Ep54: Becoming Unapologetically You – Embracing Growth, Discomfort, and Authentic Leadership with Alison Maitland & Liz Walker
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What does it really mean to become unapologetically you — and how can embracing discomfort lead to deeper growth and authenticity?
In this inspiring episode of Human Wise, host Helen Wada sits down with Alison Maitland and Liz Walker, co-founders of Becoming International, to explore what it means to lead and live with authenticity. Together, they unpack how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help leaders break free from old narratives, reconnect with their values, and build the confidence to show up as their full selves — at work and in life.
Helen, Alison, and Liz dive into the uncomfortable, yet transformative, process of growth: learning to notice emotions rather than suppress them, opening the “doors of the castle” to rediscover forgotten parts of ourselves, and recognising that the most human leaders are those willing to be vulnerable.
Whether you’re navigating leadership, change, or self-doubt, this episode offers a powerful reminder that authenticity isn’t something we perform — it’s something we practise.
Topics Discussed
What it means to be unapologetically human at work
How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can support leadership growth
The difference between horizontal and vertical development
Embracing discomfort as a pathway to self-awareness
Reconnecting with your body and emotions as sources of intelligence
How authenticity transforms confidence and leadership impact
Timestamps:
00:00 – 02:30 | Introduction and guest welcome
02:31 – 06:17 | What it means to be unapologetically human at work
06:18 – 11:55 | Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and its power in leadership
11:56 – 15:25 | Expanding your “multi-room castle” — rediscovering forgotten parts of self
15:26 – 22:50 | Embracing discomfort and learning from emotional signals
22:51 – 28:40 | Connecting body, mind, and leadership presence
28:41 – 36:00 | Vertical vs. horizontal development — redefining growth
36:01 – 39:40 | Transformation stories and the power of unapologetic leadership
39:41 – End | Final reflections and closing thoughts
Read the episode blog here
Learn more about Becoming International
Follow Alison Maitland and Liz Walker on LinkedIn
About Dr Alison Maitland
Alison Maitland is founder of Becoming International, equipping people to lead unapologetically. Alison has over 40 years research, consulting and HR experience. She has delivered solutions to blue-chip businesses across Europe and North America, using a lens of diversity and inclusion acquired over several decades of working internationally to create culturally sensitive change. Alison has taught, published and researched on issues of equality, intersectionality, identity and difference. Her research has resulted in practical improvements in the culture of the GB Women’s Rowing team, the ability of girls to play mixed football, and the participation of socially disadvantaged BAME women in sport. Alison is an HCPC registered psychologist, an experienced trainer and facilitator, and regularly speaks on leadership, team development and inclusive psychology. Liz Walker
About Liz Walker
Liz Walker is co-founder of Becoming International, equipping people to lead unapologetically. Liz is an executive coach and facilitator with over 25 years’ experience in leadership, learning and development in global organizations. Leading and working in multi-cultural, virtual teams, Liz has diagnosed, designed, developed and delivered international L&D programs that support individuals at all points in their career from onboarding and early promotions through to executive leadership. She is expert in translating research into inclusive, culturally sensitive, virtual and experiential learning solutions, that shift behaviour and deliver performance. Liz has a Masters in Organizational Behaviour and is an EMCC accredited coach, working across a range of sectors and all organizational levels of the organization, including the Board.
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Ep. 54 Alison Maitland & Liz Walker Human Wise Podcast
[00:00:00]
[00:00:28] Introduction and Guest Welcome
[00:00:28] Helen Wada: Good morning and welcome to another episode of Human Wise. I'm absolutely delighted to have two wonderful women with me this Liz Walker and Alison Maitland. Co-founders of becoming international, an organization that equips people to lead unapologetically and be themselves. A little bit about Liz and Alison.
[00:00:53] Helen Wada: Liz is an executive coach and facilitated 20, 25 years experience in leadership and learning [00:01:00] a. So register psychologist, an experienced trainer and facilitator, and regularly speaks on leadership, team development and inclusive psychology. They both worked together with a number of blue chip organizations and particularly helping DP rowing with practical improvements to their culture, as well as helping girls to play mixed football in their participation.
[00:01:26] Helen Wada: Disadvantage So I'm delighted to have you both
[00:01:30] Helen Wada: tell
[00:01:30] Helen Wada: us a little bit about who you really are as human beings.
[00:01:33]
[00:01:33] Meet Liz Walker
[00:01:33] Liz Walker: So I'm Liz Walker. Yes, I'm coach and I'm a facilitator. I grew up in learning and development in organizations. As a human, I am more than my career.
[00:01:43] Liz Walker: And So I am a mum of two, two young boys. I am a daughter, a sister friend to the Fab Five, as we call ourselves on WhatsApp. A KF ball player your listeners can look that up, spelled KORF. So I you can look at what [00:02:00] that is, all sorts of things really. But I, yeah, my, my passion, I guess is.
[00:02:06] Liz Walker: is around working with individuals and seeing the shift that they can make. And I often talk about, for me, the joy is in getting to the heart of what's really going on.
[00:02:16] Helen Wada: Wonderful.
[00:02:17] Helen Wada: And I remember that corporal from years ago at school, but I can't remember exactly what it is, so I am going to look that up a little bit later.
[00:02:24] Alison Maitland: Shall I go next then?
[00:02:26] Helen Wada: Yeah, lovely.
