Olga’s story is one of a life lived well outside of most people’s comfort zones, which means she is rarely outside of her own. When change is a constant in your life, how do you get uncomfortable?
Becoming an entrepreneur might do it…
“Oh, I think it just happened gradually. And I wouldn’t call it stepping out of my comfort zone, I’ll say, extending my comfort zone. As lots of people did, I went through a lot of career transformation. And I lived in six different countries. I moved a lot. And my career kind of turned and twisted, because of that, as well. Everything contributed in a way.
“And I think that my major stepping out of the core of my comfort zone was transforming from a corporate worker to entrepreneur. To actually do my own business full time.
“I started my business six years ago, but it was a little bit of a love/hate relationship.”
Olga would work for herself, then be interested in what a corporation was doing and head back to that world.
“That’s what happened three times”
Once Olga made the choice to truly be an entrepreneur “It felt very liberating. And I think that’s one of the major contributing factors. Another aspect that really was appealing to me is the fact that I’m learning all the time. Before that I was well paid, but the job was extremely transactional. And it was very depressing to be honest. So, to get the opportunity to dive in and to learn all the time, and actually feel that I am growing as a professional, that was amazing. And it still is, you know, I’m still learning every day.”
And if someone was considering stepping out of their comfort zone?
“I think that my advice would be to think of actually applying the classical change management framework to the plan. Which means that you have to plan, you have to establish your success metrics, you need to be able to get the sponsor, get as much support as possible, and explain to family and friends how this changes might affect you.
“It’s important to communicate and explain to people how the change would affect them, and how it can be a good thing.”
Olga sees benefits in stepping out of your comfort zone – learning a growth to start with – but also appreciates that not everyone wants to get uncomfortable “you might want to still think of how you can learn. And you might not change jobs or move countries, but it’s a good idea to track what you’re doing and to track your growth. Stagnation is not good.”
“I think it’s very important to ask for help, to allow yourself ask for help. I think at different stages of our lives we all need mentors. And maybe not just one mentor. Two mentors who are different, of maybe different age groups, because I think that there are people who struggle, because they don’t see outside themselves. And that’s where I come, and I help and guide them through this journey. So I think it’s important to have someone who you trust who can help you to keep growing.”
Thank you Olga!
A little about Olga:
Having lived in 6 countries across Europe, Middle East and APAC and after working in senior HR and Recruitment role for the last 20 years, now Olga Barrett resides in Melbourne and helps people who go through their Career Transformation.
Olga helps people get the jobs they want and build the careers they deserve to have by creating actionable career transformation frameworks that make job search process transparent, manageable and even fun.
My first steps and a lot of thinking!
A new stage of my journey, learning more about professional coaching and looking for my first client!
What if you had spent so much of your life outside your comfort zone that your challenge was in settling back into being comfortable?
Meet Monica!
Up until the age of 13 Monica had an idyllic life. One of 8 children with two great parents she was perfectly happy. And then her father passed away suddenly. On the surface life didn’t change, other than missing her dad.
Monica found herself becoming the ‘clever, naughty kid’ after that. “I adopted this persona of always being outside the comfort zone, always being rebellious.”
Monica balanced jobs and school from ages 14 to 17, and then decided to take a gap year as she had no idea what direction to take next. Career advice was varied and not useful!
After finding herself working 5 jobs in Cairns, a push from her mum had her moving back to the city and getting a job at a trading house – the start of something wonderful for Monica!
“And it was just the dynamism of this really complicated global working environment a whole new language to learn – bills of lading, 90cl, futures, phytosanitary certificates, regulations and steamship owners that were German. Russian and Pacific Islanders. It was an interesting process, and I went to work as a shipping clerk.”
Monica describes one of her key attributes as curiosity, which combined with an ability to make friends and retain information had her soon selected to be part of an international fast track program!
“That just then opened up a whole world! This month, you’re going to go to Singapore, and you’re going to learn about our insurance business. Next month, you’re going to go to Hamburg and you’re going to have learn how we manage our asset fleet of breakbulk ships, or every variety of ships and how many ports we own around the world. You are going to learn the economics of the cattle/beef industry, from paddock to burger. As a 22-year-old kid I just soaked all this up.”
