Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:04:56: Trisha’s book
00:06:45: A case of comparisonitis
00:08:28: Explaining the nose
00:13:03: The FIBs that hold you back
00:15:53: Don’t fall into the “should” trap of social media
00:17:35: Working with dementia and researching the brain
00:21:35: Trisha’s TEDx Talk
00:22:29: Running a business is personal
00:26:57: Trisha’s pivotal conversation
00:39:10: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Wendy Harris: We have a real treat for you today, because we have a communication expert.  Actually, technically, she prefers to be unsquashing your content.  It is the Trisha Lewis, and we’re going to be Making Conversations about Unsquashing Yourself Count.

What’s new, Wendy Woo?  I’ve been coaching, and it seems that one of the biggest tips that I could give to anyone who is just maybe stuck in a rut, or needing to just reignite a little passion for what it is that they’re doing and saying, it’s to sit up straight and smile, I’ve said this before.  But when you question yourself on whether you are being too salesy, honestly, ask yourself this: are you offering them all of the right information for them to make the best decision they possibly can?  If the answer is yes, then you are being most helpful, not most salesy.  If you’d like some more tips on that, you can always book a call with me, and find out more about my one-to-one powerups or my team training sessions.

Let’s get back to the conversation with Trisha Lewis, Making Conversations about Unsquashing Yourself Count.  I cannot believe that I have got the Trisha Lewis, communication expert, joining me in our conversation that counts today.  Now, I say communication expert, that is nuts and bolts what she does.  However, she’s on an unsquashable mission.  So, Trisha, I think you’d better introduce yourself and explain.

Trisha Lewis: You asked how to introduce me, and I said, “Well, you can do the boring one or the intriguing one”, and that “unsquashy” word is the intriguing one, because obviously, if you don’t know me, you’ll think, “What the heck is she talking about?”  But that’s kind of what I do with clients.  I unsquash them when I unsquash their business, or help them to, I should say.  So, it is all about communication, I mean everything’s about communication, and that’s my background as an actor, professional speaker; if you like, professional communicator. 

Also, my degree and my research is all about that fabulous human-to-human communication, and everything that happens that messes with it, all the noise, internal, external that stops those messages getting out there.  So, my mission is, it’s nearly always a small business owners I’m working with, often slightly overthinking ones, a bit like me, maybe slightly creative or quirky, people who don’t like getting out there and shouting, who don’t want to be over-salesy; and all of this stuff that’s playing on their minds is stopping them from actually showing up and sharing their fabulousness. 

So, I help them to unsquash themselves, to get those perspectives, those unique stories, those quotables, if you like, out there, so that people really engage with them, online and offline, rather than just the bland stuff that they might be safely putting out there and feeling incredibly demotivated about.  So, it’s motivation, it’s confidence, and it all ends up with more connections and opportunities.

Wendy Harris: I would say it’s like conversation, full fat.  And I think this is where we’re in alignment in the conversations that we’ve had previously, and I would give a shoutout to your show, because I’ve been a guest on your show, and this was where that connection was made, that synergy in as much as that, sometimes it’s the quirky people, because I’m kind of probably a bit quirky, I think you’re a bit quirky too, Trisha.  So, you attract those sorts of people.  And when it comes to talking about your business, it can feel like a really big salesy thing.  But once you nail who you are and who you serve and how you serve them, it becomes really easy to talk about.

Trisha Lewis: Exactly, and you’re enthused about it then.  That’s the other thing, isn’t it, the huge difference in your energy.  And of course, that energy is picked up by everybody else.  And so, that’s why it’s so important to nail this.

Wendy Harris: Yeah.  You’re also an author, so tell us a little bit more about the book; shameless plug, I love it!

