Self Awareness; the untapped superpower – She Leads She Thrives Podcast Episode 002

Introduction

She Lead She Thrives, the home of inspired conversations, practical and creative wisdom, expansive leadership and business insights, abundant Bragaudacious moments of celebration and useful info you can actually do something with.

You’ll hear about mindset marketing, money, magnetism, self awareness and the Thrive Factor Framework, it’s Archetypes and more. Amplify your role as a leader, a self led soul. Tap into your effortless success zone. Turn your ingeniousness and wisdom into profitable income streams.

From solo shows to guests you’ll definitely want more from, there’s something for every ambitious ingenious soul. 

I’m Shannon Dunn, a true OG of the business coaching space, with an obsession with thriving. You are so welcome here. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Visit ThriveFactorCo.com/links for all the latest news and offers.

Welcome  01:05

When it comes to leadership and business, I found it both interesting and useful to reflect on what has supported me the most. And in the Thrive Factor world, it’s frequently the same things I find have also supported my clients the most. And one of the most significant supports, and I 100% believe untapped superpowers, is that of self awareness.

Shannon  01:43

Coming from a corporate background, I heard self awareness and all versions of knowing yourself better referred to frequently as soft skills. And even back then, some two decades ago, I found this to be a kind of a weird description of the personal development, myself and my colleagues at the time, were occasionally supported to engage in. Anything to do with better knowing yourself is in my opinion and experience, one of the most important things to invest in.

Shannon  02:13

Welcome to She Leads She Thrives. I’m your host here at the podcast Shannon Dunn, and I’m delighted to be back with a new episode. Having hosted a couple of podcasts in the past, I’ve always found that choosing what to share with you in the solo episodes, bit of an interesting thing to navigate.

Now that’s not because I’m unsure of what to share or question the content I love to talk about and teach. It’s actually the opposite. I have so much I want to share and totally believe in what it is in my heart at the time that asked to be the feature of an episode.

I love this clarity and confidence because I have profound and evolving self awareness. And when I say profound, I mean having significant understanding. Now I don’t know all there is to know about me about who I am, which is why I also consider myself a witness to be evolving. Truly an evolutionary experience if you like, sometimes it feels like I have reached my edges have a complete sense of who I am, and then other times being at that very edge shows me there is so much more to know and understand. 

Shannon  03:28

Now, in the past, like many times over, like I imagine a lot of people, I would have considered that those edgy spots to be signs that I didn’t know much or enough. Sometimes I didn’t know anything. And it makes me think of the saying, “the more you know, the more you don’t know”. I now understand because I have such significant self awareness. 

Thanks to decades of investing time, energy and money into learning more about me. Where those thoughts, beliefs and responses came from in the past. I can see aspects of myself through the lenses of the different things I’ve engaged in. And when it comes to my Thrive Factor Archetypes I know, what used to be my reality of that questioning what I know and wondering if I knew enough is 100% influenced by my Mentor Teacher Archetype. Through the very practice of self awareness I’ve come to see and to know these edges now to be spaces in places of growth, and deepening awareness of who I am my purpose, my place in the world, my future, my legacy, my influence my impact on myself, and on others. 

Shannon  04:45

So what is self awareness? Let’s unpack that for a moment. In its simplest form, I’ve always seen it as a knowing yourself. Awareness for me is another word for knowing. That’s how I’ve always understood it. And the self bit literally focuses the practice of being aware on yourself.

So why is it an untapped superpower? Well, the counselor, the psychologist, the therapist in me, has a very lived and learned experience of this. And then the human being who’s chosen to invest in self awareness has another view. But what I definitely know is that when you don’t have self awareness, and its counterpart, self understanding, you’ll be missing insight into things like your beliefs, your thought patterns, your values, behaviors, and why you do or respond the way you do to certain things, and your emotional responses and their impact.

Shannon  05:48

And without insight into those kinds of aspects of self, you can be left questioning yourself, judging yourself criticizing yourself, comparing to others, and then doing more questioning more judging more criticizing, deciding something’s wrong with you, believing that if you just fix that is that kind of invisible thing, you’d be all good and on the path to success you’ve dreamed of.