[00:02:27] Meet Alison Maitland
[00:02:27] Alison Maitland: I'm Alison Maitland. I work with lizard Becoming, and I guess my career you made it sound really quite simple and quite straightforward. Helen, when you introduced me, but actually. um, It feels like a really zigzag direction. I did a first degree in banking and finance, goodness knows why.
[00:02:43] Alison Maitland: 'cause I wanted to be a PE teacher. Worked into human resources in big companies for many years. And then you gave an indication. I went back to university, did a master's degree, did a PhD, and then ended up doing, finding my passion in sports psychology and retraining as a sports psychologist [00:03:00] 20, just over 20 years ago. And then found last bit of my career in leadership development and then in the work that we do now in developing women leaders. and I guess as a human, I had a pivotal moment when I was 40, almost exactly 40 as I leapt into that decade. And I had breast cancer. and that turned my life completely upside down how I thought about things, how I thought about development, who we are as humans, what flourishing looks like.
[00:03:27] Alison Maitland: And down down. so. Yeah, I'm sure some of that will come out as we go through the conversation.
[00:03:32] Personal Stories and Career Journeys
[00:03:32] Helen Wada: Oh my goodness, Alison, and you know, we were introduced by wonderful Kath Bishop, who was the first guest on this PO podcast and has been a wonderful supporter and. Spoke so highly of both of you that it was, you know, a natural fit to bring you on the show. We obviously, we did a book call and I didn't really realize that about you, Alison, but I had a similar situation as I had my epiphany to think about how do I bring all my.[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Helen Wada: Career together equally started in banking and finance, chartered accountant by original trade and then did a master's in management development, laterally trained as an executive coach. And then as I was thinking about, you know, the next steps in my career, that's when I had early stage breast cancer.
[00:04:17] Helen Wada: I had DCIS, abductive Cancer was very lucky that it was caught early but you are right. I think as we talk about being human and getting to the heart of things, which is what. Liz was touching on and hopefully we'll explore more. Life is so much more than what we do at work. What we do at work is really important.
[00:04:37] Helen Wada: It gives us so much, but actually, I think listeners, it's important that we all do recognize who we are. Taking a step back and thinking about the individual and we're gonna dive into that in a lot more detail. I know over the coming, you know, 30, 40 minutes or so. But it's really great to hear the stories of yours and, and who we [00:05:00] are.
[00:05:00] Helen Wada: 'cause we're individuals at
[00:05:02] Defining 'Being Human at Work'
[00:05:02] Helen Wada: Which really gets us onto the first question I always start these podcasts with, but what does being human work mean to each of you?
[00:05:11] Alison Maitland: Okay. So I, the simple answer would be, and it is very much to what you just said, Helen, I think is to be unapologetically ourselves. It's a word we use in our becoming our business of becoming to be unapologetically ourselves. But actually I think the answer is more. Complex because it depends where you are in your life. And certainly at the nexus point I had, I realized there were almost like two halves to my life. There was the first half of my life, which was a very necessary part of being human, which was learning how to build the container of who I am as a human being.
[00:05:41] Alison Maitland: And that's what we all have to do. And hopefully if we are well supported and mirrored, we can all, all do that. And we get to somewhere. In our thirties, forties, maybe fifties, sixties, sometimes for people. It depends, um, in building that container of, you know, this is who I am, this is how I talk about myself.
[00:05:59] Alison Maitland: I've got a sense [00:06:00] of all of that. And then I think the second part of that is about undoing that container going, actually, I don't need all of those parts. To me, it's almost like falling into who we really are. So that's kinda my longer answer to what I think it means to be human.
[00:06:17] Helen Wada: I love that. I think that sort of building yourself up, but then actually working out how you strip bits away so that you can really double down and focus on who you want to be and who you are because we shift over time.
[00:06:30] Alison Maitland: Yeah.
[00:06:30] Alison Maitland: Yeah. And I think it's been able to let go of those kind of egocentric preoccupations with who we think we are to go on that bigger, wider, more expansive
[00:06:39] Alison Maitland: journey.
[00:06:40] Liz Walker: I think
[00:06:41] Liz Walker: if I was gonna add to that, I would add something that we often talk about in our programs, actually in the programs that we deliver, which is that infamous it refers back to that infamous Forrest Gump quote, the life is not a box of chocolates. Because I think often so we do a lot of our work on Zoom, right? And often it's really easy to [00:07:00] look at this little rectangle of somebody
[00:07:02] Liz Walker: and to read their bio and to go, oh my goodness. They must have it all sorted out. You know? So take a look at me. I look relatively professional. and I've got makeup on, I've got jewelry on, I've got career history that's got a master's degree and experience in these big organizations.
[00:07:17] Liz Walker: And you go, wow, she must have it all sorted out. actually when we work with groups, we encourage them to do what you did exactly at the beginning of this call, which is just share a little bit about you, the person, because nobody's got it all sorted out. Everybody's got something. You know, whether it's a health thing, a parent thing, a child thing. a. dunno, an aspiration that's not come true, a challenge you face in the past. All sorts of things. And when we start to share a bit of that, whether it's in our programs, whether it's as people at work, whatever it is, when we start to share a bit of that's when we become kind of more, more human, more round, more whole.
[00:07:56] Helen Wada: And it links so beautifully to the human [00:08:00] that I talk about in that, that the human framework that will be in the book. The book is seven weeks away. I can't quite believe it. I'm, I literally pressed send yesterday on the final version. So I'm taking a deep breath lap. I, you know, people look like and say, oh my goodness, you the book, what gone into that?
