts are not there, they will continue to remind us they are!

Create a Worry Spot Find a chair or space in your house that you can sit in for about 10 minutes a day and give time and space to your worries. Make sure this is a space you don’t normally use, a spare chair or even half way up the stairs! Use this worry spot to let the thoughts, worries, stressors go round in your head. Allow them to be there. Often given them time and space to just ramble around can make them seem clearer or less of a concern. If some of them aren’t sorted in 10 minutes, then that’s ok. Just tell them you’ll come back to them the next day.

5.20m

"When you calm down the worries you create space in your head"

Listen to the Worries When we begin to recognise what those are there, we can change them. That’s it – – just notice them – allow them to be there. With a bit of practice the thoughts can begin to seem different. When you’ve noticed that they are there, instead of trying to stop them, avoid them, ignore them or even change them. Just let them be there.

6.30m Listen to the explanation about how Emma helped her daughter with a customer service type plan.

You might like to let your thoughts know you’ve notice them, that you know they are there. You can do this out loud if you like but a little thought in your head will do the trick. Then you don’t have to do anything else with those anxious thoughts, you don’t have to tell anyone else they are there. You don’t even have to agree with them. Just notice them.

Sort Them Out When you really spend a few moments recognising they are there; you can begin to sort them out. Are they big or small? Are they heavy or light? Which ones are really important and which are just little niggles? Maybe some are busy whizzing around and others have been sat there while.

Some you might need to make an appointment to sort out the worry and look at it in more detail. Then the worry won't keep nagging you to look at it and remember it.

That way, whatever shape, size, level of importance they have, it gets so much easier to cope with them being there without them being so difficult / annoying / scary.

Retraining Your Worry Brain 9.30m If you've been a constant worrier for a long time, you might need to sit down for 10 minutes each day and look at the worries. Doing this frequently will re-train your brain and over time the worries will be become less.

It might seem a bit weird at first – especially if you’ve lived with worries and anxious thoughts for a loooonnng time. It can be a weird in a good way!

Let me know how you get on with a comment below or get in touch with me, drop me a message HERE or book a call with me to talk about how I can help you .

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On this episode I'm joined by Lori J Lee who has Love Your Story Podcast and came to talk to me about that subject.

Lori does research on the personal narrative of your story.

We talked about having balance in our lives in connection with that.

One of the main things that is really interesting to become aware of is the idea that our stories and our lives, are created by our culture's and our religions, our families, social groups. When you realise that all of that is constructed, then even the things we think are important, are actually very fluid. We can also realise that it's within your mental capability to decide what is actually important to you and what you actually want to spend time on.

Stories that we focus on, has a lot to do with whether you feel balanced, and where you're focusing your time. So I think all of that just gets woven together, really interestingly.

3.13m Emma often talks about these British expectations that we have, about the stiff upper lip and where we don't talk about emotions, we don't talk about feelings, it is quite a sort of Northern European thing, but very much a British thing.

Lori says how that's a perfect example of our story narrative.

When we talk about balance in our lives, balance might look some, like something different for each person. So if your priorities are very strongly revolving, say, around your family, and career, and those are your main focuses, then for you, those would be the two things that you would want to balance.

Whereas for somebody else balance might be being really physically healthy, a real focus on working out and being really focused on the nightlife and being social. Another thing that might be very important to them is just friend relationships, maybe they're not as connected to their family.

So balance also is going to look different for people, depending on what stage of life you're in. And depending on what all of those other cultural factors are that have informed you, as you've created your own perception of what a good life looks like.

What makes a good story? I think maybe just even acknowledging that is important to realise that the story changes. What makes a good story? When you think about the books and the movies, you really get drawn into the good stories. They're the ones where a character has something very important to them that they need and want, and they're willing to work for it and push past obstacles. That's what makes a good story.

So when we're looking at writing our own life stories, we get to take into consideration, that a good life story doesn't look like sitting and binge watching Netflix, right? A good story isn't even working and working, working. So you can buy that next new car or that better house. And if you were watching a movie about that, you're not going to be cheering them on, you're going to feel ripped off on what your money back, because that's a really boring storyline.

The good stories are the ones where we're being vulnerable, where we're trying for things where we're learning things, where we're out there in the mess, and getting the message out of the mess, whatever that is.

So, when we're talking about life stories, we're not talking about something clean, we're talking about the messiness of learning and growing and seeking for things and falling down. And one of the main things that I think is important as business people and just as people is to realise the control that we have over the things that happen. And let me clarify that - I don't mean, the control we have necessarily on what happens to us, but the control we have on the stories we build around what happens to us.

So there are things we do that we cause to have happen. And there are things that happen in our lives that somebody else causes to happen. And then there are things in life that happened that you know, somebody gets cancer, or they're just things about life living that aren't necessarily someone's fault, they just are things we have to deal with. And in those spaces, the real power of coming to understand your life story and the story you want to create, moving forward.

Regarding balance or regarding stress, or regarding just living a life story you're going to be proud of, really have to do with that control that you have. And you might not have control over what other people do, or just the the life things that happen that you do have control about your perception of those and the meaning that you give them.

Did Life Turn Out as Expected? Lori talks about how she did not love her story and she started a research project to look at life expectations. The short answer is, of course not. That question when asked, resulted in 19 out of 20 people saying no, it did not.

She put in a lot of emotional intelligence work in coming to love her story which propelled her into the space of creating the "Love Your Story" podcast and interviewing people about their story. They are people who are dealing with the hard stuff, but look for the meaning behind those situations. They look for the things that they can take away from a difficult experience rather than just the pain and just the cynicism and just the bitterness.

What Stories are We Telling Ourselves? 16.20. Lori encourages listeners to talk a bit of an inventory. Are you creating a story around any part of your life where you're feeling victimised, picked on, mistreated, embittered?

We all that those spaces. But when we get to them, we get to decide whether we decide to look for something more up-lifting. Sometimes we have to dig for that and sometimes we only get to see the learning once we've got through the dark space. But it all comes back to what stories are we telling ourselves?

You get to tell yourself a story about how blessed you are because you're learning and show real gratitude about the things that are working. Or we can sit there and look at all the things that are rubbing us the wrong way at that moment.

Depending which stories we tell ourselves, this will create the life experience that we're having. If we're looking for the positive we will see that versus all of the things that are going wrong.

18.15 Emma talks about how we can re-wire our brain to see the positives and things we're grateful for. This includes all the small things in the day. Lori talks about how these can help us realise how many wonderful things go on. Those focuses change the whole layout of the day. They discuss some of the day to day tiny thing that bring joy into their lives.

"No storyteller can describe everything that ever happens to a hero. As autobiographers, we build our stories from a very limited selection of facts. The information we choose to include or exclude determines whether we see our lives as comedy, tragedy, romance, or adventure" Martha Beck

In other words, our stories become what we focus on.

If you could tell your younger self, what would you say? I didn't realise the extent to which I can control over the stories I told myself. How would my three divorces look differently if I'd felt less victimised? How would it have looked different, if I had understood more about what I could focus on. I don't know how it would have changed things.

25.0m Lori talks about what she's focussing on now in her relationships.

All the listeners need to think about their significant other. Of course, there's going to be irritants there always are, but are you focused on the irritants? are you focusing on the reasons you let them into your life in the first place? And just that focus is going to determine so much about where that relationship goes?

"They're doing the best they can, at this time, with what they know and their experiences" Brene Brown.

Lori shares the detail about her new book. LIFE - 21 life hacks.

LIFE, stands for Living Intentional and Fearless Every-day. And it's the 21 life connection challenges. And I specifically wrote it, because it's 21 life hacks. So it's a way to practice doing and creating things in your everyday life story, that are going to create more connection, and more self care and more possibility in your life story. So they're, they're wonderful. It's done in a workbook style. But one of those things, one of the challenges on is for that particular day, to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

When you do these challenges every day, you start to see the difference that it makes.

We're all living the best we can, but when we do these challenges it can shift the way we feel. Lori gives a great example of how this worked for her and helped a friendship that she might have let slip.

The more we practice this, over and over, like any neural pathway, the more fantastic you'll see it play out in your life. Then those stories serve you and don't hold you back.

Lori's key piece of advice (even if it's a shameless plug) would be to buy that book. It was created as a tool to help listeners to be able to life their best life on purpose. You can get it on Amazon, you can get it on her website, but it's just a fun structured way that you know, it has the workbook section where you can write at the end of the day, you you want to go back, because it's definitely part of the learning process of going back and writing about your experience that you created with that challenge that day.

