Leading a Reimagining Self-Doubt Revolution w/ Sas Petherick – She Leads She Thrives Podcast Ep 37

Shannon Dunn  01:17

Huge hello everybody I’m Shannon Dunn, your host here at She Leads She Thrives podcast and a long term business relationship coach and I am here today with another amazing guest to introduce to you. So if you’ve been listening for a while you’ve got the gist that I only invite people to come to the show to be guests because there’s something about them, their content, their work, what they stand for, that’s really stood out for me. And something that I also feel is of value to share with those of you who are listening in you know ambitious impact driven souls a lot of you are working in the coaching and mentoring, the guidance space, but your online service providers. 

Shannon Dunn  01:51

So when I first came across this fabulous soul – it was a little while ago now. There was something about something specific she was sharing that I had been doing some research about a time is like, Oh, where are you?  like we need more of you. So she’s like you may remember me reaching out to you with a message about what it was about? Yes. So we’ll get to and kind of unravel that once we talk about your coaching work and and self belief but let me introduce her so you can hear a little bit about what she’s all about. And then we will get to some questions and co-create a fabulous conversation for you all to listen to today. 

Shannon Dunn  02:08

So Sas Petherick is a coach obsessed – i love that was in capitals, like really bold – with helping you heal your self doubt. After completing her Master’s dissertation on the experience of self doubt, she spent the last 10 years working with hundreds of coaching clients to develop an evidence based trauma informed ICF accredited coaching methodology. That’s a huge accomplishment. So well done. It’s massive.She is the founder of Self Belief School where she helps humans move from understanding the root causes of self doubt, to cultivating tangible and sustainable self belief, self acceptance, self worth and self trust all of the good selfs. She also teaches coaches, therapists and mentors, how to support clients who were impacted by self doubt in the Self Belief Coaching Academy. And she’s a host of Courage and Spice the podcast for humans with self doubt. That’s a mouthful. Lots of stuff there, which is very cool.  We were just talking about what did you say it was 2017 when your podcast went live? So long term podcaster. Yeah.

Shannon Dunn  03:26

So welcome, Sas. I’m so happy to have you here.

Sas Petherick  03:30

I’m just thrilled to be here Shannon. Really nice to talk to you.

Shannon Dunn  03:33

So Sas is joining us from the UK. But you may hear her accent is not that British. Right. So do you want to tell everyone a tiny bit about your background? And then I’m going to dive into some questions about the things I want to ask you about today.

Sas Petherick  03:46

Yeah, sure. I grew up as an immigrant. I’m a first generation immigrant of British settlers in New Zealand, and always felt like an outsider. And really just escaped my childhood through reading, and couldn’t wait to travel. Just wanted to see the world wanting to get out of Bledlow New Zealand. And the older I get, the more I realized how precious my childhood actually was. And yeah, I’ve lived in the UK for around 20 years now. So I’ve kind of emigrated back to the UK from where my parents first came from. But yeah, just absolutely love, love love my work. I used to work in the city in London as a management consultant which was, wore a lot of suits and drink my feelings, is how I describe that time. .

Shannon Dunn  04:42

If I think back to my five years of my 20s where I spent in London mostly as a base so  I did a lot of travel. There was a lot of people doing that. Very much the suited see that as you said, drank a lot, party a lot of whatever they were not dealing with. So yeah, So interesting. 

Shannon Dunn  05:01

Now your background and pathway to coaching. And I love this. I was reading on your website is that the you refer to as your learning lineage like Yes. It just made me think of firstly, I have an Archetype framework that I use as the core of my business, done that for the last 14 years. Mentor Teacher is a common Archetype amongst my community. And that in itself was like the fact you referenced learning and you just said about how much you love books – definitely a Mentor Teacher, and you wouldn’t have kind of headed to teaching like you have without that Archetype, but love that. But you know, was fascinating to read about how you got to where you’ve got to and all the different things you’ve studied and what you’ve done. So your commitment to learning is palpable. Like it didn’t take much to work that out. But what got you into coaching though, if you’ve said, you come from being a management consultant, what got you into coaching?

Sas Petherick  05:48

Well, I really didn’t love management consulting. And I felt like a fraud the whole freaking time, like I just thought, I was often the only woman in the room, I was often the youngest person in the room. So you know what that’s like when you’re kind of ambitious. 

Sas Petherick  06:05

I do.

Sas Petherick  06:07

Right, and I always felt like I had to keep proving my worth and proving my space. So I worked twice as hard as every other bloke in the room. And I think that was my third burnout, where I thought maybe I should make some changes. Somethings got to shift. But I always felt like I didn’t love the work. Like I found I found it quite unfulfilling. Even though it was amazing to be working in the city and doing all of that good, exciting stuff. 

Sas Petherick  06:41

What I loved about my job was that so many people would tap me on the shoulder and go, can we go for a coffee?, can we go for a drink?, and they would just tell me about their stuff, their marriage that was falling apart, or the person they were having an affair with, don’t tell anyone, or the situation with a boss that they couldn’t resolve. All of those offers, but I felt like the kind of central point of contact for all workplace drama. It may have been because I was the mostly the only woman in the team. I which I’m very male dominated field. But I have come to realize that I do have that, that’s always happened to me. I remember at primary school kids telling me stuff like what was happening at home.