[00:08:20] Helen Wada: And the layers, and actually I'm just writing about again later today
[00:08:24] Helen Wada: and how you show up start and showing up your authenticity,
[00:08:31] Helen Wada: vulnerability
[00:08:32] Helen Wada: to actually explain, you know, actually this is me. It's not just this face. We see in social media or whatever, you know, I have a love-hate relationship with social media because, you know, for full fact what you don't see the full human behind it for the most part.
[00:08:47] Helen Wada: And I think that's one of the struggles that we have today, is that people are aspiring to be these people that are not really real or they're not seeing the vulnerability and the [00:09:00] challenges behind Be able to focus on what's important to them. Allison, you touched on it at the beginning. You know, we have to go through these experiences and all of these experiences.
[00:09:11] Helen Wada: The good, the bad, the ugly. Believe the brilliance help us to be who we are today.
[00:09:16] Alison Maitland: Yes.
[00:09:16] Alison Maitland: And the interesting thing about that is people think that those experiences have the power to name who you are and they don't.
[00:09:23] Helen Wada: tell us a little bit more about that.
[00:09:25] Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
[00:09:25] Alison Maitland: Well, I mean, it goes to the basis of the, so you know that Liz and I work with something called acceptance and commitment therapy. That's the underpinning of all of the work that we do. We use it in our programs. We use it as coaches. I use it as a psychologist in sport. Um, it is that notion that the. Story that we tell about ourselves. The one that's kind of been chain together about who we think we are is any one of many ways that we can make sense of ourselves. There's, there are, we can't undo, we always say, Liz and I, we can't undo the experience that we've had, that those are experiences, there facts in our life.
[00:09:59] Alison Maitland: We [00:10:00] can't undo how we felt about those experiences. So when I had breast cancer. I was devastated,
[00:10:06] Alison Maitland: You know, it was the end of my world Well, if I was gonna die, frankly. So, you know, but whatever the experience is, we can't do how we, you know, whether it's someone who's been abusive to us at work or a promotion that we've been turned down by what, whatever it is, those are facts, but we can change how we speak about ourselves, how we play the story forward, who do we say that we are as a result of all of this?
[00:10:29] Alison Maitland: yeah.
[00:10:30] Helen Wada: and I love that ruling on that.
[00:10:32] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: sort
[00:10:32] Helen Wada: Commitment therapy. You are right. Drawing that in. 'cause that's traditionally been sort of in therapy world, but actually bringing it into the business world and the world of sport. Allison is so important.
[00:10:43] Liz Walker: It, is, it's allowing us to do a different kind of work.
[00:10:48] Liz Walker: I think so. Where traditionally, so I grew up in learning and development and where traditionally what learning and development would focus on would be around trying to give people skills to do a thing. [00:11:00] So whether it's negotiate or be assertive or lead a team or have a conversation or whatever it is. What we're doing is we're going, okay, so you've been given that framework, you've been told that way of doing something and it's still difficult and you're still finding it challenging. So, you know, when you go for that promotion, you are, you're giving your star answers or whatever it might be. And you're still feeling like an imposter or you're still not feeling confident or whatever. So you've still got this kind of underlying challenge that's keeping you stuck or that's keeping you knocked off track. So the work we are doing is going, okay, how do we kind of unstick you from that so that then you can go on and choose to use all these fantastic tools that you have been given.
[00:11:41] Liz Walker: So it's a different kind of level or way of working that we're doing.
[00:11:46] Helen Wada: And it, it resonates so much with when talking about the coaching approach versus the training, you know, the difference between training and coaching
[00:11:56] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: It
[00:11:57] Helen Wada: is different because the coaching really [00:12:00] helps the kid under the skin of why you are not doing something. It's the same with the work that I do with commercial You know, go and win more work, go out and create some opportunities. Go well, well that's all very well, but unless people are confident in having those conversations, the targets and the goals are never going to be realized. People, you know, whether it's the imposter or that confidence unless you unpick those limiting beliefs and understand what it is that's getting really in the way it's very hard to move forward.
[00:12:37] Helen Wada: And when we spoke before, we talked about sort of that vertical and horizontal piece
[00:12:41]
[00:12:41] Horizontal vs. Vertical Development
[00:12:41] Liz Walker: the way we often talk about it is the difference between horizontal and vertical development. So we take, if take that, the example I just gave, the negotiate, the be assertive, the manage your team, the have a performance conversation, all those skills that you expect people to increasingly acquire as they go through an [00:13:00] organization. For us, that's, uh, horizontal development, that's adding branches to the tree. That's giving people more and more tools in their toolkit, more and more equipment that they can draw on. But the work we do is vertical development. For us, we, you know, the metaphor we use is like the trunk of the tree. It's about really strengthening your own awareness of who and how you want to be. So yes, you're right. That might come through coaching. It might come through more, kind of, you know, we do it through programmatic. With a kind of coaching under underpinning. Um, but the difference is quite profound because what you're doing is you are working on how an individual thinks about themselves and the world rather than what they can do. And that's where the acceptance and commitment therapy kind of underpinning comes in. And aand, I dunno if you want to say a bit more about that.
[00:13:50] Alison Maitland: Well, and I was gonna say, actually, we, there's a beautiful metaphor that we've borrowed, which is about the multi roomed castle. And it's, so it's about building that tree trunk, but it's about also expanding the worldview [00:14:00] that you have about who and how you can be and the impact that you can have.
