Helen O'Grady: What I try and do as coaching is get underneath

How do I speak in this meeting to what's the story that you're

telling yourself, and how can we change that story?

Hello and welcome to storytelling for business,

the podcast that helps you connect with your clients,

prospects and teams. How well the clue is in the series title

the podcast does what it says on the tin. I'm investigating how

you can harness the power of storytelling for business to

build relationships that last and boost your brand in the

process. Just quickly, if you're not British, you might

understand why I just said it does what it says on the tin.

It's from a commercial campaign created 30 years ago for a

company called Ron seal, who made stuff that you paint on

your garden fence so it doesn't go rotten. Anyway, we say that a

lot in the UK, if something does what it says on the tin, it is

what it claims to be, and this podcast is going to get you

storytelling like a pro, I promise. The reason I know the

answer to that is because the storytelling experts I'm

interviewing know what works, and they're sharing their tips

and tricks with us, and we're also meeting regular business

owners, too inspiring people who've all got great stories to

tell, and today's guest is one of those. Helen O'Grady is a

former nurse from the world famous children's hospital,

Great Ormond Street in London. She became an expert in the

field of metabolic disorders, treating children with really

complex and rare conditions. She continued her nursing career in

Australia, becoming clinical nurse consultant for statewide

metabolic services and rare genetic skin disorders in New

South Wales, covering an area just 300,000 square miles. But

over time, Helen realised she wanted to support the healthcare

professionals she was working alongside, and she's now a

master executive coach for healthcare professionals,

clocking up 1000s of hours as a coach and over seven years as a

coach supervisor. But everyone's story has a few twists and

turns, and for Helen, the covid pandemic took her back to the

hospital wards she thought she'd left behind so much to talk

about. So let's dive in. Helen O'Grady, welcome to the podcast.

Thank

Helen O'Grady: you so much. It's lovely to be here. I'm a bit

overwhelmed by the introduction.

Well, let's start kind of at the beginning. Why

did you become a nurse. It isn't an easy job.

Helen O'Grady: No, I suppose I it's not an easy job, but I was

drawn to it. It took me a little while. So I was in my early 20s

by the time I knew, and I guess I was very specific in that I

knew I wanted to be a children's nurse. And in the UK, you can

train that way and do that from the beginning, which is what I

did through Great Ormond Street. And I guess I liked kids, I

liked helping. And yeah, I from I was very lucky. From the

moment I started the training, I was like, Yeah, this is for me,

and and I don't regret it. It was a fabulous career in some

aspects. I still miss lots. I don't but, yeah, I feel very

passionate about nursing and about children's nursing, and

feel very grateful for the career I had.

How long were you at Great Ormond Street

Helen O'Grady: for? As probably at Great Ormond Street for about

just under five years, and then moved to again, another

specialist service that was run out of King's College Hospital

for paediatric liver disease. And then we moved to Australia,

and then I worked at the children's hospitals in Sydney

for another six, seven years.

I mean, you're a mum now, you kind of weren't

then or certainly not at the beginning. It's I wonder

whether. I wonder whether that those two things are

problematic.

Helen O'Grady: Yeah, I think it depends. I think they are. I

think most children's nurses would say things shift when you

have your own kids. For me, that definitely was a shifting point.

As you know, I also had three kids in less than three years.

So it wasn't just having the kids, it was the number I had in

quite a short period, a lot of children in a short space of

time, and at this time, you know, one of the things about

metabolic disorders is quite a few of them are life limiting.

So you're supporting children who are dying and families at

that stage. And so that did become hard in terms of my

flexibility, it's very hard to say to a family whose child is

dying, I'm really sorry. I. To go and pick up my healthy

children from childcare, because there's no flexibility. So that

definitely was the point when I started moving to kind of

leadership development, and found coaching and and moved in

that direction away from clinical work.

So just before we before we go into that sort of

phase. I'm interested to know what qualities you think a

person needs to work with kids who was as sick as the kids that

you were looking after for a really long period of time as

well.

