Redefining Success: Insights from a Mindset Coach for the Creative Industry with Sally Murray

In this episode of the Aligned and Thriving podcast, host Judith Bowtell is joined by Certified Mindset, Success and Leadership Coach, Sally Murray. Sally has over 30 years of experience working with professionals in the creative and performing arts industries, giving her unique insights into the challenges of work-life balance in these fast-paced fields. Judith and Sally discuss Sally's early experiences growing up on a farm, how that shaped her approach to work, and the pivotal moment when she decided to pursue a degree in the arts. They explore the importance of curiosity, the role of the ego, and strategies for responding versus reacting to challenges.

Podcast Episode Summary

• Sally's early experiences growing up on a farm and how that influenced her approach to work
• Sally's decision to pursue an arts degree and the transformative impact it had on her mindset
• The importance of curiosity and having an open mindset to different perspectives
• Navigating the challenges of work-life balance, especially when working with clients in different time zones
• Strategies for managing stress, energy levels, and social obligations as an introvert
• The power of saying "no" and the role of assumptions in our decision-making
• Helping creative professionals overcome the fear of rejection and develop a healthy relationship with their work

Related links:
Sally Murray Website

Outro

Connect with Judith Bowtell on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judith.bowtell
To learn more about how we can work together: https://www.albanylane.com.au/

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Let’s be Instagram friends: https://www.instagram.com/judithbowtell/
Let’s stay connected on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judith-bowtell-4977a04/

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Chapters

• 2:14 Sally's approach to work-life balance during daylight saving time changes.
• 4:42 Sally's early influences and lessons about work and life growing up on a farm.
• 7:05 Sally's transition from the farm to the city and her early working experiences.
• 11:26 Sally's decision to pursue an arts degree and the transformative impact it had.
• 15:53 Sally's shift to flexible book editing work after having children.
• 19:38 The importance of curiosity and having an open mindset.
• 22:25 Strategies for managing energy levels and social obligations as an introvert.
• 28:53 The role of the ego and learning to respond versus react.
• 36:05 Helping creative professionals overcome the fear of rejection and criticism.
• 42:09 The difference between reactions and responses, and the value of pausing.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Hello everyone, it's Judith Bowtell, the host of Aligned and Thriving, and we're back again this week with another fantastic guest to reflect on what makes a healthy working life, what is work life balance in today's busy work culture, what is it to be aligned and thriving. And so today we have a fantastic guest who is Sally Murray.

[00:00:33] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Hi Sally.

[00:00:34] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Hi, Judith. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:37] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh, it's great to have you. I've known Sally for many years and it's just wonderful to have her be part of the program. And especially as Sally is a Certified Mindset, Success and Leadership Coach who works with professionals in the creative and performing arts, which is a wonderful thing to do for the world. Her 30 plus years experience working with people in advertising, film. Television, theater and book publishing give her keen insight into what does and doesn't work when it comes to the machinations of work life balance of the industry. So her clients live in London, Los Angeles and in Australia. Sally lives on Gadigal land in Sydney with her family and a recalcitrant but lovable cat that barks, which is their poodle mix, Mo. And I can actually see Mo at the moment. He's sitting on a lovely chair in the sun by the window. Yeah, he could be a very curly haired cache. Yeah.

[00:01:42] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Oh, life's not the same without my Mo. He has to be in every room where I am. So he's on your podcast. Judith.

[00:01:48] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Of course he is, and all dogs are very welcome on a podcast. I'll also just say that I'm coming from Kamaragal land and give my what I acknowledge, the owners of the land on which we are meeting today, and give my respect to elders past and present.

[00:02:03] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I echo that. Judith. Thank you.

[00:02:05] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Thanks very much. Okay, so let's get started. So Sally, what have you done lately to improve your work life balance?

[00:02:14] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I think like a lot of people in Eastern Australia , anywhere but Queensland really, we've all had to make a quick little shift over to non daylight saving time. So if you're looking for a very quick fix on what I've done to shift my work life balance at the moment, Judith it is, I and this is actually something that I do quite regularly, but not all because of daylight saving, obviously, but I rejig my calendar my work calendar. You mentioned a minute ago that I have clients in London and Los Angeles and the Los Angeles time difference is okay, but the London one is a trick. I constantly need to update that so that it works. For my day so that I can get time in the morning to exercise because otherwise I'm up at 4: 30, 5 o'clock in the morning to take calls with people on the other side of the world. And you don't really feel like getting changed out of your newsreader and Zoom outfit into the athleisure much. Yeah, I rejig things. I rejig things. But doing something active every day is something I need to shift my day around a little bit to make sure that happens.