It can leave you choosing to believe in the unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts and self talk that you dish out. Thinking you’re a failure, experiencing self esteem and confidence challenges. Wondering why you felt such big or confusing emotions about something and labeling those emotions as bad in some way. We could totally add to this list, but I think you get the reality and the potential here of what could happen.

And I’m sure you’ve experienced one or more of these, maybe all of them at some time or another. I’m here to be honest with you, I’ve definitely experienced all of them at some point. Sometimes some of them layering together, let’s be real here. And it’s not that I don’t have these things rise up now. The difference is I’m aware of what’s contributing to them. And I also have ways to work with what arises so I can deepen my self awareness and understanding and perhaps do things like choose differently to so believe differently to so think differently, choose to act differently.

Shannon  07:17

Now, just recently, I wrote a piece of content to share on my socials about disenchantment. Let me share more of it with you as a way to give you insight into how I use the Thrive Factor Framework and my Archetypes to expand self awareness and to therefore feel empowered, and focus, clear confident, those kinds of things.

What I shared was, disenchantment is a thing that can happen to them most inspired, energized, love my business souls and leaders. I looked up the meaning of this word after I found myself writing in a journaling session. And it means a feeling of disappointment about someone or something you previously respected or admired. It also means disillusionment. And when I thought about this in relation to business and leadership, even life, I thought it was a highly relevant term right now, along with that extra piece of disillusionment.

Shannon  08:15

Let’s be real, there’s been a lot going on the last few years no denying that. I’ve particularly seen a lot of people struggling with the shifts in the coaching industry that I’m in – both clients and coaches. This felt to me that there’s been more people questioning things that used to make sense to them, and used to guide them and make them feel supported both ways of working and the people that they’ve looked up to and followed and learned from.

For some, the business landscape has felt freer and easier than ever. And for others, it’s felt and been harder than they’ve ever experienced or imagined, irrelevant of where they’re at in their business or leadership journey. And let’s, you know, be real here, both kinds of feelings and the reality goes with them exist all the time. But in the midst of the realities of leading your business and leading your life, it can be easier to focus on what’s not working when things aren’t feeling free and abundant. 

Shannon  09:11

In these instances, I go straight to my four Thrive Factor Archetypes, and I explore the potential challenges of each when those challenges have become actualized and the shadow of each archetype. I’ve done this a lot, particularly in the last three years, since there were significant shifts in my personal reality that had me questioning a lot of things.

And then you know, the world around us has been shaken up in ways we never imagined. In this space, though, I remember I remember who I am, and what I can feel and experience from the lens of my archetypes. I also remember that I have significant and easy to access strengths, but I can rely on to support and guide me in times of feeling disenchantment, and disillusionment, and even I’d add in their loss They’re not bad feelings, I don’t label them, I let them be what they are in the moment, I give myself space and then I begin to more consciously tap into those strengths. Or you can do this too easily for yourself and for, say, your clients if you’re in business or for the people that you care about. You don’t have to know your Thrive Factor Archetypes to do this. Look to whatever framework or system or self awareness kind of experience that you’ve had in the past. Some of you actively do now, whatever it is.

Shannon  10:31

Now, what I shared is one of my many self awareness practices that I regularly engage in, not just in relation to disenchantment arising. When I shared this on my socials, it got some interesting responses.

And I wasn’t surprised. There was a lot of resonance and some chatting and comments back and forth about being mindful when you felt or have known disenchantment, and then actively choosing to return to work through what’s contributing to that, to that reality. I’m so happy that I trusted my instincts and then shared it with you.

Now, as I said to Katie, who commented and shared her experience of this, that kind of space of disenchantment, it’s an interesting time to navigate, definitely something I’ve experienced more than once in my close to 17 years in business. And I felt it’s part of one of the business seasons that I’ve been writing about and kind of trying to understand, and there’s so much more that I’m going to unpack around that and distill before I share more. But what I’ve come to know is that when you’re grounded in your values and your strengths, then you’re creating great foundations. 

