In this timid episode, Catherine Llewellyn, Founder of Yes You Now, shares how she helps people with power, wealth and influence use their pedestal to bring about clear and affirmative transformation of society.
You’ll discover:
– The most powerful asset you always have
– How to make change stick in your personal life
– How to make change stick organizationally
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, everyone Hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I am here with yet another high demand coach. And that is Catherine Llewellyn. Catherine is a master humanistic practitioner, she founded Yes, you know, in 2020, to help successful entrepreneurs, and executives and business owners to launch themselves into the next level of their lives, because she recognized that those with power, wealth and influence are the best place to bring about positive change in our world. It’s her mission to help them do that wisely. Well, Catherine, I’m so excited to have you here. We were talking on the just before we hit record and said, it feels like Christmas, you know, it’s been a long time coming. We’ve been trying to get you on for a while, that day has finally arrived. So I feel like the little kid on Christmas morning, so excited to hear what you have to say, before we jump into the work that you do with your clients and the results. And just the magic of that. I’d love to kind of push rewind a little bit, go back to the beginning, if you will. And here. What were you doing before you got into this line of work? And why did you ultimately decide to make the leap?
Catherine Llewellyn
Well, it was kind of evolved right from when I was very, very young. Because even when I was six years old, I was looking around at people and thinking, why are people putting so much energy into saying things that they don’t really mean? And why are so many of these people not really very happy. And I think it was right, then I actually made a decision that I wanted to be somebody who understood those things. And as I got older, I thought, actually, the best thing for me was to be someone who actually helps people with those things. So right from the beginning, I was kind of interested in all that stuff and steeped in sort of psychology and philosophy and stuff, my father’s books and everything. And I think I kind of more practically speaking, I evolved into the coaching work I’m doing now through the very first thing I did with people was voice training voice work, where I was helping people to connect the spirit that was inside them into the voice that comes out of the mouth, you know, the bat connection, which was very somatic, bodywork breathing work, quite cathartic. And that was like the very first thing I did with people. And that kind of evolved over quite a period of time, maybe 16 years, as I was working with people more and more and more and more senior level. And finally working at board level with people who wanted to bring about extraordinary change in their organization. A lot of the principles ran all the way through, you know, the body, the heart, the mind, the spirit. How can we be truthful? How can we follow our truth? And how can we manifest whatever you want to manifest? So for me, it’s been an evolution rather than a leap.
Scott Ritzheimer
Awesome, awesome. Now, I’d love to know, like, someone’s listening, they’re busy executive, and they’re like, What in the world? Does vocal training have to do with how does that lead to evolving into kind of leadership coaching? And so tell us tie those two together? Because I can hear it, you know, under the surface, but just talks like, what what are those threads that stuck through that whole time?
Catherine Llewellyn
Well, one thread was that, in order to be really happy in life, it’s great if we’re really connected to ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally. And one thing that voicework did was that, and people were suddenly much more effective and much happier. And that was just an example. What we were also then doing with people we did the voice training with was sending them back to their organizations where they were doing marketing, work, sales, work, et cetera. And they were suddenly much more successful, because they knew how to connect with people on the phone and in person. And then the client organizations that they were working for, didn’t know how to manage them. Because they were so unpredictable and authentic. There was like, Oh, my God, how do we manage them? So they asked us to train their managers. And so you can see this progression from there, that went all the way up, because in the end, they were saying, Okay, you’re teaching us how to manage these really authentic people? How do we make all of our people more authentic, and more real and more intuitive and more creative? And how the hell do we then manage those people when we’ve done that, you know? And of course, the answer is, then it what it means is that board level, you have to do that work, you’ve got to become much more self aware, and much more connected to your true choices. And you can’t just go ticking the box, I’ve done another day at work. You’ve got to be present, really present. So I mean, I’m, you know, I’m summing up. It’s got to be since I did that voice work that was 1980. So we’re like 90 100. That’s 22 years ago. Now 42 years ago that I started doing that. Well, yeah, which was a long time ago. So I’ve just tried to sum up 42 years in two seconds,
Scott Ritzheimer
it’s remarkable. You did it exceptionally well. Alright, so again, we’ve got just decade after decade of doing this and going deep with folks, what would you say today some of the most important work you’re doing with your clients?