[00:03:28] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: The difference of daylight saving is a whole topic in itself. When you're waking up, that last few weeks, it was really dark when I was getting up because I get up about 6:30, 7 or so. Okay. And it's still dark, and I was like, I'm not sure I like this very much. So I really did appreciate waking up at daylight today. And also the first day of daylight saving when you forget what time it is or the clocks haven't been changed around you. I was just really enjoying it, because we'd been pottering around in the morning, and I said, oh, okay, it's probably time for lunch, we head out for lunch. And so I said yeah, it's only quarter to ten, and I'm like, oh, okay, lunch then. Isn't

[00:04:07] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: works.

[00:04:08] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: He said, have you eaten something? I said, no, I did. I ate when I woke up about six, which is probably about five. So can we just go and eat something? Let's just get this day on the road. And yeah it's that lovely feeling of, oh, I've actually got all this time back. So nowadays you're a mindset success and leadership coach. However, I've known you a little bit longer than that. So I'm interested to hear more about your story. And particularly, what did you learn as a child when you or your early influences on what you learned about work and life?

[00:04:42] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Wow. I know I'm not ancient, but that does feel like a long time ago. Now, I do remember it though. I grew up on a farm. My dad used to manage properties. In New South Wales and I was one of four siblings and we grew up, we got up when the sun came up and we came home when the sun went down. If we weren't at school, that was the school holidays, but work for us really dad left for work super early in the morning and he would have those hours. So if he wasn't at home with us, he was working. And mom was managing four kids and they had a block of land that they would work which didn't belong to the people that for whom dad was managing. And so mom would go out there and we would come out of school. By the time we were teenagers, we were at boarding school because there wasn't a local high school. We were at boarding school and we would come home at weekends and spend our holidays on the farm working. And so work for us was actually doing things. And for us it was doing things with your hands, being physically very active and it was tiring, but it was fun. We, it meant we could ride horses. Play with animals and get involved in fixing things and making things.

[00:06:03] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:06:04] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Being outdoors. So it was very much a a very active work life. I think that early influence on my later work life. That kind of work life has a big impact on how you look at the way you work. And it's had an even bigger impact on my life as a coach. And how the conversations with my clients go because there's this great saying that I reflect back on a lot from the guy that was the founder of my coaching school, a guy called Bruce Schneider. And he says, when who you are aligns with what you do and how you do it, success is yours. So when I was a kid, I wasn't really thinking about success. But looking back, being on the farm wasn't, it was where I was. But I later understood that it wasn't really who I was. Yeah, my early days have had a big impact on how I learned about work and life.

[00:06:59] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. So how did that then shape your perhaps early experiences of work?

[00:07:05] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Well, I guess I left school and went straight, left the country and came to the city. Couldn't wait to get out of there. I was allergic to everything, Judith. I literally was allergic to everything. Which was one reason I think that young age where you feel like it when it's hard for you. You don't feel like you belong and you don't really have that emotional capacity to cut through that and make the kinds of decisions that you can make when you're an adult. You're a child, one thing you can't drive, although we could drive, we grew up in drought. So we learned to drive very young but you can't get out of there. You can't get away. And I had this feeling that I just wanted to be somewhere else. It wasn't that I had a terrible upbringing or anything by any stretch. But I wanted to find a place where I didn't have that discomfort and that feeling that I just didn't really belong there or I wasn't terribly useful there. So I moved to the city and I did a typing course and jumped in with both feet and I had lots and lots of jobs. It was in the late 80s when jobs were a plenty we've had lots of cycles since then, but I really enjoyed it. I shared a house with friends. I could go to the movies whenever I wanted to which I loved. And I ended up spending quite, it was the first time in my life that I really started spending time on my own. And I found that was looking back, it was, they are the times that I do actually remember being able to go to the movies on my own, go to the beach on my own, and being in full control of my life. So as far as my approach to work went, I still worked really hard. I never had sick days always there on time, always happy, always pitching in, always doing a pretty good job. Yeah,

[00:08:58] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. So that was your early working life. What sort of things then perhaps came along that shaped your later experience of work? Did you continue to have a variety of roles or did you move into one direction? How did it go from there?