Shannon Dunn  07:31

That wouldn’t be an uncommon thing for a lot of people that have ended up in counseling, therapy, coach, mentoring, is that we were the ones because obviously saying that, that everyone kind of like can I talk to you and the way you listened or the way you helped me or the thing that you suggested? You know? Yeah, so keep going.

Sas Petherick  07:50

Completely. And, you know, and I think as well, I’ve come to sort of believe that, you know, maybe what happens is when we come to planet Earth, we actually have a bit of a mission. I think a lot of us that are in real heartfelt businesses, we feel that sense of mission and sense of purpose with out work. And wherever we end up, like whether you’re on a trading floor in the city of London, they just becomes the stage where you do your work, right. 

Sas Petherick  08:20

So I was without any real skill, knowledge or capability, I was counseling grown men about how to respectfully sought their shit out with their marriage. And it wasn’t until I burnt out myself and really had to sort of look at what were the choices I was making? Did I like who I was becoming, and I was so suffered a really big, two massive big grief, grief and losses in a year and that was a real like, come to Jesus moment of Okay, love. You know, life is pretty freaking short. So what are you gonna do? 

Shannon Dunn  08:58

You have a choice. 

Sas Petherick  09:00

Exactly. And I think I don’t think I realized that I had a choice before. Because you know what it’s like, when you kind of starting to climb the ladder, you get quite boxed in and we do that to ourselves I think. I certainly did.

Shannon Dunn  09:13

When you’re in an employment kind of scenario, when you just said you’re climbing kind of some kind of a ladder, you meet with your boss or the person above them and they kind of map out a succession plan for you. So you kind of are like, not forced, but in some ways kind of forced or dragged up that ladder if that’s the kind of individual if you’re naturally an ambitious soul. So yeah. Completely other people listening who’ve been there can relate to that.

Sas Petherick  09:41

Yeah. to that. Yeah. And honestly, the thought of having my boss’s job made me come out in hives, like literally hives, and I just wasn’t very happy. And I just recently started to experiment with getting sober, which was bringing up all kinds of stuff. And within a year, I just thought, Okay, I’m gonna make some real changes. And I ended up taking voluntary redundancy. And I actually got paid out, which allowed me to take some time off. And that gave me the space and the freedom to really think about what I wanted to do. And I had some coaching myself, and I’d been in some workplaces who are like, we’re going to, we’re going to train all the management team coaching, that’s the new thing.

Shannon Dunn  10:28

Yeah, that was my introduction to coaching two decades ago, as well. And I remember my boss at the time, what do you mean, you’re getting a coach for us as like, as a frontline manager? Because coaching to me was related to sports.

Sas Petherick  10:41

Yes,  we all got, we all got trained, and the fact that fundamentals of coaching, and I just thought, this is freaking awesome, I really enjoy this, I can totally see how this would work. Was never mentioned again, after the training. I think we were just using up the training budget to be fair. But when I took time off, I got a lot of therapy, and then I got some coaching. And there was something about it that really felt exciting to me. That idea of actually helping a human. And my ambition kind of evaporated as well. During that time, I was just like, I just don’t want to go back into those towers of glass and steel, that holds no appeal to me,. Ended up – long story short –  ended up going to a coach training, a practitioner coach training in person back when we did that. And from about the first hour or so I was like, my whole body just felt like fizzing like even talking about it now I’ve kind of got goosebumps, that feeling of, this is it.  Exactly that. It was like falling in love. I felt like I was having this massive, sexy affair with coaching. Meanwhile, I was kind of earning some pennies in my day job. But my absolute focus. That training took about six months, and as soon as I finished, I was like, my focus is to do this work. I have no freaking idea. I read about your history, Shannon and that you’ve had come from a family of entrepreneurs.

Sas Petherick  12:20

I love that you did. 

Shannon Dunn  12:25

I’ve shared this reasonably often now, it took me a while to kind of recognize the value of it. But both sets of grandparents, particularly my grandmother’s were in business. One of them, my mom’s mom, a serial entrepreneur had it like literally fingers in every kind of business pie you could consider. My dad’s parents were in business together. But there is no doubt in my mind that Nana was the boss. Pops business, but Nana was the the driving force behind that and the family of five children that they had. And the kids all worked in the shop.

Shannon Dunn  12:57

 So I didn’t question whether you could be a business owner as a female, which a lot of I think about my peers, and I think you and I are very similar age and but like,  why would you have gone to them into business? You know, we were growing up in an era where you went to school and you finish school and you went to some kind of formal additional education or you got a job. That was kind of it and like, not many would have ever considered necessarily going into business at some point in time, but that just made sense to me. And I knew I never , like you, didn’t want to be locked in those cubicles.

Sas Petherick  13:31

Yeah, and I and I guess I’m really envious of your role models and your family. Because I was like, but this is I love this work. I mean, coaching is just feels so exciting to me. But clearly, I can’t make a job out of it. Like, it’ll be a nice hobby, I’ll figure out a way to include it in my next job. I really didn’t get and this was in 2012, before business online was really even a thing. It was very nascent at that time, and you could only just take payments, I think, but no one had really figured out how to do it. I was a blogger, so an anonymous blogger. So we kind of knew that online was a thing, but that was mostly about like sharing cryptic emotional song lyrics. 