Then you can create wonderful stories for you.

If you enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe, leave me a review and join the newsletter so that you get all my information and advice straight into your inbox.

You can also book a call with me if you'd like to talk about working with me http://www.emmalangton.com/bookacall/

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Achieving Work-Life Balance In the current fast paced world with always on mentality we need to ensure that we are in control and find ways to balance our time, our brain power, our energies. This week on the podcast Emma talks about key ways you can achieve work-life balance.

A good few years ago a survey of City employees was carried out by Credent Technologies’ and they discovered that less than a quarter of those who responded had taken a holiday with NO contact with the office.

Just under half, reported that they felt being available 24/7 gave them job security so that this gave them some justification that technology was necessary and ensured they were not ‘missing out’ or being left behind when important decisions were being made.

It would seem that just switching off the phone or computer is not that easy for some people. I’ve had clients who, when asked to turn their phone off for the session, admitted they never turned their phone off and some were not sure how to!

Fear of missing out is a real thing. It’s used in advertising and sales, however we are reinforcing this in ourselves by having this mindset of needing to be contactable all the time.

The lifestyle of never fully switching our devices also means we’re rarely switching off our brains too. Just like everything else in the world, we need to be able to power down properly. Without that, stress will build. It can affect you even if you don’t realise it.

Many people end up living with a higher level of stress hormone so that it becomes the ‘norm’ for them.

Stress can mean that you make poor decisions or that it stunts your creativity. It affects your ability to concentrate fully, or to concentrate for decent periods of time. When everything seems like it just such hard work to do the basics, you end up working harder, becoming more tired and this affects your performance too. It’s a vicious cycle.

According to the National Labour Force Survey (LFS) 40% of sick days in the British workplace were stress related. If you or your colleagues end up taking time off because of stress, then the impact of that means the pressure and workload is increased too.

A company stress management policy can be helpful. But I’ve heard about HR departments handing out a stress risk assessment and advising that it is given to the employee to complete and return, rather than sit down and discuss and go through it together. They know that often stressed people don’t return the assessment. That’s one less job to deal with!

However, as I say to all my clients and the companies where deliver my stress workshops – “you cannot change or control anyone else, so we have to change your response to these situations”.

It’s key that you recognise stress in yourself (that’s included in episode 33) so that you can protect your mental health and wellbeing.

What can you begin to do to get a better work-life balance and manage any stressful situations? * Stop Multitasking – give each task all of your attention and brain power. It can take longer to switch from one task to another and re-focus, so shut off notifications, drag yourself away from the distractions. * Schedule. I advocate that all my clients make time to schedule tasks and activities. This isn’t about being pernickety about your time, it’s about ensuring that you have time set to look at and deal with certain tasks. It also means that your brain doesn’t have to hold all the information and keep reminding you of that ‘thing’ you have to do. It’s a bit like making an appointment with yourself to deal with those differing things. * Take breaks. They don’t have to be huge, but just a little break, 30 minutes away from the desk can make a huge impact. (listen to what I said when someone asked me how many walks Charlie the dog gets …). * Take Time back. If you have to work longer for a project or particular day then take that time back … I always had to work late on a Friday, it became a pattern, so no matter how much I wanted to get away, it never happened. Instead I started taking long lunch breaks, because the pressure would hit from about 2pm on Friday afternoon. Being realistic stops you getting stressed about what you would like to happen, rather than what really is happening. * Reward yourself for achievement. It’s easy to always move on to the next tasks or job but it can be demoralising to never feel like you’ve achieved anything. I had a colleague once who, every now and then would insist on finishing one thing. Just to get that sense of achievement instead of always being pulled away and leaving things not quite completed * Beware of Perfect – what does perfect look like anyway? It’s going to be different for each person. So beware of focussing or fussing on something looking for that perfect arrangements, presentation or even a colour on something. Done is better than perfect. * Get clear on boundaries. These don’t have to be set in stone, but when you get clear on what is and is not acceptable to you, you can clearly set that out for others too. It does often mean a change in mindset and focus because if you decide you’re not answering emails after 6pm but then you’re so distracted thinking about that big project, the boundaries are not going to be effective for you. Boundaries work for you, rather than against you. But it’s important to maintain periods where you’re not working or thinking about work. * Say no. This is a tough one for some people. If you tend to say yes almost without thinking then work on that. A good way is rather than answering straight away, say let me check that, or I’ll get back you. This gives you time to think about whether you really want to do this, or can do it. If you do want to say yes, fine. But if you want to say no, say no and keep saying it. The important thing is that you don’t waffle. No is a complete sentence. Don’t justify your actions or give excuses, that can give the asker the opportunity to squeeze into your reasons. * Take some time off. If things get too much, taking a few days off or a long weekend can help you feel refreshed and actually increase your productivity in the long-run. Use the holiday you're entitled to. * Don't let your life be work. Make time for hobbies, interests, exercise, enjoyment. Nurture relationships and get involved in things that are outside of work and colleagues.

I hope this is helpful for you and you feel able to put some of these things in your life. If you want to talk to me about how we can work together on this, or how this can be implemented in your workforce, then get in contact with me or book a call and let's talk.

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6 Easy Ways to Improve Stress in the Workplace While some workplace stress is normal, excessive stress can interfere with your productivity and performance, impact your physical and emotional health, and affect your relationships and home life. It can even determine success or failure on the job.

Many employees are reluctant to talk about stress at work. There is still a stigma attached to stress and people still think they will be seen as weak if they admit they are struggling. But stress is not a weakness, and can affect anyone at any level of an organisation.

Therefore, it's important that an employer takes steps to tackle the work-related causes of stress in its organisation and encourage staff to seek help at the earliest opportunity if they begin to experience stress.

Whatever your ambitions or work demands, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from the damaging effects of stress, improve your job satisfaction, and boost your well-being in and out of the workplace.

Stress is a huge contributor to people needing time off work. Surveys suggest that over 10 million people in the UK are taking time off due to stress and stress related illness. Mental health issues, including stress and anxiety are the reason for one in five visits to a GP.

“Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure”. (NHS)

The people that I see regularly, come to me for coaching and other help because they still don’t want to go to their GP AND they don’t want to take time off or alert their employer that they are feeling under pressure.

We are all different! What one person finds stressful may be normal or even exciting for another! What one person notices is happening with them (with physical or emotional symptoms) might be different for another person. The trick is to know how to identify it in ourselves (that I talked about in episode 33) and learn what we can do about it. What works well with one person may not work well with you, so it’s important that you find out what works for you.

Raise Awareness

Recognising the things that cause more stress or pressure will help you identify the causes. Whether that’s for you or your workforce. It might feel like it’s you whole job, but it probably isn’t really. I know that it sounds like this is adding more to your to-do list (and I really don’t advocate that) but this is one thing that will pay off. Once you know what works for you, talk to your employer or employees about this. They may be able to make some changes to help you.

Learn tools and strategies

Different things work for different people. Sometimes it’s just a simple breathing technique, earning how to relax your body so that you don’t store the tension in your neck, shoulders or jaw. Maybe you take a walk at lunchtime even if it’s just to grab the sandwich. . Learn different coping techniques to use as soon as you start to feel pressure building. It may take time to find a method that works for you. Having tools and strategies to catch things before the stress gets out of hand means you can get back on track and back to performing at your best.

Prioritise Your To-Do List

Writing down all the things you have to do can be very helpful at getting clear on your tasks and priorities. Score their importance between 1 and 10. Look at what you NEED to do, what’s nice to do, what can be left or what can you ask someone else to do? What’s on the list that only you care about? Sort into importance and see what you can leave or delegate.

Tackle the highest / most difficult / most important task first. When you’ve got most of your energy and brain power. That often means leaving your email until later in the day.

Disconnect from Social Media

I know, you’ll be quietly dying inside about this, but it’s hugely important and VERY effective. Disconnect when you take that walk for your sandwich, leave your phone downstairs at night, switch off when in the car and just listen to the radio, get a separate phone for work so you can switch it off at weekends or during family time. It enables you to properly calm down your brain and create space.

Have a support network

You might have a manager or co-workers that you can talk to. Listen to the podcast where I talk about what I did with a team and a very boss. It shows how finding humour in the situations can be really helpful.

Listening attentively, will mean that person feels heard and understood. Any opportunity to talk and be heard will help lower their stress and yours, even if you’re unable to change the situation. Sayings things like “I understand this is difficult for you” helps them know that you’ve been listening.

You’re not always there to fix and provide solutions, something people just need to offload. Finding people who will listen and provide the support can balance the negativity.