[00:09:14] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I have a job with a company a recruitment company, which I really liked and it was moving away from that admin sort of service mentality to being able to really create solutions for people. And really connect with people on a level that I hadn't been able to do until then. It was fairly short lived because I by that stage, I had married and I felt pregnant with my first child. And I guess a big influence was not only that job but my husband was and still is the kind of guy that just says you can do anything that you want to do. And I had always wanted to work in the arts. I always loved reading. Those days where I wake up and we'd all have to get on a horse and go mustering. And I'd be thinking, Oh, I'd quite like to read a book today. That wasn't on the cards. And so for that, the response was often reading is a hobby. Reading is what you do when you're not actually working. So the thought of actually having anything to do with books was playtime. But I think I, for a long time, I really wanted to go and study and really get amongst the pages, if you like, the internet wasn't, the internet was around then, but it wasn't. Going and doing an arts degree was a lot about reading and discovery and conversation. So I just before I had Lucy, my eldest, I enrolled in uni. Which was a brilliant idea at the time, it just took me a fair while. I was one of those people that graduated and scooped their kid up at the end. Which was incredibly empowering and incredibly satisfying but that was a really big switch for me. And obviously I had lots of support from Alan and just to be able to keep going and just press on with it. It took five years to do a three year degree, but I loved every second of it. Absolutely loved it. And so that introduced me to the wonderful world of all that curiosity of what else is going on. There. What can I do with it? 

[00:11:26] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: I was a fellow arts graduate. I humanities arts graduate. I agree. It's a wonderful degree to do because it is all about ideas. It is all about looking at information and reading a lot and then making a sense of it in a way that you can also find some new insight as well. My undergraduate degree was in history and so it was just this eye opener and then women's studies on top of that and it was just like oh, okay, so the world can actually be seen like this. And it was in full 80s postmodernist teaching as well. Everything you thought you knew about the world is, it's all a myth and it's all going to be broken up and reshaped

[00:12:08] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I love that.

[00:12:09] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Cultural meaning created and the role of capitalism and the role of patriarchy. And yeah I agree. It can be a very earth shattering, or at least as far as mindset change. There's nothing like doing an arts degree to really start shifting your mindset about world and what the values you've been taught as well about life.

[00:12:30] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. 

[00:12:31] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I did a double major one in English literature, which was just amazing. Loved it. But the other one was in quite a new area, which was in critical and cultural studies. This is, we're talking nearly 20 years ago. It is 20 years ago. I think I graduated in 2005. All right, clears throat. But that major was so interesting. And I remember I had a lecturer, Dr. Nikki Sullivan, who has gone on to write some incredibly interesting material. And even then we were all just in awe of this woman. And she said to us, I want you to leave here thinking that, nothing. And we all went, Oh, okay. Yep. We'll have a go at that. And I studied things like body dysmorphia and graffiti, kitchen trash was one subject and things like that, that just really makes you think about where your place is in the world. It was a real mashup of politics, anthropology, philosophy, sociology. It was just the most fantastic course and I loved it. And so I came out of there with a huge respect for the other. And it doesn't matter who you think you are. There's always somebody else and another perspective that you can explore. And I think the curiosity of that was the real turning point for me coming out of that degree.

[00:13:59] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: So curiosity as a value, that there's always another point of view. That's a true value statement. If ever there was one. So how did that then shape what you did after your degree? 

[00:14:11] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Wow. Yeah. By then I Lucy was very young and I started book editing and in the genre of babies and children which was my pet topic at the time because I had one. So it was really interesting and it touches on another value, which is being connected with what you're doing. You have to be connected with what you're doing. And I really was, I really thoroughly enjoyed it. So it enabled me to work alongside having a really young child which anyone will jump in there and say, anybody that tells you that your life can't change when you have a child is pretty much kidding themselves. I think. They were kidding me. 

[00:14:54] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And so it just meant that I had to be more flexible and be a little more open, a little more adaptable. My work life then became a lot more flexible and I really need to lean into that because I really wanted to be at home. As a mom, as a young mom or a mom with young kids. I'm terribly young when I had them but I wanted to be at home with them. I really wanted to learn about them and I really wanted to be with them as much as I possibly could. And my husband was working for companies based in the Northern hemisphere. So his work hours were leave the house early, get home late. And it was a really busy time of our lives and it just meant that if we were going to have a young family, one of us had to be super flexible. And I was very happy to do that. And I was very lucky that I could do something that was really interesting for me. So that was where the book editing started Judith. And I think that's about the time I might've met you.

