Nicky Lowe [00:00:00]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host and for nearly two decades now I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here. And let’s get on with today’s episode. Have you ever had something hit so hard it drops you to your knees? Not physically, but in that kind of quiet, private way when you realise just how human and vulnerable you are in those moments, it humbles you. And I’m in one of those seasons in my life right now.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:06]:
And today in this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on a personal health challenge. And I’m sharing this for two reasons. Firstly, I think my health lessons might help others. And I also think there’s some powerful leadership lessons in this too. So recently I discovered that I need a hysterectomy and saying it out loud still catches in my throat for a while. I’d filed a lot of the symptoms that I was experiencing under like the perimenopause umbrella. But as someone that’s come to realize that if you don’t advocate for your own health and no one else will, I discovered something else was going on. And it’s important for me to say that my ability to self advocate in this situation is deeply intertwined with privilege.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:00]:
So with that privilege, I promise myself that I need to share what I learned to make the path a bit easier for others. So I’m lucky in that I have private medical. So I decided to start pushing for answers about what was going on for me and what I could do about these health issues. And after some investigative work, I discovered that I’ve got a rather large fibroid and we’re talking like 9cm by 8cm, so the size of a grapefruit that needs to be removed along with some smaller fibroids. And honestly, it messed with my head to realize there was something that big in my body that didn’t belong there and I didn’t know about. And after some consultations, the recommendation is that I need a total abdominal hysterectomy. So that means removing my uterus, my fallopian tubes, my ovaries, and potentially My cervix, I’m not able to have keyhole because of the size of the fibroid. So not only am I facing a massive and an invasive surgery, but it’s also going to put me into the medical menopause.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:11]:
So that has been a lot to kind of get my head around. But on top of that, I’ve also had two C sections, one with an emergency, one with my first child 12 years ago, and then I had to have a planned one due to some medical issues seven years ago. And those surgeries have changed my body. I’ve got scar tissue. I’ve got altered neuromuscular patterns that have really affected my core. I’ve got issues with neurological connections. So for anybody that’s had a C section, you’ll understand this. But your brain wants you to recruit your core, and you just don’t have those connections any longer because they’ve literally been cut through.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:50]:
And even if they’ve knitted back together, well, they don’t knit back together in the way that they used to work. And in that process, if I’m honest, I lost a piece of my identity. I used to take pride in a really strong and responsive core. So, like, I didn’t have a six pack as such, but I had a really strong core. I did loads of Pilates, loads of yoga, loads of, like, functional fitness where I could lift really heavy weights with great integrity. But 12 years on, despite doing the right things, it’s never fully returned. I’ve had, like, adhesions, these bands of internal scar tissue that are really common after any surgery, and they can limit the glide and the functionality in body, in your body, and can create discomfort or movement restrictions even years later. And here I am facing another surgery on top of something that I feel has really impacted me.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:54]:
And so here I am incredibly humbled and having to choose my response. So instead of seeing this as a setback, I’m choosing to see it as a reset, because language matters. And I’ve decided that instead of seeing this as the menopause, I’m seeing it as entering my Queen Ager era. A friend of mine recently said to me, I don’t call it perimenopause. I call it cougar puberty. And I absolutely loved it, because when she said it, she said it was such playfulness, such resourcefulness, and, like, a cheekiness that I was like, yes, I love that, because language carries power. So for me, I’m choosing to see this as a reset. But that means going back to basics.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:48]:
And I mean all the way back, but our egos don’t like going back. My inner critic is shouting out to me. It’s like my pride is taking a kicking. And as John R.W. stott is quoted to have said, pride is your greatest enemy and humility is your greatest friend. And so what I’m choosing to do is rebuild my core from the ground up with a specialist, my gut good friend, Beth Gardner. And Beth is somebody that I have worked with for quite a few years. If you go Back to episode 16 of this podcast, we talked about rethinking well being.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:30]:
And Beth is walking this journey with me, alongside me, and she’s taken me back to basics, starting with breath work and gentle pelvic floor coordination before doing anything else. And that is really tricky for me because as I approach my surgery, my head is going, you want to be strong. You want to be in the best shape of your life for this surgery. And in a social media world where everyone is shouting out about lifting weights and lifting heavy for menopause, it feels really hard to say no. I’m starting gentle. I’m literally starting going back and teaching myself how to breathe with integrity and connect some basic functionality before I add in any load. And I’m also working with a scar tissue practitioner to free up the old adhesions from my C sections. And I’m noticing that in a narrative that chimes in like, you should be past this now, like, why are you 12 years later only now doing this? You should be stronger by now.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:35]:
You should have recovered by now. So here I am, humbled and choosing my response instead. I am rewriting and reclaiming my narrative. I’m not behind, I’m rebuilding. And this is where the leadership lessons live. We often try to get stronger by more. More goals, more responsibility, more challenge when our foundations aren’t stable. And then we wonder why the system aches.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:08]:
And that system can be your body or it can be the organizational system. I see too many leaders that have got into roles without having the foundations in place in terms of leadership, and it trips them and the organization up. So the paradox I’m leaning on, and I think there are leadership lessons in, is being confidently humble is about being secure in your strengths and honest about your limits. And my colleague, Amy Walters Cohen, who was head of research at the consultancy firm I worked on behalf of, she did a relentless exploration into what the future of leadership looks like for the 21st century. And her work discovered five paradoxical mindsets that leaders need to develop. And one of those was being Confidently humble and their paradox. Confidence is on the one end, and Humble feels in opposition to it, but her work really shows that being able to bridge that paradox is where the power is. And she calls these future fit mindsets about holding the tension.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:19]:
And the other mindsets are being responsibly daring, ambitiously appreciative, politically virtuous and ruthlessly caring. And the one that I’m going to focus on today is this confidently humble. It’s the stance I’m taking into surgery and the stance that I really try and model in leadership. It’s about being confident in you, but humble about what you don’t know yet. And right now, I’m entering the unknown. I’m not the expert on my surgery. I can’t predict how my recovery will go or what the medical menopause will bring. So.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:59]:
So I’m doing what confident humility looks like in practice. I’m building a support network on purpose. So I’ve got my surgeon, I’ve got my physio friend Beth, I’ve got my scar specialist, an amazing lady called Hannah Poulton, a HRT specialist, my family and my friends. And I’m letting people who know more than me lead me in their zone of genius. Because doing this alone would be arrogant and, quite frankly, stupid, but doing it together feels like wisd, but it’s also confident enough to question the experts and not just take their decisions at face value. So my poor surgeon, like, I’ve got a meeting with her this Thursday and the amount of questions that I’ve got, I think she’s going to get annoyed with me, but I don’t care. Like, it’s really important for me to have that curiosity and understanding for, like, my psychological. It’s about controlling the controllables, but also about being diligent, about, you know, not being complacent and really diving into what’s happening here.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:00]:
And it’s the same in leadership. You know, the world is getting more complex, ambiguous and uncertain, and we can’t possibly know all the answers in leadership about what the future holds. So our ability to be confidently humble is important. Strong enough to admit what you don’t know and curious enough to rethink, because humility doesn’t shrink you, it kind of calibrates you. It clears the fog so you can see reality and learn faster. And I think teens respond to that. When leaders own their own limits and spotlight others and keep learning out loud, they create climates where people speak up, share information, and improve the work. So humility isn’t a Soft skill.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:45]:
It’s kind of a performance skill, but boy, does it feel hard to do. And I think it rarely happens through these, like heroic effort. It happens through this deliberate practice, like small, specific kind of action with feedback, because that’s where the confidence is kind of earned and not performed. So there’s a mindset that I’m leaning into and it’s that beginner’s mindset. It’s also known as shoshin. It’s, as I say, the beginner’s mindset. It’s about meeting what is here like being here in the here and now, with openness and curiosity, letting go of that need to be the expert and know, you know, that part of you that says I know or I should know. Because in that beginner’s mindset, the expert says there are many possibilities, but in an expert’s mind there are few.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:42]:
So when we’re humbled, we can either double down on certainty or step into curiosity. And I’m choosing curiosity and the way in which it supports me with that is, is building my support network. So uncertainty is easier. When we’re resourced and in leadership in organizations, that’s our social support, you know, from our peers, from other leaders, from family, because we know all of the research shows the buffering effects of stress and better well being and performance. When we have that support network, it’s not just nice, it’s protective and it’s performance relevant. So practically that means naming who you’ll lean on before you need them. Maybe it’s the mentor for a perspective, the colleague for critique, or the specialist for the skill. Leaders who ask for help model the very behaviours that psychological safety requires.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:45]:
It’s about speaking up, seeking input and learning out loud. So I wanted to share with you seven foundations that I’m using to rebuild and how you can too. So the first foundation is breath before bracing. So as I’ve mentioned before, I’m adding in any load onto my body. I’m going right back to basics. I’m reteaching myself to breathe with integrity. As I’ve mentioned, the scar tissue has meant that I haven’t been breathing as deeply and as fully as I need need to for my body to be in integrity and to perform in this best way possible. So I’ve literally been going back to reteaching myself to breathe and I can’t tell you how humbling that is.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:34]:
Like the part of me that goes, oh my God, I’ve been doing this since birth, I’ve been doing it, you know, it’s an autonomic kind of response, isn’t it? We do it automatically and unconsciously. So we, you all, you know, we just take it for granted that we breathe and we do it well. It’s been hugely humbling to kind of go, oh, I’m not actually breathing properly. My inner critic wants to go, you can’t even get that right. I mean, how unhelpful is that? But anyway, but I’ve been going back to that type of basics. So breath before bracings, like, before I can add on any load and any complex kind of work. I’ve literally been doing diaphragmatic breathing and pelvic floor coordination before any strength work. And I suppose the lesson in leadership is about regulation before reaction.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:22]:
