Episode 1041: Invest in Others - Interview with NLP specialist and coach Gemma Bailey – Part 2

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1041 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Gemma Bailey: I'm Gemma Bailey. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world. You can do this by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to succeed.

[00:00:22] No matter what circumstances you find yourself in is key on one way to be inspired to do this. Is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:36] and one is moving towards the things that you want. And one is moving away from the things that you don't want. And psychologically we're all set up slightly differently. So some people are more motivated by what they want to get away from. And other people are more motivated by what they want to move towards.

[00:00:59] Scott Maderer: [00:01:00] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your input.

[00:01:22] So that you can impact the world

[00:01:26] in today's interview with Jim a Bailey. I asked Jim to share how thinking positively can actually affect what we do. I also asked Jemma about how we get stuck from taking action and what we can do about it to get unstuck. Jim I'll also share some tips on mental health and self-care. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.

[00:01:48] Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books.

[00:01:58] But

[00:01:58] Scott Maderer: if you're like most people [00:02:00] today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:02:07] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listened to great books.

[00:02:32] The same way you're listening to this podcast. Gemma Bailey is the director of people building a personal and professional development company, specializing in NLP, training, hypnosis and coaching. She is the creator and franchisor for NLP, for kids, a company that teaches practitioners how to help children, families, and schools with mild to moderate mental health issues.

[00:02:56] She owns a heist. Therapy company called the [00:03:00] hypnotherapy in NLP clinic is an international speaker, an Arthur, a YouTuber, and a director for a nonprofit organization called superheroes. Welcome to the show,

[00:03:12] Gemma Bailey: Gemma, thank you so much for having me.

[00:03:16] Scott Maderer: So last week, we talked a little bit about how you come into a career of helping people and building these companies out of your history of nursery work and other things.

[00:03:29] So let's talk a little bit about the work you do now, and can people really quote. Think positive themselves out of a challenging situation. You last week, we talked about developing good questions and having that ability to ask yourself questions. How does the think positive mantra that we hear so much?

[00:03:52] How does that play out in the work that you do?

[00:03:54] Gemma Bailey: I think it does, but I think it is also something [00:04:00] that is misunderstood. I think that thinking positive is super important and does so much for you on an emotional level. It does so much for you in terms of helping you to have access to more resources around your confidence, around your self esteem, all of these things that might help you to take more positive action.

[00:04:26] However, I think that people often misunderstand. Positive thinking and they use it as a fluffy term to soften their experience of the world. So let me give you an example. Let's say that we've got someone who's in a really high state of anxiety. And they think, oh, I've read a self-development book.

[00:04:55] And it told me that I just need to think positive. And so they're in a [00:05:00] heightened state of anxiety and in their mind, they're going it's all right. Everything's going to be okay. I'm sure it'll be good in the end. And it's you're saying all the right stuff. So on the face of it, you are thinking positive, but.

[00:05:15] It's not enough things like the fact that you still have a tone of voice inside your head and the, a bit like the other week when we were talking, you said about when you quote your price, but you make it sound like a question and it has that air of uncertainty around it. If you do that in your head, when you believe that you're thinking positive, then actually what you're doing is thinking uncertain.

[00:05:41] You can say all the right stuff, but if you say it to yourself with uncertainty, it doesn't have any power behind it. And so sometimes what I talk to the clients that I work with about is sometimes you might need to be tough on yourself, and that is also thinking positive. Sometimes you might need to say to [00:06:00] yourself, knuckle down and get this done because you can do it.

[00:06:05] And you have got the power that you need. That's not fluffy and positive. That's like hard hitting, but also positive. We might need different sorts of mantras and intonations at different points in time. Sometimes what we refer to in Britain as tea and sympathy is required sometimes where it's a bit more come on, you can do it.

[00:06:29] And it's a bit more warm and fluffing loving that might take you to where you need to be. But if it does. And then you might need to be a bit tougher on yourself and people might hear that and go that's not very positive, but actually it's about the action that it pushes you towards, because if it leads you to a positive place, then that's still positive thinking.

[00:06:51] Scott Maderer: Yeah. It's in a way. It's that difference between. Kindness does not always necessarily mean nice. [00:07:00] It, the tough love is still love, but then there's also abuse in one. And one of those is not tough love. That's actually abusive that, but knowing that difference and I think also I would call out and ask for your input on this.

[00:07:18] I've had the experience of talking to people about their inner voice the things we say, things to ourselves that we would never say to another human.

