‘Challenging Your Narrative’ With Leadership Coach And Therapist Lyssa deHart

The Destiny Awakening Interviews is a podcast with Andrew Wayfinder and his guests.

Every week (sometimes more) we have a short focused interview with an expert, author, speaker designed to bring you powerful insights, inspiration and ways to break free, live life by your vision and values, and make a difference in our changing and challenging world.

Listen to the podcast at: https://www.andrewwayfinder.com/blog/DA0032

Andrew Hryniewicz

So hello, everyone and a very warm welcome to another edition of the Destiny Awakening Interviews.

I’m Andrew Wayfinder Hryniewicz and I’m joined today by Lyssa deHart, author, therapist, executive and leadership coach.

And a very warm welcome to you, Lyssa. And where are you hanging out today?

Lyssa deHart

I’m hanging out on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, on the west coast of the US.

Andrew Hryniewicz

And I actually know Bainbridge and it’s a little slice of paradise. You are super lucky.

Lyssa deHart

I have managed to land in clover, somehow, here in my life. And happy to be on Bainbridge.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Yeah, because you live on this beautiful kind of tranquil Island. But you’ve got a 30-minute ferry ride to the center of Seattle.

Lyssa deHart

It’s really, it’s quite extraordinary, frankly. Yeah, it is…

Sometimes I kind of am like, “How did I end up here?”

So that’s a whole, I’m sure there’s whole metaphors of doors that were opened and have closed and all those sorts of things that we could go into. But I am here and I’m very happy with it.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great. Well, let’s get on with your work and your experience.

Lyssa deHart LiCSW, MCC is the author of “Story Jacking: Change Your Dialogue, Transform Your Life”.

And a Leadership, Confidence and Whole Life Coach with 20 plus years of clinical experience as a therapist. And then the last eight years as a Leadership Coach.

Lyssa has a deep bank of knowledge and experience to draw on, when she works with her clients.

Lyssa works with confidence challenged high achievers who are ready to rewrite their internal stories that are slowing them down.

Her clients have included executives, senior leadership and managers, at companies and organizations such as Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, the US military, as well as creative writers, actors and artists.

So thank you Lyssa, for your time today and the topic we’re going to be talking about tonight, is “Challenging Your Narrative”. And you’re going to unpack that idea by answering six questions.

So the first question, who is your ideal client and what’s the transformation your work helps them achieve?

Lyssa deHart

Well, my ideal client is usually, if not always, a smart person who’s in the middle of a transformation. In the sense of they’re typically moving from, maybe, one sphere of influence into another.

They may be in the middle of a career change, or they may be developing themselves within the career that they have.

Moving from a manager to a Director or into senior leadership or even beyond that into the C-suite, depending on the person.

And, so a lot of the work that I do with people, is around the competence challenges that are inherent in those sorts of transitional changes.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Yeah, so it sounds similar to some of my clients where, they’re having that kind of Jaws moment. “Oh, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, and “Oh, the paddles aren’t gonna work. I really need like an outboard motor, and I thought it was a hard shell boat I needed, but it’s actually Zodiac”.

So yes, exactly like that.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Yeah. So what’s, what’s the biggest challenge they’re facing then?

Lyssa deHart

You know, I have some thoughts about this question, “What’s the biggest challenge they’re facing?” Because I wish I could sum it up as one thing. I think there’s a myriad of things that are often going on and they’re converging at the same time.

If I were to pick one thing, I would say it’s the narratives that they’ve “habitualized”…

… in how they think about themselves, and how they think about success and how they think about the work that they’re doing.

So if there’s one biggest challenge, it typically is “Them”. And then, it’s the other things that are impacting them.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, so then question number three is, what’s the number one insight you would share in helping them deal with that narrative problem? The story they’re telling themselves?

Lyssa deHart

Well, I guess I’d like to just start with how we make meaning as human beings. And you know, I call it “Story”, I call it “Narrative”. Some people call it “Meaning”.

And the reality is, our brains are predictive, our brain was designed in order to help us survive. And so it makes predictions based on past experiences. And it’s constantly predicting, so that it doesn’t have to work really hard… and try to sort things out.

And, you know, possibly be eaten by tigers, right?

So I don’t want to guess that those are stripes or grass, or tigers. Because, you know, if I was wrong, and it was grass, I’m going to be okay. But if I was wrong, and it was a tiger, I’ll be dinner.

And so understanding that we have these hardwired stories that get codified in the way that we think about ourselves and the situation around us, I think is really important.