Monica’s career went from strength to strength, a combination of confidence and talent seeing her succeed in whatever she set her mind to. She moved from Brisbane to Perth to Sydney and then to New York as part of her career progression.
For 8 years in US she thrived then as she turned 30 she reflected on her next step and incidentally started to meet women 10 years older and whilst “successful” in their careers and earnings they were unhappy. That was the first trigger in her decision to come home to Australia, but there was more “I think something sat with me from meeting those all the women and I got a glimpse of my future self.
“I actually got sick because I’ve flown a lot and I picked up a virus, I think on a trip back from South America. And I remember I flew into Miami and was feeling just not quite well. I went to whoever the doctor was according to our health plan, and before I knew it, they put me into the ICU because what I’d actually picked up was a viral infection in my heart muscle.”
It was not long after that Monica moved home to Brisbane and moved in with her mum, who sadly passed away 4 months later.
Monica struggled to get a job in Brisbane – a recruiter suggested her experience and her New York accent may have been intimidating to the branch offices in that smaller city – but instead of moving to a bigger city Monica embarked on an MBA – and 2 years later topped the Dean’s list. Another year on she married a pilot and move to Dubai where she embarked on another 9-year adventure in Arabic foreign wealth funds.
Her marriage lasted a decade and she moved back to her beloved Brisbane in 2012. “The divorce gave me cause to reflect.”
Monica shared with me at this stage that if it is work related, she has no issue solving problems, but struggled more with being uncomfortable / vulnerable on a personal level.
“One of my brothers suffers with bipolar. In the last five years, I took my brother in and he came to live with me. And I started to get a real appreciation of mental illness as an illness not as something that people should just get over.
“I got the understanding of just how cruel and hurtful people going through both ends of that cycle are. I felt useless. I just felt like it was something I couldn’t fix. And that really, for a long while, it really affected me. And it took me a while to develop a mindset about removing all my unconscious bias that it was about my brother. It’s not just get out of bed and do something. That’s my method. That’s not healing.
“It took me a long while but I’ve reframed my whole mindset around, this is an illness. And if he had cancer, I would be there in a heartbeat with whatever it needed done. And so I just had to accept it was something out of my control, and I had to manage it. Like I would manage the volatility of the marketplace, and say, whatever version of my brother turns up today, I’ll be okay. I think that was helpful. And that’s helped me a lot more in this last phase of my career. Because I think now, I’m much more of a humanist.”
And Monica’s advice to others about stepping out of their comfort zone?
“It’s hard, but you can’t let it disable you. I would implore them to go to a time where the first experience has been discomfort, like when they learn to drive, the first time you ever get behind the wheel of a car, you think you’re never going to be able to do this. The first time you go out for a run, you think I’ll never be able to run more than 20 minutes. The first time you touch a computer, are you ever going to be able to type? I think there’s lots of examples in our lives where we’ve had discomfort, but we just work our way through it. And for me, I think turning up is 90% of the game. So turn up”
Great advice Monica!
I am writing this before I discover if Rosie did get her driver’s licence!
Rosie did her interview with me the day of her test. “For context. I’m 30 years old. And as we’re talking right now, I’m going for my driver licence for the first time this afternoon.”
“It is exciting. And it’s one of those things where, because it’s a more commonplace thing, it’s almost scarier to start doing. Because it’s easy for everyone else, right? I’m someone who most skills come very, very easily to me, if I just apply myself. But most things you can learn with no audience and without the risk of an injury to yourself or a very expensive object.
“So, driving, like deciding to want to, and then actually going through the process of learning. It’s really, really, really outside of my comfort zone. And this is probably the fourth attempt to learn…to get to the point where I’m okay to go for go for the test. And you know, if I don’t pass this test, that’s okay. I’ll go for it again. And it’s now almost like it’s inevitable that I’ll get my license. Whereas before it was something that was just impossible.”