[00:07:26] Gemma Bailey: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'll give you a good example here, Scott and I again, share this one with my clients sometimes because it's important that they know.

[00:07:36] I might be a bit of a ninja when it comes to things like NLP and you're in a voice and the language and all of those sorts of things, but actually I slip up. It's just that I'm more aware of it when I do. I'll say to people here is some good frameworks for you to use, to manage that inner voice and to be kinder to yourself, but to also motivate [00:08:00] yourself and be positive or tough on yourself when you need to be and know that you're not going to be a hundred percent perfect at best, a hundred percent of the time.

[00:08:08] Say for example, if I'm very tired or under a lot of stress or both, then my inner voice is the first to start getting brutal. And I had this one day I'd come home from work. It been one of those days where I'd probably got up late, so I hadn't tied it up the house in the same way that I ordinarily would do in the mornings.

[00:08:31] And then when I came home from work, there was like washing up, waiting for me. And then that frustrated me because they'd already been a long day and I just wanted to have dinner, but then I had no plates. And so I'd started doing the washing. And then I'd emptied out the sink and then turned, my cat is sitting there looking at me like, but what about the cat bowl?

[00:08:55] And I realized that I'd not washed his bowl up yet, and he's waiting for me to feed him. And [00:09:00] he gives me a real guilt trip. In that moment, I realized what I'd done. I've emptied out all the water from the sink, but I've still got something that I need to wash up and very quickly the thought that went through my head was along the lines of great.

[00:09:17] Now you've thought to fill up the whole thing again, to wash up another bowl because she didn't do it properly. And it was really quite aggressive. And cause I spotted it. Instant in my own head. I also said to myself, it's just washing up a cat all though. Isn't it? So it's okay. And I was really chuckling to myself because I thought wow, like how quickly did I slip down that slippery slope of getting negative and aggressive towards myself?

[00:09:49] Because I didn't wash up the cats, food bowl, get a grip. But it's easy to do. And I think the more pressure we're under the less we might recognize it. [00:10:00] And I think a lot of the time when I speak to people and I go, here's some frames that you can use to keep your self-talk more positive talk to yourself as if you were your best friend or your favorite niece or nephew little things like that.

[00:10:14] And they go, yeah, like I know that. And it's fundamentally, I think we do all know it, but we just don't always employ it.

[00:10:22] Scott Maderer: And that kind of brings us to the next question, which is why is it then that some people don't actually take action on these things, even when fundamentally they know at some level.

[00:10:35] This would be good for me. I should do this. What does hold us back from that? I

[00:10:41] Gemma Bailey: think there can be a few things. I think a fear of failure is a thing. I think fear of success is a thing. I think a lot of the time it's about comfort. And the saying like it's better the devil than the devil you don't.

[00:10:58] And I think that [00:11:00] relates to us in a way that we experienced comfort. We might be in an uncomfortable circumstance in our life. But moving might be more uncomfortable than that. And what I move into, I don't know what that might look like, and that's going to be uncomfortable, even if ultimately it turns out to be amazing.

[00:11:22] I still, I know where I'm at. If I stay where I am, but I don't know where I'm at. If I change and that's scary that's scary for people. There are the weirdos like me who are like, whoa, change is going to be different, but I appreciate not everyone else thinks that way. And I think those are probably the main things.

[00:11:45] I think fear of success is underrated. And I think it often looks like fear of failure. But there are fears attached to success because if I succeed then. What will my [00:12:00] family say? Are they going to give me a hard time? Will I lose the friends that I've got? Am I going to need to develop a new peer group?

[00:12:07] Am I going to seem separate from just the clan overall and all of those sorts of things I think can be quite unconscious worries. Sometimes when we're not even aware in our consciousness, that those. The fundamental fears that are preventing us from moving forward. People have fear of failure, perhaps because they have made attempts at things in the past that they were not successful at.

[00:12:35] And then that becomes a reason to not ever try again. And actually I would say in going into business, just as an example, you. Are going to experience failure. I think if you can go through life, knowing that you're going to fail at a lot of things, it's going to help to balance your [00:13:00] expectations a lot better and be a lot more accepting.

[00:13:03] And we have a principle in NLP. It's referred to as a presupposition, so are things that you assume to be true evenly. They might not technically be true. And one of them is there's no failure, only feedback. So if you have an attitude of yeah, I'm probably going to fail at something somewhere along the line, but do you know what that might be a really valuable lesson.