Helen O'Grady: And I think one of the things about children's

nursing is actually it's your relationship with the parents

that's almost obviously you need to enjoy kids and being able to

create relationship and have fun with them, but it's really the

parents you're supporting, because they're the ones who are

caring for their child, rather than us directly. I mean, we did

do some direct work, but mostly you're you're teaching and

supporting parents how to look after their their sick child. So

I think the qualities you need is, you know, fairly obvious in

some ways, in terms of kindness, empathy, wanting to make a

difference. But probably the two things I think are critical when

you're working with such sick children, is ability to stay

calm and your ability to self regulate, so to manage your own

emotions, because you just have to sit with other people's

emotions, and you can't make it better. And so you need to be

able to have that ability to look after yourself and and,

yeah, like I say, self, regulate your own emotions, as well as

see the lightness. So as well as being able to kind of find

humour when there isn't much humour, you know, and kind of

take and have gratitude in the little things, I used to always

say, the great thing about doing that kind of nursing is just

being making somebody a cup of tea makes a difference. It's the

really small stuff that makes a difference. And so I think being

able to, having the ability to see that also helps.

I think that's I think that's really interesting,

and I want, let's just kind of remember those qualities. I mean

that self regulation part, that's really I should think

most people who work in healthcare or or caring

professions, but, but also anywhere where there's human

contact. Maybe it's every job. Yeah, like you said, you can't

fix it. You can just be there to support them. And I'm a fixer. I

want to make everything better. You know, there's, there's been

issues in my life, with with my family, and I just want to take

it all away from from that person, and make that person not

have to suffer anymore. And, and, of course, you can't do

that and and certainly not in a in a role that you just

described. Okay, we'll park those we'll park those thoughts.

And can I add resilience in there as well?

Helen O'Grady: I guess I slightly avoid the word

resilience. I think resilience is sometimes just used a kind of

against healthcare professionals, and often in

workplaces, I would say, I work with a lot of people now as a

coach and a coach supervisor, where it's what resilience is

kind of being useful. You should just cope with whatever pressure

is coming against you. You know, if you're in a toxic workplace,

if you're resilient, you can cope. You know, if you just keep

showing up to work, you're resilient. So I think the proper

definition, which is being able to bounce back from hardship, is

an important category and important quality for all of us

to have for, as you say, healthcare professionals,

particularly. But I think it is misused to say you just need to

keep coping whatever is thrown at you. And that, I think, is

quite an unhelpful story. If we're talking about stories,

it's an unhelpful story in the workplace. It's culturally, an

unhelpful one, and I think it's an extremely unhelpful one for

us as individuals to say, and if I was just more resilient, I

would cope with this, or I need to be more resilient.

Love that. Okay, I stand corrected. So it's kind

of resilience on one side and burnout on the other.

Helen O'Grady: Yes, exactly. And I think that line is getting so

blurred for people, and people feeling like they need to be

resilient actually is pushing more and more burnout.

Okay, okay, so coaching, so I can see a lot of

crossover, but I mean you were telling. Me before, and I'd

really love to explore this, how you've done all this massive

amounts of work in coaching and supporting people and helping

people kind of deal with burnout, or deal with avoiding

burnout or figuring it all out, but you said that you didn't see

that you weren't necessarily joining up the past with the

present, and I'm really interested to explore that. That

wasn't a question, but yeah,

Helen O'Grady: I couldn't go in there. Yeah, I for a long time,

I kind of saw my careers quite separately. I was a paediatric

nurse, then I was a coach, and I didn't connect the dots at all.

And it's only really in the last couple of years, the last five

years, maybe, that I've kind of seen actually a lot of the

attributes that I had as a nurse, and you know, that made

me a good nurse, actually make me a good coach. But I think

there is such a discrepancy. Everybody knows what a

paediatric nurse is. You get a lot of external validation, and,

wow, I couldn't do that. And you're amazing, and that kind of

stuff. As a coach, people kind of look at you, go, Oh, what's

that? That sounds a bit dodgy kind of life coaching. Do you

know what I mean? You just don't get that. So I was almost a

little bit embarrassed about leaving something that felt very

tangible to something that wasn't tangible at all. And the

difference, I guess, one of the reasons I was a good nurse was I

was good at solving people's problems. You know, yes, you

couldn't take take the emotion away, but I was a bit of a fixer

and and I was good at that. And then when we move into coaching,

we do the opposite. We're not responsible for whether somebody

is okay or not. We don't have to fix their problems. We support

them to find ways for themselves. So I loved that

shift for me that was like, Oh, my shoulders dropping, and I'm

not responsible for people anymore. But I couldn't see the

correlation, whereas now I have realised actually, yeah, I did

sit with not fixing and just being with people's emotions,

and that actually has helped me a lot in my coaching career, and

I think I've become more comfortable with that.