Be Realistic

If you have to give deadlines or make commitments, be realistic about what you can achieve. I often talk to clients and in workshops about creating a buffer between what you can do uninterrupted and without issue and what you can do if emergencies hit. When you’re setting deadlines, allow that buffer. Then you won’t get frustrated, stressed or annoyed at yourself if you need more time than first anticipated.

I hope that's helpful. My workplace training and workshops cover these things in an interactive way to help your team and workforce be able to help themselves and stay productive. If you'd like to know how I can help you, individually or in workshops, then book a call or contact me

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Stress comes in all shapes and sizes. Stress can be defined as any type of change that causes physical, emotional or psychological strain. The term ‘stress’ refers to the response you have when facing circumstances that force you to act, change, or adjust in some way to maintain your footing, or to keep things balanced. In small doses, these factors increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, and enhance your focus. This is where some people will say stress is good for you! So, does stress affect your health? Stress is a huge contributor to people needing time off work. Surveys suggest that over 10 million people in the UK are taking time off due to stress and stress related illness. Mental health issues, including stress and anxiety are the reason for one in five visits to a GP. What’s Going On? When you are stressed your adrenal glands are forced to produce more cortisol and adrenaline (the main stress hormones). These hormones prepare the body for emergency action. * Heart pounding or beating faster * Breathing quickens or become more shallow * Muscles tighten * Arms or legs shake * Blood pressure rises * Your senses become sharper

All of these are automatic reactions coming from an area of the brain called the amygdala. That’s like your internal fire alarm. This stress response has existed in humans since we were cavemen. Life was much simpler then and life and death situations really meant life and death! Now, they don’t. However, your brain has not figured that out! Here’s the thing. When your internal fire alarm is going off, it also switches off your thinking brain. So you can’t think clearly or logically!!! Is Stress Affecting Your Health? Stress that continues over long periods of time can contribute to serious health problems. Stress can affect you in many ways. * Weakened Immune System and catching colds more easily * Sleep Issues * Low Energy, feeling tired all the time * Feeling Overwhelmed * Memory Problems / Poor Time Management * Anger Issues * Being Negative * Aches and pains for seemingly no particular reason – tight shoulders, clenched jaw, stiff back * Spots! Cortisol clogs your pores * Thinning hair

Often we only notice the emotional effects of stress, however there are many physical impacts too. So it’s important we do something about our responses or even our lifestyles to counter-balance this. Causes of Stress The hormone responses are there for times when you are being chased by a tiger or a bear, not for any of these listed blow! There are many events in life that can cause stress. * Wrong or Difficult Job * Redundancy or Unemployment Worries * Long Hours * Conflict with Colleagues * School or College Pressure * Friendship Difficulties * Test Anxieties * Financial Worries * Negative Relationships * Loneliness * Parenting Challenges * Unhealthy habits

The people that I see regularly, come to me for coaching and other help because they still don’t want to go to their GP and they don’t want to take time off or alert their employer that they are feeling under pressure. If you think stress is wrecking your body, then make it a point to get things under control. Remove yourself from toxic situations and plan some stress-reducing activities. Often when I go into the workplace to provide short training sessions there's quite a misconception about what stress is and whether the staff are affected. Do please make sure you improve your understanding! Investing in stress management and wellbeing is now widely recognised as being beneficial to your entire workforce and your business. In fact, employers have a legal responsibility to protect employees from stress in the workplace. You can see more about the training HERE. Get in touch to talk about how I can help you and your workforce to get stress under control.

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How do we equip ourselves and the people around us to deal with difficult situations?

In this final episode of the Resilience month on the podcast I talk to Nicola Richardson who is a Business and People Mentor. She works with businesses to get the best out of people, process and performance.

There’s quite a lot of good chat and sharing of information in the podcast but also a couple of key things I talk on the podcast this week that I think are important messages.

Nicola tells us what happened to her when she tried to power through and keep going after a significant life event. She shares the detrimental effect it had on her health and also why that made her change things in her life completely.

We also talk about the healing power of crying! Often other people struggle to see others crying. Often too, as children we have been told “don’t cry” and so we learn to stem the flow and hold back the tears.

Nicola is running a workshop called Thriving not Surviving which will be helping people understand and identify what helps them and what is difficult for them.

Nicola shares what hobby she has that helps her to zone our from the busy day. She also says she still uses a great tip that I gave her regarding social media, where I advised switching off all notification so there are no distractions and that has helped her a lot too to filter information and not feel overloaded.

We also talk about the need to a good level of emotional intelligence and self awareness is needed. It’s really helpful for us to build our resilience and when we are aware of our feelings and emotions, then we can do something about them, in an appropriate way rather than stuffing them down, ignoring them or having them overflow in tears or anger at times when we really don’t want to have them on show.

You can get in touch with Nicola via her website at https://thepeoplementor.co.uk/ if you're interested in the in-person or online workshops that she provides. The first one is on 26th April 2019 in Lincolnshire.

Have a listen and if this is useful, share with someone you think might help.

If you want more information on working with me or you have a question for me, then get in touch on my website.

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Resilience needs areas to be strong and calm. This provides the foundations for you to live a balanced life.

When your mind and body are resilient, strong and stable, you will be strong and stable too. It forms the foundations of a powerful basis for everything you do in life. Life is full of challenges and we cannot possibly avoid everything. Resilience is about that ability to deal with the rough and the smooth and be able to swerve the curve balls and get back on track.

When life knocks you down, you need that bounce-back-ability to be able to get up again. That’s why we need to ensure we have lots of tools and resources in our lifestyle generally. So if one area is weak, under pressure or overloaded then things begin to fall apart.

You need all areas of you to be equally strong. So think about where you have gaps or think about what situations mean that you have wobbles.

Fitting things into your everyday life is the best way. You can’t always take a holiday or book a spa day – and anyway, if you’re living or working in a place of pressure you won’t have the time. You’ve probably got some other things you’d like to spend your money too!

Relying on things like spa days, holidays or even going to gym (whilst it’s great to do, you need space and time for this). Getting the balance to boost your resilience needs to be little everyday things that you can.

So I talk about a (kind of) A-Z to give you ideas.

There’ll be a whole load more. I’d love to know what you do so drop me an email or get in touch from my website. If you’ve really no idea what to do, or what will help, then also get in touch, lets book a call and we can talk about how my coaching can help you know exactly what works for you, how to manage your resilience, so you can be confident in dealing with life’s challenges.

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Good resilience is your ability to kind of cope and to rise to those challenges.

2:13
Resilience relies on different skills and resources. Some might be about your physical health, mental health or relationships, thinking skills.

So, if you're a manager or leader, or you're setting an example somewhere, then that's important to manage your resilience.

When we recognise and understand our own emotions, we can do the same with others. That also means we can impact ourselves and others positively and negatively.

It's not good floating around like a swan and pretending everything is fine. If you spend time trying to look calm and glide gracefully whilst feeling like you are paddling madly underneath. Outwardly you are managing to look composed, keep up with that endless pressure but inside you’re absolutely shattered, overwhelmed and feeling a bit ill or like you’re not coping.

Recognise the Feelings

6.40m Firstly, you need to recognise your feelings and allow yourself to feel them (instead of ignoring them or distracting yourself). If things are rough you might need to set aside time to do this.

7.25m Listen in when I talk about how I allowed myself to really feel the big feelings.

Let Go

8.30m You might need to have a good cry! I explain about the healing aspects of crying and why it's good for you.

10.0m Another good way to release and let go is to visualise letting go of the feelings. Imagine you are gathering up all the thoughts and feelings related to the negativity and in your mind picture some way of getting rid of them. I explain some options on the podcast.

Revitalise

12.30m Look at what you can do to revitalise yourself. It might be spending time with your partner, your kids, your friends, making connections with other people. We need conversations and interactions we need to laugh. We need to find joy somewhere, even if it feels like it's pretty tricky to do. Think about what will boost your feel good chemicals to fill up that emotional bucket.

Leave Things

Seriously, look at what you can leave for a while. Re-prioritise and give yourself some time and space. It doesn't have to be for ever!

Time Out

15.0m I run a bath, some people do Netflix, some people run, exercise. They all create a space in your mind and body. This allows the negative stuff to drain away, out of your bucket. Leaving space for good stuff.

Sleep

Prioritise the important needs. Instead of staying up late trying to get everything done. Get your sleep. We all find it hard to function when we are tired. Never sacrifice your sleep.