Shannon  11:37

Having great foundations or whatever other words you want to use to describe your support systems, is an active self awareness practice. So let me share a little bit about my foundations from a feelings and behaviors perspective.

If anything feels stuck, frustrating, annoying, overwhelming, or I feel completely disconnected or uninterested in something that I’ve said, and felt was important to me, I know these are signs for you to focus on what I know about who I am, what I want to do be having become. And also to reflect on the kind of life work and experiences I want to enjoy. You know what feels like thriving to me. I’ve come to understand that these feelings and behaviors are my signs to pay attention to. They’re like a compass, if you like. And I know that it’s because of my depth of self awareness. And that I know the importance of witnessing these things when they arise and trusting when and how to respond to them. 

Shannon  12:37

Each one of the things in my list relates directly to an aspect of one or more of my four Thrive Factor Archetypes. These things are signs and potential challenges, you know, becoming actualized. And I know that when these potential challenges and these particular things are reality, they’re not an invitation to go into judgment or criticism.

My self awareness knows that there is an opportunity to be more compassionate and conscious to how I feel, how I respond, what I do and don’t do, the space now of curiosity that opens and with that, I can mitigate the potential negative influence of thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that previously could have, and I can tell you have done, definitely, have derailed me. 

Shannon  13:27

So it’s a practice for today so you can do something useful and practical with this episode. I invite you to take some time to write down feelings and things that you do or don’t do, that you know, are signs to pay attention to. This could be the start of or expansion of your self awareness and that will be such a gift.

If you know your Thrive Factor Archetypes I encourage you to look there. If you don’t know them. Well what else have you used to grow yourself awareness and become more in tune with who you are? Use that. As motivation. Let me share with you something I love. One of the licensed Thrive Factor coaches often says this about meeting her Archetypes and then the process that she followed on with of intentionally learning about each of them in depth and actively engaging in self awareness through this lens. She says that knowing why I do the things I do has freed me from decades of judgment and even guilt. I now understand what part of me is asking for kindness and support, and I can give that to myself. 

Shannon  14:27

Self awareness might be viewed as a soft skill in some aspects of the business world. It might be seen as an indulgent thing by some people in your life. It might feel at times like a waste of time. I have a final thought to share with you in a moment.

But if you like to share your thoughts on today’s episode or ask a question, please reach out to me over on Instagram. You can find me at shannon_thethrivefactor. Send me your DMs or email through to hello@thrivefactorco.com and Team Thrive Factor will be sure to make sure I get your message so I can respond.

Shannon  15:04

If you want to know how to discover you to how to I should say discover your Thrive Factor Archetypes. You can learn more at ThriveFactorCo.com/links. And if you want to know more about the professional coaching certification infused with the Thrive Factor Framework, the only one of its kind in the world,  then and how you can become part of a unique community certified to use a Thrive Factor Framework and its expansive coaching methodology to either start or evolve your business then email hello@thrivefactorco.com and we can let you know about our next intake and how to register your interest.

Shannon  15:36

But let me leave you with this final final thought for today about our topic of self awareness. Would there be such an obsession with things like personality quizzes and assessments, human design, Myers Briggs, DISC profiling, emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, trauma response in the coaching world, if self awareness was just a nice thing to have a soft skill to do if you’ve got time? Let me leave you with that to think about. 

Shannon  16:10

Be sure to subscribe to the She Leads She Thrives podcast so you don’t miss an episode. Share with your friends and clients, on on and on your socials. Leave me some love with a rating on your favorite listening app so more people can tune in and join us. Until next episode, I wish you an abundance of thriving ingenious ambitious soul and always remember, you are a superstar. Keep shining keep thriving.

Thankyou

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode. You are so valued and appreciated. Aside from this podcast, my favorite place to hang out online is definitely Instagram. So come and join me shannon_thethrivefactor and know my DMs are always open for genuine questions and connections. For all the latest Thrive Factor goodness visit ThriveFactorCo.com/links where you’ll find more about thriving in life and business. Be sure to subscribe and rate the show and share it with your friends. Let’s amplify thriving the world over.