LOVE ME OR HATE ME

EP #22



“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 22, with Rhiannon Bush



Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.





So, as some of you may know, who frequently listen to me, I recently begun a new role with an organisation. I’m doing some consulting work, and I’m really loving it, and something that occurred to me from previous roles that I’ve had, especially in my more recent career, is that anything I do I want to come at from a position of power. And I don’t mean power as in our external power or powerful in a hierarchy, but from the position of internal power. From a place of empowerment. The best way I can say this, is that I want to get to put my head on the pillow of an evening, at the very end of my day, I know that for the entirety of that day, I was true to me. To my beliefs, to my thoughts, to my way of being. But also in a way that is for the better part, good to others and functions successfully in our social society, our social contracts and constructs, and the way in which we need to conform to society to survive and be accepted. It’s a balance of both right?



So a few roles ago, we were negotiating my salary. If you’ve been through a restructure, or a process of negotiating salary, then you know it’s tense and stressful. It’s a sensitive topic. There was a complete restructure that was happening, and they wanted to decrease my salary. And I could’ve seen the conversation coming, but in that moment, I thought to myself ‘you know what, remain open, have a little faith, and do what’s true to me’. That’s the question I continue to come back to. What is true to me, and how do I need to behave to align with what’s true to me.



So I had a conversation, and I let the person negotiating with me go through their thought process, reminding myself not to react, not to speak out of inconsideration, but instead to listen, and try to see it from their point of view. And I was able to see it from their point of view, even though I didn’t like it and it negatively impacted me. I was able to detach enough to have the conversation. And within 24 hours, that person called me back, said it wasn’t the right thing to do and that what they were doing and expecting of me… it didn’t make sense to then decrease my pay as well. I ended up getting what I wanted, which was the same salary and continuing to work with that organisation.



I knew they weren’t in a position to increase my salary, but I knew if I could continue to stay with them, over the course of the longer term, it would seriously payoff. But, fast forward to now, we never got there because I no longer work with them which is a shame, but sometimes that’s just for the best, and that’s how things worked out.



It’s coming into this latest role that I’ve had where I wanted to come in, being true to me which, as I’ve said is my head on my pillow of an evening asking and honouring the question - have I been true to me? And I was able to do that.



What being true meant to me, has meant for the past three months, because I’ve been in the role three months now, is that my actions, what I did and said, how I behaved, came down to… they were they going to love me, or they’re going to hate me.



That’s a bit dramatic, it may not have been quite that extreme one way or the other, but I thought well… culturally I’m going to fit or I’m not. And, more importantly, I am okay with not fitting.



And that takes having an abundance mindset. Because if, as I’ve done in previous roles, I’d come at it from an angle of ‘this job is the only job and no one else going to want me and no one else is going to have me and oh my gosh what if I lose this job’, I’m very much in scarcity mindset. I’m driven out of fear and then I will consciously change my behaviour, based on what I think they need, instead of what I need.



And I did that for a very long time, that was definitely how I was taught to behave, it’s definitely coming from older generations that had to behave that way, because they were working in jobs that were scarce, rebuilding society out the other side of World War II, and so people had to take whatever job they could and the higher educated you were the better job you got, the better salary you got, the more security you had, but the world has dramatically changed and now millennial‘s can be more demanding about what they want and the work life balance they want to have.



The beauty of that, is that millennial‘s will typically work extremely hard, they will really give their all to cause they believe in and things that align with the values. But they also have expectations to deliver in that kind of a way. So if you’re the kind of boss who doesn’t feel need to micromanage, who can empower their staff, provide flexibility for their staff and you have staff that are aligned to what you do, and your cause, you’re on a winning ticket. If you have millennial‘s who are maybe a little bit disempowered and coming from that scarcity, they will do whatever they need to do for you just because they’re in the fear and scarcity mindset. When it comes to asking more from them, they may be reluctant. Where you may have a problem is where you have someone who’s taking advantage because they don’t feel passionate about what you or they are doing, or they don’t typically want to work hard for anything other than their salary. They are there to get their pay check and walk out the door.



But coming back to it, when I thought to myself ‘you going to love or you’re going to hate me’, it made it really clean-cut because I’m coming from a place of valuing myself first. And I think that’s really important. Because let’s be honest, they could love me or hate me whether I was being myself or whether I wasn’t. So to be myself and have that same outcome is amazing… like I’ve heard a lot of life coaches say “you’re uncomfortable no matter what you do, no matter whether you’re driving to achieve something that you want to achieve, or whether you are not driving to achieve something that you know you want to achieve, you are still feeling the same level of discomfort. So you might as well feel discomfort while achieving it rather than not achieving it”. This is a very similar thing.



Another way of explaining what I mean is it when I started dating my beautiful partner Damien who I love so much and who is absolutely my person, for those of you who have your significant other and it’s really strong right now, you’ll know what I mean. But for a long time, I hadn’t met Damien. And around the time I met him, I was infatuated with this other guy. And this other guy, I’m sure I’ve told the story before.. was this football jock. He was that life of the party that everyone gravitates to, the jokester. And we had mad banter. We had really, really great banter.



