Glin Bayley 0:00
Hello, and welcome to the unstoppable woman podcast where I reveal the power of your heart to create leadership impact and cultivate confidence for the life you want. I'm your host Glin Bayley and as a corporate finance leader, executive coach, entrepreneur, and author. I know all too well the challenges that prevent female leaders from claiming their seat at the table. In this podcast, I talk all things to do with self leadership, sharing stories, insights, and guidance on how to ultimately get out of your own way to live a life in alignment with who you are. When you begin to see the impact that you can have, no matter where you are starting on your journey, life becomes one huge adventure. I'm so excited that you're sharing your journey to unstoppable with me. So let's dive right in.
How do you know if it's time to quit? This week, I've been taking some time to think about 2023. And what I want to focus on for the year ahead. And if you've been evaluating what you're spending your time on, and why then I hope this episode will give you some insight on how I'm choosing to create a better life for me. And I hope in some way that it helps you to evaluate more clearly what you want to focus on, and how you can move into 2023 more powerfully.
Unknown Speaker 1:26
Now. Just over a month ago, I started a new business called the value negotiator. My mission with that business is to transform the value businesses create in commercial deals through developing intelligent negotiation skills. Now I chose the name not to create a brand per se, but to create an identity and identity for myself, and an identity for the business leaders I work with. I see the value negotiator is a way of being not just doing, whether it's commercial negotiation, or otherwise, we have to choose to negotiate the value we want to get in life. And whether that's negotiating with others, or ourselves. And why is that because we all know that we all we always don't get what we deserve. But we can get more if we negotiate. Now the last couple of years, I have been training commercial negotiation skills to senior corporate executives. And I worked for a global negotiation consulting firm. In December last year, the leadership, the local leadership structure of that business changed. And as a result over this last year, I I observed and witnessed the culture in the team and the business changing for me, that new regime didn't align to my values. So I made a decision to leave the business. And I finished in October.
Unknown Speaker 3:00
So that was a decision I made to quit, because it was appropriate for me to do so I knew my mental and emotional well being was going to be hindered by being in an environment that wasn't in alignment with my values. So making that decision powerfully before my energy was affected adversely, for me was a really powerful choice to make. It's easy to fall into victim mode and think, Gosh, things have changed. They're not how they used to be. And I don't like the new regime. And in the first instance, the natural responses to want to battle against that change. Sometimes things change for the better. And sometimes they get worse. Now, what's powerful about making the decision in quitting is it gave me the space to think about what I wanted.
Unknown Speaker 4:00
Now, I never imagined when I started 2022 That I'd be ending the year starting another business. I have heart of human business already. And the value negotiator being set up has required me to think about who I need to be to create my own successful business in this space. And I know I need to be able to back myself more than I ever have before. And so it means I need to make some choices about where I spend my time and what I do. So I've been asking myself if it's time to quit focusing on growing heart of human. Now backstory for those that are new to the podcast is that during COVID, I pivoted heart of human from an in person female leadership training business to an online course and coaching business. I'd lost my primary source of revenue from a recruitment partner that I was affiliated with, who at the time had to furlough their staff. Thankfully, because of my experience, I was a pro Ah for the role as a negotiation consultant, full time for a global consulting firm, which meant heart of human, as my business had to become a part time business, which was fortunate because the income I was generating at the time, without my income from the recruitment partner wasn't enough to survive on.
Unknown Speaker 5:21
Now, during these last three years since 2020, I have worked tirelessly to grow heart of human as an online course brisk business, I've learned about tech, and I've learned about up leveling my skills and the online space. I've invested heavily in my development with various business mastermind groups and with expert mentors in this space. In fact, this podcast probably would never have gone live into the world had I not invested heavily in my development, and learned the different modalities of getting my voice out there and not being the world's best kept secret. Now, when COVID began, my ideal clients became individual women rather than large corporates, because many businesses weren't investing in learning and development at that time. But where I am today, as a result of that shift in focus, and looking back now, I feel that I have spent more of my time and energy because I shifted the focus from business to business, essentially, to business to consumer focusing directly to the individual, I feel that I've spent more of my time trying to market and sell my products and services than I have actually delivering my product and service.
Unknown Speaker 6:40
I have learned that I'm certainly no Instagram influencer. So trying to build a following on Instagram with heart of human or to grow my email list organically to increase the volume of clients has also been really difficult. And I would say I've had mixed success, but minimal success. And it's certainly not my strength area. And what was interesting was last week, I had the final session for the latest cohort of women that had completed my unstoppable woman program share the journey that they had experienced through the program and the shifts in who they were before the program and who they are now. For me, this was the first time I had run unstoppable woman as a corporate program. It was on request by the business that had wanted to put a number of its women on the program, high performing leaders, women that they have seen huge potential in and want to nurture and develop. And what I realized was that corporate programs worked incredibly well.