Filter

When you're overloaded or feeling pressure the last thing you need is everyone else's stuff! Filter it out. Shut down social media. Remember too that people only talk about really good or really bad things. They’re not going to show or talk about the fact that they are not coping, so filter information and keep reality in mind. Don't let people drain you with their woes.

Also filter things that annoy or drain you. I share a good example of mine in the podcast.

Think about the kind of good stuff that is going to fill your emotional bucket of resilience with good stuff.

Next week, I’m going to talking about whole list of things, so remember to come back to get more ideas in case you need them.

If this is really useful to you please share it with your friends, and please do go over to iTunes and leave a review I'd really love it if you did that. You can contact me www.emmalangton.com/contact for help with your resilience.

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Resilience is a theme for this month and today we are looking at what Emotional Resilience is.

In my newsletter I share some information about me that will explain why I've chosen to focus on resilience. You can sign up HERE.

I want to share with you what I've done to keep going when challenges come our way or we have tough times. How do we keep going and be resilient?

What is Emotional Resilience?

It's about our ability to deal with situations in life, how easily we can bounce back. Clients come to me when they've "had it up to here" or "can't take any more". That means your emotional levels are full up. I talk about an emotional bucket and how stress, anxiety, pressure can build up. They can come from self-doubt, shame, embarrassment too. It might be about the way we are treated or how we talk to ourselves.

It can affect our ability to cope. I explain how this can affect me personally on the podcast.

This bucket of negativity can sometimes fill up quickly or take quite a while. The speed at which your bucket fills up, is not the issue, my concern is how full it is, and what we can do about it.

We need to be able to balance our emotions with both positive and negative feelings and circumstances.

How Do We Know if Our Emotional Bucket is Full? It's much more than overwhelm. When your bucket is full, we feel it all the time. Or, it can take a tiny thing to tip us over the edge. Anger bursts out. Tears overflow. If you often feel worried or nervous, frustrated, sad, irritable, angry, scared, upset, overwhelmed, inadequate or even wanting to escape, then it’s likely that your emotional bucket is overflowing.

What's a Good Balance?

If your bucket is too empty, then that’s not going to be great either. If this is the case then you might feel low, fed up, tired all the time, bored, negative, nervous, anxious or even depressed. An empty bucket can also drain those around you too.

(sorry for all the doom and gloom - things can get better - honest!!)

We need our buckets to be somewhere in the middle, just right. That way we can be happier, more comfortable about ourselves, staff, colleagues, clients. We can think more clearly, make better decisions and generally enjoy life more.

What Helps to Maintain Emotional Resilience?

We need to make sure we've got enough good things going on in our lives to be able have the balance. To have positive times and situations, opportunities that are fun and good for us. Also to have tools in our toolkit that we can use to reset the balance of those emotions.

11.0m I talk about one particular thing that really makes me smile!

Spend some time over the course of a week, noticing what lifts you up, brightens your day. What small things are in your life that help you feel good. What drags you down and adds to negativity? Notice those.

Then come back over the next few weeks and listen to future episodes where I dive deeper and give more information on resilience and tools you can use to develop your emotional resilience.

If you want to talk about working with me to help this, then book a call or look at how to work with me.

If you'd like some live coaching or to ask a question that you'd like to be mentioned on the blog or podcast, drop me a question HERE.

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What if coaching doesn’t work?

It’s important for my clients to know that the coaching process works. But sometimes, coaching doesn’t work! What can you do to make sure coaching works ?

I’ve had some great coaching and I’ve one that was awful. Here's what you can do to ensure coaching works for you.

1. The Wrong Type Of Coach

You need to consider WHAT you want the coaching for. WHY you think you need it and WHERE you want it take you. This will narrow things down for you.

Then investigate different coaches and how they work. Some teach you their model. Others look at you, your business, your struggles, your goals and help you figure out what will work for you (that’s me)!

If someone recommends a coach to you, make sure it’s going to meets your needs.

2. No Rapport Between Client And Coach

The client/coach relationship is crucial. Some clients thrive on a gentle, nurturing approach, whereas others prefer direct straight talking. Then there’s a balance of all sorts in between (I’d say I’m honest and straightforward with support and kindness thrown in).

In order to ensure there is rapport and the possibility of a good working relationship, it’s always a good idea to meet or talk with your executive coach before you jump in.

3. A Lack Of Trust

You’ve got to be able to trust your coach. You’re going to be talking about your feelings and your struggles. Whilst it won’t all be focussing on the negatives, you’ll get the best from coaching when you’re honest and possibly a bit vulnerable, so you need to feel safe doing that and trust that your coach can help you.

If you’re part of a coaching programme through your organisation, make sure you know the terms: by checking the confidentiality terms you can feel safe to disclose all your thoughts, issues and feelings.

I usually work independently with executives and entrepreneurs, and we do sign a working agreement which sets out confidentiality clearly and professionally.

4. Boundaries And Expectations Are Not Clear

Clear boundaries are important. Ensure your coach will set out what they expect, when and how to contact them, and ensure they’ll do what they say they’ll do. Clear boundaries help you to feel safe so that you know what’s OK and what’s not in the coaching relationship.

I always plan out all sessions in the diary. There is flexibility to change them, but there’s a cancellation policy too.

Also get clear on your goals. It’s hard to make changes if you don’t know what you want to change, or what that outcome will look like.

5. Coaching Gets Stuck In The Past

Coaching is about moving you forward to where you want to be, not dwelling on what you ‘should’ have done. That comes through looking to the future and action.

Sometimes we need to go back and work on getting you some strong foundations so you can go forward stronger and stay successful in that progress.

6. When There’s No Legacy To The Coaching Work

Whether you’re with a coach for an hour, a day or three months, it’s really important that you can maintain the good progress you’ve made. There’s no point investing in coaching then letting old habits and patterns slip back in. So it’s worth spending time working with your coach to identify how to apply the changes to your life for good.

With my experience in psychology and neuroscience I help you make changes easily without having extra duties on their to-do list! That makes sure that coaching does work.

Contact me HERE or BOOK in my diary and lets talk.

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What’s your most valuable asset?

This might be a question that raises lots of answers and you might be totally against what I’m saying. If so, that’s fine. We’re all entitled to our opinions, but here’s mine.

Aside from your customers - because let’s face it - if you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business or a job. After that, what is your most valuable asset?

Your business? Your home? Your intellectual property? Your network?

All of those are valuable, but (bonus points to you if you saw this one coming!) YOU are your most valuable asset.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a leader in your own business or someone else’s, what makes you stand out is you.

And it’s not really about your knowledge and expertise either. Of course those things are important, but knowledge can be learned. What’s harder to cultivate is a healthy mindset. A healthy attitude to yourself, your life and your work.

Mindset might sound fluffy. As though it’s about patting yourself on the back and thinking happy thoughts so you have a positive day. But it’s so much more than that.

Your mindset is at the root of every decision you make. Whether you’re operating from a place of fear or growth is critical. With a closed or a fearful mindset you are more likely to:

Miss seeing opportunities
Hold yourself back
Take on too much, rather than delegate
Let other people set the agenda
Delay decision making (or the opposite – be trigger happy!)
Feel overwhelmed or stressed.

You do still need to put effort in but when you have a strong belief in yourself then it can make all the difference!

Can changing something internally really change how you experience life in the real world? Can it help you feel better as well as be more productive in life and business?

Yes, it can. But it’s not as easy as slapping a smile on your face and saying a positive affirmation each morning.

Real mindset change involves digging inside to understand where your thoughts and beliefs come from. It’s about bringing to light the buried stories we tell ourselves about why life is hard, or why we’re not equipped to deal with it, or why we can’t get that promotion. And it’s then about rewriting the script so we’re working with ourselves, not against.

The latest neuroscience has shown that our brains are constantly re-wiring. Even through adulthood.

I’m not saying that this process of re-wiring is easy … but it can be done. The first step is recognising that you need to re-train.

Sometimes you might need help to recognise what’s going on with you and what can be done. When we are deep in the middle of something, we can’t see how the land lies. We can’t see ourselves fully without someone else holding up a mirror and inviting us to look.

That’s where a coach will help you understand what’s really going on in your head, get clear about what you want, and your way forward. Coaching helps you to unlock the potential that’s already inside you.

So – given that you’re your own greatest asset, when’s the last time you invested in yourself? And did you feel the benefit? I’d love to know!

And if the time is right for you to embark on executive coaching, get in touch and we can explore the right option for you.

See more detail about how to work with me here.

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For Valentines day, to share a bit of what I LOVE to do, I’ve got a very special offer for you.

