Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Transform and Lead. I'm Bron Stephens, ex CEO turned executive coach who is all about women, uplifting women. I know what it's like to question whether your way of leading is enough. You've worked hard, you're ambitious, and you want to do big things without having to fit into someone else's mold. This podcast is here to give you practical, powerful ways to own your ambition, femininity and power, so that you can lead with confidence, your way.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: You'Ve been trained to do. But what if that's the problem? Let me set the scene. You've climbed the ladder, you've made it into the room where decisions are made and now you're here, unsure, maybe a little confused. You're not burnt out in the classic crying in the car kind of way, more like constantly on ready for the next thing and wondering what that is, looking for what the next big thing is, and wondering when you get to stop feeling like you're chasing success and confidence. When does it feel like enough?
High performing women have been conditioned to act, fix, deliver, prove it's rewarded, praised and promoted. And then somewhere in that process, it becomes automatic. You're not stopping to think. You're executing without pause, without breath. And it's not strategic. Not because you're failing, but because the system taught you that slowing down is dangerous, that stillness equals slipping. And I want to tell you today, it's not. Stillness is strategic.
Let's bust this myth about stillness and about the pause. The pause is where power lives. Strategic pausing isn't weakness, it's wisdom. It's what gives you back yourself in leadership. Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once wrote, between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. I was in a coaching session recently and the person I was coaching said, I can't afford to pause before I speak or people will think I don't know what I'm talking about.
And whilst I hope that's an uncommon belief because it's simply not true, I do know that it does come up more than that one time and it's not the case. Let me say it here and really clearly. Pausing in a conversation can give you power. And creating space, intentionally pausing is even more powerful. My personal favourite is, let me think about this for a moment. And if people keep talking, I just simply say, sorry, I just need you to let me sit with this and think for a minute so we can move forward.
And people then know that you're Thinking they can see that you've got this and that you're giving it the due consideration. And one of the advantages of that is they feel your respect in that moment. They feel that you respect what they're saying and that you're thinking about it. So that what you say next has power. And it got me thinking about the fact that it's more than just a pause for the moment in the conversation, it's about pausing in our daily work and careers as well. Leaders who are more self aware outperform those who have lower self awareness. However, whilst 80% of leaders consider themselves self aware, in reality the data demonstrated that only about 10 to 15% of leaders actually are self. Aware. Meaning that these people have got the greater ability to regulate emotions, decrease their stress and increase happiness. They have more self confidence, they've got freedom from assumptions and biases leading to better decision making and understanding things from multiple perspectives.
More so they've got the power to influence outcomes because they've got better communication and relationships. And that's really impactful.
The big one I want you to hear in that list is the freedom from assumptions and biases leading to better decision making by taking that time to pause in the moment and challenge yourself and your thinking and whether or not you've got bias and assumption in there, because you will. The first thought that you have is always a jump to judgment. It gives you power and it gives you that ability to make really good decisions based in a neutral angle rather than just pushing through and jumping to the first conclusion that comes up.
And the thing is, you can't have self awareness without that self reflection. And you can't have self reflection without the stillness. The pause stillness isn't actually still, it's reflection and recalibration. It's the moment you stop asking what do they need from me? And start asking what do I want to create Here let's zoom out again. So this isn't just about taking a breath during or before a meeting. It's about creating intentional space, real space to ask yourself the questions you've been too busy, too productive or too responsible to face. Because high performing women are brilliant at chasing goals. And we tend to chase a goal, get the goal, chase the next goal, get the goal, chase the next goal, get the goal, chase the next goal.
But goals often come from the system, not from self awareness and really thinking about what it is that you want. We're often chasing promotions, influence, bigger titles, more impact. All of these are incredible things unless they're misaligned with what brings you joy and what brings you meaning. And so I often find that the women I work with have had these incredible careers, and they've done promotion after promotion. They're doing big, big work. And I've been one of those people, you know, I've. I've led $100 million projects, $200 million portfolios, teams of 500 people globally, really big bits of work. And I kept chasing and chasing and chasing, but I wasn't pausing. And the women I'm working with aren't pausing to figure out what really brings joy and meaning. And without that pause, we keep climbing without knowing whether the ladder is even leaning against the right wall. According to Forbes, leaders with strong self awareness are not only more effective, they're more trusted, more resilient, and more likely to lead teams with better performance outcomes. Here's the kicker. Clarity doesn't come from doing. It comes from reflecting, from unraveling. From pausing and getting still long enough to ask, what do I actually want now? Not what looks good, not what's expected, what matters.
And when women pause, not just for a beat, but for real space, we stop leading out of habit and we start leading from alignment. We, we choose careers, businesses, roles, and even relationships that reflect who we truly are and what we want to create. And that. That's where the confidence finally kicks in. Not because we have all the answers, but because we finally stopped long enough to ask the right questions. For me, I have a deep and desperate desire to see women stay in corporate executive roles. I want us to get to 50%, but we're currently hitting burnout and leaving at a high rate. By taking this time and pausing earlier to figure out what we actually want and how we get purpose from the careers that we're building and then go and chase that, we're not going to be able to stay. We're going to keep feeling like we're out of alignment and wanting to leave, or we're going to have to shoehorn ourselves into spaces where we don't necessarily feel great about how we're showing up. This reflection, it's how we create the future and the career that brings us that joy and meaning. And we can do that within these corporate environments. Let me tell you about one of my clients, Kate. Kate is a powerhouse. She is smart, capable, widely respected, and she's landed her second executive role by the age of 39. And everyone around her assumed that she was just going to keep climbing. And truthfully, so did she.
When we first started working together, she came to me with A crisis of confidence, though not because she wasn't delivering. She was. She was doing really, really well. But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. She was ticking all of the boxes and still wondering why it didn't feel like success and why it didn't feel like her.