Trisha Lewis: Well, it’s on the shelf, so I haven’t got a life-size paperback copy here next to me, maybe I should.  It’s The Mystery of the Squashed Self.  So, my take on imposter syndrome is very different.  I spent a couple of years doing a lot of talks on imposter syndrome, and it’s a journey I’ve been through myself, a lifetime.  And I suddenly thought, “Hang on a minute.  I want this to be more positive, more empowering, and my squashed self-perspective is that we actually supress our true selves for fear that revealing our whole passion and Pavlovian power is going to get us judged as an unlikeable show-off; that’s my snappy definition.

So, rather than say, with imposter syndrome, you might say, “I’d better not do that, because I might not be good enough, or I might be found out”, with this, you’re saying, “I could really nail that, but I’d better not, because people might think I’m just showing off, or I’m a clever clogs”.  So, you start from a much more positive place.  The fact of the matter is, they both hold you back and bring you back in your box, so they’re no good, but I think it’s a more positive way of looking at it.

The number of people I’ve spoken to who’ve said, “I quite get that, yes.  I worry about people thinking I’m showing off, just because I’m going to get up and stand in front of a networking event and do a talk, or put something slightly more unusual on Linked In”.  So, I sort of don’t.

Wendy Harris: Is that comparisonitis that we have as well.  It’s a really, really bad condition if you catch it, because we all need to remember that we’re each unique and stand in our own true light, so when you come from that place, some of the coaching I did last week for example, they were like, “Oh, but it’s really salesy and I’m not a salesperson”, and I’m like, “You’re not really selling anything”.  What you’re actually doing is you’re giving the facts about the best decision for their business.

Trisha Lewis: What you’ve just said is in fact — because, this book, it’s very unusual, I won’t go into too much detail.  But it makes it real, so you can spot the symptoms.  So, there are eight cases of small business owners who visit Investigator Lewis.

Wendy Harris: I love that, because this is where the storytelling comes in.

Trisha Lewis: Yes, the storytelling, absolutely, so it really makes it real.  People say, “Oh my God, I so recognise that thing that I do”.  But it’s also got actions, recommendations and reframes.  What you just said is one of the reframes, basically.  You’re not being salesy and showing off and trying to force people, you’re giving them the gift of knowing that you’re there to help them; it’s just a reframe, yeah.

Wendy Harris: Yeah, and if you actually then help them, that’s a win for you, it’s a win for them, and it’s also a win for the company, so it’s a triple win; win, win, win.  Who doesn’t want a triple win?

Trisha Lewis: Should we mention my nose?

Wendy Harris: Soapbox time, yeah.  So, Trisha, communication is one of those things, isn’t it, that’s really important, and you just referred to being judged.  And yesterday, you messaged me, knowing that you were coming on the show today and knowing that we use a little bit of video to promote the show, you said, “Oh my goodness, is this going to be too scary?” because you’ve had a procedure on your nose, and it looks really sore, I have to say, Trisha.  But honestly, I don’t think it’s scary, let’s turn this into a positive, which is what we’re all about and say, “If you’ve got something on, get it checked”.  So, tell us a little bit about your nose and how that came about.

Trisha Lewis: Well, it’s been messed around with, and I look a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, but it’s fine, I’m not actually vain.  One of the advantages of being older, that’s gone out the window, because you get bibs and bobs, so that’s fine.  But I didn’t want to offput anybody looking.  So, it is a positive message, it was a basal carcinoma, which is cancerous, and they’re very common, very, very common, on the tip of my nose.  And, I’ve had it for two or three years, and I thought it was just a little funny bump; I thought it was a spot that didn’t have a head, tried to squeeze it, like you do —

Wendy Harris: Made it worse.

Trisha Lewis: I’ve got a cold as well, so I’m very nose-centric today.  But yeah, I vaguely asked a doctor a couple of years ago, the doctor sort of vaguely said, “Oh, nothing to worry about”, but it was when I went to get a mole checked out about either months or so ago, the specialist said, “Hang on a minute, can I just look at that thing on your nose?”  He said, “I need to do a biopsy on that”.  I thought, “Really, I thought it was just a funny old-age bump thing?”