[00:15:53] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yes. Yes. That's what you were doing when we met. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So your girls must've been still quite young

[00:16:01] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: They were quite young. And I think I had been, I did a good five or six years.

[00:16:06] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:16:07] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And kept going through it and did some managing, did some agency work which is where it ended before coaching. The coaching bell rang.

[00:16:20] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. I just want to touch back on that it's interesting for me to see how somebody who is taught work hard, work hard, then you can relax, work hard, then you can relax, which is often what like people on the show talk about. They saw their parents work hard, then you could relax. So there was a real distinction. And then you talking about how you embraced willingly learning how to be more flexible and open to the rhythms of a baby and the rhythms of other parts of life. And I'm just wondering, how did that challenge your work ethos about what is hard work or what is work? What is play? Reading is play but reading is also work. So how did you deal with all of that at that stage?

[00:17:03] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Reading became a thing of the past almost because it became we can cut back to the end of the degree where you had to read a book a week early and sitting up on stools being heavily pregnant trying to stay awake reading something I don't know. It's, it ended up being something that became less play, more work, for sure. I would have deadlines where I just had to work all night. And I didn't do it very often. I didn't work all night very often but I know when I did I was so into it the time just went. And I know now that is a 100 percent connection with what you're doing and the time can just fly. When you lose track of time it's because you're really into what you're doing or you're having a really good time, whatever it is, but you are fully engaged. And it's something that I really ask myself when I'm not experiencing that. What's going on here? Why am I not enjoying this or why am I procrastinating? Why do I feel stuck? What is going on here? That is stopping me from really engaging with whatever it is I'm doing. It's not necessarily work but whatever it is I'm doing. So it is a question that I have learned to ask myself and it's a great skill to be able to answer that in a really logical way and in a really heartfelt way. That was the switch I think, loving reading, loving books, but it then became pleasurable in terms of getting lost in a story and more work, but the work was still great.

[00:18:40] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. So the work was still the experience of flow when the challenge meets the skill level like when you are appropriately stimulated but not overstimulated as well. I also love what you said about when you do reflect on those moments, when you're not experiencing that, when you are, as you say, procrastinating and how you've learned how to still hangs on there but then more sensible brain, parts of the brain to kick in and go, no what is actually going on underneath that? And sometimes it can take a while to find it, but yeah, it is a again, when curiosity comes in, yes, when you're using that value of curiosity, you find, as you said, a more helpful answer.

[00:19:20] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:19:21] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: One of the tools that I use with clients when I'm talking with them. It's so useful and it's a tool for life really is to figure out what is there are six sort of influences that I talk about with clients and those influencers have a really significant impact on your ability to work really well to enhance your performance. And also to inhibit your ability to work well. And the discovery, the curiosity that comes into coaching conversations is a lot, it's often about this. People come saying, I'm stuck or I don't know how to even think about this in a different way. I'm going round and round in circles. I'm not getting anywhere. We all have that. They're not just in coaching conversations. I have days like that. I'm sure you have

[00:20:13] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh yes. 

[00:20:15] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Being able to compartmentalize things can often create the kind of clarity that we're looking for so that we can see I'm actually quite an introverted person and I am quite an introverted person. So I know that if I'm going to go to a networking event. Which by the way, makes me horrified the thought of doing it but I know that I have to and they're often good they're often fun.

[00:20:41] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah, but once you get there.

[00:20:42] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: but you go, yes, exactly. The hardest bit's getting out the door, isn't it?

[00:20:46] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh, yeah.

[00:20:47] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: But knowing that I am that kind of person if I had to have a one of those a week, and then I might have a birthday party, and then it might be a really busy week with five other things going on. I know that the weekend is going to be wiped clean of obligations because I know that when I roll around to work on Monday morning, I need to be engaged. I need to be able to bring my fully authentic self to my job and to my family as well. So those, that's just one of, that's called the social influencer. And when we know things about ourselves, we can really tap into it quite quickly. And what we need, what does and doesn't work for us. And we talked earlier about being, losing track of time when you're fully engaged with something that's the spiritual influence, not necessarily in a religious sense, but it is that connection to something that you feel very comfortable with. And that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but it is certainly those are two of the influences that I talk about, which, we explore at length what does and doesn't work for you. What will and won't 

[00:22:03] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: yes. 