Shannon Dunn  14:21

What’s so funny is that I love it when I do a little bit of networking in person locally here and the big – particularly for women in business are female kind of founders – it’s very much a younger demographic. So they’re, you know, the 30 something kind of Mums side hustle business, maybe going back to a job but raising their kids and try and do all those things. And I love saying to them things like I started my business before they was social media. And they’re like, What did you do? Like I went networking. But again, I reached out online as best as I could to learn, but it was very different. You had a teleconference, you didn’t have a virtual summit, we have videos everywhere, like looking at you like you’re speaking this whole other language. 

Sas Petherick  15:05

And I’m really grateful for that timing because I like you, I had to get out, I had to try out what it was like to talk about my work. And the irony isn’t lost on me that I always felt quite drawn to looking at self doubt. But I felt a shit ton of self doubt in those early days of trying to figure out what this even meant. I was trying to figure out what this even meant. But yeah, it was a real baptism of fire of what networking meant. And, you know, just having the self belief to say, I think I can help you. And shall we have a conversation?

Shannon Dunn  15:48

Huge isn’t it. And as you said back in the early days, I love this, like we’re having like a proper OG conversation about coaching, which I don’t always get to do. I love it. I can nerd out on this for hours and hours. But coaching particularly, I don’t know what the UK was like, but certainly here and where I am in Perth on the West Coast of Australia probably was more,  the awareness of coaching on the East Coast different. But it was like you say you’re a coach, and you’ve done you know, coaching training, and people look at you like I had counseling and therapy qualifications and business stuff as well. That people are okay, get that. But what’s this coaching thing? And how what are you doing to make it into a business? 

Shannon Dunn  16:28

So even though I have that support from seeing role models, I didn’t have them around. They were they were kind of all gone by the time I needed them really. And my Dad had been in and out of small business, and by his own definition had failed. So he until he passed away six-ish years ago, he was still saying to me, are you sure this is working? Like Dad, I’m a lot a long way in. Yeah, like it’s all good. I’m never going back to being an employee. 

Shannon Dunn  16:52

So yeah, but you’re right, self doubt is massive, and it can rise up out of nowhere at any point in time. And I know, your focus is on I guess like activating self belief in your clients. And something that I read on your website really stood out to me and you wrote, self doubt is a protective mechanism that attempts, in complex and sophisticated ways, to hold us back from psychological risk. It finds a squillion different ways, doesn’t it, right? To say don’t do that you might hurt yourself, we construct narratives about who we need to be to feel safe, to be accepted to belong, based on our lived experiences. When these stories become constraining, we find ourselves stuck between our dreams and desires and the risks they present. 

Shannon Dunn  17:34

And I was like, Yes, that’s it. It’s a different way, to what I’ve seen, self doubt talked about. But what are the kind of the ways that you support your clients to bring that innate protector of self doubt, on the journey to developing self belief? Like what where do you kind of start with people when they have an awareness of like, No, I don’t want to keep doing this and live in that doubt kind of world?

Sas Petherick  17:55

Well, I think this is the difficulty that a lot of us are facing is we get told these narratives from the culture that say, you gotta fake it till you make it, or just just burn off self doubt in whatever way you need to do it. Or we get the story of the kind of Rocky narrative of like, just do it smash through self doubt kind of thing, or we get this slightly esoteric version of good vibes only, just think positive thoughts. And that will bypass your self doubt. 

Sas Petherick  18:32

And I’m like, look, let’s just have a freaking look at it. My research and all of my work over the last 10 years has found that, actually, our doubt is always there for a really good reason. It’s there because in the past, we’ve had experiences that have taught us that if we do this kind of thing, if we just stick our hand up and give our opinion, especially as women-identifying humans, that carries a risk. 

Sas Petherick  19:00

A risk that will be judged, told we’re too much told we haven’t done enough thinking, all of that stuff, right? We get projected all that stuff onto us. And so we end up taking care of ourselves as soon as  – if you’ve had that kind of experience – if you’re on an email chain in your work environment and someone questions something you’ve said, you’re immediately going to go into how do I best take care of myself in this scenario, and I’ve found we have kind of preferred ways of taking care of ourselves are sort of the ways we resist the discomfort of self doubt. 

Sas Petherick  19:39

So lots of us people, please we’re like, oh, let me take care of you so you don’t hate me. Or we do things like procrastinate, we never send the bloody email, or we you know, we kind of sit on the sidelines and just wait until we know more and hope maybe someone else will take the lead. We do all these things. Those are just our protective responses but the heartbreaking thing is, we think that’s who we are. I’m the person who can’t confront someone, I can’t stand up for myself, I can’t just address the thing,  I procrasta-faff like, it’s my Olympic sport – all of that. And we just say, Oh, this is who I am. 

Sas Petherick  20:17

And my approach is, no, let’s look at your self doubt. Let’s look at the root causes of it. Why is the very good reason let’s assume, always, there is a very good reason why you’re responding in this way. Let’s figure out what that’s about. And let’s show ourselves some compassion, and some understanding. And we can look at what’s a more helpful, healthy way of approaching this, because as adults, we’re so much more resourced and capable than we are perhaps when those more difficult experiences happen, usually in childhood, but often in our teen years. And those 20s and 30s, when we’re just kind of figuring out who the heck we are.