[00:14:03] Alison Maitland: And so the metaphor of the multi-room castle is a bit like, you know, things come along in our lives. That say, oh, actually Helen, you couldn't be this or Liz, don't do that. Or, you know, you are one of these, but not one of those. And so eventually closed down, although we were, we were born as this massive multi-room cattle. We closed down doors. They slowly kind of shut on us till eventually we are left for this two bedroom, almost like little shack going, oh, this is who I am, is it? And particularly as women, that's often where there are lots of, you know, biases, assumptions, stereotypes, you know, expectations that go with being. Female or being a woman. And so we end up with this kind of much smaller, narrower version of ourselves. And so a lot of the brilliance of acceptance and commitment is that it gives you the flexibility to make some choices to open back some of those doors or even open some doors that you didn't even know you closed.
[00:14:55] Alison Maitland: I'll embarrass Liz, but Liz often and I do a demonstration if we are delivering a program and she's always the [00:15:00] Guinea pig and you know, one of hers might be assertive. You know, and it'll make her squirm and wriggle and go, there's no way that I am an assertive sort of person. But when you work with it, you go, actually, I can see there are times when it's really helpful to open up that door of who I am and I can see times when I can choose not to. So it's just giving you that flexibility. That's really the underpinning of acceptance and commitment is developing that flexibility. To make choices about all of the things. We work a lot with shadow work. I heard one of your previous guests talk a lot about that.
[00:15:33] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: Yeah.
[00:15:34] Helen Wada: Steven de
[00:15:35] Alison Maitland: Yeah.
[00:15:35] Alison Maitland: Brilliant. I love
[00:15:36] Helen Wada: Brilliant guy. Yeah.
[00:15:38] Alison Maitland: And actually what acceptance and commitment does, it's not naturally, it's not shadow work itself, but it goes, as Liz said, it goes to Okay. Can I notice the uncomfortable things that come up when actually I step into being assertive in this situation, or I dunno, whatever it is, in whatever quality it's you don't want. it allows you to [00:16:00] sit with that uncomfortableness to go. I can still have a choice to do that if I want to. So it just opens up the possibility, broadens out who you can to turn up as.
[00:16:10] Helen Wada: It really is. And there, there's something there about the un uncomfortableness that I'm gonna pick up on a moment, but I, in a moment. But I just thought, you know, what you said resonated so much with, you know, a little bit of my story just sharing. I, I. I was down with my parents. He came on and my father had an operation loss just finishing the book.
[00:16:29] Helen Wada: And he looked at me and he said, I can't believe you are doing I could never have done anything like this as a child or like, like my midwife.
[00:16:38] Helen Wada: And I paused and I said, well, it, well, it's interesting because I never thought I could either and sometimes we go through life, we start our stalling and we end up in a career that we fall into for whatever reason.
[00:16:50] Helen Wada: The need to progress and there's money and you know, get into life stuff. But actually taking that step back and thinking, well, who am I really? [00:17:00] What are the skills that I have that I might not have even tapped into? And I think sometimes, and again, maybe particularly as women but I know for others as well, we find ourselves in organizations and you almost get into a box of what you and you need to sort of let go of those flaps of the box open up.
[00:17:17] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: up.
[00:17:18] Helen Wada: Was that another metaphor was like that Jack in the box to go, well, who am I really? And bringing those skills and parts view together really
[00:17:28] Liz Walker: And I think what's in, what's interesting about the work we do is that it's almost easier to kind of get on board with that when it's about being brave or about being assertive or about kind of words where we might. Have some sort of positive connotation. So that kind of, I wish I could be.
[00:17:46] Liz Walker: but the ones that are really hard, the ones where Alison does see me squirm, mean, the ones where you kind of go, oh, I'm really afraid that I might be I, I am afraid I might be selfish, or I'm afraid I might be a [00:18:00] liar, or I'm afraid I might be jealous.
[00:18:02] Liz Walker: Or those things that we've really deeply been taught not okay. When you can, with that acceptance commitment therapy kind of work, when you can take a perspective on those and go, okay. when I. I lie, it makes me really uncomfortable. Like the guilt and the shame, and the fear and the, a and sometimes I do lie.
[00:18:24] Liz Walker: And you kind of go, okay, wow. So, and all what you're doing. Then go back to Allison's kind of metaphor of the doors in the castle. You're unlocking that door and you're not going, I'm a liar. I know that, you know, it's not, it's not becoming your identity, but you're going.
[00:18:38] Liz Walker: Somewhere in my castle, I have a door that allows me to lie and when I need to. So take leaders for example, who are bound by confidentiality agreements. Or are leading big projects where there's announcements coming, but they can't give them because there's a timeline and Yeah. And so, and people come and they say, do you know anything about?
[00:18:58] Liz Walker: And the leader has to say [00:19:00] no. sometimes that's not true. They do know and they ha you know, so the ability to be able to do things that you kind of have been told you never should, or you're afraid that people will judge you for. It is about an expansion of you as a human at work.
[00:19:16] Liz Walker: It's about being able to be all that you can be rather than
[00:19:19] Liz Walker: being bound by these really narrow kind of definitions of yourself.
[00:19:24] Helen Wada: And I think sometimes it creates stress. If you've got those values and you have those core values and sometimes for whatever reason you need to operate in a slightly different way having that door, and I love, I love the sense of that door. 'cause it a, an opening door gives a release, it creates space you to go in.
