002 Vulnerability & Imposter Syndrome explored

Courageously moving to UK from Australia with his young family and not really knowing what he was going to do to provide an income for his family. Farm boy - come IT guy – now executive leadership coach and inspirational speaker, Peter Milligan shares his journey through imposter syndrome, vulnerability and shame to set up his own business, focussing on developing leaders of the future. "If I'd woken up that morning to run that workshop and said, 'I'm gonna piss off everyone I can in that event', it would have been mission accomplished, ….. great result!" KEY TAKEAWAY "…every time we step out of our comfort zone into something different, something new, it's natural to be afraid and our natural innate thing is to protect ourselves. To be humans at work is to start to get the balance right ….., there is a spectrum, at one end you don't reveal anything about yourself, you say nothing, you just do your job, and you don't let people know anything about you. That's one extreme. And the other extreme is you tell everybody, everything, you overshare. And I think we would agree that neither of those is healthy. Because if you say nothing, and you've got that wall around you people can't connect with you." "But the truth is, I was clueless, I realised I was quite out of my depth. And I was the youngest member of the management team, the least experienced person. And I definitely had, you know, what's referred to as the imposter syndrome, but I didn't know it was a thing." "…….. the fundamental thing that human beings need is a sense of connection, they need connection to others, and they need connection to meaning." "…… when you're vulnerable, you're invulnerable, because when you really reveal who you are, then people adjust, there's no more pretending, there's no mask that you have to keep up all the time. This is who I am……. and it's quite paradoxical. I love this phrase, perfection breaks connection. …….. and you and I are both perfectionist, we both like to look good. We don't like to fail and all of that, which pretty much makes us human. But the irony is that when we're imperfect, we actually connect more as people". "I think success in life comes from high levels of awareness. And there are three levels to that, (firstly) there is awareness of ourselves…..Secondly, we need to have awareness of other people …. and then thirdly, we need to have awareness of context, the context in which we're operating, whether it's a meeting, whether it's the organisation as a whole, or even more broadly than that." ABOUT PETER MILLIGAN Peter is an inspirational speaker and business psychologist with 30 years' experience. He helps business leaders and teams to have less stress, more joy and greater productivity. Originally an IT professional, Peter retrained in psychology and joined the management team of a leading Australian HR consulting firm. After moving to the UK in 2000, he became a director of Europe's largest executive coaching firm before establishing his own business in 2005. Peter's clients have ranged from professional services firms, SMEs and family businesses to larger organisations including Australia Post, BP, Credit Suisse, Kerry Foods, Novartis, Oxford University, Rolls-Royce, and Vodafone. CONNECT WITH PETER www.linkedIn.com/in/petermilligan https://www.newgenerationleaders.com https://www.sixtylessons.com https://twitter.com/PeterMilligan https://www.facebook.com/peter.milligan.777 ABOUT YOUR HOST - Alli Spargo Alli is an International award-winning Executive Coach, Systemic Team Coach, Mentor and Mother of three now grown up kids. Through coaching, Alli takes her clients on a journey of self-development to become the powerful, successful, high performance leaders and teams. Alli inspires and empowers individuals & teams to get to know themselves better, to work and communicate better, to play at the top of their game. Her breadth of business experience, together with her whole system approach to coaching enables her to enhance leadership capability and personal impact, whilst understanding the demands of the commercial and organisational environment. If you would like Alli to work with you to ensure you become the very best version of yourself please book a free 20 minute conversation via https://calendly.com/alli-execcoach Please sign up for a free coaching audit at www.allisonspargo.com CONNECT WITH ALLI https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonspargo @AllisonSpargo or https://twitter.com/allisonspargo @allisonspargoltd or https://www.instagram.com/allisonspargoltd HOSTED BY: Alli Spargo DISCLAIMER:- The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast belong solely to the host and guest speakers. Please conduct your own due diligence.