So, yeah, that was cancerous.  So, they needed to take it out, and the procedure is incredibly brilliant.  It’s called Moh’s surgery.  It’s gold standard, they take concentric circles out and test them while you’re there, so that they know they’ve got it all, that they’re not leaving any bits dangling round the edges of that.  With me, I was lucky that they got it out in one, but a nice divot in the end of my nose, and of course all the stitches are there, because they do skin flaps, cut, cut, cut.

Wendy Harris: It’s fascinating though.

Trisha Lewis: And then, they stitch it up, so that they cover the hole, basically.  So, it was only a smallish thing, but by the time they’d taken it out and then done all the skin stuff, obviously it looks a bit more dramatic.  But they always say, there were people there in the waiting room there with me, people in the outpatients, all with the same thing, different places on their face particularly, it’s sun.  Now, I didn’t think that I’d done excessive sun over my lifetime.  I’ve got skin that tans easily.  Certainly in latter times, I’ve always put some sun cream on.  Of course, when I was younger, it was all about frying yourself.

Wendy Harris: Crisping!

Trisha Lewis: Yeah.  So maybe, yeah, come to think of it.  But that’s needing to be acknowledged by people, that you do need to put probably factor 50 on, and the specialist said, “The factors, you need to think they’re lower, because of the testing they do.  It would be very thick if you put it on”.  So, yeah, wear hats and just be really conscious of any little bumps that crop up and get them checked out.

Wendy Harris: And stay safe in the sunshine, because the way that the planet is warming up, I believe we’re going to get more and more of it, aren’t we?  Well, I think you look very glamorous this morning with your Frankenstein nose!  I wouldn’t say it looks that horrific at all, but goodness, it’s like you’ve had a nose job on the NHS, isn’t it?  If you were not happy with it before, you can go back and complain now!

But a really important message, that overthinking something could have stopped our opportunity to speak this morning, so I thought, “Actually, we can highlight this.  This is a good thing”, and I’m so glad that we are talking today.  So, what’s your number one unsquashable tip for getting people to start thinking about, “Am I doing that; am I holding myself back?”  What’s the Trisha Lewis recipe?

Trisha Lewis: I think, I mean I talk about the FIBs which hold us back, which actually stands for Fears, Illusions and Baggage; and obviously, as humans, we are surrounded by them.  So, from our childhood, I’m not meaning that you’ve got to have been terribly badly treated, or anything, but it’s human, where survival instincts, we’re always our own harshest critic, we veer towards the negative rather than the positive, that’s a survival instinct.  We’ve got the illusions, as in, “You’ve got to be like this to be a successful businessperson.  This is what this looks like”, labels, assumptions.  Oh my gosh, it’s a bucket.

So, the first step absolutely is awareness, awareness, awareness, which is why in this book, I’ve made it real, so that you can laugh at it, to a certain extent, but you’ve got to start doing the forensics, you’ve got to stop and pause and think, “What?  Why am I thinking that?  Why am I reacting like that?  Why am I getting all annoyed about this other person’s website, just because I think it’s better than mine?  What’s going on?  Why am I saying yes when I need to say no?”  You’ve just got to stop and press pause, and that’s what I did.  I know it sounds trite, but it’s a habit you get into.

My husband actually once said to me, “It’s like, instead of now having these triggers have you go right to the bottom of the self-doubt spiral, you tip over the edge, grab on, and pull yourself up really quickly”, whereas before, I could get triggered by something and I could still be ruminating about it a week later.  And every time, every moment you’re spending in this negative state, you’re squashing yourself, you’re holding back; literally, your body language is becoming squashed.  So, self-awareness.

Then, the reframes, “Okay, if I do this, I’m worried that this will happen”.  Why would that happen?  How about I look at this like this, “If I do this, maybe that will happen [or] I’ve no idea what will happen”, but stop making the assumption, stop thinking you can read everybody’s mind, stop thinking that the shiny veneer that you’re seeing of everybody’s life is real, and just get real, basically. 