Catherine Llewellyn
I would say it’s something around what I call power of choice, where people are really examining, what is it to make our own choices? And are we really making our own choices? And to what extent are we actually being influenced by all sorts of things outside of us, that we don’t realize we’re being influenced by? I think we all believe that we’re making our own choices all the time, except when everything’s going wrong. And then we believe that we didn’t make any choices around that, and that it was forced upon us. So that’s our kind of base conditioning for a lot of us. And I know, there will be people listening, shaking their heads game, no, no, no, no, I can make my own choices, right? And yet, of course we can. But this is an area where there’s a massive potential for leverage for people in really examining how the early conditioning affects our choices, how the pressures on us affect our choices, or the political environment, the economic environment, our industry environment, our peer level environment, at board level, or wherever we are, is actually influencing the way we make our choices, very often on an unconscious level with unconscious bias and drivers in place. Now, when you can actually interrogate that for yourself, then you’ve got a chance of saying to yourself, Oh, my God, there are some choices here that were not mine. Yeah. And then from it’s actually very easy to let them go once you’ve realized that, if you haven’t realized that, it’s always impossible to let them go, and you’re just stuck. There’s this whole thing around power of choice. I think for them at the moment is the most potent work I’m doing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. I know you work with a lot of type A folks, I want to drill into that. But I would say to those type A folks that are out there, the proof of what Catherine is saying is the idea that we have a saying about you know, it’s lonely to be at the top of an organization. Fundamentally, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. But fundamentally, as you’re thinking, as you’re saying this, I’m thinking, the reason it feels so lonely is because we have one we don’t have anyone else’s expectations to hold us up, right? We have all the ones that we’ve kind of carried with us. But we don’t have any to kind of pull from that peer level or, you know, we start to lose that as we climb up through an organization. And you feel the barren pneus of that, right. It’s like I’m standing here now. I’m by myself. And I’ve recognized, I’ve got everyone else’s expectations, but no one else to share them with, would you? Would you agree with that?
Catherine Llewellyn
I would, I would say that there’s a myth in our culture, which is that the more successful, the more powerful and influential you are, the less you need support and assistance, which is completely fallacious are the really successful people at very high level, have an extraordinary network of support around them? Which, which then, is an antidote to that loneliness that you’ve just described beautifully? It’s a beautiful antidote, but a lot of people are conditioned to believe that when you get to that place, now, you shouldn’t be asking for help, because other people need it more than you do. You shouldn’t be selfish or self indulgent. Yeah. Well, actually, if you’ve got a massive job to do, you’re looking after a lot of people, you’re influencing a lot of people, everything you do is very high leverage in terms of its effect. So therefore, you should be being looked after like a racehorse is being groomed, nourished, exercised, you know, the whole time for one race, but, you know, weeks months of preparation and care for a one race. Yeah, as a very senior person, that that that’s a bit like the type A personality for me, you know, like the stallion running across the hills and the beautiful creature, you know, needs care, and needs that support. But for people at that level, it’s very hard to get the right kind of support. Yes. Oh, because most of the support that’s available is for people earlier on in their lifecycle, let’s just say, or in their press, to finding the right support is incredibly tricky. I actually wrote out this called autonomy in relationship, the human side of being a non exec chairman, which is a very one example of the sort of role you’re talking about. And it’s these guys shared with me are very personal and very potent. And they a lot of them recognize they need the support and the networking and the peer ship, but they find it really difficult to set it up.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many there’s so many things in there I want to drill into and I love the fact that you are Well, to use the word fallacious and podcast that’s but I want to talk I wouldn’t really want to dial in, because we have a lot of type A listeners that are tuning in. And I know that this is a place where you do a lot of work. And, and I think, you know, in my experience from being this type of person myself, and working with so many, you know, many of them feel like I’ve got all the choices in the world, like I’m the master of my own fate, right, I choose, I made the leap I did the whole reason, you look at study after study, the primary reason why entrepreneurs start organizations, why founders, you know, found their organizations is fundamentally for freedom and autonomy, right? And so we’re looking at it in a mechanical sense of the word, right? But you can’t find freedom and autonomy just in the mechanics. There’s more to it than that. So tell us a little bit about how you’re working with this, like, what does the power of choice look like for that type a leader sitting at the top, if you will, of their org chart?