So fascinating, really fascinating. So you

started off coaching, like being a coach, so working with purely

people in in healthcare, because that was the area you knew,

yeah.

Helen O'Grady: So I first got into it when I was soon after

having actually two of my kids, I was supporting a leadership

programme in the Children's Hospital where I would

previously been working clinically, and coaching was

part of that. So that was my first introduction to coaching.

And as soon as I was, like, learned about coaching, then

went and was coaching people, and kind of obviously started

increasing my skills and my knowledge. I was like, I love

this. And so sort of over time, it took quite a while, and I

went backwards and forwards between clinical roles and

coaching, but it very much started in healthcare, and then

when I became an independent coach, most of my work was in

healthcare in Australia, because that's where my contacts were.

And then when we sort of slightly unexpectedly moved to

the UK from Australia seven years ago, and I kind of had to

restart my coaching business from scratch, really, in the UK

again, I had some links in healthcare, but not many, but

sort of expanded out into social care and education and so

similar spaces. And the reality with coaching is you can't coach

anybody. The skills are the same, but as you would know, you

know, storytelling, connecting to people. People feel more

connected and in a way, trust you quicker if they feel like

you understand their world, you get them. Yeah. And though that

is not remotely essential, either as a coach or a coach

supervisor, it is, it is what people seem to look for,

particularly if they don't understand coaching.

And I think that's that's actually the same

with marketing, right? You need to understand them, and they

need to think that you get them, and you need to be telling

stories that they that they would be telling themselves.

Yes, so are you able to, I mean, obviously, everything's

confidential, and all of that, I'm not asking for names and

phone numbers. Can you, can you share an example, or a couple of

examples of, like, specific situations where somebody's come

to you and had this issue? Because I think, I do think, I

know we're talking about healthcare, but I think that

there's a lot of relevance in here for anybody who's in a

leadership role, who's or even who's a parent, to be honest.

Yeah, helping people to Figure Figure out on their own,

whatever issue it is. So are you able to give us any examples?

Helen O'Grady: Yeah, I can probably give you a couple of

examples, because themes are quite common. I mean, the most

common thing that I work with people around is self belief and

confidence and the inner critic, and that's whether I'm working

directly with coaches, because I supervise coaches so often,

that's a narrative around am I a good enough coach? Would

somebody else have done it better? What? What did I do

wrong? Why has that client disappeared on me, that kind of

stuff? And in leadership. Again, I can't speak up at this

meeting. I'm, you know, I don't know how to performance manage

this person I'm struggling with. I work with quite a lot of

social workers. I'm struggling with the families I'm working

with because I'm intimidated by them, or I'm young, and they're

much older, and I don't have children, and they have

children, and so that's very, very common, and often that is

around the stories we tell ourselves. So, you know, I often

describe our protective voices that say, Oh, are you sure you

shouldn't be doing that you're not good enough. That voice gets

very loud. The voice that we tend not to use, that we use

with other people, is you've got this hang on, you know what

you're talking about. You've got lots of experience. You're doing

your best. Yeah, you're you know, we're not comparing to

somebody else. So like, for example, a junior doctor saying,

I don't know what to do in this situation. We all have that, but

actually, internally, we go without even realising I should

be doing I should. Word should. Isn't that dangerous? Yeah, you

know, I talk about, and that's what I'm often doing in

coaching, is picking up people's language where they're not even

hearing how they speak to themselves, which is, I should,

I should be doing this, this, I, you know, I can't do it. I don't

know that, that kind of stuff. So I don't know whether that's a

specific enough example, but I think, yeah, that's brilliant.

So common across everybody and eat. What I try and do as

coaching is get underneath the how do I speak in this meeting

to what's the story that you're telling yourself, and how can we

change that story? So you might have a story that is, for

example, I never get job interviews. I'm never

successful. Okay, well, I've not been successful up until now.