Wendy Harris: Yeah, just look at it like this.

Trisha Lewis: Yeah.  That’s why, in many ways, I’m fine about showing my nose and stuff, because we should all do this, we should all show the less glossy part, because there’s no question, obviously, social media is playing into the comparisonitis trap.  But also, I talk about the “should” trap, and it’s really, really key to stop and question, “Why am I going to do this course?  Why am I going to do my post using this template?” etc, because it’s probably just that you think that’s how it’s meant to be done, because someone maybe that you see as being further into a successful business group has said that’s how you do it, and every point you’re forgetting is you, the unique individual.

Wendy Harris: Yes, I totally agree.  We watched the Ricky Gervais stand-up, Humanity, on TV over the weekend, and I’ve got a lot of time for him and what he does.  And he touches on it in his show about what he actually thinks about social media, but then he’s still drawn into social media.  And the way that he puts it is, “We’re all human and we all kind of should have left it, didn’t!”  This is exactly what you’re saying, isn’t it, Trisha?  Be conscious of the actions that you’re taking, and sometimes I think we justify things with the wrong values behind them.

Trisha Lewis: Yeah, absolutely.  And also, I’ve also done a hell of a lot of research on the brain, because I spent ten years working freelance, but I was working with people with dementia, and I got absolutely fascinated by our brains.  I think it’s really good to get very real about what’s going on.  This is why I use the word “forensic” a lot, because the more you realise its ability to trick us, the better.  I mean, it is only there in a dark skull, reliant on a few holes, ears, eyes.  It’s not this perfect guarantee of getting everything right that we sometimes give it credit for. 

So, those feelings that you get are probably often very much not what you think they are.  You’re reacting to something, your body is saying to your brain, “You’re in danger, you’re in danger!” and you’re not, it’s just maybe you’ve seen somebody who looks like your ex-husband in the street, and it’s set up this odd reaction and your body has sent the message.  Your brain is not thinking, “Trisha’s just seen somebody who looks like her ex-husband in the street, yes, nothing to worry about, no danger here!”  It is simply pulling on that bodily response, that lurching stomach, or whatever.

Wendy Harris: Interesting that you mentioned dementia there, Trisha, because last week’s guest was Veronica Franklin Gould, and we talked at great length about brain health.  And, I’ve talked to Mike Pagan in the past about Mental Wealth, and it’s not the obvious topic for a business podcast.  However, when I first met Veronica, it was very closely linked to my now late mother-in-law, we were going through how to make her life better, and she didn’t have dementia, but she had lots of debilitating illnesses, so we were treating similar symptoms, if you like.

For me, as a business owner, it was terribly distracting having to look after somebody with those symptoms.  So if, as a business owner, we can support that conversation and say, there are ways that you can help yourself and the person that is suffering, but also to help yourself longer term to kind of head it off at the pass, you’d be doing something about it now while you’re fit and able and mentally capable.  So for me, it’s almost like it should be an even bigger conversation that we’re having.

Trisha Lewis: Yeah, absolutely, Wendy.  There’s not this neat line between life and work, is there, for goodness sakes?

Wendy Harris: No, absolutely.  So, when you start talking about dementia, it is being able to stop and keep things going for as long as we are capable to; and ultimately, if we don’t do it, it’s our fault, it’s nobody else’s.  So, it’s very much the same, you’re squashing yourself longer term; you’re doing it now for later, so the same rules apply, don’t they?

Trisha Lewis: Yeah.  Do you know, don’t get me started, because if I start talking about that experience I had, yeah, I’d also be here for another three days.

Wendy Harris: Your nose would be better!  I just love the concept of unsquashing ourselves.  It makes me think of why we are the best kept secret, and what it is that we’ve got to tell of ourselves, and I just think that we should just, please, go and get Trisha’s book!