I've set aside 10 spaces for a 1 hour, 1:1 intensive with me. I normally only run intensives for at least 2 hours and they’re investment of £329. But because it's my birthday, I'm offering a 1 HOUR SESSION FOR ONLY £125!

You can book your session here - when 10 are gone, they’re gone. Any questions get in touch.

This week on the podcast I'm talking about ways you can love your work more.

Let’s face it we spend a bit part of our lives at work and it's always so much easier when we love what we do.

There can be many reasons why we might not love what we do. We might have fallen out of love with it for a variety of reasons. Here's what we can do:

1. Plan and Schedule

When you schedule your day or week you feel like you’re in control. You can see where you have gaps, or busy times and make adjustments.

Instead of having a massive to-do list creating overwhelm, stress or nagging feelings, your brain can rest easy knowing that time is allocated to do that job.

Each day do the biggest or most important things first. That way you use all your fresh brain power when you need it most.

2. Stop Multitasking

Concentrate on one thing and do it well. When we switch from one thing to another, or get distracted with notifications and emails, the reality we’re just doing really fast switching. It’s not the most efficient way to work and we end up tired and fed up and feeling unproductive - or that we’re working harder to get less done. That’s just demoralising!

3. Boundaries

You might need to change your mindset or perspective about boundaries in order to say goodbye to your desk, laptop or email. Then you can be actively engaged in your social and leisure time. You might be saying that you can’t afford to do this. Well, apparently more people than ever would consider a salary cut in order to improve their quality of life. Take action to get that better balance.

4. Be Sociable

When we spend all our time working, we have less positive interactions and less pleasant experiences. That means less positive feel-good chemicals.

Oxytocin - often called the love hormone, is released when we interact with touch, hugs and love. When oxytocin is released, it reduces stress, anxiety, promotes connection and feelings of trust, which all aid relaxation!

So you might feel too tired to be social or interact with friends or loved ones, but science says it’s good for you!

5. Get Feedback

Take step back and seeing yourself through the eyes of someone else. Or gather information about what people value from you, and what they don’t. That might be opening up to some feedback you might not want to receive, so you need to be brave here. However you might be surprised at the feedback you receive. And a bit of customer love is always helpful to boost your morale.

6. Change Your Self Talk

See more about speaking to yourself the way you would a friend.

7. List Your Accomplishments

Make a love book. Gather things that show you're good at what you do. Start with certificates, then feedback, photos, letters of achievement, the congrats letters etc.

Feeling good about yourself helps you to love yourself and your work more.

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Often there are different stories we tell ourselves that can keep us stuck and stop us moving forward or make things difficult for us.

When we tell ourselves stories it can be to rationalise or justify why we've done things we done (or not done). We might used past experiences and learning but there's nearly always an emotional response to that story.

"I'm not cut out for leadership"
"It wasn't meant to be"
"I don't have time"

Listen in at 3.0m about the story I was telling myself about how my business was a success. In a way it was, but the reality was I could have done so much better and worked smarter.

6.27m Often we do a comparison with other people and tell ourselves stories about how we're just not enough in some way. Outward appearance isn't everything, but we can tell ourselves the stories abut why we're not matching up to others around us.

The biggest thing behind this is our mindset. The very first thing we need to do is learn what is going with our mindset. We need to talk to ourselves as we would a friend, or even a small child, to be kind to ourselves, to change the language we use.

If you don't support you, who will? Sometimes we need that support externally too.

The fastest way to change our mindset, is to recognise the stories we tell ourselves.

When you firmly believe in yourself and recognise what are stories and excuses you can increase your changes of success. When you value yourself you add value to all areas of your life in general.

10.0m Sometimes we grow up with a belief that no-one is there for help or support. We grow up with a belief that we need to be self sufficient and cannot ask for help. We must listen to those stories so that we can begin to change them.

Our stories give us a sense of who we are. So if we are continually telling ourself we are "no good" about something, then it will hold you back.

Sometimes we need to learn something different, or even let go of old stories that we've been telling ourselves.

Think about some of those stories and see what you can do to begin to change that. When you listen to the stories, you're half way there to identifying what you need to do to change.

12.55m Listen in about the funny but different ways we can view situations in our life through the ages. Sometimes those stories change over time, if that's the case, make sure the stories are beneficial and factual for you.

But sometimes they do not serve us well. So when you dive deep underneath the cause or reason, you can make those changes in your mindset and be really honest with yourself.

Make those changes. Re-write your story.

Let me know if you've been telling yourself stories. Are they keeping you small or restricting you?

You can alway get in touch me with or book a call so that I can help you identify what your stories area.

One of the reviews I got recently said I had ninja questioning skills!

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We can’t be strong all the time. We used to live in tribes remember! Those tribes and other people were there to support, help and guide us.

The modern world is about being strong, being able to do all things and not showing a “weakness”. There’s a lot of British phrases that pre-programme us to ensure that we don’t share that we need help.

"Stiff upper lip"

"Keep your chin up"

This create a deep learning and mindset that asking for help is a sign of weakness. This learned belief is created at a young age. It might be that we’ve been told to “speak when we’re spoken to” or “be a good boy” so we learn not to ask for what we need and not to cause any bother.

The key is to be able to change our minds about asking for help.

There are so many people who have come to me asking for help.

Listen in to hear about 3 examples and what I did to help.

The Chief Exec who was putting a ton of extra time just to feel successful, even though there was lots of external evidence to show he was doing well. He said to me “it’s a sign of weakness isn’t it” We worked on his belief and mindset so that he could delegate with ease, manage the expectations of himself and his team and still be able to spend time with his family and enjoy it.

The top city Lawyer who was embarrassed because she was getting emotional at work and felt like it looked like she couldn’t cope. She was worried what people would think. I helped her with ways to deal with the overload, educated her on being able to identify when her stress levels were high so she could use tools that work for her and get that balance in her life, without compromising her professional approach.

The business owner who thought being stressed all the time was normal and that if he was in control of everything it would help. Truth was that when we reduced his stressed levels, identified the areas that really caused him the stress he felt so much better and even made some changes in his business direction to support this new way of looking at things.

Even me. Listen in when I explain what I've to ask for help.

All of us need help at some point or other. Knowing when to ask for help is the first step. Reaching out the right kind of people who will be there for you and who get it is important too.

Think about someone who has asked you for help. What did you think of them? I’m guessing your first response wasn’t “oh they’re weak” or “ooh they can’t cope”.

That’s probably one of the main reasons we don’t ask for help. We worry about judgement. We’re frightened about what people will think.

Fear is a big thing that stops us moving forward. Stops us being able to perform at our best.

When we get past that, or reach out for help, then we are taking that first step to the next level.

If you're ready to ask for help then we can book a call and discuss your situation.

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I'm talking today about January Blues.

The 3rd Monday in January is known as Blue Monday. Apparently this is because this is the time that credit card bills have come in, we realise how much we’ve spent on Christmas. The weather is cold and wet and dark and then it’s not just the day that is doom and gloom, it’s often our mood too.

So how you can get through the blue and gloomy days.

Have something to Look Forward To.

It’s often a time when people look at booking holidays or even moving house! Creating a feeling of anticipation with what we are looking forward to means we feel excited and then naturally release endorphins, the feel good chemical.

Be More Active.

I know the gyms are full of New Year resolution people but you don’t have to do that. Exercise definitely boosts your mood so even just getting out for a walk at lunchtime when there’s more daylight can be helpful. Again it releases the feel good chemicals.

Meet Friends.

Although we might feel like we want to stay in and hibernate we need social interaction. We are meant to be around people. You don’t necessarily need a big party or group, but meeting friends, talking and laughing is a create mood enhancer.

Look After Yourself - inside and out.

You’ve probably just spend around a month eating rubbish, cheese and chocolate – I know I have! Reality is that those kinds of diets leave us feeling sluggish and that doesn’t help our mood either. Some say that the gut is important as the brain on our mood. So get yourself back to nourishing yourself from the inside and cut out the chocolate, sugars and rubbish. It doesn’t have to be salad (it’s far too cold for that) it doesn’t have to be restrictive either (otherwise you’ll just crave it) but it can still be food that is good for you.

Look for Positives

I’m beginning to notice a little bit of lightness in the day. My daughter comes home from school around 4pm most days and I’m beginning to see a bit of brightness at that time. I can already how the days are getting longer. Even if it’s just a little. It all helps to give a bit of positivity.

If you’ve listened for a while, you’ll know that I’m big on looking at things that raise your positivity. Find small things in your day that you can be pleased about. They don’t have to be super fantastic, just little things that brighten or give you something to be thankful for. Write them down on a regular basis too so that you can see the positivity increasing, even if feels like a rubbish day, there’s evidence to remind you that it’s not all bad.