It's just that tiny shift. What does that do to you? What does

that allow if you just hold that possibility and you

intentionally play that story in your head before you go into an

interview. As opposed to, I never get interviews. I'm never

successful at interviews. So it sounds very subtle, but actually

it's incredibly important, incredibly powerful. And the

shifts that can happen once we start paying attention to the

stories that we're telling ourselves. I truly believe in

that self talk. It's it's so powerful. I can't

remember if I've said this on the podcast before, but there

was somebody I came across this. Somebody was describing Daley

Thompson giving an interview when when the last Olympics were

and they were kind of interviewing famous Olympians,

and Daley Thompson was a famous British athlete. And he did, oh,

dear, pentathlon, heptathlon, one of the things where you have

to do all the different things. And she said, knowledgeably and

and it came down to the last thing, and he had to do a throw.

And I don't know whether it was a shot put or a javelin or a

whatever this I'm telling this story so well, but anyway, it

came down to the last thing as to whether he was going to get

gold or silver, or get onto the medal table or not. And and you

get three throws, and he bodged up two of them, and he it all

came down to this last throw, and the person interviewing him

said to him, if that was me, I'd have just thought, Well, I

always mess it up, right? Or I've lost it now, so it's all

I've I'm not having a good day, or it's just not my time, or

whatever, all those things that we say to ourselves and and the

and the the interviewer said to him, so what did you say to

yourself? Because spoiler alert has a happy ending the story and

and he said, Well, I've done two bad throws, and I've never had

three bad throws in a row. So I. He switched it completely on its

head, and then he did a brilliant throw, and then he won

the medal, or whatever the happy ending needs to be of this very

poorly remembered story. But the point is just that little

internal mental switch from from the negative to the positive can

make a massive difference. It can make a medal winning. Yeah,

difference,

Helen O'Grady: yeah, yeah. And, and it's so applicable, and it

doesn't even always need to be positive. It's just about

possibility and, and this, and that's where coaching and

actually having a conversation with somebody or a friend,

because we're not that good at catching our own stories, but

having to say it out loud, it's suddenly like, oh yeah, I am

speaking to myself and in this way. And one of the questions I

quite often ask people is, if you were being kind, as kind as

you are to your friends, what would you say to yourself? And

it's amazing how it's like, oh, God, definitely wouldn't speak

to a friend like this. And it's like, what makes you so special

and that you get to speak to yourself like that? And how does

it help you? You know, and that's the thing. It's about.

How is it helping you? At the moment, it's and things aren't

as black and white. There's probably elements of truth in

all of it, but it's like, what's the most helpful thing that I

can say to myself in order to achieve or get whatever it is

that I want to get in the

moment? Is it this is this is a bit off the

wall, but is it gendered? Do you think the reason I'm asking this

is because I was reading something and somebody said, oh,

all the people I speak to, this is somebody in a management

role, but sort of a bit of a bit of a coaching role as well. And

they said so often they say, this is going to sound stupid

but, or I know I'm being stupid but. And then this coach was

saying, first of all, what then follows the but is never stupid.

And secondly, it's usually women who say that, and men say, tell

me if this is stupid, which is same feeling, but ever so

slightly different. So have you come across a gendered

difference in in the way that people do this self

Helen O'Grady: talk? That's a really interesting distinction

that I've done. Now I'm going to be paying attention for that.

No, I think in the spaces that I work, probably about 70% of my

clients are women. I think what is different is sometimes not

always. This is a bit of a gross generalisation. Men find it a

little bit harder or aren't as used to talking about what's

going on for them, and so sometimes it just takes a little

bit longer to get to what their self talk is, whereas, again,

women tend to be more open or more used to because they might

have talked to their friends or somebody else about kind of

what's going on. But actually, that self confidence, that self

belief, the inner critic, I'm not sure that it's as gendered

as I, as we think it is. I think there probably is. And you know,

you there would be some research out there, there probably are

differences, but in the work that I do, it might sound a

little bit different, but I the essence of it is often the same.