As we unravelled it together, the core issue became clear. Kate had never actually stopped to ask herself what she wanted. Every role, every promotion had come because someone offered it and she was the obvious choice. So she just kept saying yes because it was there, not because it was right.
And she could have paused at any time and said, this isn't the right role for me, and gone and got the. The one that was. And they could have been side by side. In fact, when we were talking about how these things had happened in her career, they were side by side. So this cost of never pausing, she didn't know what success meant for her anymore. And so we paused. We stripped it all back to values, purpose, the kind of impact she wanted to have. And from that place of deep self reflection and real clarity about herself, Kate started to lead in a whole new way. She made bold decisions. She stopped playing the part. And her confidence, that it felt shaky. It returned. But this time it was rooted, it was anchored, and it was hers.
So why don't more women pause? Well, because we think if we stop, everything's going to fall apart. Our credibility, our authority, our hard earned place. We've been rewarded for momentum, not for reflection. And also because stillness brings clarity. And clarity can be confronting. It can be really uncomfortable. Leaning into where we've gone wrong and what we should have done instead, how we want to go and create that future. You might realize the version of success you've been chasing doesn't feel like yours anymore. That what you've built isn't what you actually want to keep building. And that your days are filled with action, but not with impact. And so that title that you worked so hard for doesn't feel like home anymore. Pausing invites discomfort. It unearths the gap between what you've been doing and who you want to be. And it reveals the internal compromises, the buried values and the neglected dreams that are there. And yes, sometimes you're going to find that what you're doing is actually undermining your confidence, not enhancing it. Or that you've been trading your presence for performance. That you've become indispensable in a role that no longer fits. And I know that again, because that was me. I was kicking girls and taking names at Telstra, literally at the top of my game, with people thinking my work was the best thing since sliced bread. And I hated it. But it was what I'd worked so hard for. And so I had to keep going, didn't I? And I'd got myself into a set of golden handcuffs. I had the great house, I had the fancy car, I had the incredible wardrobe. If you know me, you'll know that my earring collection was out of control. And to be fair, my earring correction collection is still out of control. But I was feeling really trapped in that space. And so keeping on going was just this default position. And it was just a terrible idea because when we don't listen to our minds, our bodies step in for us. And mine certainly did that for me. And we'll talk about that in another episode. But again, those who know me know that I've had some challenging times with my back, and it certainly stepped up when I was at Telstra to let me know I wasn't treating myself well.
But I knew I needed to pause when that happened and I knew that I needed to change something. And I fought that pause. I fought that pause really bloody hard. And when I finally got there and did have to, and my body had just said, that's enough, we're pausing now, I realized that it's not a failure. I realized that there's growth in that and that it's your next evolution. When you start asking for space to emerge, not louder, not faster, but clearer, you start to step into your power. You start to own your ambition, and you start to really tune into your femininity and become who and how you want to show up. So how do you pause in a strategic way?
My go to answer to help you pause and step into your power is to work with a coach to help you unravel and get clarity on what you want. However, if that's not on your agenda right now, here are three ways to engage in meaningful strategic pausing. Not for calendar tweaks or product activity hacks, but to realign your life and leadership to what truly matters. And these are not big things, these are small things for you to start with. There's a lot of free resources on my website and I'd encourage you to go and play there as well, where you can get into your values and your purpose and set big scary goals and do all of that work as well.
But just for right now, start small. So start with the clarity minute. So before any high stakes meeting, career conversational decision point, take a full minute for yourself and put it on a Timer. It's just 60 seconds, no screens, no distractions. And ask what outcome matters most to me here, not to them, to me. And that allows you to step into your power and centers your response in clarity and intention rather than reactivity. And you know what you want to get out of that meeting so you can then think about how you're going to get that by having that clarity.
My next one Take visioning walks. So block some time each week and it's non negotiable time for pure reflection. And so that means no music, podcasts or other distractions. You're just going outside, leaving your to do list behind and letting your thoughts wander to bigger questions. What do I want to create next? Where am I feeling friction? What part of me isn't being used right now? And then pair that with a journal and sit down and write about what came up. Or use a voice note while you're walking if you don't have time to sit down and write. This isn't about solving problems. It's about listening deeply and unlocking that knowledge and wisdom that sits within you by combining activity with deep thinking. And my third one for you is the pre move mirror. So before you say yes to the next big opportunity, promotion or pivot, pause and journal on these three questions, does this move take me closer to the life and impact I want?
Am I choosing this because it's right for me or because it's expected?
And if I weren't trying to impress anyone, would I still say yes?
This isn't a surface level checking in. This is how you stop living a life that looks impressive and start building one that feels powerful, one that feels like yours. And that resonates in what you do every day and how you go home at the end of your workday. And let me be clear, you don't need to earn the pause. You don't have to. And you shouldn't hit burnout to deserve reflection. You don't need to earn your stillness with exhaustion. And all of the most senior, strongest leaders I know know that reflection is the key to excellent leadership. It is how you understand how you're showing up and what you want to do differently to become a better leader and a better human. You get to pause because you're a leader, because reflection makes you sharper, not slower. And because your best decisions aren't made in chaos, they're made in clarity. As I wrap up today, just know this. You don't need to prove yourself by powering through sometimes the bravest thing you can do is nothing, just long enough to hear what your ambition is trying to tell you next. If you want more of this, subscribe to Transform and Lead wherever you get your podcasts. Share this episode with a brilliant woman you know who might need permission to pause. And if you want to get clear on what's next, you'll find the link in the show notes to book a coffee date with me to sit down and talk about how I might be able to help. Thanks for being here. Go slow so you can go far. I'm cheering you on and I'll see you next time.