Smile

When I walk Charlie, even if it’s cold and wet and I’m there with my hat and gloves and wet gear, I still make eye contact, smile at people and say hello. It’s surprising how one smile can go a long way to make both you and the other person feel better.

If you're still struggling to feel positive then get in touch and book a call then we can talk about how I can help you.

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I'm talking about why I don't make resolutions. As a person who is all about self-improvement, it might sound a bit strange to hear me saying that. Check out the last episode on setting goals!

In 2019 January 17th is Ditch New Year Resolutions Day!

Expectations Often we think about what we WANT to do, based on what we feel we SHOULD do. It’s what everyone else does so maybe we should too? Well, that really depends on your set of expectations. If you are doing something because you feel you should then it’s going to forced, it’s not going to be comfortable. It might be achievable but it’s probably going to be quite difficult. If you think about what you feel you should and then repeat that sentence with the word could and see how it sounds. Do you still really want to do it? Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. It will change your perspective and change your expectation of whatever you previously thought you should do!

Timing January (in the UK anyway) is traditionally a time for hibernation, keeping warm and getting through the cold, dark days. We’ve now gone past the shortest day and just because days are getting slightly longer it doesn’t mean that we need to go out there and be some bright bouncing invigorated way.

It’s not really quite the right time for making big changes, it’s not a natural time of growth in nature and so it’s not a natural time for growth in ourselves either. There are plenty of other times in the year – when there are less expectations and less pressure – for you to set yourself some goals, make changes, build dreams, set resolutions. They don’t just have to be done in January.

Consistency If we want to be consistently growing, changing, adapting then we need to be doing this little and often. So instead of beating yourself up to “Stop this”, “Be that”, “Do More of the other” – just because it’s a New Year Resolution, try making small adjustments to your life, your plans, your goals and you’ll soon begin to notice just how achievable they are. Whatever it is that you are setting yourself as that resolution can be a small and consistent thing that becomes second nature.

Success Rate Apparently about a third of New Year Resolutions don’t make it to the end of January! Only about 10% of resolutions last the distance. So I’m not saying that you don’t make any New Year Resolutions, just think about your timing. Maybe there are better times for you do make changes – at the new tax year, new school year, at your new year of each birthday? Do what you want and need to do, when you feel you are ready and that way your changes and improvements are quite likely to be more consistent and you can then bask in the success!

So if I want to make goals, changes or set targets I don’t wait until January to do it. I make changes whenever I need to. My life, my work, my business is constantly in review. Not in a big way, but gently noticing. I regularly take time to look back every now then, each month, each quarter (and each half term with my daughter) and I celebrate the success and continue along or I make adjustments to ensure my goals and targets meet the needs.

If you're ready to make simple changes with big results and want to talk about how I can help you do that, BOOK A CALL. Lets get clear clear on whats causing your problem and start your journey to success - in the BEST way for you!

http://www.emmalangton.com/contact/

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This 8 step plan can be applied to your goals to really support the success of them. If you want help with your goals and mindset, get in touch. Find me at www.emmalangton.com or email from the contact page to get in touch. Here's my 8 steps: 1. Get Clear on Your Goals Ensure you know what it is that you really want to achieve when you set a goal or new resolution. What do you want to get out of it? When you achieve this goal what will it look like, feel like? How will you know if you’ve got there? Be really specific. These are a couple of goal setting models you can use: SMART Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relative, Timely GROW Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward 2. Write it Down Writing down your goals and plans makes them more real than keeping them in your head! Break it down in steps and stages or achievable chunks. If you want to go to the gym more or do more exercise, plan it into your week, plan the when, where, how. 3. Be Accountable Tell people what you are going to do. This also mean you take responsibility for what goes on. Being accountable means that you’re highlighting what you are going to do, and it’s really down to you to make it happen (regardless of what happens around you). It’s a great way to keep yourself in check. 4. Take Action Please don’t sit back and wait for things to happen! You cannot hope that everything will fall into place. So those specific things you said you were going to do, you actually have to do them (even if you feel uncomfortable or it starts out being difficult!) 5. Review Review your plans periodically. That might be every week or month. If some of your plans didn't work, that’s OK. It doesn’t have to mean it’s all over! Review, tweak, change, adjust to make sure your plans continue to work for you. 6. Visualise (9.20m) Visualise how you want your goal to be. How do you want to look and feel? Check out this previous podcast on visualisation. If you’re on work successes, what do you want that success look like? Where do you want to be sitting, what do you want to be doing, which people do you want to talk to, what do you want to be talking about and who do you want to be working with? Really think about the details. How will you talk? Think of your body language. Thank about the images like your diary / bank balance / desk space. It all helps add depth and detail. 7. Affirm Your Mindset Mindset is so important. Some people say mindset accounts for about 85% of successes! So do work on your mindset too. Create a phrase or two about how you want to think, how you want to be, what it is that you are going have or do. Ensure you use present tense for these phrases and affirmations like “I can do this". "I am confident". 8. Repeat Each Day Each day, get this into your routine. Visualise your goals and take action, check, adjust then repeat. Little and often stops the overwhelm and negativity. Let me know how you get on! Get your free overwhelmemmalangton.activehosted.com/f/5

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Today I’m talking about self care. Now before you roll your eyes (I do too) there’s such a bit misconception about self care and what it is. Self care is a necessary function that we all need in our lives. In this fast paced world we seem to forget to put ourselves first. “You cannot pour from an empty cup” You need to fill up yourself first. Self care is about actions and things you do in your life that help to protect, maintain, develop or improve your health, wellbeing, your emotional and physical states. In other words, we need to look after ourselves. Often we think we’re looking after ourselves, but we’re not making time to nourish ourselves, to nurture, to rest, to replenish, to enjoy. It’s about being fit, healthy, kind .. you could go back through all the podcasts I’ve done! It’s so easy to just carry on doing all the things that need doing in our lives, or telling ourselves that we don’t deserve it, that it’s pointless or selfish. Self care is absolutely essential. Remember a car needs regular maintenance, so do we. Remember too the essential things we need to know when we’re on an aeroplane and putting the oxygen mask on ourselves. We’re no good to anyone else if we cannot breathe! Often self care is about doing small things so that you can be the best that you can be. 4.38 Listen to Emma talk about how she had total recognition about when she needed to ensure her own self care was essential, to be available to support her children. “Self care is more than just a scented candle!” "I wouldn’t be here today, supporting the family, running the business, helping others, working 1:1 and in companies without self-care." How much and how frequently you put in self care depends on your circumstances. What works for me will not work for you. It needs time to assess and find the individual thing that works for you. 8.35. Why Do We Need Self Care Now? In the olden days, life was much simpler then. People did one thing at a time. Reading the newspaper, darning socks, watching the flames in a coal fire or had conversations with each other! In this fast paced world we can watch tv and have phone in hand and talk to kids or partner and have work stuff in your head. That’s why we need the self care. 11.25 How to Find Self Care That Works For You? It’s about finding things that help you feel balance, in control, that life energies or relax you down. Find times that you just stop or rest for a bit. - Read a book - Listen to music - Watching tv (but stop multi-tasking) - Sit with kids, connect, have a snack and a cuppa (whilst it’s hot) You don’t always need to spend a lot of money or take time away - Have a bath, but lock the door - Take a walk - Get into nature and notice the surroundings - Learn a breathing technique Nourish Yourself - Drink water (not the tonic in your gin) - Healthy food - Have a snooze / meditate / self hypnosis - Cuddle someone, increase your love hormone called oxytocin - Ask for help or share with friend or partner Be Kind to yourself - Forgive yourself for mistakes or judgements - Be accepting or circumstances instead of fighting or raging - Get boundaries in order with clear priorities - Pick your battles, we can’t make others do things - Decide where to put your energy for the best impact for success (it might be you) Sometimes you need to put energy into you first and then decide where you need to be to support others. Give Yourself Permission - Spend a bit of money on yourself (doesn’t have to be lots) - Buy some flowers - Get the Ahh factor from little treats - Schedule time out Raise your feel good chemicals - Laughter, especially a good belly laugh - Smile at people - Talk to someone in the street - Exercise, although it might need scheduling. Finding the things that help you. And recognise that these interests can change over time. Let me know what works for you. Contact me at www.emmalangton.com Get the Self Doubt Guide bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide

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We all have times when anxiety is in our life. I want you to begin to consider that everyone feels anxious from time to time. I know that often people feel like it’s just them. The key to helping you overcome anxiety is recognising it’s there. Anxiety is worrying or a feeling of unease, fear or worry. All of us can have some form or level of anxiety in our lives, although usually in a mild way or for a short period of time or because of a particular event or circumstance in our lives. There might be anxiety about everyday things. Listen when I explain what might cause anxiety and some anxieties that come up in my house. Anxious symptoms can differ from person to person. Listen in where I list what some of these might be. Sometimes we can trace things back to a specific time, place or situation when they began to feel frightened, worried or anxious. Those feelings can be repeated and re-played on a regular basis. There may be life circumstances, like a busy job, work pressure or hectic home life that leave someone feeling anxious. What you might not realise is that your diet may impact the way you feel. If you really want to overcome anxiety it’s often worth taking a bit of time to consider where it’s coming from or what might be causing it. Although I do recognise that sometimes we have no idea. What helps us overcome anxiety? Breathing - Taking a deep breath down into your stomach releases feel-good chemicals, which in turn help to calm down the brain and body functions. It’s been scientifically proven to help calm us. Stop the Catastrophe 16.10m Our brain is wired to assess a situation and make quick decisions. This means we can often run away into doom and gloom and everything is a catastrophe. When that happens we need to bring this back. Be Logical 17.35m Once you’ve done the breathing and calmed down, you can be more logical and analyse the situation and look for another outcome than can happen. Is there any other way I can look at this? Is there any other reason I can have for this thinking? How true is my thinking? What other way can I begin to think about this scenario? Instead of focussing on the catastrophe you begin to see possibility. Control the emotions 19.45m So we want to make sure that we are not getting into a situation where our emotions control our reasoning. Those emotions are a pain in backside when they kick off and stop us doing things we want to do. Speak to someone 19.45m So it’s also important to speak to other people. Often those thoughts go round and round in our heads and if we can just manage to speak to someone about what’s going on in our head, or tell someone how we are feeling then the anxiety calms right down. It’s important to increase our feel good chemicals to balance out the good stuff with the anxious chemicals. Exercise 22.25m Exercise is also great for boosting those feel-good chemicals, rather than having those anxious thoughts and feelings. This doesn’t have to be at the gym. It might just be a walk in your lunch-break or a run round the park with your kids. Music 23.40m Music is a great way to increase the feel-good feelings. I know people who have created particular play-lists which are calming or upbeat. Journalling 24.40m Writing things enables you to connect with the thoughts and feelings. It might also help you recognise patterns of anxiety or just offload thoughts each day. Healthy Diet Diet is so important. If you've been anxious all day then go for take-away or quick food it might be loaded with sugar and that's not good for anxiety. Try to plan ahead for any anxious or difficult days. The more you work on anxiety the easier it is to stop it taking hold. It’s really OK that different things work for different people. Find out what helps you to stop your anxiety. Find me at www.emmalangton.com or email from the contact page to get in touch. Get your free overwhelm emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/5

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Resilience is all about our ability to bounce back from challenges, difficulties and set backs in life. This week I talk about how you can ramp up your resilience to be able to deal with all that life throws at us. - Assess the situation - Check out the emotions, thoughts and feelings and what to do with them. - Look for different scenarios - Make plans to be able to deal with challenge - Take time out to rest or recover from the impact or clear space if needed - Ask for support or just find a way to offload - Look after your physical and mental health With these ways we can continue to improve our resilience to deal with whatever life throws at us. Contact me at http://www.emmalangton.com/contact/ if you have comments or questions about this or to book a discovery call to work with me. Get your free guide 7 Steps from Overwhelm to In Control https://www.emmalangton.com/overwhelm/

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If you struggle with confidence or don’t always feels confident then this episode will be helpful for you. Your self-confidence (or lack of it) isn’t written in stone. You can learn, increase, practice self-confidence such like any other skill. Once you increase your self-confidence your life will seem so much better and easier. We look at What Confidence Is and the steps we need to take to increase our self confidence. Emma talks through steps of - Recognise - Get Started - Practice - Self Talk - Support - Reflect - Success There's a great story about how Emma supported her daughter with her confidence building and recognition that not everything can be scripted in life. We need to get comfortable having a go. You can work with Emma on your confidence at: at www.emmalangton.com/workwithme or get your free self doubt to self belief guide at http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide The key to maintaining great self-confidence is to have all these ways that we can use to bounce back.

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What do we do when a Fear of Rejection stops us from moving forward and achieving? When we have a fear of rejection it can prevent us applying for jobs, asking for a pay-rise, sharing information about our work, promoting ourselves, giving an opinion …. the list is endless. Book a call with Emma to discuss how this can help you at at bit.ly/30minsappt Listen as Emma explains why we fear rejection and covers ways of overcoming it with - Check out the root cause - Learn tools to keep emotions under control - It’s not personal - Keep perspective. - Improve your Resilience She shares how she overcame the fear she had too. Nowadays it’s very different way of surviving. So those no’s and rejections don’t have the power that our primitive brain think they have! Don’t let yourself get caught up in that fear of rejection. You can take action so that you no longer have to cope with the frustration of not getting where you want to be or not taking steps to get the outcomes you want.

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This week I’m joined by Vicki Nicolson, Branding Designer to talk about getting the balance in business. You can find more about Vicki's work at www.vickinicolson.com In middle of August Vicki had sent an email saying she was finally finding the balance in her business and the school holidays. Emma invited her onto the podcast to talk about how Vicki got that balance today in her Branding Business. Vicki talks about starting the business 3 years ago and despite thinking it’s going to be great running a business we have to do all things in the business, with accounts, marketing, key word google searches and a whole lot more. She found herself overwhelmed even though she was doing something she loved. We chat through the realisations, the self development, the support, outsourcing and what is the deal-breaker for Vicki. Vicki shares why she does this and how it's important to remember this. Finally, we talk about what managing time and boundaries look like for Vicki too

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How do we maintain positive thinking in our lives? Does it sounds easier said than done? This isn’t just about telling ourselves things are “fine” or repeating phrases and affirmations like “today is a great day”. When we start to think positively we are re-wiring our brain. We create new neural pathways so that eventually, thinking positive becomes automatic. Listen as Emma dives into some tips on how to think positively and explains that negative thinking is a survival instinct. - Notice positives every day. Take 5 minutes each morning, evening, on your journey home to think about your day. - Keep a Perspective. It’s so easy to have the last hour of the day to difficult and then be telling yourself it was a rubbish day! - Turn negatives around by changing the way you speak about difficulties. - Surround yourself with positive people who support you. Book a call to discuss working with Emma at http://bit.ly/30minsappt or go to www.emmalangton.com

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We’ve all had times when we’ve put something off. We can create reasons or justification for not doing these things. Really they’re excuses and procrastination. This week Emma talks through ways you can push past your procrastination. Listen in as she talks through different options that can help you. - work out the fear or emotion behind the procrastination - dealing with overwhelm of getting started - how to reframe waiting for perfect - look at big picture thinking and remember why - break things down into achievable chunks - set better deadlines - switch off from distractions finally get support or accountability to get you through all this. And Emma is still taking calls to discuss working with her this Autumn. You can book here bit.ly/30minsappt or see her website at www.emmalangton.com

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Emma shares details of a client's journey after burnout in his job. Listen to the difference in how he felt before and after coaching. You can book a call to discuss working with Emma at http://bit.ly/30minsappt Key factors for her client were: - always expected a negative reaction, - worried what people thought, - really pessimistic, - awake at night, - struggling to deal with people. He took a 5 month break from work and then got a new job. He knew he needed help and support to make the changes required so the same situation didn't happen again. Emma talks through her coaching process and how it is planned out. The outcomes for her client were: - knowing what lights him up and restores his energy - having selections of tools & techniques - be able to communicate better - changing habits - no longer taking the easy options - positive feelings and interactions with others He said " I’m comfortable in my own skin. I now see my own value and I feel like I achieve every day"

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Even thought we all breathe, Emma explains why we need a breathing technique and talks you through learning her popular one. Effective deep breathing can reduce stress, anxiety and create space in our head by releasing calming chemicals. There's a key important factor that you need to include which has been proven to switch off your fight flight response. Practicing this frequently will mean it becomes automatic (just like your times tables) and it goes into the subconscious part of our brain. You can use it in a subtle, easy way and Emma gives suggestion when you can practice, easily, in your day. If you don't like the example Emma gives, then check out others on the internet or on Emma's blog. Get your free Self Doubt Guide http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide Find out how to work with me http://www.emmalangton.com/work-with-me/