Trisha Lewis: Not only that, Wendy, but I’m now officially able to divulge, because my TEDx Talk is on this topic, and so I’m on TEDx Northwich on 23 April 2022.

Wendy Harris: St George’s Day!

Trisha Lewis: Yes, yes. 

Wendy Harris: That’s fantastic, that is fantastic news. 

Trisha Lewis: And that is basically, Wendy, that’s me showing up and sharing and I have stopped myself being scared of being judged as a show-off.  So, I’ve road-tested this entire thing, listeners.  This isn’t just me looking at a bunch of theory and coming up with some flashy idea, this is gritty, this is real.

Wendy Harris: It’s interesting as well, though, isn’t it, don’t you think, Trisha, that when we really get passionate about something, it’s because we’ve been touched ourselves?  It comes from a deeply personal place, and I don’t know and I don’t care what other people make of this statement I’m going to make now, which is that I run a business, but bloody hell I take it personally.  It’s my business to take it that personally, to care about it that much.  So, when people say, “You shouldn’t take it personally, it’s only business”, I’m like — well, Valerie, my mother-in-law, she couldn’t speak in the end, but she was very good at doing this.  It kind of infuriates me.

Trisha Lewis: If that’s not on video, that was two fingers that you placed in a certain motion upwards.

Wendy Harris: Peace!  It’s the peace sign.  But what do you think, Trisha?  Do you think that I’m right to rant?

Trisha Lewis: Yeah, it is very, very personal.  Of course, the hours and hours that we put into our businesses as business owners, how can it be anything other than personal.  Obviously, the whole advice, and it is absolutely true that when you’re doing things like thinking about your branding and all the rest of it, and your messaging and your mission, you do have to be able, if you’re a solo entrepreneur, be able to step out and look at it objectively, and obviously think about why you’re doing it for those people, etc.  So, it can’t just be one big personal mess, that’s not what we’re saying. 

But it’s in your heart and soul on a daily basis, and it really has to be, otherwise I don’t think you’d be getting up with the motivation when times are tough.  So, yeah, I think obviously, if you’re talking about stupid trolling things on social media, then you do have to learn the art of doing exactly what you did with those two beautifully placed fingers, and brushing it off.  And again, the more unsquashed you are, the more resilient you are to be able to do that, because you believe in yourself.  So, you’re not going to be crumbled quickly by stupid criticism.

Wendy Harris: Well, I think there’s a differential as well between being employed and working for yourself, and that is that you don’t clock in at 9.00am and clock out at 5.00pm, it’s an intrinsic part of your whole makeup, 24/7, 365 days a year, even when you’re on holiday and you’re really trying to do your best to have a holiday; you just can’t help it.  But if you’re going to be that connected to your business, then there are certain skills that you need to learn, and it is about making sure that you are the best version of you in your business, so that whatever it is that is taking over those braincells and that energy is all put to positive use.

Trisha Lewis: Thumbs up.

Wendy Harris: Thumbs up for that, yes.  Trisha, I know we could talk for the three days until your nose is better, but I’m conscious of time.  This is the part that I love, and I know the listeners do too.  It’s where I get to say, Trisha Lewis, please share that pivotal conversation that you recall creating a turning point in your life, please?

Trisha Lewis: Well, it’s all going to sound as if it’s a bit too joined up this, Wendy.  Honestly, I went through hell and back trying to figure this one out, because I’m 65 this year, I’ve had a lot of conversations!  And I’ve had some enriching ones, I’ve had some horrible ones, I’ve had ones that have been pivotal, but they’ve been in a darker place and I thought, no, no.  So, this choice is not just because it links to the book and everything we’ve just talked about, it’s because it was definitely a turning point.

So, interestingly, it involves one of your other guests, called Janine Coombes, and it also involves somebody called John Espirian, who I suspect listeners will know.  I’m a member of a group called You Are The Media.

Wendy Harris: Mark Masters, love his newsletter.