And typically, I think one of the biggest insights I’ve made in my own life, and that I also see my clients making on a regular basis, is this:

often those places of discomfort with whatever is happening, are the places we actually need to go in and take a look at.

It’s not how we’re typically designed to think about discomfort, though.

We typically think about discomfort and go, “Oh, that’s not very comfortable. I don’t want to be there. I’m going to go exit stage left”.

And instead, it’s an opportunity to really get curious. Like, “What’s showing up as you notice that discomfort? What does it take to breathe into it?

And what’s the pattern that’s often linked to the discomfort that you’re feeling? And how it’s showing up in this… the context of this situation, whatever the situation is?”

So, being willing and courageous enough to be curious with oneself. I think it’s a huge, huge benefit for people.

Andrew Hryniewicz

So to step away from that, sort of, automatic reactivity and the running away instinct.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah. And really using… leveraging the discomfort for that self-awareness that’s possible as a result of it.

Andrew Hryniewicz

So in your own development, what concept, book, program, talk or experience that had the greatest impact? What stands out for you?

Lyssa deHart

Well, you know, there are several things in my own development. I come from a psychological background. So I was a Clinical Social Worker, working as a therapist for many years, before transitioning into coaching.

So I definitely bring theory around psychological safety. And looking at relationships…

I mean, in my mind, everything is “relational”.

So whether it is my relationship with you… whether it’s my relationship with myself… or whether it’s the relationship to the situation that I find myself in the middle of… it’s all relational.

And so, you know, there’s just a lot of work out there on relationships, that I think are really profound.

A lot of John Gottman… He works primarily with couples, but really, you can extrapolate out of his work… around whether it’s the “Four Horsemen”, or the five to one imbalance towards the positive that’s required in relationship.

He talks a lot also about turning towards, turning away and turning against. And how those things impact our ability to be in a healthy relationship with another person. So I definitely speak to his work.

I think Amy Edmondson in her work around “Fearless Leadership”, “Fearless Organizations” and “Psychological Safety”.

That work is really important, especially when you’re looking at organizations where, you know, you think about us on a spectrum of threat to safety.

All human beings find themselves somewhere on that spectrum at some point in every situation.

And if I’ve landed on the threat side of it, a lot of my biological response to being in any form of threat — even if it’s just a threat of my words that weren’t that important for you.

Then, what’s going to happen is: my capacity to be creative, innovative, agile, and finding solutions is really going to be diminished, as a result of the fact that I’m now in survival mode.

So that psychological safety is so incredibly important in helping people to move towards that safety to re-write the narrative, right?

We write the stories that we’re telling ourselves so that we can predict towards safety. So that we can then show up as innovative, creative and agile, depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great. So question number five is, what free resource would you like to share with the audience to help them?

Lyssa deHart

Well, I did write a book called “Story Jacking”, and on my website I have a link to the first seven chapters for free. So you can get a sample of the book.

And I also have a workbook that comes with it — a complimentary workbook that goes with the book — that is also available for free on my website.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, and that is lyssadehart.podia.com/sample-storyjacking.

Okay, so we’re in the last question, Lyssa, what should I have asked you that I didn’t.

Lyssa deHart

I think, you know, maybe my philosophy of coaching with people and I’m such a believer in “It’s wonderful if the coach’s brain lights up”.

But I really think that there is something powerful about working with another human being, who doesn’t have a horse in your race — to help you be curious on your own behalf.

I think about relationships that I have…

I’m married. And so, if I were to say to my husband, “I’m thinking I want to quit my job and maybe stop everything… write a book and go off and learn how to do something completely different”.

He would have the conversation with me, for sure. Yet, there may be some sense of attachment to a different kind of outcome than maybe I want, right?

It’s really hard to not have expectations or even explicit bias towards something like the house that we live in, or car payments, or any of those sorts of things.

And I really think there’s something around having a thought partnership with another human being. Where you can play with these ideas and really look at the things that are in the way of your confidence, without having that person be attached to you.

Sure, you’re confident… you’re fine… you can do it… just back up and you can do it, right?

But really to be willing to have the conversation around what it really is. What is confidence?

What would that experience of confidence be for you in this particular scenario that you find yourself in?

And where are you now?

And so, how do you want to move from “here” to “there”? (Wherever the “there” is.)

And then just start to unpack what are the different elements that go, that need to be unpacked, explored, so that you have greater self-awareness. And you’re at that capacity to be at choice consciously.

And not just unconsciously, you know, in the winds of whatever circumstance you find yourself.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, that was great, Lyssa thank you so much for your time tonight.

Lyssa deHart

You’re very, very welcome. Thank you for having me.