Catherine Llewellyn
The very first thing to really look at is, how do I feel? Actually, how do I feel about what I’m doing with my life? How do I actually feel about it? And sometimes it’s a bit difficult to kind of appeal people away from what do I think about it? How do I actually feel, you know, the gut feel? Does it? Do I have a warm glow around it? Do I feel stimulated? Do I feel enthralled, enthusiastic? Do I have those experiences around what I’m doing? If not? Am I actually treading water? And if I am actually treading water, is that genuinely what what every part of my being wants to be doing? Is that genuinely what I want to be doing? Now sometimes that is what we want to be doing when we just done a massive push. And then we want to consolidate and rest and regroup. Fantastic. So a big part of it is starting off by by really tuning into, how do I really feel about where I am? And what I’m doing, genuinely? And is that how I want to be feeling right now? Is that really what I want? Yeah, and following the intuitive thread around that. And that’s also quite a difficult thing to do, by ourselves. And sometimes people do it with people who know them very well, which is great. But of course, the downside to that is that they think they know you very well, what they really know very well is who you were yesterday, they don’t really know well, the you that you’re evolving into. Because we all have a very vested interest in keeping people the same to some extent. We love people, we want to know that we know how they are and what they’re like, when people don’t often like it. And when people are sort of transforming it as a sending, you know, in front of them, because they feel left behind. Yeah. So that’s another reason why sometimes when people are working with coaches, they, they want to work with somebody who’s completely outside their circle, who’s got no vested interest in keeping them small, or keeping them the same. And is very excited about helping that person to really delve into those tricky questions.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, we’ve had a number of coaches on the show who shared just the value of an outside perspective, but you’re taking us a level further and helping recognize that, yes, people are invested in you showing up the way that you always have, it’s predictable, it’s understandable, you know, I choose to be around that person, right. And even when there’s positive change, it’s still a threat, either conscious or subconscious to the folks that are around us. And, and it is, I remember one of the first great coach I had, right, and his name is Robert Malin. He was actually on the show earlier on, but he did this for me, and it upset a lot of relationships in my life. Actually, you know, Robert had to this day, Robert has the most rose colored view of me out of anybody that I know, right? Robert believes the best version of me that I’m still trying to catch up with every time I feel like I’m getting close, he hits me with another one. And he’s, you know, he’s 10 steps down the road. And that’s what a great coach does, right? Not only are they not invested in keeping you in small move fundamentally, or stuck, but they’re actually invested in moving you forward and moving you downstream.
Catherine Llewellyn
And they’ve got nothing to lose when you transform you genuinely because they don’t live with you. They don’t work with you every day. Yeah. And the people that do live and work with you, we have to be compassionate to those people around us because they do love us. So we are transforming. We need to tell them what’s going on and let them know we still love them. Right? So that’s a whole piece, actually, funnily enough of work that I’ve done with a lot of clients where they start to kind of take off and then the next three sessions are about how do I talk to my wife about this? Yes. How do I talk to my kids about it?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I I found you. Yeah, that’s fascinating that you bring that up, because it’s one of the places that we get stuck is when we feel the change we go out to, and we’re showing up in a different way. We forget that everyone else is actually still interpreting that through the lens of how we showed up yesterday, right? Yeah. And then it can actually cause more friction, more miscommunication, right? Because the gap now between our understanding of how I’m showing up how you’re showing up is different than it was beforehand. And it can hit can also if you’re not careful, it can be that, you know, one step forward, two steps back almost.
Catherine Llewellyn
It can be very distressing. On and it can be transformative. I’ve seen, I’ve, I’ve actually had people’s wives phoned me up and say, Look, I’ve no idea what you’re doing with my husband. But thank you. Yeah. Right. And I said, I don’t need any more detail than that. Thank you very much. I’m glad it’s working for you. So there have been situations where it’s tended to, you know, net plus?