I asked Rosie what the driver was – after all she was 30 and had not been able to drive until now “The moment that I realised I actually wanted this was I was talking to my partner. He said something like, it would be really nice to go on a road trip with you and to not be the only one driving. And he didn’t say it in a judgy kind of way. It was very much like it would be really nice. So partly out of wanting to be an equal part in the relationship and wanting to give that to him. That’s one side of it.”
“The other side of it is I’m someone who hasn’t really shied away from scary things. I tried stand up comedy. I’ve gotten up on stages and spoken, I’ve sung in public. Why was this one thing so impossible for me? And if it’s so impossible, why not do it just to prove I can do the impossible, right? So those were the things that nudged me towards it.”
Rosie realised that to stop herself from getting overwhelmed she needed to take really small steps – step one was driving 4 blocks on a back street, and she repeated that step until she felt ready to move to 8 blocks. She found this technique made it a lot easier to keep learning.
Rosie’s biggest fear is messing up publicly. With potential consequences to others or other objects. “Competency has been something that’s carried me a long way in most of my life and being seen in an incompetent way–while inherently and logically I know there’s nothing wrong with it–it still makes me feel really really awful. And some part of me is sure I’m dying when I make a fool of myself in public.”
Of course I asked Rosie for her advice to others contemplating getting uncomfortable “fear is excitement with judgment placed on it. Right? If you just felt those physical sensations, and you didn’t have a story attached, you would call that excitement. So, fear is useful. It keeps us safe. But if it’s something that isn’t actually going to actually threaten your safety or well being, then find a way to interact with it.”
“Take a baby step like I did driving four blocks, or just spend time cultivating, wanting it. The more you think about that, the more it becomes a familiar thought in your reality, the more likely it’s going to feel available to you And eventually you’ll do it. Eventually you’ll find that energy and that space for yourself. “
And Rosie’s final words for you “The times I’ve pushed out of my comfort zone, I do not have many regrets. But of the times that I had the opportunity to [do something], and I didn’t? I look back on those I see what it could have done for myself. If I can encourage you just try something little, most things won’t kill us. So why not? Why not give it to ourselves?”
Thanks Rosie. I hope you are driving happily right now!
Imagine for a moment leading a company wide transformation and “be suddenly leading that level of change in an area that I really did not have deep domain expertise. I had not worked in that way before. I was having to learn while we were building and be able to be quickly build my own knowledge around it. But the biggest challenge was, it challenged me personally. So it wasn’t just that I was working on something that was new to me. I had to really reflect on my own leadership and how I was showing up and what this was all going look like and feel like.”
Alex knew that the T22 transformation was what Telstra needed, and a leaning in to the strategy was very much one of her strengths, but this change “was probably one of the most fundamental out of comfort zone experiences because it challenged a lot of deeply ingrained practices and ways of thinking.
“It profoundly impacted what work we did, how we delivered that work. It profoundly impacted all the people in the function. And in my mind, I had to adapt and change to that new way of working fastest of all, if you’re going to advocate for it, and you’re going to push for it.
“There wasn’t a guide. It’s not as if I could sit down and read the 101 manual and suddenly just get it. It was very much a learn through experience and trying some different approaches.”
Alex felt anxiety, fear of failure and a loss of control as she led the company through this huge change. A lot of which she admits came from high expectations of herself.
I asked Alex how she dealt with those feelings “I think on one hand, one of my lucky strengths is that I am pretty naturally resilient. I think we’re all different in how we deal with anxiety. But I do think there are a couple of things that help you with that.
“One, I tend to be pretty open with people around me. So my direct reports, I would joke with them about how I was learning and trying to get it right and knew I was going to get it wrong at least 50% of the time. And I do think when you verbalise things that make you anxious your halfway there to being able to deal with them because then they’re not the biggest secret that you’re carrying. Fear of failure is a really heavy thing to carry. It’s actually sharing it with others explaining what you’re challenged by and asking for feedback. Others will help guide you.
“And the other is actually just to invest some time in in learning. I do believe to lead something, try and exemplify that you must educate yourself. Knowledge builds your confidence. Learn the language, the things that make it feel intimidating. If you can cross that boundary, then suddenly it’s not so frightening and a whole bunch of it’s just common sense.
“So educate yourself and lean on others.”