[00:22:03] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: You can look out for, what you know is coming, what you can prepare for.

[00:22:07] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah, yes, what you can over there, the ways you manage stress, you avoid it, or you adapt to it, or you accommodated and somehow, or you just accept what it's going to be. And that might, as you say, take a little bit of preparation to be ready for the impact of that experience. If it's going to be not your favorite thing to do in the world or because even then, like I run workshops, like day long workshops. I love doing it when I'm in the room. It's fun. It's great. I'm in my element. I know I'm doing good work. I know I've got people being engaged most of the time and, it's good stuff. But I also know that I'm not any good for anybody at the end of the day. So when the client says, Oh, come for after work drinks, I'm like, Oh, thank you so much. I have to be wherever else is there. Oh, I'm sorry, my Uber's coming. Whatever it is, 

[00:23:02] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I love you dearly, but that's a hard no from me. Yeah.

[00:23:05] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: That's not going to happen. Because it's that extra socializing and by then my energy is gone. It has gone out. I want to use my energy for the workshop. I don't have it to do the socializing at the end of the day. And I'm okay with that now. When I'm my yoga days, I would have pushed myself through thinking I had to be able to do it all. And so having that discernment to be able to say, Oh, I'm not really not a good thing

[00:23:31] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Yeah.

[00:23:32] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Is great. And don't give up the power to be able to choose to. Yeah.

[00:23:36] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I think that's such a powerful thing to say being, feeling empowered to be able to lean into who you are and be able to just Live like that and to be able to drag that assertive self that we all know exists within us, but sometimes we're just are don't want to offend you. You've done something, you know that rationalizing space. Oh She's done such a lot of work here. I should go.

[00:24:00] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:24:01] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And then you end up with the TATS the tired all the times so there and then your ability to tap into that part of you that can say no is diminished. Or reduced and it gets harder and harder. So the sense of being aware of who we are and how we respond to things is the first of all their life lessons to learn their life skills to have. And it's critical for success. It's critical to get that balance. Yeah.

[00:24:37] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. The balance just doesn't come by adding more in. It comes by saying no, she thinks. But this is something I've started doing just to practice the saying no, because I say no as I've been taught, I always start with, Oh, I'm really sorry. I can't make it. Or I'm really sorry. This isn't going to work for me. Oh, if you don't mind, I prefer you do it this way. And then I somebody on this podcast, somebody I'm talking to was saying how she. Uses ChatGPT. So when she writes an email and makes a request of her boss, she puts the email through ChatGPT and says, can you put this into a male voice?

[00:25:17] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: oh, okay.

[00:25:19] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: And so the email gets changed around. And then she sends it to her boss and she's getting many more work yeses.

[00:25:26] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Oh, interesting.

[00:25:28] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Really interesting. Now, all the biases around chat GPT and AI and all the gender biases and race biases, there is a whole huge topic there. I don't know how it relates to work life balance, but it probably does because it's meant to give us more work life balance. Anyway, so I started to do the same thing when I have to say no to men, not to other women, because I figured that we'll just work it out. But I've gone. Yeah, I'd like to say no, and it's really interesting what they sometimes put out and go, I just, not there. There's no way I'm saying some of that stuff. Can you make it a bit more formal and less, a little less blokey and things like that. It's not perfect, but sometimes they do it, and the reaction might be a little bit standoffish to start with oh, okay, but, think you misunderstood me or something, when it's not just a saying no to an event, when it's saying no to something in a partnership or something like that. But then normally I get like the next day I get a note from that same person. I get another note later from somebody saying, Oh, actually, yeah, that all made sense. And I get where you're coming from. So the first reaction might be a bit, Oh, from the person reading it, because they're not expecting me to be that assertive. I don't know if they've met me, but the next thing is that they realize what I was saying was quite sensible. So the message gets through and I just think that's a really interesting thing about how that assertive self of ourselves, that assertive part of ourselves, which you're right, does exist within all of us, but then how we communicate that assertiveness in a way that's authentic and because it's not authentic to me to just go, Oh look, I'm really sorry to things I really don't want to do.

[00:27:02] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Yeah.