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It’s certainly it’s certainly not all bad. Yes. So there’s something fascinating in our work in the way that we kind of help organizations address growth and challenges is, we kind of map the world into these different stages, four of the stages feel bad, three of the stages feel good. And most of the time, we’re trying to help them get to the stages that feel good and are good and are easier to lead. And, and it’s good. But one of the things that you I kind of hear you drawing out is the value of those challenging times, because what happens in those times is our autopilot breaks, right? That thing that we just came in, we shut up, we did the thing, it’s not working anymore. And what it does is brings to the surface, this power of choice that you’re talking about, because to an extent, if it goes long enough, you can’t stay where you are right, you either have to move forward, or you have to move backward to not in a bad way. But to return to what it is you really love to do, right? It’s not always up into the right, but you can’t stay here. And you brought up the you brought up a white or a water analogy with treading water, right, we actually call one of those stages, Whitewater, and it’s just like, and so one of the gifts of those stages, and a lot of our folks know what those those stages are. But if you’re in Whitewater one of the gifts of those stages is that it does it highlights the power of choice. Now, I know you’ve seen this, when you’re in those difficult stages, it feels like you have anything but a choice. Right? When you’re in those difficult times you even said it feels like everything’s being handed to you. Right? It’s I have no, you know, a poor victim of circumstance. So how do you help folks who come in and they’re in one of those more desperate moments, they feel like, sure I have a choice. It’s like worse or worse, right? How do you help them to kind of wrap their mind and heart around what’s going on and decide how they choose to move forward?
Catherine Llewellyn
Pretty much everybody needs needs to kind of download for a bit. And it’s incredibly powerful, the effect of just letting somebody download for as long as they need to. And I’m sure you’ll have experienced this as a coach yourself. So they download about the experience, I tend to kind of guide people and support people to share about the experience of the situation or how they’re feeling, how it’s affecting them, and how it’s affecting their sleep, and how they’re relating to people and all of that, because often it’s through that, that they start to get the the bits of wisdom coming through as to which aspects of it they really want to change. Yeah. And the other thing I really encourage people to do is to try to, you said, Whitewater, so if I understand it, right, Whitewater is what you get when you’re kind of in the mountains somewhere. And this water is coming down really fast and really hard. And it’s white, because it’s hitting the rocks all the time. So if you’re in that, one thing that’s very important to do is to understand the nature of the whitewater that you’re in, to understand this waters moving like this speed, it’s this deep, there’s this many rocks, the banks are over here. And in an organization, there’s an equivalent to that, which is, what are the forces at play, that are at play? That’s nothing to do with you. Right? The forces are at play, they are going for it. It’s not your fault. It’s not your responsibility. You can’t change those forces. And a lot of people waste a lot of energy thinking they should be able to change those forces. They can’t like the weather. But what they can do is they can understand it and recognize it. And if they’ve also then tapped into themselves and owned how they’re feeling and their experience around it. Then they can look at and go Ah, how can I serve that? How can I serve that power? Yeah. Right. Yes, I actually utilize that as a source of power for what I want to be accomplishing. And in the organizational change work I’ve done that’s why It’s a really strong effect, because I’ve shown people how to understand the currents that are running really powerfully now, and how to jump on those, and go with them and get to where they want to really fast using the power and the forces that are already there, as opposed to trying to fight against them.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. Yeah, it’s so good. You can waste a lot of energy trying to paddle up river if you’re in Whitewater and not get anywhere. So yeah, just phenomenal. And recognizing those parts of the there are significant things, even if you’re the one in charge, there are a significant number of factors that are not in your control. And I think that’s hard, especially for the Taipei’s, who are used to taking the bull by the horns, right? It’s like, well, when there’s 50, bulls, you got two hands, you know, there’s, there’s a certain amount of that you just have to let go of so I love I love that approach. And I think there’s a tremendous amount of wisdom in it. All right. Now, here’s a question that I love to ask all of my guests. And it’s where we get the idea of the name of the show. And, and so it’s this, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew?