Alex surprised herself with her adaptability throughout this journey “you can start to believe your own excuses about ‘I’ve been working too long. This is the way I grew up working’. All of that sort of stuff. But it really proves to me, we can all choose to change, we can all choose to change how we manage work, how we manage people, workplace relationships, and that as the world around us is changing traditional assumptions around organisational culture and engagement are changing as well.
“For senior execs, or those of us who’ve been around a bit longer, it was that absolute reinforcement of we need to stay fresh and contemporary. If you’re still relying on research you heard 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, there’ll be some gems in there. But there’ll be some things that have fundamentally changed because the new generations coming into our own organisations their expectations are shifting. And we’ve got to be able to constantly learn, adapt and change, to be able to deal with that.”
And Alex told that was as relevant with a 15 year old and a 6 year old at home as it was in business – you have to keep pace with change in order to relate.
Another important learning for Alex was to focus on the long goal, not the short term wins: “… being pragmatic. We had big bold visions, and you want to do everything at once and change everything. You’ve got to pick your battles, and you’ve got to work out which one’s most important. Which one do you really want done? And which one can you come back to later? What’s the most important step for us to take?
“I do think sometimes you can get a bit too wedded to your plan.”
Of course I asked Alex for her advice to anyone considering a step out of their comfort zone “one of the pieces of advice I can give people is think about adjacencies. For a lot of us, we’re not prepared to completely change everything. Think about the core skill set you have.
“One of the things I often suggest to people is think about what are the three or four anchor skills you’ve got that are not described by the functional, the specialist area you’re in? And then what’s the next logical step? So, if I’m working in risk, start to look around you and go, what are things that look a bit like that? Well, health and safety is a second line risk function. Compliance is a risk related activity, depending on what your training and expertise is regulatory might come in to the frame. So think about that first layer of the next circle around you and dip your toe in the water because you’re leveraging core strengths, and you’re not too far away from home.
“The other thing is I do think you’re often trying that in an environment where you’ve got sponsorship. Think who’s your supporter? Who’s going to be the person you can lean on or call out to when you’re learning. And when you’re learning, you’ll probably make a couple of mistakes. And you probably stumble and fall a couple of times. It helps to have a friend and a sponsor in those moments to help guide you. So think about the adjacencies, have your sponsor lined up, then take the job and give it a go. Because rarely do does anything dreadful happen.”
What great advice, thank you Alex!
Alex Badenoch is the Group Executive Transformation, Communications & People at Telstra
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-badenoch/
When I decided to get a puppy, I did not realise just how far out of my comfort zone I was about to step!
My experiences of puppies were one we had when I was 12, and my friends’ dogs.
But how hard could it be?
The discomfort started when I googled preparing for a new puppy… the lists were endless! And then the lists started contradicting each other.
With less than 2 weeks’ notice of her arrival, and retail being online only, I had to shop virtually. And hope for fast delivery!
A week before Daisy arrived, I was completely overwhelmed. I had so much information and advice my brain was swimming. And my stress levels sky rocketed. I could not make a decision and stick to it.
So, I reached out to a friend who fosters dogs and puppies. We went through each decision together and I made a plan. No crate, sleeping in the bathroom, not getting up to her during the night.
I felt immediately better.
There were some laughs as the many deliveries arrived – an 18kg bag of puppy food is a lot in case you were wondering! And nearly everything was delivered before she was.
Then she arrived. A bundle of delight. I was immediately in love, and the feeling seemed mutual.
The first 24 hours were hard. She climbed out of her play pen within the first hours. I dropped it when moving it and scared her, she hid in the corner behind a chair, and my heart hurt. She didn’t wee on the grass despite how long I stood there with her saying ‘toilet’ in many different tones of voice. You can’t praise her for doing the right thing if she doesn’t do it!
Then there was socialisation – in lockdown and before her second vaccination. I read how critical the 8 – 12 week window was for introducing other people and dogs. But how could I manage it?
I will be honest, the morning after she arrived, I went for a walk, alone, and cried. I felt like I was doing everything wrong.
But Daisy loves cuddles, and some of her many toys.
And then she wee’d on the grass and was so happy when I praised her that she did it again. And again.