[00:19:44] Embracing Uncomfortableness
[00:19:44] Helen Wada: , going back to that sort of dealing with uncomfortable comfort the moment because we are all working in a world now that is uncertain, it's uncomfortable, and we don't quite know what the answer is going to be, and that [00:20:00] I'm seeing is an increasing challenge with those that I work with.
[00:20:04] Helen Wada: Curious to see, you know, to hear from you and your experiences, but techniques for people to think about, you know, you're going into something, it's uncomfortable. You don't know where to go what
[00:20:14] Helen Wada: should we do?
[00:20:15] Alison Maitland: I mean, the always, I think the interesting starting point of that is things are uncomfortable usually when they're important to us.
[00:20:22] Alison Maitland: So that's almost a first realization to go. Okay. I always say to people, you know, if you were choosing between And yeah, whether you're having, you know, corn Flakes or wheater bakes for breakfast, it's probably not that uncomfortable. You know, it's just a choice. Just get on with it. But when start things start to be important, that's when things are. So even speaking out in a meeting that feels uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable because it's important to you that your voice is heard. If it wasn't, you wouldn't feel uncomfortable. You'd just let the meeting carry on and blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's often quite an important thing for people to realize, to go actually in the surface of doing something important to me, maybe I can make some space to be uncomfortable.
[00:20:58] Alison Maitland: So it's almost like a starting [00:21:00] point. And then the second thing is going actually. Being uncomfortable is a normal human response to things. it's how our, our body responds to situations where there's something to think about. Some danger being kept by The group where I know whatever it, where, whatever it is. So once you go, okay, it's a normal response to feel uncomfortable. actually, and what I love about act, it's one of the things that Liz and I really like about it. whereas other, so it is like a second behavioral approach to therapy. Whereas if you go back to CBT that comes before it. CBT would say, let's learn ways to dampen down the uncomfortableness.
[00:21:39] Alison Maitland: It's find ways to make you feel less uncomfortable, less anxious, less. Afraid less, whatever it is, whereas what access is no. It's a normal response to something that's important. So therefore, let's find a way to make space for that. How do we make space for that feeling of uncomfortableness? So lots of different ways, but one [00:22:00] way is simply to go, okay, let's just name it.
[00:22:02] Alison Maitland: Okay. Here's that slightly icky feeling I've got in my stomach, whatever. Whatever it is where, name it, where it is, and then start to make some space for it. So breathe around it.
[00:22:12] Alison Maitland: Can you imagine that you could just open up around it?
[00:22:16] Understanding and Objectifying Emotions
[00:22:22] Alison Maitland: Can you actually start to go, what does it remind me? Can you objectify it and go. Yeah, reminds me, oh it's, think you've got a good story, Liz, about your son. You can tell that in a second. Ball, you know what, whatever it is. And you can just go through some simple ways of helping people just to go okay. Even with that feeling. 'cause that feeling is never bigger than you once you can put it in your body. It's somewhere in your body, there's a part of you that can notice that feeling.
[00:22:42] Alison Maitland: It's not bigger than you. You can make space for it, and you can make a choice. As always, you can open the door again, you make a choice to speak out or keep quiet. Your choice
[00:22:54] Liz's Story: Applying Professional Skills to Parenting
[00:22:54] Alison Maitland: Liz, do you wanna share your son story?
[00:22:55] Alison Maitland: I love that one about the.
[00:22:57] Liz Walker: Yeah, I do. So, I use [00:23:00] all the work I've done with acting in, in the kind of professional setting. I now I'm applying to my children, much to that discussed sometimes. My 12-year-old came outta school the other day. Little boy and he did that thing that parents on the podcast listening to the podcast will recognize where they've had a rubbish day and they just march towards their safety zones.
[00:23:19] Liz Walker: So he came to me at speed, like head busted me in the stomach, arms flung around me like clinging on for dear life. as a parent, your heart sinks at that point. And and he said to me, I've had a rubbish day. And I said, oh sweetheart, why? And he said, oh, this teacher had said something to him or whatever.
[00:23:36] Liz Walker: You know what it's like at 12? Um, And then, and anyway, so we kind of wandered back to the car together and I did what Allison's describing. I said to him oh, tell me about the feeling. Oh, I'm fed up. So he kind of gave me a name for it. And I said, okay, and is it inside you? And he said, yeah, it's in my tummy. And I said, okay, and what shape is it? It's a triangle and it's spiky and it's big. And we gave it a color and we gave it's, [00:24:00] you know, and we were describing it. And and we got in the car and we went and we were, I treated him So cup of hot chocolate Costa. Other the coffee shops are available and he uh. we kind of just, we just left it there.
[00:24:10] Liz Walker: We didn't really do very much with it. We just kind of talking through the, But the thing that I love with it is that 'cause that it is not about trying to control those feelings. So I didn't try and make it smaller for him. I didn't try and say any of those things that we would always say, oh, don't worry about it now.
[00:24:26] Liz Walker: It'll be better
[00:24:27] Liz Walker: tomorrow. The teacher, you know, you know, maybe you could, I didn't make any suggestions at all. I gave him the ability to notice it, give it a shape and a color, and a size and a feeling. And then we left it there and eventually. Came back to him at the end of our hot chocolate. I said to him, you know how's your triangle?