So we need to regulate ourselves first and respond second. So choosing kind of to respond in a way that’s helpful. And what that might look like is like three deep breaths before a tough conversation so that we’re regulated. The second lesson is about our deep core. You probably heard me talk before, without a strong core, we can’t lift well, stay flexible or avoid kind of compensation or dysregulation. And as much as I believe that about our bodies, I believe that about us psychologically. So with deep core, what I am doing is I am going back to activating those deep, little tiny core muscles that have kind of not been able to fire properly because of kind of previous surgeries. And when I’ve got that deep connection, that’s when I can add in load.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:17]:
And I think the same is within leadership. And your deep core in leadership is your values. So when decisions feel tough, when you feel wobbly, it’s about going back to that core of your values and checking in with them before you have to make the big calls. The third thing that I’m doing is scar tissue audit. So as I mentioned before, I’m working with the scar tissue expert and her name is Hannah Poulton and she’s one of the UK’s leading scar tissue experts. She’s actually doing her PhD and the first PhD on scar tissue within C section. So what she’s been doing is doing like ultrasounds on my scar tissue to find out exactly where the adhesions are and where it needs to be released so that we can get rid of those old adhesions and bring kind of glide and efficiency back to my system. And in leadership, we get adhesions too.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:10]:
So if you use that as a metaphor, like, adhesions can be like old policies or old habits or old stories that once protecting us, but now restrict us. So I’d love you to think about your own process adhesion that you might need to release. Maybe it’s a meeting that no longer serves, or a report that’s just done because it’s always been done but it’s no longer helpful or, or a rule that just doesn’t serve anymore. And maybe design a little experiment, release it and retest and see if it’s helped or not. The fourth thing that I’m doing is bringing in range before resistance. So I’m getting this full range of motion before I’m adding in load. So I’m building up my functional movement and what that might look like in leadership is building psychological safety so the team can actually stretch and cope and depress pressure. So it’s about like starting these small things that build to the movement so that you can add the load.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:15]:
Maybe it’s like taking a small risk each week and being comfortable with failure or running like a 10 minute learning debrief about where things went wrong and what can we learn from it because it’s that kind of building the range that allows us to meet the resistance with as much flexibility as possible. The fifth thing that I’m doing is thinking about the good data that leads to better decisions. And in my body it’s going back to some real basic signals of like, what’s my sleep level, what’s my breath like, how does my fatigue levels feel throughout the day? And I’m using those as leading indicators. I think in business we tend to focus on the performing indicators, like the output, but we’re not thinking about the leading indicators. So the things that are contributing to that. So leading indicators could be like what’s the quality of the decisions, it could be the cycle time we’re using to approach something or our ability to recover from error. Because picking a leading indicator gets us to focus on the stuff that contributes, not just on the outputs, which really about vanity metrics. The sixth thing that I’m doing is leaning into progress over perfection because that’s what really leads to the sustainable success.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:39]:
So in my body I’m celebrating those micro wins, you know, the really like breath with integrity, the tiny stabilizers, the muscles that can be re recruited after the scar tissue release. And in leadership the small wins kind of are the really kind of compound impact. So focusing on what’s the small level of progress. So a micro skill, it could be focusing on the five minutes of a meeting at the beginning and if we can set off the meeting on the right foot in those first five minutes and we do that consistently. It leads to higher performance in our meetings. The seventh thing that I’m doing is I’m trying to develop a strong back but a soft front and so that strong back in my body. It’s about being confident in my plan but actually humble enough to lean on my support network and in leadership. That might be about owning your decision but asking for help.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:41]:
And I’d like you to think about mapping out a support triangle. So the three points of the triangle is perspective, skill and care. So perspective leaning on somebody helps you to zoom out and see the bigger picture. The skill could be who has the technical expertise you need to defer to and care is about who looks after you. So you look look after the work and this is about naming them, telling them and scheduling in the check ins. So I hope those seven foundations about breath before bracing, deep core scar tissue, audit, range before resistance, good data leading to better decisions, progress over perfection and strong back, soft front are useful for you to hear because if you’re facing your own reset, I want you to know you’re not behind. You’re rebuilding. And my path includes major surgery and recovery.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:47]:
Yours might be you’re facing a restructure at work, or a new role, or IVF or burnout or grief or a family season that changes everything. The work is the same. We start at the foundations we need to claim our support, practice small and let humility sharpen us. So to sum up, going back to basics isn’t a setback, it’s a strategy. And as deeply humbling as it is, being confidently humble is a leadership strategy. Brave enough to lead, but humble enough to be led by experts. It turns uncertainty into a training ground, and I definitely feel like I’m in a training ground at the moment. But the beginner’s mindset keeps us curious when our egos want certainty.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:37]:
So if this landed, please share it with someone who also might be carrying a lot right now. Thanks for listening. Here’s to strong foundations, gentle resets and the courage to begin again. Until next time, take care. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to luminate co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on itunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:25]:
So together, we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening. Until next time. Time. Take care.