Managing Mixed Messages: The Internal Struggle by Alexandra Levy


Video Transcription

Ok, so hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining me today. Um I love to be super interactive. So if you want to put your name into the chat and where you're from, feel free.Um Also, if you have any questions throughout this presentation as well, please do pop them into the chat. If I have time, I'm more than happy to answer them. Um This presentation may be slightly interactive as well. So hopefully, that will be engaging and interesting for you guys.

Um and also feel free to connect with me on linkedin, et cetera. So in case there's any other questions that you have, so I'm hoping that you can see my presentation, I'm now gonna move on to the next slide and hopefully this keeps working for me. Um So a bit about me, I'm a qualified coach with over 10 years of experience. My career started working with Mattel. So I've been working for over 10 years in category leading companies like mckinsey, Hilton, Dow Jones and Google. I've been with Google for the last four years now and it's actually my anniversary there this month. Um And I work in private coaching as well with a range of different clients from people in start ups to Corporates and we focus on career fulfillment and career transitions. Um My background. Hi Helen, welcome from South Africa. Um My background focuses on using a blend of neuroscience, cognitive behavioral coaching and positive psychology. And today, what we're going to do is we're going to look around the physical intelligence parts, um because this is quite unique and it's a really interesting world. So my part of my work is called Physical Intelligence. What physical intelligence is, is how we manage the key chemicals in our body to create self mastery over our emotions, thoughts and behaviors.

Um So a good example of this is if you're in a meeting with your manager, you want to say something, but you get nervous and you get that sticky feeling in your throat. How do you master that emotion or that feeling of overwhelm so that you can communicate your needs? Um Here's the roadmap for today. So we're going to be covering what labels are some examples, the narratives these create and how do these narratives affect our thoughts, feelings and performance and how does physiology impact our performance? Um And for anyone who's just jumped in, feel free to ask questions throughout, I am more than happy to answer them. Um So what are labels as a starting point? How would I define these? So they are a term used to character to characterize someone especially something that is inaccurate or restrictive. And today we're going to go into why these restrictive labels are hugely um impactful and detrimental. So, when I've spoken to my clients over the last couple of weeks in the lead up to this event, they've given me various labels that they've been assigned or have assigned to themselves. And I'm wondering if any of these resonate with you.

So we've got weird leader, loud, difficult abrasive kind, competitive and high performer. And I'm wondering if you have seen any messages, mixed messages or labels in the workplace or perhaps you have labeled yourself in a certain way. Hi, Anna. So I know me personally. Something that I labeled myself with many years ago was I'm bad with analytics and that started to be detrimental for my career. And I'm wondering if you're happy to whether you would happily share um some of the labels that you've maybe given yourself over the years that could help other people in this room right now. Interesting. OK. Introvert, too, kind, direct. OK. Enthusiastic and loud, quiet the people pleaser. OK.

Awesome. Thanks for adding everyone. And so when you see the labels that my clients have discussed and you have written in as well, um How do you feel when you see these labels? I know for some of my clients this makes them feel overwhelmed, this makes them feel like they have an act to keep up with. Um This makes them feel boxed into what's expected of them from the team. OK. No. Understood you. You want to act, tattoo even more. OK. Too afraid, afraid that it's too much for some people. Great. So what's the problem with labels? Well, the problem with labels is that it creates limiting self beliefs and also limiting narratives, these limiting self beliefs, create emotional and behavioral responses. So for example, I'm really bad at giving presentations is the thought, then the feeling that we have is we're anxious or we become worried. And then the action and behavior that we take is I refuse to give presentations. And the consequence of this could be impacting your career progression if you need to speak and be visible. And what happens is we repeat these behaviors over and over again until they become embedded and hard to undo. And so I have some very similar labels to what you've um written into the chat, but here's some descriptions. So if you're seen as abrasive, there's a good chance that people won't come to you for help. People expect you to act with bad intent.

You won't create a good network in the organization, you could be disliked. And therefore this could damage your promotion ability. If you're seen as a leader, people may always come to you. And that made me lead you to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. So now moving on to the physiology pots, we have over 50 trillion cells in our body that are responding and changing to every single thought that we have and our biology and in in a chemistry hugely impacts our emotions and thoughts. So, coaching with physical intelligence supports all seven systems in the body known by functional medicine, but it significantly focuses on the communication system and our communication system is made up of neurotransmitters and hormones that move through the body and the brain.

And these levels of chemistry shift and change over time and even moment by moment. And these chemicals dictate how we think we feel we speak and we behave. Yet. The problem is is that most people are acting at the mercy of these chemicals, not realizing that they can strategically influence them. And as a result, they can become stuck. And what happens is our memories, our beliefs, our experiences, they all become chemically encoded in our bodies and then how we feel about something chemically influences our capability and our chances of succeeding. So if you're already feeding yourself a narrative and a self-limiting belief that you are a certain way, it's going to shape your advancement and your performance. So I want to tell you a quick story about one of my clients, Kayla. She was a nice collaborative of teammates. She'd just become a manager and she was starting to have challenging conversations and it was really tough for her to do this because she wanted everyone to get along with her and for there to be peace. However, her collaborative nature started to come at a cost because others were taking credit for her work, taking ownership for processes that she was supposed to manage. And this became frustrating and upsetting for her. She had to create boundaries to stop being walked all over.

And the act of her simply trying to create those boundaries was really hard for her because it was a new thing for her to do and this was causing her anxiety and some sleepless nights and she felt like the quality of her work was suffering. And so here is some more physiology and physical intelligence. So this pathway is the key to understanding the interactions between our chemicals and our performance. If you want to be a high performer, you need to sit on the left side of this grid. And to have any of these feelings requires a certain balance of key chemicals in the body. And the balance is different depending on what emotion and feeling you want to create equally on the right side. This is the total opposite to high performance, but it's also created by our key chemicals being unbalanced and chemicals that actually deplete our energy taking over. And so what I want to tell you here is that the brain is hardwired to keep you feeling safe and in your comfort zone, when you start to shift these labels, it will start to feel uncomfortable for you. So what happens is is that you've been set in a certain pattern for years. And when you move out of this pattern, you start to be unsure about how to respond and behave. Humans are hardwired to sit in the comfort zone because it's safe.

It's a behavioral space that minimizes risk and stress and it helps you because it creates low anxiety as your brain is hardwired to stay here. What happens is when you move to your growth zone, your body releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. And this makes us want to flee from anxiety, arousing situations. So this is where fight flight freeze and thorn comes in. Um If you want to achieve growth or any type of change in your life, be it a new job, a promotion, et cetera, you will have this sensation and it will be flooding your body. What this in real life looks like is thoughts like I'm not good enough. They expect this behavior from me. What if I fail? What if, where I go is not as good as where I am now. And so all of these belief systems are linked to you moving towards your growth zone. But if we want to continue to grow, we need to move towards this area. Please also um drop anything into the chat that you have for me. I know I'm a little bit over but I'm on a final slide now. So um as a coach, I offer a 12 week program, a lot of this is embedded in what I do. It's called the four D method and it encompasses everything you need to go from um where you are. Now.

If you're a career plateau or feeling stuck to career fulfillment, I have opened up some slots in my calendar. Here's my website in linkedin. So if you want to connect, feel free to um any questions, please do drop them in, if not have a really wonderful day. Um I'm so pleased that you guys enjoyed this session and are also enjoying the conference so far. Um Lovely to meet you all and please do connect with me on linkedin. Take care one. Bye bye.