Thank you. That's, that's, that's

interesting. Okay, let's talk about small business, running a

small business, and particularly not everybody who runs a small

business is the thing that they are, is the service or is the

product? People? People run a small business and they provide

X however, your business, and actually my business, we are the

product and the service and the doer of the business, we wear

all the hats, and people want to work with me because of who I

am, and because of all the skills I have and my history and

all of that, the things I bring to the party, and people, I

guess, want to work with you. We did touch on this before, about

your experience in their sector, because people want to work with

you because of your healthcare background, but kind of because

you're you. So how do you bat away all of that kind of that,

that sort of imposter syndrome, and blah, blah, blah, all the

awful things that we all have, and how do you sell yourself?

And have you had to reframe that as an idea of, whoa. I mean, I

have to now sell myself.

Helen O'Grady: Yeah, I've really struggled with it. And, you

know, I had a business in Australia, and I was lucky

there. I had built up a network, and I never really had to sell

myself, if I'm honest. And then came over here. And kind of

started again. And was a massive, recently, really big

reset. And I, you know, it was always sort of on my to do list,

must get better at marketing, must market myself. And then

kind of about 18 months ago, you know, a big drop in public

sector spending on things like coaching. And so I was like, I

really need to start marketing myself. So I have been focused

on it over the last year, and I've really struggled with it,

because that notion of selling myself is just so alien,

particularly from that background of nursing where it's

like, you know, you don't sell yourself, or you just your worth

is what it is, not particularly high, all of that kind of stuff.

But i i

cog in the machine. Yeah, you are the

flipping machine, exactly running your own business, yeah,

Helen O'Grady: but like you, as you say, I am aware that people

will buy when they know like and trust you and and the stories

and being visible, they're never going to know you unless you're

visible. So that first question is, how do you become visible?

And that's kind of putting yourself out there. There's no

There's no getting away from it. And then that marketing, which

I'm not sure whether that's the same in your area, but that

notion around kind of having an ideal client, and directly

speaking the marketing to that particular person. And that

notion, I found really hard, like I was saying, but I can

coach anybody, and I certainly can supervise any coach. So

niching my marketing to get my voice heard, I found quite hard

just with that mental mindset. So again, those stories that I

was telling myself, of, yeah, but I can coach anybody, or I'm

different but, and so I've had to sort of get over that and go,

Okay, well, my marketing is one thing that's and that's very

narrow and limiting. That doesn't mean actually the work

that I do is narrow and limiting. I will work with

anybody, and they're more likely to hear me. I've lost the

question that you asked. That's

okay. That's okay. I was just thinking,

because a lot of work, people always say to me, what have I

heard you on and and chances are they haven't heard me on

anything, because a lot of work I do is internal corporate

messaging, internal comms for staff, or things that are for

pitches that never go out in the world on TV. And I guess for

you, everything you do is behind closed doors. It's all, it's

all, all in somebody's head, essentially. So for me, it's

kind of social proof. Occasionally, I can share pieces

of work that I've done if they aren't made. Aren't made public,

but testimonials, things like that are super helpful because

so I have real, sort of basic, practical thing that I do. I

have a Google business profile, and people can leave me a star

rating and a review, and then that ports automatically onto my

website, so Google sees it if people search for me on the

internet and they're also on my website, so that and they update

and all of that, it's kind of, it's just kind of like a step,

but it does mean that people can read about me without me going

on How brilliant I

Helen O'Grady: am. Yeah, yeah. And I think to me, it relates to

what you were saying earlier, is which I've slightly lost now.

But you know, being on LinkedIn, oh, the stories you know that I

you're posting on LinkedIn every day, pretty much,

that's where coaches

Helen O'Grady: are. So again, whereas I don't do kind of

Google most coaches wouldn't particularly search on Google

for somebody. It would either be a recommendation or they've seen

them on LinkedIn. And what I'm trying to do there, as you said,

is say my experience, and it is my experience, because I feel

really strongly and passionately about authentic, genuine

marketing. So it's not this is somebody else's story that I'm

saying is mine, but I actually, over time, know that my

experience is mirrored by others. And so actually sharing

kind of what I've gone through a bit, what's going on in my head,

and as you say, not necessarily talking about clients of mine,

but sometimes doing that where, then when people are reading it,

going, oh, yeah, that's what I think, you know. And sometimes

you get that, it's like, you're in my head, Alan, you know, this

totally resonates. And so that's how you build that trust and

that like of, yeah, actually, I, you know, I can connect to this

person. They get me, and that increases the likelihood that

they might reach out and say, Can I work with you? But it's

hard, it's it's relentless. I struggle with it and but it's

necessary. If we're going to run a business, we have to be

visible to the people who may. By our services. It's as simple

as that.