Catherine Llewellyn
Well, when you told me before that you were going to ask me this question. I came up with one answer. I’ve got another one. Can I give two answers? Yes, yes. Yes. Thank you very much. So the first one I thought of is that the answer to all are really important questions is already there inside of us. Everyone has heard that everyone knows that idea. Very few people believe it. So that’s the first secret. There’s a secret we keep from ourselves, actually. And the second one is that life tends to work out. It tends to work out it wants to work out. It just might take a bit longer than we with our ego think it ought to. Isn’t that the truth, remember that we can actually understand that sometimes timing is timing is timing. And if we can get the hell out of the way, and let go of our ego for five minutes, we might be able to then participate with the way life wants to go and get everything that we want.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I cannot tell you how many lessons I’ve had to relearn, because I’ve missed them in that exact thing. Right? Like, I haven’t embraced the benefit, the power, the learning the lesson, the silver lining, whatever language you want to use it in those dark, challenging times. Right, I’ve been so busy trying to get out of it, that I’ve not ever learned the lesson in it. So that’s yeah, it’s a powerful, powerful truth, especially putting those two together, I love that, I want to shift gears a little bit. And I’m gonna have you jump in the ring with the rest of us. So take off your coach hat for a moment, and put on your own, you know, leadership CEO hat, and talk to us a little bit about what the next stage looks like for you and your leadership and your organization?
Catherine Llewellyn
Thank you. Well, for me, at this stage I’m at in in my life, the main thing I’m really, really interested in is trying to be part of the solution in terms of being as much as I can being the person I want to be. Because I’ve got a lot of people watching me and observing me and learning around me. And I feel it’s incumbent on me to be someone who’s continuously learning and growing and questioning and inquiring, and continuously trying to get over myself and let go of ego like I was just saying, in a way that actually is a good example to them. So for me, that’s like an endless life journey. But at this point in my life, I’m sort of in the last third quarter of my life who even knows that? Oh, no, I would have I’m at a place where I’ve got the luxury of really opening to that, you know, I’m not chasing anything. So I can really do that. And actually one example of that I have my own podcast, truth and transcendence. And I’m constantly learning and growing, doing that podcast, every single guest who comes on is a different, exciting challenge and growth opportunity in the land stuff. So that’s a place where I’m being a leader in a different way from being a coach, where I’m chucking stuff out as you are right with right now, as we’re doing this, you know, I’m chucking stuff out into the world and just trusting it’s going to land where it’s needed and where it’s going to be a value in a way that’s very open handed. So that whole thing about my own participation, my own presence and how I’m showing up is really important to me at the moment, and of course, every single client I work with, I’m looking to see, you know, can I be even more helpful than I was with the last person and I’ve even more quick to actually tune in to what it is here. Need to be tuning into?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Well, it’s tremendous, tremendous. So I know, you know, some folks who are listening to this, and they just absolutely need to know more, right? They want to, they want to know how they can get in touch with you. They want to know how they can find out more about your work. So what’s the best way for people to do that to get in touch with you to find out more about the work that you’re doing?
Catherine Llewellyn
Fantastic. So if they’d like to tune into my podcast, that’s a very good place to go, which is Truth & Transcendence. And the end is the ampersand in the middle. And that’s on all the podcast apps. But if they just want to cut to the chase and go straight to the website, that’s yesyounow.today. Either way they’ll find out a lot more about me.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love it. I love it. Well, Katherine, it was just such a pleasure every bit worth the weight. I’m so glad we’re able to have you on and I just cannot say how much I appreciate the wisdom and just the experience and the depth of that that you shared with the audience today. I know I got a ton out of it. I think our listeners got a ton out of it. And to those of you who are listening, your time and attention mean the world to us. We’re so thankful to have you here and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Catherine Llewellyn
Catherine Llewellyn is a Master Humanistic Psychologist. She founded Yes You Now in 2020 to help successful entrepreneurs, execs and business owners launch themselves to the Next Level of their lives. Because she recognized that those with power, wealth and influence are best placed to bring about positive change. It is her mission to help them do that wisely.
Want to learn more about Catherine’s work at Yes You Now? Check out her website at https://yesyounow.today/
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