Shannon Dunn  20:59

Right? There’s so many things. And I think, which leads into that amazing answer is that I was looking at and then listening to some of the episodes on your podcast, and not realizing it had been around since, as you said, 2017, which is such a cool thing. But I think it was an episode from last year, you shared the four times self doubt shows up for coaches. And I would suggest, it possibly also shows that for coaches, mentors, counselors, people in the online service provision space, can you tell us more about these?

Sas Petherick  21:26

I gosh, I can’t even remember the details. But what I have found, and I’m just going to this may differ for what’s on the podcast. Sorry, forgive me, listeners, if you go listen to that and go what’s she on about. 

Shannon Dunn  21:41

Evolution. From when we share something content wise, I know that my views of things evolve over time. And sometimes that evolution is quite rapid. Sometimes it takes a bit longer. So this is the current version of that. 

Sas Petherick  21:53

The current version. The things that I see a lot of is that often we tell ourselves stories like Well, this has all been said before. So we kind of compare ourselves to other people in quite subtle and sophisticated ways. So we think we’re doing the right thing, right? Well, we’ll give ourselves this kind of noble self doubt, right? It’s all been said before, I want to be original. I’m not saying it as well as she is or he is all of that kind of stuff. So we do this kind of compare thing. And often it will sound legitimate in our minds. But we’re still saying, my voice doesn’t matter. So I’m using it as a way to hide. 

Shannon Dunn  22:35

Yeah, the thing that also makes me think of like, based on the numerous conversations I’ve had with clients, who just didn’t even network over the years is the, but what have I got that to offer that’s different, someone’s already doing what I want to do or what I have been doing. So there’s no space for me, it’s like, no BS to that. They’re not doing it, you’re way, you’re you. 

Sas Petherick  22:51

Exactly. And when I look at this through the lens of self belief, noone is going to do it quite like you are. I teach my methodology, which is quite general, like you can use it in any flavor of coaching. But I teach a methodology to over 100 coaches now. And they’re all using it in specific in different ways. They’ve all got the same teaching the same experience, but they’re all translating it through their own experience and personality, and the work they want to bring to the world. So I just think not always assume that you have got work to do like that idea of your mission on this on this planet in this lifetime. What is that? Because it will be unique to you. Because you’re a one off.

Shannon Dunn  23:17

That’s it. And you we see this in content that shared, but I feel like there’s still barriers so often to people actually getting it and being excited about it and celebrating it. That our differences are the best things about us. Not the things make us the same. And often when we try to fulfill that basic human need of wanting to belong, we let go of or not often, consciously, it’s often unconsciously, we let go of our differences. Yeah, because if we’ve keep those then do we really belong? Yes, we belong to the individual that we are.

Sas Petherick  24:17

Yeah, well, and I also think how many times have you heard like a slightly cliched saying or something that feels… Yeah, it’s like I intellectually I kind of know it’s true, but then someone says it to you, in their way and it’s like, boof. Oh, that got me. I didn’t just hear that. I felt it. And it was just in that moment, that person and the self belief to say, hey, here’s how I see this thing that we all probably know is maybe true. But something resonated for you in that moment. And crikey, I’m in my 50s now and I still get to that place of ..shouldn’t I have figured that out by now.

Shannon Dunn  25:00

Yeah. And I think that, to me has become one of the exciting things about being human, is that there is always something to learn. I love what you see every and again someone will share a piece of content, I was this many years old when I learned or whatever and it was… today years old. How did I not know this? Like that’s the kind of thing behind it. And I love that. And I also love having conversations with you, I’m sure you would as well Sas that with clients where you’re watching them hear, as you said, hear something for the first time even though it could be something that  you would think would be relatively common knowing and watching them light up with the energy and the excitement and the motivation often to do something with that. It’s that inspired action, that comes from that little spark of what really?! like it is just I know, it’s so cool. And that’s, I find, in my observation, that’s where the self belief comes alive.

Sas Petherick  26:04

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that’s the kind of the difference between self doubt and saying, What have I got to say, that’s new and original? And why would anyone want this? How do I compare to other people, to moving into a place of self belief where it’s like, I’ve got something to say that might be a bit different to other people, here’s my take. And that is about being a contributor, right? I’m not comparing myself to other people, I’m contributing to the whole piece. Right. So tons of people to look at self doubt, have at it!,  the world needs more people that have self belief. 

Shannon Dunn  26:46

That’s it. There’s room for all of us, all of our voices, and all of our contribution to those genuinely positive expressions in the world. And that’s not in denial of the things that underpin them. As you said earlier, like, self doubt has a useful mechanism. It’s like you, when I love teach a lot about ego and its role there, particularly in relation to archetypes and that kind of thing. A lot of people will also talk about the shadow of our self as a negative thing. I’m like, No, that’s where your greatest wisdom is. 

Shannon Dunn  27:18

And people look at me, particularly in the psychology space where I’ve spent time and go, No, it’s all the things that we deny, and we’re negative and the bad stuff about us. But no, we’re not, let’s not label good and bad. Let’s actually look at things for what they are, its so cool. 