[00:24:44] Liz Walker: And he looked at me and he went, oh, that's a bit smaller. It's not quite so spiky. And I said, oh, that's good. you know, You know. Great. Let's move on. Let's you know,
[00:24:54] The Power of Connecting with Your Body
[00:24:54] Liz Walker: We, I think we often told that if you read all these horrible social media sites, whatever, [00:25:00] don't think about it. Just ignore it.
[00:25:02] Liz Walker: Pretend it's not there. I mean, God, how many presentation skills courses have you been on? Were you told to? You know, imagine the audience naked or you know, like all those kind of things in your head. Whereas act is so physical, it's like just, you know, connecting with your body So d.
[00:25:19] Helen Wada: is. And it's that connecting with your body that is, is the powerful piece. And when I think back to my coach development and the training that I went through that, you know, yes, I love my first diploma that I completed in 2015, but actually where. Did I feel that my development for progress exponentially, and it was when we started with thematic coaching and that tapping into our body and our senses, and I hold a true belief that actually that is a fundamental part of us experienced leadership skill that we do not.
[00:25:56] Helen Wada: Value enough and don't talk about enough [00:26:00] at the moment. I think we are getting there. It's starting to become, you know, more common in, in the language and things, but tapping into our breath, tapping into our senses.
[00:26:09] Helen Wada: cause number one, as Alison you said you have to name it, you have to acknowledge it.
[00:26:13] Helen Wada: And if we've got these feelings, whether it's, you know, an uncomfortable feeling goes to a presentation, whether it's an uncomfortable feeling after a conversation. Maybe we're sat in a meeting room and we are trying to create an opportunity. We're trying to work with new customers, and you sense that something's not right.
[00:26:31] Helen Wada: How
[00:26:31] Helen Wada: many times do I speak to people and they say, well, you know, well, what did you say? Or, I was too afraid to say anything. What is your gut telling you? And we have to link this head, heart, and gut in the moment to be present, to be able to notice it and then do something with it.
[00:26:48] Liz Walker: Helen, have you seen there's a Ted Talk, sir Ken Robinson. S killed creativity. And there's a brilliant quote in there, which I'll never forget where he says professors look upon their bodies as [00:27:00] vehicles for taking their heads to meetings. so so I'm paraphrasing, but
[00:27:03] Liz Walker: basically that, and I think that's true in, in many of the businesses that I've worked in, that people kind of, it's all about what I'm thinking.
[00:27:10] Liz Walker: It's all about, you know, inside my head and we kind of forget that there's Body here that does stuff and that helps us. That tells us, as Allison said, that tells us what's important, that give, gives us information.
[00:27:22] Helen Wada: Allison could probably tell me you more than me, but we've got as many nuances, if not more in our gut than we do in our veins, I find that fascinating because you are right. It's all like thinking about up here, particularly Alison Lighten and my Good Self as a chartered accountant. We talk to lawyers and engineers and people that are thinking that actually seen as a completely almost opposite skill to be tucking into our goal what feeling but it's so important.
[00:27:51] Alison Maitland: And I'd say, so the act work that we do is part of, I guess that's half of our toolkit that Liz and I work in terms of going back to this [00:28:00] notion of vertical development. So it's a, it's an essential part of that to giving people those, those broad skills that act gives you. Um, but the second part also is that notion of. How do people change? How do you take them on a journey? How do you help, particularly in a training context, which is what we work in an awful lot. How do you help them transition? Do that vertical development, build that tree trunk? And I think that's the other interesting thing about what work we do and there are many ways that you can think about going on a journey of change.
[00:28:30] The Hero's Journey in Personal Development
[00:28:30] Alison Maitland: We happen to use the hero heroine's journey that Joseph Campbell archetypal kind of version of how we think people change and that involves also making them uncomfortable.
[00:28:41] Helen Wada: And that hero's journey is really taking it from where you are to where you want to be and sort of almost go climbing. I have a vision always for that sort of climbing up a mountain and then coming down again. I dunno if that's something you use, But
[00:28:55] Alison Maitland: I think we probably have an opposite one actually. Ours is more like going into the sort of depths and [00:29:00] coming back out again. So yeah, the the other way round.
[00:29:02] Alison Maitland: There's no mountains for the people we work with. Poor things.
[00:29:06] Aligning Personal and Organizational Goals
[00:29:06] Helen Wada: And that leads us onto, you know, it really is about the whole self. we all work with organizations of different shapes and sizes, but actually it's coming down to thinking about people as individuals, thinking about what's important to them from a personal perspective, from a professional perspective.
[00:29:25] Helen Wada: taking
[00:29:26] Helen Wada: that holistic approach to who you are and where you want to be
[00:29:30] Helen Wada: in terms of, what is right for me, what is right for my development, and how does this fit with the wider organization? 'cause ultimately you've got, you know, two things playing. If you take organizations, you have almost Two goals. You've got those at the organization and you've got those at the individual.
[00:29:50] Helen Wada: And at some point the two have got to align in a way in which the two can work together. And I think that's not always easy.
[00:29:58] Alison Maitland: Do you want to speak to that, Liz? Uh, because [00:30:00] it's something we grapple with continuously, isn't it?
[00:30:02] Challenges in Learning and Development
[00:30:02] Liz Walker: I think I go back to something I said near the beginning. As you know, I worked in learning development functions for 20 plus years of my career, and the main kind of objective of those functions was to give people skills that the organization felt they needed.