[00:27:02] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: If I missed your birthday, I wouldn't, sorry, that's terrible. That's really sad. But if it's just a work thing, that's not what I want to say. So how do you support yourself to really lean into that assertive self? And I think this has been a sort of an experiment. I don't think I'll keep doing it, but it's been an interesting experiment to say. Where I align with that more male voice and where I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Where I sometimes think that's just as weird as anything. I, that's just weird. You can say that anyway.

[00:27:32] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:33] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I think we get buried in our assumptions.

[00:27:36] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yes.

[00:27:37] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I really believe that we do, and we can be really held back by them. Our assumptions, that inner critic that sits on our shoulder and says no, Sally, you don't deserve to do that.

[00:27:51] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh,

[00:27:52] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: come on, stop being so assertive or insert what you're trying to be or how you're feeling. Stop doing that. That doesn't belong here. That inner critic that sits there telling you how to play small. The assumptions, the interpretations that we make. The way that we hear something and say, okay that's what that person meant. It's close to being an assumption. The other thing obviously are the way beliefs that we've been raised with or conditioned to believe they can have a huge impact on how we receive and give out information. But I think the assumption is a big one there, Judith, because when you were saying to me when you get an invitation to something or, or a proposal and you say, I'm sorry, but no, what is it that makes you think you have to apologize, also what is it that makes you think that person is going to be offended by you declining to have whatever they're offering.

[00:28:51] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh. 

[00:28:51] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And these are the things that we get buried in. And it really holds us back from being as objective as we otherwise. Might like to be, or even bringing out a part of our personality, which is, something is absolutely not what you want to do. And you are the kind of person that says, Oh my gosh, I'm so curious to hear why you think I might be suitable for that because it's just a hard no, my second hard no on this podcast. You can really make life doesn't have to be about these binary discussions and binary conclusions and binary assumptions. I often talk about the gray area in life. People will say, I don't know what I'm going to do about this. It's a yes or a no. If I say no, I'm going to offend someone. If I say yes, it's just going to pile up my plate. And I said what's wrong with jumping into that gray area and just hitting that stop button for a minute. And taking it on your timeframe and saying I'm just going to let my, I'm going to sit with this for a minute. I'm going to see where there might be an opportunity in there. Why do I want to say hard no to. Is it coming up against my values, which by the way, you know we know that when you have that sort of dash of that nasty feeling in your stomach, that pit of your stomach, when you feel antagonized by something, it usually is because there's a clash of values. But if you know yours well, and if you live by yours, then you can respond in ways that are really, truly authentic to you. 

[00:30:35] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Mm. 

[00:30:36] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Thank you so much for offering me that, but it's not really in a direction that I'm going in at the moment or, whatever the answer may be.

[00:30:45] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So sometimes the echo feeling is across your values. And it's really important to be able to understand that. I think that's that part of emotional intelligence of understanding that emotion is linked to whatever. And then I think sometimes there's things you go, Oh, that is really interesting, but right now it just feels not me at all. Yes. Where is the ability to engage with it a little bit if you feel that is right? Or I think this is the other one is to have faith that kind of. Oh, look, I'm going to say no to this, but something else will come along, which is very special. Oh, if the universe means it to be with me, it'll come along again. You don't have to have that desperation around saying yes to everything as well. So yeah, a lot of interesting things about how we do respond to offers. An earlier podcast we did with the great Alice Draper was who pitches people to do podcasts, so she's also been a writer and a journalist, and so she used to pitch a lot of stories and she talks about the power of getting used to rejection. I guess there's also power in getting used to saying no.

[00:31:52] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Yeah,

[00:31:53] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:31:54] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: A lot of my work is around responses to pictures, preparing and responding to pictures and preparing one yourself for criticism and success as well. Because you would know very well, Judith, in the arts industry, it has a very high unemployment rate. It has a lot of people who have done some incredible work, but it has taken them a really long time to be recognized for their work. And they've spent a vast part of their career going cap in hand to people saying, please, would you read my book? Or please, would you read my play or look at my pitch or whatever it is they're doing? And they get knocked back after knockback. And finally, there is a yes and a really positive response to their work. And they're just quite unused to dealing with that. And that's they are some very strongly conditioned beliefs that we work with all the time and it's working heavily with assumptions and heavily with different ways of looking at things. What is your approach? Why is your approach like that? What do you think you could do if your approach to your success looked like this or what's getting in the way of it? How do you think it would look if that wasn't in the way? So that curiosity and that progressive. opportunistic, if you like, without being crass, but that opportunistic what would it look like if this were possible?