[00:13:25] I might really get something from that. And I do believe that certainly to a large extent is true because if I think about the journey that I've been on. If everything I'd done, I'd just been instantly successful at, I probably wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much. I wouldn't really understand how I did it.

[00:13:48] So I would be a really unhelpful person in imparting those skills to other people. And yeah, I just don't feel like I would have as much pride [00:14:00] in what I've achieved. Those failures really. Quite meaningful in a strange way. So I think there's a few different things that maybe prevent people from taking action.

[00:14:12] I would say, I would like to think it's a lesser, a group of people. It's a lesser reason. I do think there are some people who get their kicks from complaining. And so solving problems would maybe take that away from them because they wouldn't have that sort of. Whoa is me martyr ish identity anymore.

[00:14:37] So who would they be now? Like they'd have to grow into a whole new identity and that's probably scary too

[00:14:43] Scott Maderer: well. And I think a lot of the frame that you were just giving for all of those, if you think about it, is that identity change really? Cause fear of failure. Is about attack to your identity.

[00:14:56] Fear of success is about attack to your identity, but there is [00:15:00] that because. If things change, we have to change it.

[00:15:06] And I think a lot of us the fear really is more about self change than it is about the circumstances changing, you

[00:15:13] Gemma Bailey: know? Definitely. And sometimes that just comes down to an interpretation of the feeling that you experienced because some people would. I have the feeling of fear and go, whoa, this is exciting.

[00:15:30] And some people are going to have the feeling of fear and go, oh, this is fair. I need to step back step away from the change. Yeah, exactly. And fear has healthy and fear is not healthy. Fear again feeling like, Hey, I probably shouldn't play in traffic because that's try to protect you but thinking I'm going to get up and do a five minute talk in front of people and therefore I'm going to die.

[00:15:59] Scott Maderer: That's actually not [00:16:00] true or I'm going to be ostracized and embarrassed, honestly, probably not. Because everyone else is thinking the exact same thing, which is, oh boy, I'm so glad they're up there talking instead of me, that for the few weirdos that actually liked public speaking. Yeah.

[00:16:14] I did my first public speaking event at 12. I'm. But that's I'm weird. So let's talk about, yeah, let's turn it and go the other way. Let's assume for a minute that folks we have a friend or we have a family member. We have people around us that we see struggling to get to that point of taking action.

[00:16:37] What are some things. That we can do to help them move in that direction in a healthy way, maybe without the, but you've always got nursery working. we've got a moment.

[00:16:49] Gemma Bailey: So I talk to people a lot about leverage and leverage. Ultimately the lever that moves things forward. If you've got a great big Boulder that [00:17:00] needs budging, you're probably not going to be able to push it where you need it to go.

[00:17:04] But if you get a lever underneath it, then actually we can start things rolling in the right direction. Typically in NLP, we look at two different sorts of leverage. One is moving towards the things that you want, and one is moving away from the things that you don't want. And psychologically we're all set up slightly differently.

[00:17:27] So some people are more motivated by what they want to get away from. And other people are more motivated by what they want to move towards. And then there's some people that actually require a little bit of both in order to feel motivated enough to start to take action. And in a way, the answer is know your audience really get to know the person that you're talking to so that you can start to establish, like where does.

[00:17:56] I start to sparkle. Where do there is prick up? Is it [00:18:00] when you tell them about the pain of staying, where they are and the things that they want to get away from, or do they really seem to get excited when you talk to them about the good things that are going to come on the other side the riches, the good health, the better mindset, whatever it is that they might be moving towards.

[00:18:22] Or is it as a result of giving them a combination of both of those things to consider? Typically we do need a little bit of both. The reason why is we tend to as human beings to be a bit more motivated by pain and pleasure. Even though we like to think that where people. Naturally focus on the positives, not necessarily the case.

[00:18:43] And I think it really comes down to survival instinct we want to make sure that we are running away from a saber tooth tiger, even though these are not necessarily things that we're dealing with on an everyday basis anymore. But we do have this kind of innate sense that we need to [00:19:00] know about the bad stuff so that we can get away from it.

[00:19:03] And it's really why mainstream media tells us bad news. Yeah, exactly. And any kind of news outlet that's ever attempted to do a good news newspaper. Typically doesn't last very long because we are more motivated, more driven, more interested in the bad stuff that we want to get away from that rather than the good stuff that we want to move towards.