So tell us exactly this is, this is your,

yeah, you can do your elevator pitch. Tell us exactly what

being a master. I mean, you've got so many qualifications. What

your what being is it master executive coach?

Helen O'Grady: Yeah. So I guess that bit I tend not to sell so

much as my coach supervision work. And the reason why, you

know, I'm happy to coach anybody, but a lot of people

that I coach are in healthcare, social care, education, and to

be honest, they're not ideal clients because they don't have

the money to invest in their own coaching. So the coaching I do

for them tends to be organisational, sponsored. So

that means going for tenders and asking the organisation if

they're willing to pay. So it's a slightly different type of

marketing which is still destroying in a different way,

whereas the coaches I work with are supporting them to be the

best coach that they can be. So being an extremely experienced

coach is almost a prerequisite to be able to supervise other

people as coaches. So I also have a lot of as you were

saying, you know, kind of seven years I'm an accredited master

supervisor as well, and kind of so that that is around my depth

of experience and knowledge in the coaching space and

supporting other coaches, because I feel really

passionately about that to be professional, because there's

not actually no definition really of professional in

coaching. It's not like nursing that's regulated and it's very,

very clear cut. There are different coaching bodies who

will accredit, and I'll try to be professional, but that means

slightly different things to different people, and so I

really want to support coaches to feel passionately about their

coaching to to be continuing to develop, and that we have a

responsibility to, I'm going to say, protect the clients who

come to coaching, because anybody can call themselves a

life coach or a coach or a leadership coach with no

qualifications, no experience, and do things that I wouldn't

consider to be coaching, as in telling people what to do,

selling them stuff or all kinds of things, without really

supporting their own development and thinking about, how do I do

this in the best way?

Okay, lovely, beautiful answer. Thank you for

explaining. I want to talk about a pivot, because it's, I know it

wasn't a massive period of time, but it was pretty massive. So

you came back from Australia, you had to find a house and sort

out, you know, education for your family and and all of the

stuff that relocating from the other side of the world brings,

and you were setting up again, starting your business, and then

there was a global pandemic, yeah, and, and you could have

said, no, no, that's I don't do that anymore. I'm not a nurse

anymore. But instead, you went back to the wards. I mean,

flipping heck. Helen, tell us about

Helen O'Grady: that. Yeah. And initially I went back to the

wards in my local hospital, kind of literally as a healthcare

assistant, so not really as a nurse, but it was sort of in

that lull, where that first summer, where actually things

got a little bit better for a little while before it got

really bad. And then I did go back to kind of the specialised

children's nursing I'd done before at Evelina Children's

Hospital in London. And then things got a little bit

complicated again. And obviously we got that second winter where

things got really, really bad. And so initially I wasn't on the

wards. I was doing the specialist nursing that I had

done both in Australia and in the UK. And then because things

got really bad, I did have to go onto the wards and onto adult

intensive care, which was completely terrifying, if I'm

honest. And so outside my comfort zone, I hadn't been a

clinical nurse for quite a long time, and then suddenly to be

working with adults. I'd never worked in intensive care, you

know, all of us were learning as we went. So it was, it was an

interesting time. You know, I initially went back because I

was like, Oh, the coaching isn't really taking off. And actually,

you know, I do miss being a nurse. I guess that was still

that point where it was I saw them quite separately. And so

that was kind of my motivation to, oh, we'll see what you

think. And, but it. It was so difficult, I took a 12 month

contract, and at the end of that 12 months, I was like, no,

actually, I really think, like, I can say goodbye comfortably

now to that stage of my professional career and really

focus the coaching had started to pick up then. And actually at

that point, I was coaching and supporting a lot of healthcare

professionals who were really struggling during the pandemic,

and so was felt like I was making more of a difference

there than I was in the clinical space.