[00:33:30] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:33:31] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:32] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: I think the way people are trained. And trained in the arts and the experience, especially in Australia of working in the arts is one is to become heavily critical of yourself. People are taught to self reflect on their own work, but it really is a code for how to criticize yourself, how to look for the weaknesses in what you're doing, how to focus on those pieces that aren't perhaps as good as they could be rather than perhaps a more strength based way of working which would be it's better for a few people's psyche out there. And then the scarcity model of arts funding in Australia in particular and the dearth of, private funding and, places, the music industry for the moment hitting crisis and which was so different from the eighties and nineties when everyone thought they were really poor and there were no opportunities. And it's now there really are really poor and there are no opportunities. But yeah, to have somebody to gently work with you and work with you objectively and reprogram you to also start seeing your own work more objectively and more kindly must be so valuable for the people you work with to get a new perspective on what they do.

[00:34:45] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I hope that it is. I do see people whose mindset has shifted to the point where they realize the role of the ego in their responses. Ego is, we often think of ego as being somebody who thinks I'm the best. And nobody can touch me and everyone get out of my way because I'm the biggest, shiniest, most important thing in the room. But your ego can sit in a place where it's really front and center of everything that happens to you. And you take things personally. You really, that's the first thing we feel mortified by any kind of criticism or offended by a no or a slight baffled or something like that. We really have to learn to pull our ego in so that we can see things a little more holographically. Things for what they are and if there is criticism, find out why. How can I do this better?

[00:35:47] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:35:47] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: How can I look at this in a different way so that it might be seen by others in a different way? And it's not to say that you are reformulating your whole life and times according to everybody else. It's just that you are not holding yourself back from improving and creating and evolving really. I have a client who is a beautiful writer and she works in the chain of development for film and television and theater.

[00:36:22] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:36:23] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And her work is amazing but it takes a long time for her to produce her work. And like a lot of writers, they are really hard, they're really hard pressed to let go of their work. 

[00:36:38] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Mm. 

[00:36:38] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: And so when we talk about being part of the chain to have this whole thing, to have this beautiful film being made, there are producers and directors and we've all seen the long list of credits at the end of the film. There are lots and lots and lots and lots of people and stakeholders. You are one part of that process. And the point of that is to say, look out every now and again, just look out from that sort of conical view that you have, which we need sometimes because we need to focus, but look out and just be aware of what else is going on out there. The processes and life can, I can take on quite a different perspective at that point.

[00:37:26] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. Oh, so important to remind people of that and to allow them to experience the benefits of doing it. So when I interviewed Michael Nest, who's on the podcast about why he wrote his novel, he's written nonfiction work, but he wrote a novel when he was doing, as he said, a boring finance job during The Pandemic. And he called it the Creative Life Raft. It was his reward for putting in the hours at his day job. It was what he did in his lunch break. It was, oh, I can, go home, walk the dog, think about problems. And then I've got two hours, I can sit down and just, negotiate with his partner to do this. And, this was his reward. He got such satisfaction out of doing the process of writing. That you could see that the enjoyment is there and then he's got the satisfaction that he's finished it, he's published it, it's out in the world and, we can read it and engage with it and the ideas. But at the heart of it is, this is something I want to do. This is something I like doing. This is something that gives me that doing something creative in this way particularly when my brain isn't as engaged in my other work. That's important. And he also acknowledged something really interesting as well, that his other work wasn't bringing him the sort of pride and identity and he felt that the job he was doing was boring and he didn't have that same identity. So in some ways, the writing of the novel also gave him some identity too. So that was interesting. And the themes he was writing about were interesting. So I think there's that if you really. Again, really connected to that work want to do it. You want to do it for the sake of doing it as much as for the rewards. 

[00:39:10] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: That awareness of what might be getting in the way of getting it done often stops people from taking that first step. If you are a raging procrastinator, the tiny little bright, shiny thing whizzes past your desk and you're off you go and you're over there, watching whatever you need to know that about yourself.

[00:39:32] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: But it's you kept doing the work, you kept doing it, your ambition grew. And I say that with clients too. Thing that seemed absolutely not going to happen or had been on the list for so long, and it's finally happened. And once you get past that point, you do become unstoppable. It's still hard work.