[00:19:29] So I think if we are in the business of wanting to encourage someone else to take action, find out what their drivers are, stuff that they're moving towards, stuff they're moving away from, or a combination of both.

[00:19:42] Scott Maderer: So that brings us to another question we've talked a lot about how we think of ourselves and how others think over the last little bit, what are some things, what are some tips or advice that people can do to help themselves stay in a mentally [00:20:00] healthy place?

[00:20:00] Gemma Bailey: I think we can't rule out the fundamental basics. Exercise, eat well, sleep well. Be with people that make you feel good. I think that those things we've heard them so much, it's easy to gloss over them, but they make a really big difference. Sometimes as some of my clients situ Aaron and they're perhaps in quite a privileged situation where.

[00:20:28] As well as doing long hours in private schools. So they get the longer school holidays. They do maths club on a Monday and an English tutor on a Tuesday and Japanese on a Wednesday music on a Thursday, and then host riding on a Friday and fencing on a Saturday and swimming on a Sunday and their parents bring them two minutes.

[00:20:47] They're in a heightened state of anxiety. They're not concentrating very well in school. And they're emotional all the time having these outbursts and then I find out a [00:21:00] little bit more about their lives and go, I think they're tired. You don't need me. You need your bed.

[00:21:06] We can't disregard the basics. Self-care is super important. So go there first. And then beyond that things like the positive thinking or let's call it helpful thinking. So keeping a. In a voice or some people don't really know that there's an inner voice in there, or they don't have an inner voice in there.

[00:21:31] It might come down more to the images that they make in their mind where they're thinking about what their future might look like. And that might be a snapshot image. It might be. 3d high-definition with surround sound movie that they run in their minds of what their future's going to look like, make those things big, bold, bright, lovely.

[00:21:51] If you've got old traumas from the past. Deal with those, because those things are energy [00:22:00] consuming and any stuff that you are not resolving is going to be it's a bit like leaving the apps running on your phone, in the background. It's you don't see them there all the time, so they don't bother you, but they are consuming your battery.

[00:22:19] And that's what happens in our minds as well. So if we've got unresolved traumas, then deal with that because that's eating into your battery, you're in a battery. And if you want to be the best version of yourself that you can be, then you need to have the energy to be able to do. I think that there's a lot that we can do is certainly coming out.

[00:22:42] The other side of COVID just in regards to being more social and having close contact with others. COVID puts us in a situation where we were somewhat deprived of that with the various different lockdowns that we all went through. And I think a lot of [00:23:00] people have a tendency to turn into.

[00:23:03] If they are having some mental or emotional challenges and they keep all of that inside their own heads, rather than sharing it with friends, family loved ones connect with others. We're human beings. That's a healthy thing for us to be doing. And I think one of the key and most practical, simple things that people can do is be organized.

[00:23:26] If you've got things that you want to achieve in your life goals that you want to fulfill or just things that you want to focus on. Don't just hold that stuff in your head. Get that down on paper somewhere, have a plan. Write that plan out break it down into smaller steps, start chipping away at it.

[00:23:47] And note down the progress that you're making as you go along, because that's a really good way to push yourself into keeping the momentum going once you've started taking some action.

[00:23:59] Scott Maderer: You [00:24:00] can follow Gemma on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook as at people building. And she's active over on YouTube as well. If you start for people building, she has a website. People building.co.uk. Of course she's also active on LinkedIn is Gemma Bagley. I'll have links to all of this over in the show notes as well for everybody.

[00:24:22] Jim, is there anything else that you'd like to share with

[00:24:24] Gemma Bailey: the listener? I would absolutely encourage people to get onto the people building podcast, which you can find via all of the major podcasting outlets. We have a series of hypnosis audios as well which if you're in. Self hypnosis. We've got a massive suite of different subject areas that you can explore.

[00:24:46] Those are available via iTunes. They're also available on the people building website and all of our training these days. Done remotely. So it's partially via videos that you [00:25:00] initially worked through and complete assessments around. And then the rest of it is live, but online. So both for the work that I do with NLP, for kids and with people building that is now accessible the world over.

[00:25:12] And so if anyone's interested in the kind of work that I do and is interested in gaining a qualification for them, Definitely hop on over to either NLP for kids.org or people building, which is people building.co.uk.

[00:25:26] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your call. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:25:54] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to [00:26:00] leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.