But I guess having lived that, having you

said, it was terrifying, having been in intensive care, seeing

those desperate times, and working with a whole group of

patients you'd never worked with before, adults so poorly, so, so

and I mean, it was chaotic, wasn't it that time? Oh, it

Helen O'Grady: was incredibly chaotic. You know, you'd

literally would go into work, not knowing where you were at,

the numbers, you know, the bed numbers were going. We were

creating new wards in the children's hospital to

accommodate the adults, and then closing them down when things

got better. It was really, really chaotic. And, you know, I

mean, it's, it's well documented, the PPE challenges,

the what was required, you know, who needed to isolate when you

were testing all sorts of stuff was just changing on a day by

day, hour by hour basis.

It does feel like some kind of weird dream. Yes,

now, yeah, somebody who who observed it, rather than

somebody who, who literally lived it as you did it. Just, I

can't believe we did all those things. Yeah, and, and, you

know, we came out the other side. But the scars are there

forever, aren't they?

Helen O'Grady: Yeah, for sure, it's it's changed, and it's

particularly changed healthcare. It will never go back to how it

was. And so that was an interesting time coaching, and I

still do, but during those couple of years, particularly

post the intensity, talking to a lot of healthcare professionals

about grief and grief for not being able to work in the way

that they had been pre pandemic, so particularly primary care I

was working in, so GPS, practice nurses, receptionists, all of

those kind of staff, because having to completely move away

from what we used to be able to do it like this, and now we

can't, and that's hard, because it happened very, very quickly

with that, and they it was very chaotic, and that, again, where

that resilience, I think, was very tricky for people of you've

just got to keep going. You've just got to keep going. But then

suddenly, we're three years in, I still just have to keep going

like this. You know, there's a

limit is needed here

Helen O'Grady: exactly, exactly so, but that that experience of

going back did again give me credibility, helped me build

trust with other people who were going through a lot worse than I

went through, to be fair, because they were, they were

there for the long time I was, as you said, just it feels like

a bit

of a dream. Okay, so I'm going to bring this back

to we're nearly running out of time, but I'm going to bring

this back to the thing we talked about right at the beginning.

What, what qualities make a good nurse? And I'm interested to

know if you think that those qualities make a great coach or

coach supervisor as well. What I'm kind of getting at is, is

what is, is what's within you, what makes you good at these

kind of twin careers? Or is there a difference? Or is it to

do with growth, or what? What do you

Helen O'Grady: think? I think it's all of the above. I don't

think it's as binary as that, but definitely that quality of

sitting with uncertainty and sitting with discomfort in

others and supporting people with difficult emotions and not

feeling like you have to Make it better that is very important,

being calm, being taking people as they are. They are all

qualities that directly come from the beneficial in both

professions. I would say, I think what's different is and

what I had to let go of, and most people moving into

coaching, kind of irrespective generally, of where they've come

from, is our desire to fix and to rescue people and to make

things better for people. We when that's a human tendency,

and that's a really nice thing, but actually in coaching and in

coach supervision, we need to step away from that and really

trust people. People to do that for themselves and accept it if

they choose not to do it for themselves, and that's okay as

well, whereas, again, previously, we may get

frustrated with but why aren't they doing that? We can see what

they need to understand that, and that's parenting, isn't it?

Again, you know, parenting teenagers like you. I've got,

you know, three teenagers, and stepping back, letting them make

their own mistakes and and kind of just being there, not wanting

to rescue them. I think these are life skills, and for a lot

of us, they it's challenging, but actually it makes a big

difference to our relationships. If we don't feel like we've got

to rescue people from whatever they're they're experiencing.

And you can learn those lessons as a teenager,

brilliant, but, but it's never too late to have coaching,

right? You can learn those lessons as a as an as an adult.