[00:30:21] Liz Walker: And I think what's very different now about the work we're doing is we are equipping the person to perform those skills. And it's a subtle difference, but I think as an organization it's so easy to think that all you have to do is tell people how to do something, teach people how to do something, and they will do it.
[00:30:42] Liz Walker: And that and because people are human, that isn't true. So there's kind of this. This kind of, it sounds like a Windows opened in my mind as to kind of why learning and development. It feels very repetitive. And I think if you take some of the women, so we do women's problems, we do all sorts of [00:31:00] programs, but some of the women in particular that we've worked with over the years have come to us and said so take one moment we work with in a financial institution.
[00:31:07] Liz Walker: She came to us. She said, I have been told for the last X years that I'm nearly board ready. And each time I say, okay, great. What? You know, what, what does nearly mean? What do I need to do next? And the answer is always Go and do this. Go and learn this. Go and practice this. she said, and I'm fed up.
[00:31:24] Liz Walker: I'm fed up for being told that if I just knew one more thing or had proved one more, you know, one more capability, then eventually I'd be board ready. said, why am I not board ready? So she came and she did our program. And mean obviously was that she was totally board ready but the difference was that when she went, when she was able to go back, she was able to stand there and say, I am ready and either I'm ready.
[00:31:48] Liz Walker: Yeah. Either you want me or you don't. And, you know, eventually she was given a board position and she's doing brilliantly. So there's something, A different. it's, it's like a shift in [00:32:00] not just what the person can do, but. Kind of who they are.
[00:32:03] Alison Maitland: And I think Ellen, you raise a really great question which Liz and I really
[00:32:06] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: really,
[00:32:07] Alison Maitland: we've landed on an answer now which isn't a very satisfactory answer.
[00:32:11] Alison Maitland: And it, I think you're saying that there's this nexus between a person might, and we see it in programs sometimes. People come on programs and they absolutely want to do the work and you want to, they want to go on this journey and they want to do that vertical development work. And there are others who come on the program and who go. What's this? What are you
[00:32:29] Alison Maitland: doing with me? Tell me the five things. Go back to Liz's, you know, gimme some branches to my tree because tell
[00:32:34] Alison Maitland: me the five things about how I give feedback to somebody, or how I manage my team. We go no, we're not gonna do that. So you've got that sort of dynamic going on, and then as Liz said, you've got the organization going, well, we need to teach them all these things.
[00:32:46] Alison Maitland: They need to be able to do all of these things. You know, they've been promoted to a leader of leaders, so they need to. Navigate complexity or despite the ambiguity, or they need to manage you know, a, diverse team of individuals or they need to deal with conflict, but also [00:33:00] include people need to make tough decisions, but they haven't got information, da da. So, and it's, it's putting this sort of. Timing of those two things together. Whereas when you're doing the horizontal development, everyone can take on board the cognitive of here's the five steps. It's not a problem.
[00:33:16] Alison Maitland: But when you start to do this vertical work, which as you said, feels uncomfortable, brings up all these thoughts and feelings, takes them back into the past when they were rubbish at something or they were ashamed by something and it's, it was a really interesting sort of melting pot of, and I think what we've learned. As we've, well, in the last five and a half years that we've been doing all of this, is that you just gotta let the process take its course. I dunno. Liz, would you say it more, you probably got a more elegant way of saying it than I've just said it, but it's just
[00:33:48] GMT20260113-093802_Recording_gallery_1280x720: like,
[00:33:49] Liz Walker: no, I haven't, I we we see it all the time in some of our groups.
[00:33:52] Liz Walker: Some people dive right in head first, can't wait. To be part of it. And other people hold us at arms length for a long time. And then just [00:34:00] maybe in the last couple of modules, they start to go, oh, okay, I get it. So it it's when people are ready.
[00:34:07] Helen Wada: I think you're right. And I would echo that with what I'm seeing. You know, the three of us here we know the skills, we believe in it, and we work with the individual. It's that trust the process. It's you are right. Some people, when I'm. The human advantage. And we work, you know, with people looking to win work, to build relationships.
[00:34:27] Helen Wada: That piece, you know, some people do want those top tips, those models, those frameworks and they will take the learning at that level.
[00:34:36] Helen Wada: Actually, when you go deeper is when you really start to see the shifts. And you're right, some people will get it, you know, on the moment one, and they'll be right into it.
[00:34:46] Helen Wada: Another times it's laterally down the line when they, the shift is shifting. And then even further.
[00:34:55] Success Stories and Impact
[00:34:55] Helen Wada: I would say working with organizations to make this and linking it to ROI in the top and the bottom line, because I think that's something else that's really important here is linking this very vital vertical development with ultimately commercial outcomes.
[00:35:14] Liz Walker: And that really is somewhere we have been working, gathering data for the last kind of five years of our programs. And it's interesting 'cause obviously it's, you know, to the researcher in the room, Dr. Maitland and the scientists out there, it's very hard, isn't It's very hard to kind of isolate cause and effect. But what we know from the programs we've done is that. People get promoted, people move on. People do brave, bold things. People make big moves. So we've got one one of our clients, we've been in there now for 30 something cohorts.
[00:35:48] Liz Walker: Um, and we are up to the average across all of the people who've been through our program is that a third of them get promoted. Which feels really high for the work that we're doing. [00:36:00] The and then there's, and then there's the little case studies, right? The little the individual people that you know of who so go from being some, who was it?