Shannon Dunn  27:34

So when I first came across your content, we’re getting into that, that bit now. I saw your posts about supporting other coaches, therapists and mentors via coaching supervision. So as a counselor, and an art therapist and long term coach, and I am developing a supervision model for my own leadership coaching certification and the community of Thrive Factor Coaches. That was the bit that got me like, who is this woman, like who’s doing this finally, because for a long time, I felt that that supervision piece is missing in the coaching industry. I’ve looked for stuff over the years, and you get a little bit of stuff that it really looks really fluffy or empty. And having had experience of professional supervision when I was working as a therapist,  I know the benefits of it. And I was like this, coaches need this, too. So firstly, tell us what supervision is like, I want to hear your definition of it. 

Sas Petherick  28:27

So supervision is very, I mean, I think it’s got a bad name. Like, it’s not a sexy branding, right? Because it feels like someone’s going to be marking your homework. 

Shannon Dunn  28:40

And I remember talking to the Thrive Factor Coach community about this last year, and they’re like, can we call it something different? 

Sas Petherick  28:48

I totally agree. But I think the reason that it’s called supervision is because it’s come from, like many things, coaching is so derivative of other professions as it finds its way. But coaching supervision is there’s more of a supportive, reflective space. So it’s there to help, because most of us work alone. And once we get out of training, for many people, it’s like, see you, good luck. It’s very isolating. And I think for most of us, we have that first initial coach training. And then we might be connected to a Facebook group, but we don’t really get the support and the proper like, investment from a supervisor, I think, is invaluable because they’re basically saying, I’m with you, and I’m with your clients.  

Sas Petherick  29:48

So a supervisor has a really fascinating role I think because we have an abstracted relationship with the coach’s clients. Yes. Right. Because you can bring to supervision, depending on the kind of the style or the approach that the supervisor takes, and everybody’s different depending on their own context and the flavor of the work they do. The way I work is, I’m like you can bring anything about your clients, clients that you may have some sense of a resolution with, something isn’t quite working, something is missing, you feel like you’re not reaching them, or common, most common thing, they have a great session, but they never do their “homework”, they never take action. 

Sas Petherick  30:41

And so coaches will get very twisted and knots about all of that. Its very, very normal. Yeah. And we can get quite irritated and bored and fed up and pissed off with our clients, very normal. All therapists experience this too. We’re humans with coaching skills, right. But I think what can happen in a supervisory environment is that you get to bring that stuff and say, what the heck’s going on, and someone who has had usually more experience, has been around the tracks a bit more, understands you as a person with coaching skills and has some insight into your client, can offer a way of getting a really wider perspective on what might be going on, give you ideas for things you can try. And ways that you can kind of resolve that within yourself. Because, as we know, I think most of us who’ve been coaching for a while, you start to see that I don’t need any more tools, I need deeper presence. It’s my greatest gift.

Shannon Dunn  31:47

An understanding of how to actually support clients when you come to a space of being stuck. And I remember when I first was talked to, would have been probably in my counseling training, which I did before I did art therapy, around supervision as a way to support you and back then to be registered, which is obviously coaching is not a you know, regulated industry doesn’t require registration. But you had to have a minimum number of supervision hours each year to maintain your registration, which I felt was such a good thing. 

Shannon Dunn  32:19

But remember being told that yes, not only will it support you to better support your clients, but also it can be a space for you to unpack what may be happening in your life that could inadvertently influence your relationships with your clients, which when you understand more about, you know, the dynamics of counseling and psychology and therapy work,  there’s a whole lot of other things going on which I’ll save them for another another episode I’ll dive into them with people. Stuff I teach in the the actual coach intensive for the Thrive Factor Coach leadership certification, but it’s just so useful. So as I said, this is why I was so excited. I was like, I see what you’re doing and the way you were talking about it.

Sas Petherick  32:57

Yeah, and you know, I think for anyone who’s like, what is supervision? I’ve never heard of that. I’ve been a coach for years, and I’ve never heard of it. I totally understand that. And all I would say is the only reason I knew about it was because after about a year of starting to work with people with self doubt, I was starting to see more and more people bring past trauma into the room. And I felt completely out of my depth. I’ve trained as a therapist, but I didn’t practice or licensed as a therapist. And so I probably have a bit more insight than the average Joe coach. And I still felt like this was beyond the scope of my practice, I need help. And I was referring so many people it just felt like I’m a pit stop on the way to therapy, this doesn’t feel good. And so I sought out a supervisor, who was also a therapist and coach and  I have been net I’ve been coaching now for over a decade and I’ve always been in supervision and trauma informed supervision with someone who is and I’m pretty smart and I’m pretty hard to coach, I think I’m quite awkward to coach because I always know. 

Sas Petherick  34:16

Fellow Enneagram 3’s will know exactly what I’m talking about. But the work that I have done with my supervisor has expanded my capacity to be with my clients in a way that nothing else could have. I could have had 1000s more hours of coaching practice but I wouldn’t have gone any deeper. Yeah, and I think that’s the thing to really know is that working with a supervisor is really stretchy work for a coach. It’s quite courageous I think, because you are going to be on your kind of – what I call your growth edges – most of the time because we have to take responsibility for how we’re showing up, and we don’t learn how to do that in any other environment.