Some friends that I walked with brought over vaccinated dogs to interact. A neighbour let me introduce her to her kids.
Then came her first night without an ‘accident’ to clean up come morning.
And her pure joy as she ran towards me after chasing around the yard.
Her falling asleep snuggled against me.
And I realised that together we were learning. About what worked and didn’t work for us.
And that was ok.
I asked Drew if he would let me interview him when I heard him talk about being out of his comfort zone a lot, and he said it with joy!
Drew has many examples, but I will share today what he told me about his role as the Executive General Manager of High Performance at Cricket Australia.
Being approached for a role is not a new experience for Drew – winning Olympic gold medals makes you fairly high profile – but this one surprised him “I was called by one of our former athlete management representatives, he rang me out of the blue and asked ‘What are you doing right now?’ And I said ‘I’m walking around the athletic field watching my son do cross country training’. And he clarified ‘what are you doing workwise”. The answer was rowing and coaching.
“He then asked would you consider another sport? And I said, ‘what sport’ and he goes ‘Cricket’.
“I didn’t know anything about the sport at all!”
Drew had no experience in cricket, none as a performance manager and had lost his job as head coach of the national rowing team just 12 months earlier.
But what he did have was a lifetime of being bold and giving things a go.
Drew credits his dad and his coaches with that approach to life “what I’ve been encouraged always do is stick your hand up have a crack at something, it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to make mistakes.”
Drew is also okay with not knowing and being open about that. “What I’ve worked out is it’s okay to show that you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re not across it. But asking questions and that sort of stuff is what makes me feel more comfortable.”
He took on the role – trusting that the CEO, and athlete manager knew him well enough to be know if he was the right fit – and hope they would not judge his lack of cricket specific knowledge.
An unusual sense of optimism is one of Drew’s personality traits that enables him to take risks. But he also has a lot of self-awareness. Drew knows that he is more comfortable failing in front of strangers than people he knows “To go to a surf beach as a kid, where you don’t know anyone, but there are others surfing I felt relatively okay with giving that a go. But if I came to my local surf beach where I knew everyone on the water, I found my apprehension would go through the roof. And sometimes I would talk myself out of going in the water.
“What I’m suggesting here is we have to get to know ourselves first. Work out the things that either trigger us positively or negatively about a situation.”
Drew is also aware of his motivations – committing to at least one other person is a great way for Drew to not ignore his alarm in the morning!
When it comes to things like public speaking, Drew uses tactics learned as a rower to ground himself. “It didn’t make the nerves any better. But what I generally found was it meant that my mind was less active. And so the thoughts or self talk slowed down.
“The interesting thing about self talk is when your self doubts and your self talk really get magnified, and almost to the point where it’s sort of stopping you and debilitating. When I was rowing if you put your hand in the water, it’s amazing. If you just feel the viscosity, you feel a temperature and all that stuff. It’s like your mind can’t be anywhere else apart from feeling that and so it slows everything down. It just gets you away from the past, present, future dynamic, and also the positive, negative dynamic. It gets you into ‘it’s just water and just the temperature and it’s just the feeling’. It’s the same thing with breathing. I think breathing helps us in that way a lot. And so I find whenever I’ve got to lead a meeting, or do a presentation of any sort just taking a few deep breaths and centring yourself into you what really matters most now. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the anxiety or concern go away, but they go away enough to give you insight.”
Drew’s advice to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable is to start small. Try something new. That small change, being uncomfortable, gives you a new perspective and can be the catalyst for bigger changes. Maybe even a gold medal or three?
Thank you so much Drew!
A bit about Drew:
A life of passion for family, sport and adventures. Working in high performance is a gift and since transitioning as an athlete into my work life it’s been a privilege to engage with great people working to achieving great outcomes.
Megumi began stepping out of her comfort zone at age 16 when she went on a foreign exchange from Japan to Canada. In this example and in others she found herself being pulled out of her comfort zone by external influences. But that was not always the case.
Driven by her own experiences as a naturally quiet person and a minority (the only Asian, the only woman, or the only Asian woman was common for Megumi), Megumi began the Quietly Powerful movement.