[00:39:50] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: absolutely.

[00:39:51] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: The risks and make the connections and get the support and push on, but you have done it. And that's my inner satisfaction of doing this work is seeing people, progressing in their careers and achieving the things that seemed unachievable. Yeah, particularly when I work with women and I work with people with disability. I do that quite a lot. And so they've got this double barrier to participation in film in particular, and they're doing it on also all going to new levels with their work as creative work as well. Once they're no longer a concern, I'm not saying once you fix it, or you deal with it, or whatever, but once it's just no longer a concern, or it's bigger concern, and you do things anyway, it's just so amazing what's possible for people.

[00:40:37] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah, 

[00:40:38] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: It's utterly liberating. Look,I don't t think that we promise anything that things aren't ever going to happen to somebody. We are who we are, we are going to have that initial reaction to something, the way that the initial reaction happens. So that's where in this coaching work, we can teach people about responses rather than reactions. So have your reaction, blow the gasket first into tears, do whatever you need to do, but have that skill and practice that skill of not leaping, throwing that one foot out in front of you to take action, just wait a second and have a think. Why am I doing this? What is going on around me that has instigated this reaction of mine? What's going to work well for me? What's not going to work well for me? What do I need? How do I need to be? Where do I need to be? And just stop for a second and just respond the way that you want to respond a way that's truly you. The reaction is truly you, but the response is. It's the thing that is going to have the really long lasting impact 

[00:41:51] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yes. 

[00:41:52] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: On people around you, on you, where you want to go, what you want to do, how you want to be.

[00:41:57] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah.

[00:41:58] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Practice those skills. Yeah.

[00:41:59] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah. That's oh, that's a really good one. The reaction is you, I love that the reaction is also you, the response is also you. It's just you coming from a different perspective or you two seconds later when you've had a chance to breathe, or five minutes later when you've had a chance to have a cup of tea. And how often is it when you're awake at night regressing what you've said? It's because the regret might have come from the reaction rather than the, oh, if I'd only taken that five minutes, I would have moved a different way. So

[00:42:28] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: yes. 

[00:42:28] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: You can still come back from that possibly negative response to your reaction. Because it's that's the bit about being human, being broadly, ugly, beautifully human and let's all encompass that full spectrum of human emotions, which I love.

[00:42:47] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Yeah, I.

[00:42:48] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: But being able to just own it as truly yours and saying, I was a complete insert word there. I did say that I would not swear on this podcast

[00:43:00] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh, you're doing well. Yeah,

[00:43:02] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: I reacted in a way. I responded to my own reaction. I didn't stop, I didn't put my sensible hat on, and I said something to you yesterday that was just so unkind or so inappropriate, and I really wanna apologize to you. And watch and see what happens 

[00:43:19] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: yeah.

[00:43:21] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: watch and see if they've learned to wait till they respond, but yeah, owning it and

[00:43:27] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: owning it and moving it on. Yeah. Such wise words, Sally. I think that's a good place for us to maybe finish up for today. Is there anything else you'd like to

[00:43:37] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: oh 

[00:43:38] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: tell us about

[00:43:39] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: oh no. I think we've had such an enjoyable conversation. I've loved it. It's I always have wonderful conversations with you, Judith. And honestly, I think if there was a movie length podcast, you and I could be on it.

[00:43:50] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Oh yeah, no worries. Maybe what we'll do, if people want to hear more from Sally and have got questions for her particularly about her work, working with creative people, we've both done that. Sally has got that expertise of really knowing the craft of what creative people do. We'd love to meet up again. We meet up frequently anyway, but we'd love to do it again. And we'd love to bring you along with us. Just let us know in the comments what you'd like to see or hear from Sally. And you can also reach out to her directly. We'll have a website and LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So please follow her on her social media. And also yeah, if you're interested in coaching, you've got a book in you and it's just not coming forward or you've already produced several books, but you want to go to that next level. Yeah. Just let her know. All right. So thank you so much for being part of Aligned and Thriving. I wish you a thriving week. As I do everyone and we shall see you in the next one. Thanks Sally.

[00:44:51] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Thanks, Judith.

[00:44:52] Episode 16 - Judith Bowtell: Bye.

[00:44:53] Episode 16 - Sally Murray: Bye.