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Visualisation is powerful tool that is now widely used. We can create a vision of how we want to be and stop worries, self doubt or anxiety. Our brains are naturally wired to notice the negatives, so we need tools to help wire our brain for the positive and reach those goals. Listen as Emma tells the story of a client who used this to great effect. Our brain can't distinguish between real and imaginary so we can practice visualising exactly how we wish to be and this can embed into our subconscious brain. Emma talks you thought the steps you can take and even if you don't think you see pictures, there's still things you can do. - get really clear on goals - create positive wording - decide how you feel - recognise body language Include all these in the visualisation in the way Emma describes. It increases self belief and that's really powerful. Get your free Self Belief guide http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide Want your personalised plan? http://www.emmalangton.com/work-with-me/

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Emma brings her first guest onto the podcast this week and chats to Tina Leigh McDonald about how her belief in herself changed recently. Tina talks about her work with businesses and young people and Emma avoid getting on the soap box about the impact of today's schooling on self belief! Tina also explain how she recently transformed her self belief after being nominated for the Rising Stars award and winning. The attendance at the awards ceremony really cemented that change in belief in herself. You can find Tina at http://avalanchecoaching.co.uk/

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There are people you spend time with who leave you feeling drained and others who leave you warm and comforted. Emma refers to these as drains and radiators. Listen as she talks about the different types of people who leave you drained. They might be negative, victims, moaning or "opera singers". Emma shares how she got wise to working with some of these and what you can do about once you have the awareness which includes - pick your battles - stick to your boundaries - stay away if necessary! Then think about who can be radiator in your life. These people support, encourage, lift you up and restore your energies and why that is necessary. Emma also talks about how you can learn what drains your energy levels and what restores it. The support of like-minded people is necessary to your success. Contact Emma at http://www.emmalangton.com/work-with-me/

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Whether you have children or not, you're going to want time off and need to find the balance from work, business, home. This week Emma talks through a variety of mindset changes and strategy tips to help you enjoy time off. Remember you are doing your best so be kind to yourself. Look at where you're putting pressure on yourself and switch up the priorities. Sort the pressure and tasks into 3 lists with Absolutely, Be nice to do, Could do. Then plan out the day or the week so that you and the kids know what to expect. We all benefit from routine. Emma talks through how to change your mindset up about certain places or activities. Notice where you can get a win for you and the kids. Create opportunities for a cuppa and connection with your kids as this has huge benefits for all of you. Learn about managing the day, the week with clear boundaries and expectations too. For more info or to work with Emma http://www.emmalangton.com/work-with-me/

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This week Emma tackles the subject of Overwhelm. It's a fast paced world with tons of stimulation so how do we handle it when you feel you just can't cope or you're head is so full you can't think straight. She covers how to recognise when you're overwhelmed by noticing - what's going on in your body - what happens in your mind - how it makes you feel. That way you can identify your personal overwhelm signs and then how to deal with it. She talks you through a few steps, the first is a trick that even though it seems rubbish is really effective - breathing! Then Emma explains about taking a step back even when you don't feel you can. Then break down the overwhelm and get it out of your head. Make a plan about what to do with all those things Ask for help where needed Give yourself a break. Get your free overwhelm https://emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/5 Don't forget to get your self doubt to self belief free guide http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide

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When doubts run through our minds it can drag us down and have us feeling negative, fed-up and definitely not at our best. Self doubt can hold us back in just one area, or many areas of our lives. It can be quite draining. Here Emma runs through 5 steps that you can do to shift those self doubts and build into more solid and positive beliefs. If you'd like a free guide to help you with these steps from Self Doubt to Self Belief then get it here http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide When you get thoughts about "what if this doesn't work" or other "what ifs" that are ultimately "what if I'm not good enough". The 5 steps covered are: 1. Identify the doubts and own them 2. Challenge the doubts with key ways to do that 3. Change the way you think about doubts 4. Identify goals and steps to move forward 5. Recognise the progress and build new beliefs If you'd like some personalised help or support to shift your self doubt then get in touch with Emma at http://www.emmalangton.com

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Emma talks about her favourite subject of Boundaries. How you can create effective business boundaries in your work and life. It's not just a set a rules. Emma regularly hears from clients who • feeling like they’re working all the time, • needing to respond to people or emails quickly, or at ridiculous hours of day and night • checking phone and emails All. The. Time. • saying yes to things they don’t want to do • feel like people are taking advantage Listen to find out what you need to do to get yours in place which includes Working on your mindset Getting clear on your priorities Confidently communicate your boundaries so you set expectation and create much less guilt, pressure and overwhelm.

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Did you know that the way we talk to ourselves can have a massive impact on the way we think, feel and view ourselves? So many times Emma hears people with negative self talk.

“I’m no good at …”

“I can’t do ….”

“I’m so silly”

“I’m fat”

“I don’t deserve ……”

In this episode Emma explains what happens when we are negative about ourselves and how we can change that.

Listen to Your Negative Self Talk Maybe you already know some of the things you say about yourself, or maybe you need to take a little time to actually listen to the words you use, the phrases you say and the way you talk to yourself and even about yourself. What do you hear? Negative phrases and comments can become embedded in your subconscious mind so that you repeat them without realising. Once you start listening to yourself you’ll be surprised at what you hear.

Be Your Own Best Friend If you want to make improvements in your own self talk and improve the way you think and feel about yourself then you need to be your own best friend. Think about how you might guide and advise your best friend and then turn that phrasing, positivity and praise towards yourself. It might not be easy for you to hear – initially. It will get better and easier the more you do it.

Be Kind Be kind to yourself and be kind to others around you too. Although we’re working on self talk, all talk is important. It’s much easier to have complete positive thoughts and language rather than kind words for yourself and forgetting to be positive and kind to others around you! If you see someone with great hair or gorgeous shoes, say so! If your child shows nice manners, say “hey nice manners”. You will feel good, but you know what? They will too and so it improves the attitude of everyone around you that you interact with. That in itself reduces the negativity.

Complement Yourself We are rubbish at this. Particularly us with the good British stiff-upper -lip / don’t-show-our-feelings. When we don’t show our feelings to others, we don’t show them to ourselves. So, start to complement yourself. Do this regularly and see if you notice a difference in the way you feel about yourself.

Talking more positively to ourselves will have a great impact on the way we view ourselves. You start to embed more positive comments and phrases in your subconscious mind, so they become more automatic and then progress and positivity gets easier and easier. So go on, start today, change the way you talk to yourself. You deserve it!

You can get in touch with me, let me know how you get on with this or to book a call so we can talk about how to re-programme that negativity and get your feeling great about yourself.

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When things get too much in life, physically, mentally or emotionally it’s good to have somewhere to go to calm, recover, feel safe or to feel happy again. That’s why you need a Happy Place. Emma talks you through why you need a happy place and how to create your very own. It doesn't matter whether it's real or imaginary, when you've created yours you can take yourself there, in your mind, to rest, recover or just re-set our feelings and emotions.

Creating Your Happy Place Think of somewhere that makes you feel happy, calm safe (or some other positive feeling). This place can be real or imaginary! It doesn’t have to be in your house or nearby.

Take 5 minutes or so to sit somewhere comfortable.
Think of a place where you are completely relaxed, feeling happy or safe or calm
Imagine it vividly – colours, sounds, textures, temperature, smells – everything.
Notice how you feel in this place. Are you happy, calm or relaxed.
Notice where, in your body, you feel these happy or calm feelings.
Give this place a name or a title.

Regardless of where you are, whatever you are doing, practice thinking of or saying this name or title and notice those good feelings flowing around your mind and body.

How Do We Use our Happy Place? When we have a place like this, real or imaginary, we can take ourselves there to rest, recover or just re-set our feelings and emotions. Notice with all your senses what you see hear, touch, smell, taste and even the temperature. This can change the sensations in our mind and body from whatever is unpleasant or negative to being more positive and comfortable.

My place (because I love being warm) is in a sauna which is not readily accessible! However my mum’s place is in her sewing room, with her sewing machine. Making lovely quilts, bags, cushions is her favourite pastime.

So where could yours be? If you struggle to think of somewhere look through holiday brochures or magazines for inspiration. Maybe you saw something in a film or a book? You can even make one up from a collection of ideas to create the best place ever!

You can get in touch with me, let me know what your happy place is or to book a call so we can create one together.

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The episode to introduce the Business Balance podcast, explaining what you can expect in future episodes as well as a little background about your host Emma Langton.

Lessons for Leaders: Recent Episodes

Emma Langton