Shannon Dunn  35:05

No, no, I agree with you completely. So somebody else I read that you shared was this phrase “as the coaching industry matures, being in supervision is now recognized as the standard for coaching excellence”. I agree with you. But the reality is that, I don’t know many coaches or really have ever known many in my two decades in the industry, that have ever engaged or would even have heard of supervision. As I said, I’m like my, I feel very blessed to have had a lived experience of it. 

Shannon Dunn  35:34

But equally as a coach, I’ve not really sought it out. I’ve sought out certain coaches to work with for my business, but also for self, that I knew would maybe give me what a supervisor has given me in different previous professions, but they weren’t actual supervisors, in a supervisory role as such. So I agree. I agree with you. And I hope this does become the standard for coaching excellence moving forward, and it takes people like yourself doing the work you’re doing for that to become a reality. But how did you come to this to the decision to actually offer supervision? You’ve got your little groups that you,  what was it like four to six coaches in your group? How did you decide that you wanted to do that and be a supervisor for coaches?

Sas Petherick  36:19

So I’ve been in supervision, I’ve been receiving supervision for about 10 years, and as part of my postgraduate degree, was offered additional supervision that sort of had a different kind of flavor to it. It was much more about what’s the bridge between the theory and the practice in terms of like research, and that really opened me up to Oh, okay, this is kind of cool. And at the same time, like here in the UK, we’re not so focused on ICF. So the International Coaching Federation is a trade body. They’re great, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s a great idea, I think. But yeah, but it’s not going to solve everything. In the UK, we also have the Association of Coaching, and that is quite research-lead. But it’s also very leadership and almost like work based leadership coaching type. That’s where it’s come from.

Shannon Dunn  37:21

Or more of a executive kind of coaching style. 

Sas Petherick  37:24

Executive leadership coaching, yeah. But they have also got a really strong emphasis on supervision. And they’ve done a great PR job over the last decade, and most UK employers who are looking for executive coaches will now require the coach to be in supervision, they recognize that it’s such a valuable quality assurance thing for them, because how would any employer or HR department or OD department know who’s a good coach?!

Shannon Dunn  37:59

They don’t know. And I think this is where both from a that kind of a type of coaching, but then we talk about the general public, for life coach, money coach, business coach, whatever other coach you can think about, not really being able to truly understand or discern who is a quality coach and who’s not. 

Sas Petherick  38:21

And I think that’s part of the reason like all the research tells us that almost every coach thinks supervision is a bloody good idea, but less than 30% of coaches are actually in supervision. Yeah, and I suspect,  my theory and it comes back to self doubt,  is that that’s because there is an ethical component to coaching supervision. So the reason I’m interested in my supervisees clients is because I have a responsibility to them, in terms of ethical practice. Is this coach staying within their zone of competency? If they woken up one day and gone? I know, I’ll be a money coach, and what are they actually doing? So it’s not to say,  you can’t do that,  because as you say, coaching is self regulated. But one of the ways that I think supervision really brings something to the table is to say to the coach, okay, tell me what was going on for you where you decided to pivot your business? Where are you feeling like you’re within your scope of practice and out.  

Shannon Dunn  39:35

It’s that unpacking of how did we get here? Like what is going on and what’s influencing you and, and  things like duty of care. Unconscious. Scope of practice of all things that I teach in the coach intensive and I look at the other kinds of models of education around coaching. I don’t say mine’s the best – I’m never going to claim that necessarily – but it’s done good compared to some of the very average stuff that’s out there. And then we all have that other whole world of coaches who are not qualified in any way, shape or form from a coaching methodology perspective. So that’s another episode entirely to talk about.

Sas Petherick  40:13

And I think that’s the thing is, my experience is that there are so many coaches who are really thoughtful, who have invested in training, who really do care about doing work that is supportive and helpful, and that recognize that there is no magic bullet. That this isn’t a quick fix. That it’s a relationship between our healthiest self and that of the client, and that want to create a really, unentangled, lovingly, detached, grounded presence for our clients. I know so many coaches who are in that space. And they’re a bit like, oh, but am I doing that? Am I within my zone of genius here, or…

Shannon Dunn  40:58

doubts come up still. And it’s no surprise because there is an excessive number of coaches out there in the online space, all touting their own best ways of doing things, a lot of what we see in content is contradictory to the next kind of greatest coach out there. So I’m not surprised because again, as you said, we’re human underneath all of this, whether we had training or not, we are human. And we come with our baggage, if you like, of different things that influence our beliefs, our mindset, our behavior, our thoughts all the time. So it’s no surprise that dark comes up, it’s a part of being a human.

Sas Petherick  41:36

And I think as well like, and in my experience the clients that I have had have done the most work myself to be able to show up for. The ones that said they were going to do stuff and didn’t do it, or they didn’t really want to engage in the coaching, or they never quite felt ready for all of that stuff. If I hadn’t been in supervision, I would have just referred them on and I would have learned nothing. But because I was in supervision, I was able to go, what is going on between us? And I would say this was certainly my experience the first three, five years of coaching was, I was usually attracting mostly women, but not exclusively. who reminded me of me five years ago. Which is a very common kind of client avatar. 

Shannon Dunn  42:32

Yeah, very common. And I remember first times, I think back to learning about client avatars, I’m sure I was told in those early days, look at yourself in the mirror, the person that will be your ideal client will be a version of you.