[00:36:08] Liz Walker: Alison, in our, um, in one of our programs has gone from being a police in the police training kind of level. Manager is now a CEO. of a business and that's in
[00:36:20] Liz Walker: three
[00:36:20] Helen Wada: are the ones that your heart, right? Those are the ones that make you sing.
[00:36:24] Liz Walker: Yeah, absolutely. And there's more, there's the people who set up, you know, who came to us as entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, and are now not just running kind of a 6, 7, 8 person business, but have managed to sell it on, or, you know, there there's, there's, you know, there's so many countless individual stories like that, that it's really hard to quantify, but the impact is true.
[00:36:44] Alison Maitland: And actually the interesting thing I think sometimes Liz and I see we, we have a community. So we say you're always part of the becoming community as you is kind of move forwards. And sometimes we meet these women again, they come back and we run some events for them and they just seem bigger. There's a [00:37:00] fullness to someone that it's back to opening up the rooms of the castle. I guess if you stick with that metaphor. is something about them. So the woman Liz has just mentioned, she's now the CEO. there's an assuredness and there's a fullness to how she now operates.
[00:37:16] Alison Maitland: The, and it comes back to the words that we used at the beginning. There's no, they're unapologetic about who they are and how they are, and, you know, where they want to go in the, in as the next step. it's not to say they don't make mistakes or they don't get it wrong, or they don't doubt themselves.
[00:37:30] Alison Maitland: Of course, all of that is in there. They're human. But yes, there's just a, a. Yeah, I haven't got a better word for a fullness roundedness. A big, a bigger ness, but not in an arrogant sense or a, you know, just, yeah,
[00:37:44] Alison Maitland: If you could see me, you could see me waving my
[00:37:46] Alison Maitland: arms
[00:37:46] Helen Wada: can see where we and I wish I could turn into my screen because I'm really conscious of time, but. It really links back to a phrase that, that I share in the book and actually we developed working with a lady [00:38:00] looking at the next stage of her career and where she we talk about, say it, believe it, become it. So the more that we, you know, there's none of this, fake it till you make it. But actually once you've done this work, you know, saying it out loud, starting to believe it and then you know very much like you are just talking about Alison there, embodying it, just being who we are.
[00:38:25] Helen Wada: That say it, believe it, become it. And shifting that dial through the inner work and the brilliant work that you do, the work we do, and helping people to un tap into uncover who they really are, what's important to them ultimately to build a more human working world. You know, that's what I'm passionate about, and I know you do the great work with the organizations that you do as well.
[00:38:49] Final Thoughts and Takeaways
[00:38:49] Helen Wada: I'm so conscious of time. It's been a wonderful conversation, like tapping in, tapping into who people are, what we can do. I always like to leave the listeners with [00:39:00] one top tip and a good coach loves a good question. So, one question to reflect on having heard this conversation with us the morning when they're listening, who wants to give us a top tip and who's gonna give us a question?
[00:39:16] Liz Walker: Well, that's a challenge. Shall I start with a top tip, Alison?
[00:39:22] Liz Walker: think mine would be that ability to notice, so if I go back to Allison's comment about our body gives us information. That ability to just notice what's happening in your body. Take a moment, just connect to the feeling, connect to the thought, connect to whatever it is, because that that tying a little moment of noticing. Opens up a gap of choice and allows you to then choose what you're gonna do with that information.
[00:39:51] Liz Walker: So if there's one thing I would I would, yeah, I would give people to take away, it would be just that. What can you do to take a moment to notice what your [00:40:00] body's telling you?
[00:40:02] Helen Wada: Love it. Thank you, Liz.
[00:40:05] Alison Maitland: Okay. And a question from me then probably aligns to that is, is how do you stay uncomfortable? How do you stay with that uncomfortableness that we've talked about with that feeling in your stomach or your shoulders or your chest, or wherever it might be, and take action that aligns with what's important to you, your values, however you term that
[00:40:27] Helen Wada: Wonderful. Thank you ladies. I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation this morning and I know the listeners of human wise will get so much richness and value from hearing the conversation as well. So thank you so much for joining me. If people want to learn more about ACT and the work they do where can they find you?
[00:40:48] Liz Walker: Hill website, www dot. becoming International. Uh, and we are on LinkedIn. You can look us up. Look us up by name and not link through to the company page or look up [00:41:00] becoming and you'll find us.
[00:41:02] Alison Maitland: I actually on, in the sport domain, have a book myself on act acting sport.
[00:41:07] Alison Maitland: So if anyone's in the sports domain, well, you know, likes to recreationally or internationally, whatever it is, if you want to get some basics of that applied in that context as a book called Drop the Struggle. So you can find that from all good book seller. Including the A word.
[00:41:22] Helen Wada: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I look forward to reading it. My sons interested in sports psychology as well, so, I. May well get, let's bring that his way and maybe get you to have a conversation with him at some point. 'cause he, he's at that 16 and trying to figure out what on earth do I do with my life? So, at the moment it's all about the sport, but at some point it'll be moving forward.
[00:41:44] Helen Wada: So,
[00:41:44] Alison Maitland: Good luck with that.
[00:41:45] Helen Wada: thank you
[00:41:45] Helen Wada: very much. Lovely to speak to you both and look forward to releasing the pod shortly.
[00:41:51] Alison Maitland: Yeah. Thanks Helen.
[00:41:53] Helen Wada: Bye bye.
[00:41:54] Alison Maitland: Bye.