Whereas with Damien it was just easier. And because, let’s call him my infatuation, wasn’t really giving me much in the way of a green light, and Damien really wanted to keep seeing me and I really wanted to keep seeing him, we kept coming back together.. So fast forward now, and for years I’ve felt this way, if I was to go and date my infatuation, I would’ve been dating this person and changed who I thought I was supposed to be, in order to date. Which was someone like him. Because it felt heightened, it felt like he was looking for something specific, and so I would’ve tried to be that thing to meet what I perceived (because I didn’t actually know) were his expectations. And if we had gone on a date, what that would’ve resulted in, was me worrying about what I wore, worrying about how I looked, worrying about what I said. Instead of just being there, in the moment, having a great time. I would’ve been worried about the continuation of it, who I needed to be, what I was lacking, what he might be missing, all of this total BS, if I’m being honest. All too hard.



When I dated Damien, it was easy, it was seamless, and I just wanted to keep going back. I just wanted to talk to him all the time. Because our conversations were in depth, we were on the same wavelength, and then you know other important parts of a relationship everything else lined up as well. Most importantly I was 100% me. He got the real, raw, uncensored me.



So, in summary what I’m trying to say, is it’s important for you to be treated the way you expect, set standards for yourself, as YOU. And obviously have your own back. Using the job example, if having that specific job and / or that specific salary is important to you, make it work for you.



By finding little, tiny ways in the beginning for you to realise and step into your self-worth, who you are, or who you want to be, and taking a few small risks to begin with, you can start to see how they land with others. This is important because to educate others on your self-worth, your self-set boundaries and how you expect to be treated, can be a little of a shock to people who aren’t used to it. I can guarantee you now, if you start to become more assertive and you start to talk about what you think or how you feel, especially if you feel quite strongly about those things and the people you’re around aren’t used to you speaking up, there will be people who don’t like it. That may be friends, family, colleagues, clients. Some people will not like it, some people will not cope with it, and those are the people you need to question whether you value their opinion and are happy with them having a place in your life or not.



If they’re boss, we need to reconsider things. Firstly, the consideration is whether that role is right for you. Having a good bass is a difference between setting your career on the right path or the completely wrong path. Your boss matters. How they support you matters. How they help you develop. Matters. How they speak to you and respect you and honour you, matters. So if you’re working for someone right now who you feel you’re learning lessons from, great! But are those lessons, lessons that you think are encouraging you in the right direction or are the lessons that are teaching you exactly how you don’t want to be treated, escalate the corporate hierarchy or treat subordinates? I’ve had both.



I’ve had excellent bosses and I’ve also had bosses who I’ve just thought, you are a miserable human being, and while yes I’m learning a lot, I’m learning exactly what I don’t want to become. Both are valuable but if that second one is the value that you’re finding right now, you seriously need to question whether you’ve been in that role too long, and how much more there is to learn. Because there could be a boss waiting for you, who is going to nurture your development and teach you beyond the realms of their own self-interest and coping mechanisms.



Years ago, very early on in my career, working at the Hilton Hotel on George St in Sydney, I had one manager who I heard apologise to a client for the behaviour of one of the staff members, and they said “sorry she’s new”, and then I had a different manager who I heard say to a client “and what gives you the right to speak to my staff that way”. You can see straight away who had more respect from their staff and when you have respect from your staff, your staff will do more for you.



When it comes to my work output and deliverables, it’s actually much more about making sure someone in the organisation thinks well of me and respects me, than it is about the client that I’m doing the work for. I have a boss right now who is kind, and brilliant, engineering background, super smart, he’s been doing what he does for a very long time, and he comes from a place when he mentors, from one that he’s doing it not only because he loves to teach, and to share what he knows, but he wants you to develop. It feels very selfless, and it comes from a place of kindness.



I had a boss in corporate years ago, who was all about their self-interest. It was always about what they were going to get, what they were going to gain, the money they were going make, and while I made good money, it was very one sided energetically.



There are times of flipping in between feeling really powerful about setting boundaries and honouring what’s true to me. There are other times I get sucked into what other people need or want from me, at a determined to myself and that turns into resentment, sometimes anger. I know that when I’m true to who I am and what I believe, I add a lot more value to those who can and do appreciate me, rather than hide or shy away because I’m afraid of what people may think or that I might offend someone.



I hope you honour you. From a place of self-worth, self-respect and authenticity. I’ll see you next week. Bye for now.











Hey! Before you go, I always find reviews really helpful when looking for new information or insights…



I you’ve found this podcast valuable, please take a minute to write a quick review about what you’ve found most beneficial for you, so other people can benefit from your insights, and listen in too. I would LOVE that!

Also, if there are any topics you’d like me to cover specifically about life coaching or the life coaching industry, visit rhiannonbush.com to contact me. Thanks for joining and I’ll see you in the next episode of Do I Need A Life Coach?!

Please note, this transcription may not be exact.