Sas Petherick  42:44

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, you’ll know this from your depth psychology work around the shadow and around our own unconscious kind of resonances. That actually, you are more likely to get entangled with someone who reminds you of an aspect of you in an unhealthy way, then you are with someone who is completely different from you.  And also, I think restricts your potential client base. Like, the older I’ve got, the more experienced I’ve got, I now don’t require anyone to be ready to do the work, great marketing tagline, right? And I don’t really need you to share my values. I don’t really even really need you to like me, and I still think I can help you. If you’re up for it, let’s give it a go.

Shannon Dunn  43:33

Yeah, it comes from a genuine place. And I find one of the other dangers with with coaching a lot. And it’s not restricted to people that do not have a certification in coaching, I’d see it all over the place, is that lack of the understanding of scope of practice and the unconscious competence, where, but I know I can help and that huge, I think genuine, heartfelt desire to help people means that they stay in working relationships that they should not be in, where it’s not causing anybody any positive experience at all. But there comes I think, from a good place, usually from a belief that they can help. And again, without supervision and space to actually explore and to be challenged to consider what their relationships with your clients are actually, like. You’re missing a massive opportunity for yourself and your clients. 

Sas Petherick  44:24

Yeah, so sure. And you know, I think for most of us that are in the helping professions, we have a shadow of rescuing people, right? We people please, we rescue, we collude with our clients. That’s always a risk. And it’s like so let’s normalize it and and help you as the practitioner to get okay with it. So you can talk about what’s going on in the room. So you can actually model what it’s like to say, Oh, I’m feeling a real need to want to rescue you from this. How are you feeling about this? And they might say, which often happens. I want you to rescue me too, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Yeah. And it’s like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah. So yeah. So we get to kind of talk about it. Right?  Okay, what what do you what do you actually hope to be able to do yourself? Because, you know, my hope is that I kind of put myself out of work, and that the clients I work with get to learn how to internalize their coaching skills and, and tools so that they feel super resourced. Whenever self doubt comes up in the future. So if I’m rescuing them, there’s no hope for that. 

Shannon Dunn  45:47

No, not at all. And that is something that I find is so contradictory. Just some of the particular messaging and business coaching around long term mentorship, and they were talking about you invest and you keep investing in you work with the same coach for years on end – that’s not healthy. But that’s again, another podcast episode for another time, really. But yeah, it’s got to be, there’s more understanding that’s required. And I think the supervision model is such a useful one for the coaching industry. And I truly believe that it is going to support the industry in such positive ways as it does grow and potentially may become regulated at some point in time, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

Sas Petherick  46:30

There is now in the UK an Association of Coaching Supervisors, there is an International Coaching Supervision Circle. There are there are lots of resources, I think, unfortunately, you lost in Australia, a real incredible stalwart of coaching research in Anthony Grant, who sadly died last year, and I know one of his like real research focus was how do we get supervision more widely talked about and utilized in Australia. So he’s such a huge loss. But for anyone who’s looking for evidence based coaching, support and resources, I’d highly recommend giving him a little go go on looking at some of his papers, he’s written extensively about coaching in Australia. 

Shannon Dunn  47:19

But again, the benefit of the fact we live in a world where we can Google anything. So that we don’t have to just focus on what may or may not be available in our own region, we actually can tap into the learning, the research, the teaching, the inspiration, or whatever, in other parts of the world, which is exactly what I’ve done, because there was such limited options to look at at home first, which is so good. 

Sas Petherick  47:43

We had our opening call for my supervision group that just started a couple of weeks ago, and there were women there from Canada, America, Hawaii, and the UK. And it was like, okay, cool. And we’re all like, yeah, that’s a group of like, six women. And I just think, Oh, we are going to have so much fun this year. 

Shannon Dunn  48:07

So good. I love it. I look forward to talking to you at other points during the year and hearing more about you and following your and you’re evolution. Well, so to wrap us up, I hate this part of the conversation, because it’s like, what are you mean we’ve got to end? I might revolutionize the like four hour episode one day – No, not really. But I think there’s some of the guests that I have, I could easily talk to you ladies for hours and hours on end about the different topics and the things that we love and share. But anyway, to wrap this up for today, got a few questions that I’ve asked all of our guests. The first one is, Sas what role does leadership play in your life and business?

Sas Petherick  48:43

Oh, it’s everything. And I actually think we are all leaders of our own lives. I know, you probably share that too Shannon. But just recognizing that I’m a grown up, I am utterly and solely accountable for myself for what I think, what I feel, the shit I allow and to not allow in my space, the energy that I do allow, like, I make so many decisions from a real like heart centered leadership place,  value lead leadership place, every day.

Shannon Dunn  49:15

Yeah. So cool. I know that when I was first defining the Thrive Factor Framework of the archetypes, it was always back then I call it personal leadership. Now more we use the term self leadership framework. But in that I decided to define what that personal leadership or self leadership actually was. And I looked at it as it’s the end result of a kind of lived experience of the choices we make, and the action we take in response to those choices. And that takes knowing, recognizing and being open to the fact that you have a choice in every moment. You might not have a choice about the thing you’re doing, but you have a choice about how you respond to that, how you feel about it, how you think about it. 

Sas Petherick  49:55

Honestly, I think to have that response, but thats the honor of a lifetime. I’m like it like to know that I’m in charge of me is, it feels like such an incredible honor.