Unknown Speaker 7:41
One, the women were really deeply connected with each other at work to going through the program together, they had a language that they could now give to the challenges they were feeling and the obstacles that were getting in the way, but also a language and the tools to be able to overcome them. And when they shared their journey, it absolutely filled my heart with joy. I was so proud of each and every one of them, that overcome so much in themselves to get the outcomes, they did things like increasing their confidence, they got better with boundaries and learn how to say no, they've got greater wellbeing and stronger self awareness. So all of them found the courage to have critical conversations both at work and at home, so that they could get more value for themselves in their lives, and connect deeply to their heart in that process. And what it made me realize was that I absolutely loved working with corporate businesses, as clients, and with leaders that align with my values, which is that they choose to invest in their key people because they see the value they get in return.
Unknown Speaker 8:44
And here's the bit of insight that I also had to face into myself, my truth bomb, I'll call it which will be controversial, for some to hear. And it feels controversial to say in some way. But I'm gonna say it because it's my truth. I love working with women. But what I do not love is trying to convince women to invest in themselves. And sadly, that's what I felt I was doing with heart of human. I spend so much time and energy in my own personal development. And I can see the value of that in my growth and the opportunities that I get. But I know sadly, at this time, the majority of women still do not invest in themselves. Because I know for sure in my heart of hearts if the business hadn't made the investment it did and these truly amazing women on that program, they personally would not have made the dollar investment nor the time investment in themselves. And yet they all got so much value and have grown immensely as a result of that time and money invested in them.
Unknown Speaker 9:50
So I realized through that, that there was joy in it for me in the areas where I knew I was working with activators those that wanted to make things happen. And what's been weighing heavily on my mind recently is that, personally, I've been reflecting on the recognition that I have is that I know I've not been commanding and therefore not getting the value that I deserve. In the negotiation space working with businesses, I've been working with businesses paying 1000s and 1000s of dollars for the negotiation skills that I teach. I've got huge credibility, because I've spent 17 years of my career in finance, growing revenue and profit in global businesses. What I did in November was to create a course on the heart of human to help women by sharing a small fraction of what I know, to help them get paid more, because I'm passionate about helping women get the value they deserve. So it's a salary negotiation course. I knew also that corporates would never pay for their women to learn to negotiate better for their salaries. So as a result of recognizing it's not going to be a corporately endorsed program, I've priced the course at 197. But I could count on one hand, how many people have bought the program. For me, that's been truly soul destroying.
Unknown Speaker 11:12
And you have to start to recognize that for your own sanity, you have to work with people, businesses, that can see the value of your work and your experience. And what I realized over the last couple of months of reflecting on wearing where I'm spending my time, what I've been trying to do to grow heart of human and also now investing my time and energy into developing a new business with the value negotiator. But I'm I can't be spending my time in sales and marketing activities, trying to convince people that what I have to offer is of value, because I'm devaluing myself and my experience having worked with large corporates, global corporates, and working with businesses that have paid 1000s, for the knowledge that I bring, and yet I'm, I'm imparting that wisdom, where people aren't seeing the value in the same way. And unless I'm selling 1000s of programs, which I wasn't, it wasn't my work, it wasn't worth my time or energy, regardless of how much these programs would help women.
Unknown Speaker 12:14
And I know that sounds harsh, because some people will listen to this and go, Wow, that's really selfish. But what I know for sure, is that you cannot fill other people's cups from an empty cup yourself. And for me, trying to constantly prove the value to women of investing in themselves, these last few years, truthfully has emptied my cup and taking the joy out of what I do and heart of human. So I recognize something has to change. In reflecting on that I decided that what I don't want to do is try and make a living, selling and marketing products and services to individuals, when my skill set and experience is much more suited and valued in large businesses feels energetically so much better.
Unknown Speaker 12:56
And what it's also allowed me to do is to say okay, from now heart of human is going to be there with the unstoppable woman program and one to one coaching for anyone who's ready to lean into powerfully stepping up into their self leadership. But outside of that, I am not going to be working to market or convince people to buy my products or services. My focus instead is about growing the value negotiator which is going to be focused on business to business. And as such, what it allows me to do is to lean in and step into creating the powerful version of myself that I know I am. And what I've recognized is that we have to sometimes quit something to allow us to honor our own value. And when I sat down with the vision of who I want to be in the future, what it allowed me to see was certain things that I was spending my time on, wasn't going to be something that was going to support the person I wanted to be in 2023. Because I want to play a bigger game, I want to lean into the possibility of creating something that I can be so incredibly proud of, and so incredibly tuned in.
Unknown Speaker 14:17
So I've run over a little bit longer than I intended. I'm trying to make these episodes no more than 15 minutes long. I just wanted to end with the view that sometimes we have to quit something to allow us to honor our own value. And I won't go on much further because these episodes are there to be short, sharp nuggets to help you think about what's going on for you. But I already know I feel so much freer for choosing what fills my heart and what fills my cup. And I know I'll be of greater service to the people around me as a result. So Keep being you keep being unstoppable. Live Your Truth.
Glin Bayley 14:56
Thanks so much for listening to the unstoppable woman podcast the path to the future you want leads from your heart. If you got value from this podcast, please leave a review and share it with another woman who you know would benefit from it too. We need more women claiming their seats at the table. Until next time, live your truth and be unstoppable
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