You can learn the lessons as a towards for your whole life,

yeah,

Helen O'Grady: and, and it's, you know, we can self coach, and

we can learn those lessons for ourselves. But generally, it is

easier with somebody else, because somebody else when I

talk about, when I do, when I meet somebody for the first time

and talk about my coaching, and it's a bit the same in

supervision, I describe myself as your cheerleader. Yeah,

you've got this, but with a velvet boot. And what I mean by

that is kicking you gently to go further than you'll go on your

own. And they think that's what coaching does, is it helps us

unpick what's going on, and we go quicker and further than we

might go on our own, because we've got somebody challenging

us, helping us see the patterns, the language, the way that we're

talking to ourselves. That's really hard for us to do on our

own. Love it. Love it. Well, if you'd like to

work with Helen wearing her velvet boot, the best way to

connect with you, Helen, what's what? How should people, how can

people

Helen O'Grady: find you? Yeah, LinkedIn is the best way. Helen

O'Grady. If you put Helen O'Grady coach in, you will find

me. I probably we can put that link in the in the podcast

notes, which has kind of got my contact details, that's got a

book, a book, a call with me button as well. So that's

definitely the best way to get in touch. And I love just

connecting. Follow me on LinkedIn. See what you think.

Engage with that what I'm saying, but would love to chat

to anybody Excellent.

Okay, well, we've got to the last question. Can't

believe it, it's whizzed by. The last question that I always ask

people is, what does your story look like for the next five

years?

Helen O'Grady: That's a great question. I think what I like

about my life now is, I don't know, you know, I hope it looks

like more coach, supervision, more coaching, more mental

coaching, a successful business. But success means all sorts of

things. I guess. What I hope it involves is I was gonna say

contentment, you know, just being happy and enjoying

whatever it throws up. I guess that either that's age or wisdom

or whatever, but actually, that certainty I don't quite need in

the same way that I needed when I was younger, or that

realisation that I can pretend I'll have that certain, yeah,

and actually, we don't all that certain, hopefully, is that

tomorrow will come and enjoying that. So that's what I hope the

next five years is, enjoying whatever comes and making the

most of that.

What a beautiful answer. Lovely, lovely. Well,

that's, that's, that's it

Helen O'Grady: Time flies when you're having fun, Katie,

doesn't it just

well. Helen O'Grady, thank you so much for

being on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Helen O'Grady: Likewise, thanks for having me, Katie, take care.

Oh, wasn't that a fascinating conversation and so

relatable. Here are today's key takeaways. One, beware of the

word resilience. Helen said it's an unhelpful story in the

workplace. She reminded us that the true definition of

resilience is being able to bounce back from hardship, and

of course, that's incredibly useful. But she said that in the

world of work, the word is culturally unhelpful, because it

suggests that if we're struggling, we just need a bit

more resilience in order to keep coping, when in fact, there's a

risk that we could be heading towards burnout. Two, if you're

selling a service as a small business owner, where you are

very much the thing people are buying or buying into, you need

to get very clear on your own story. Helen talked about the

learning process she went through of joining the dots

between. Her former career and her current one, and really

noticing where the one informed the other. How has your career

path shaped who you are today? What's your story? Three, what

unhelpful stories are you telling yourself? Try to notice

when your inner critic says you should be doing something. I

loved how Helen described her work as a coach, helping people

with self belief and confidence. She said that rather than

addressing a person's performance anxiety, for

example, should I speak at this meeting? She gets underneath

that to the real issue, which is noticing what's the story you're

telling yourself, and then asking, how can we change that

story? Wasn't that terrific? A massive thanks to Helen O'Grady

for sharing her story with us, and if you want to hear more

from her, she's actually got her own podcast series coming out

really soon, in June 2025 through the association of

coaching. It's called coaching supervision, uncovered. We'll

put a link in the show notes to that, as well as to Helen's

LinkedIn profile. Go check her out. Okay, coming up next time

it's me from the future. Yes, next week, it is the toolkit

episode, and that means I'll be bringing together the main

themes we've encountered across all of this season's interviews.

You're going to hear from all my brilliant guests again, so we

can admire their best bits together, and as usual, I'll be

parcelling it up for you with a handy acronym to help you

remember the lessons they shared. It's quite a lot of

work, so I better get on with it. Back now to previous me see

this series is the gift that just keeps on giving you lucky

listener, and I really appreciate you being here. Thank

you so much for your company. Now it's time to go. I'm Katie

Flamen, and this is storytelling for business till next time.

Goodbye.

You