Shannon Dunn  50:11

Love it. So the next thing I’d love to know, how do you know when you’re thriving? We can’t be on the She Leads hse Thrives and not talk about thriving.  So how do you know when you’re thriving?

Sas Petherick  50:21

It’s a kind of felt sense for me. So I get quite fizzy feelings in my chest. Feels very golden to me. I know, that probably sounds a little weird.

Shannon Dunn  50:34

You said fizzy earlier – I get that. 

Sas Petherick  50:38

Yeah, yeah, golden, fizzy feelings. I tend to also have a ton of compassion for myself and for other people. Like, I’m just more patient, I’m like, we’re good. You just pulled in front of me, and I saw you wave, and we’re good. I’m never gonna be the person that toots. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve really learned, when I’ve realized, I’ve probably learned all the coaching tools that I’m gonna need to know,  is actually can I be with myself now? Can I be with the world right now? Because the more that I can be in a really grounded presence with myself, the more that that emanates, and it does impact the people around you completely. Absolutely.

Shannon Dunn  51:29

I talk about when we activate thriving, that it becomes a ripple effect that travels out into the world. So it goes through to you. But then the immediate people in your world, so might be family, friends, clients, and when we’re talking business, then it goes out to your immediate community. And it just keeps trickling like rippling out. And that, to me is just one of the greatest gifts we can each give ourselves and each other. So very, very cool.

Sas Petherick  51:55

And I think as well, death has been one of my greatest teachers. I think I see teachers before I became a coach, I had two big losses. And the older I get, the more I know of, I know people that died younger than me. And I just keep coming back to what’s left. Because if you’ve ever lost a person, you realize that you absolutely take nothing with you. You take nothing, and what you leave behind are these impressions, and they are quite a fear, I don’t know, esoteric, maybe, but they’re ephemeral. They’re not something you can hold on to. It’s the feeling that you get when you remember that person. So while I have no desire to be living my life as if I really just want you to have good memories when I die. But I do think that that’s the thing that people will remember. What was it like to be in your presence, they probably won’t really listen very much to what you say. But how did they feel with you? How do they feel about themselves when they will with you? 

Shannon Dunn  53:05

Love it. So how can people connect with you? Like where do we find you online?

Sas Petherick  53:10

I spend far too much time on Instagram.

Shannon Dunn  53:13

Well, that’s how I found you, so obviously a good thing.

Sas Petherick  53:17

Yeah, so I’m @saspetherick on Instagram, you can find me there. And that will have links to my website and other things. And as you introduce me, I have two main programs one is Self Belief School. And that is for humans with self doubt, that’s a lovely year long program and, and Self Belief Coaching Academy which is for practitioners to to learn my methodology and get licensed in that and that’s, it’s really supported for you.

Shannon Dunn  53:45

And we will make sure as we do with every one of our guests that all the links that you’ve given us in the show notes, along with the transcript of this entire conversation that we’ve co-created today. So if anybody, I find it interesting when people reach out “can’t find” like have you check the show notes?  Easy for anyone who is curious is to be able to check in and find our guests and if you are active follower of myself on Instagram or you know receive emails from me then you will know that I will tag in our guests when we go live in the show so I’ve always an Instagram first and then through to Facebook as well. So no excuses I say, no excuses. So beautiful Sas, thank you so much for joining me, you know your morning, my evening but perfect. I love the way we can work the time zones in our favor.

Sas Petherick  54:08

And on a full moon as well, its pretty cool. 

Shannon Dunn  54:40

We’re very good expansive visibility full moon. So thank you so much for joining me and for all of the wisdom that you’ve shared today. I’ve loved the conversation. I’m not adverse to having people back as guests in the future. So might be a while, you never know we might get right to have another conversation one day. 

Shannon Dunn  54:58

And listeners thank you for tuning into us. And I hope that no matter what it is that you do in your business that you found some value in here. And I often talk particularly when we end up having a focus about something to do with coaching and mentoring, that kind of online service provision that this is as valuable for you if you are in those spaces. But equally, if you’re a consumer of those things, this is also valuable to understand. If you are out there receiving coaching, ask your coach if they know what supervision is, just to see how they respond, you might get a blank look, it’s not uncommon that, as I say, coaches, I know that for the Thrive Factor Coach community, some of them had heard of it, but had no idea really what it was, except for as we were talking about earlier, the whole oh, don’t like that word. It’s like no, but let’s kind of take it for what it means and represents, and the gift it can give all of us rather than focusing on the name of it. So I think it’s such a great thing. 

Shannon Dunn  55:50

So let’s see how this whole notion of supervision goes for coaching in the world. I’m here to cheer  it and I’m so glad to connect with people like us. So further ahead with what they’re doing and really creating great opportunities for coaches to be receiving on the receiving end and co-contributing to the supervision,  supervisory relationship. There go. That’s the word I was looking for. 

Sas Petherick  56:14

Very cool. Thanks, Shannon

Shannon Dunn  56:15

Thank you, listeners for tuning in. Make sure you follow us and do all the things and if you found value in this episode, please share it with someone, even just one person who you know will also appreciate it it would be really cool to give people a chance to listen to what Sas had to share today and the conversation we had. So have a beautiful day, stay safe wherever you are in the world. Remember you were born to thrive.