“Starting the quietly powerful movement was a big deal to me. Because naturally I am quieter, and I don’t particularly like being the centre of attention. I still remember when I first sent out an email to a group of people that I knew saying ‘I’m going to do this would you like to come along to a breakfast’. That’s how I started – just a very small public breakfast. I had 15 people, and it booked up so quickly that I had to organise another two or three straight off. So that was really interesting. But again, completely outside my comfort zone. I was so scared.”
Given this was a huge step outside Megumi’s comfort zone I asked her what motivated her to do it “So probably two or three years before I was heavily influenced by Susan Cain’s ‘quiet’. And I’ve seen some other people write about introversion, but then I thought it’s not just about introversion. I’d be with clients and senior leaders who are typically white men. That also caused me to feel somewhat shy to speak up. There’s my upbringing as well – I was always a quiet kid and being Japanese added to the mix. So there’s lots of different things that added to my quiet nature.
“One of the reasons that drove me was I just kept on hearing stories from people about how they got overlooked and these are very, very talented people. I still remember one situation where I had a colleague who I knew reasonably well, I saw her as a very influential person working with very senior leaders. And I heard secondhand after she went to a leadership assessment centre and she came back and got told she had no leadership potential. She used to work on transformation with 150 senior leaders in our division. And she made things happen. And I thought, you cannot measure that kind of influence over multiple months and years in a one-day assessment and to be told she has no leadership potential was absolutely ridiculous. And so that was one of the catalysts.”
Megumi also shared a personal experience about shifting from having noisy inner critics about being a quieter facilitator to learning firsthand how different facilitation styles can complement each other. She started owning her quieter approach and using it as a strength.
“Combining all those – I wanted to help others who felt like they were overlooked or disempowered to find that strength within. And then as a leadership and culture consultant, I just thought organizations and society at large, we’re missing out on a whole lot of talent if they don’t really understand and appreciate this quieter style of leadership.”
And Quietly Powerful was born!
Every time Megumi stepped out of her comfort zone, she gained confidence. Every time she survived and ‘didn’t fall in a heap’ gave her confidence the next time she was in a new situation.
And for people thinking about stepping out of their comfort zone?
“I would ask them to think about their ‘why’ first. If you’re stepping out of your comfort zone because you’re being told to do so by somebody else, that’s not going to give you the energy or resilience. I think if it’s something that you want to do and you feel pulled towards doing something that is outside your comfort zone, absolutely. Go for it. And give it your best shot. And don’t worry if it fails. Take an experimental approach. Have a go and if it doesn’t work, try something else or try a different approach.
“That was the case for me with the quietly powerful movement. When I sent out that invitation to the breakfast I thought ‘okay, it’s possible nobody would want to come’. I had this thought ‘What if people just think it’s really dumb?’ I thought I can treat it as an experiment. Try it. If it doesn’t work, do something else. I gave myself some room to fail and room to be okay with that. I think that helps when you try and do something.”
Megumi thank you for your words of wisdom, and for stepping out of your comfort zone to start the Quietly Powerful movement!
About Megumi:
Megumi is an author, speaker and consultant in leadership and culture, with a background in strategy, economics and finance. With a client list including Ernst & Young, JBWere, National Australia Bank, Roche, State and Federal Government Departments, smaller for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, Megumi helps leaders and organisations to unlock their hidden talents. She is the author of Quietly Powerful: How your quiet nature is your hidden leadership strength released in November 2019 and Start inspiring, stop driving: Unlock your team’s potential to outperform and grow.
In the uncertain, changing, global and inter-connected world, Megumi believes that the ‘alpha’ or ‘hero’ leadership style alone is outdated and inadequate. Quietly Powerful expands the definition of what good leadership looks, sounds and feels like and empowers quieter professionals and those outside majority groups to fulfil their leadership potential.
Her work has helped people to develop a quietly confident presence to be heard and have impact. Megumi’s ideas and approach have resonated with many (not just introverts) wanting to develop a calm, inner confidence to make the unique contribution they were born to make. Organisations are benefitting from harnessing their hidden talent and lifting their leaders’ effectiveness by using quieter approaches.