Trisha Lewis: Yeah, Mark Masters.  Huge, big networking, it’s just a community, it’s fabulous, it’s global, it’s gorgeous, but it started locally where I live.  And I found this community after really struggling with business networking, which is what I thought — “should” trap — I thought I should be doing when I leapt from the world of acting into the world of business, when I set up my coaching business.  I was out of my comfort zone, didn’t feel good, going to the events I thought, “What’s going on?”  I realised, of course, you hide that, I wasn’t being me, for fear of being judged as a show-off, so all of that was happening without me realising it.

I found this group, started to feel much more relaxed, and went to the conference thing that he did before COVID, live event, and met people that I’d met on LinkedIn.  This was about three years ago now, maybe; three years ago probably, and I was still very much on a journey, very much.  I was sort of evolving, I was being hit back, I was evolving, I was trying to get my message straight, I was frustrated a bit and thinking not being me quite enough.

Anyway, I get pulled aside at lunchtime, had a lovely lunch going on in the middle of this conference day, by John Espirian who says — this is the first time I’d met him for real, really.  He says, “Trisha, Trisha, you must come and meet Janine Coombes”.  So, we sat down at this table with this lovely lunch, and he said, “I know you two are going to get on.  She does a bit of acting as well in the business world”, and I thought, “Yeah, yeah”.  So, we did, obviously the three of us were having hysterics.  There’s some very funny photographic evidence with some very funny facial expressions.  We just clicked.

But this is the moment where this became something more than just a lovely lunch conversation.  I was being really honest about my frustration that I didn’t think I could get my actor self into the world of business, and yet it seemed so utterly part of who I was.  But more than that, it was a huge part of what I brought to the value I gave to clients, because of everything that an actor learns.  And I’d got a sense of humour and I thought, “I’m not really quite getting that across, what’s going on?”  Janine said, “Look, this is what I’ve done.  I did it and it got me brilliant engagement, it was the best thing I did”.  She did a thing called The Secret Marketing Show.

Wendy Harris: It’s brilliant.  You dress up and do little sketches.  Yeah, she’s ace!

Trisha Lewis: Yeah.  So, John also then literally, they were both at me saying, “Trisha, go on, do it.  Put your full actor self out there, just do it”.  Within maybe a week after that event, I picked up a prop that I had, which was a trilby hat, and I just wandered in front of my tripod and camera in my office, and I gave a communication tip in the style of a sort of 1940s private detective, investigator; the voice, the style, I put some shades on, I think, I had the trilby.  I didn’t even do the coat at that stage, it was the first version of it, and Investigator Lewis was born.

Now, Investigator Lewis then turned up in extraordinary places, in the garage, by the bins, all over the place with these really short, snappy communication tips, because basically a client came to me, this was the problem, I cracked the case, “Hey, kiddo” and so there was a tip.  So, it was a serious tip, but with entertainment, me as an actor.  So, I literally blended the two.  It went on to create this book, The Mystery of the Squashed Self, because in there, you’ve got the investigator as the main character driving the narrative, basically.

So, it got me a huge upswelling of followers on LinkedIn.  If I’d looked at the graph, it would have gone, “Woo!”  So, all my fears about nobody would take me seriously if they see me in this way, it wasn’t me trying to be funny or trying to be clever or trying to be quirky or different, or anything; it was me being me, because I’d just spent a lifetime as an actor, as a performer, as an entertainer, and I’m a professional communicator with a lot of academic knowledge about communication.  I literally put the two together and put it out into the most businessy social media, LinkedIn.  And only good things have happened.

To me, that was more than just, “Okay, I’ve done some nice posts on LinkedIn”, it was the confirmation that I needed that it was okay to be more me, “Phew“.

Wendy Harris: Interesting that Janine, she’s what I would call a revolutionary.  She’s in the resistance, you know, she’s fighting for the resistance of things!  And John is so analytical and knowledgeable about his subject matter.  So, two experts in their own right in their own field, and this sort of thing, just basically turning round and saying, “Trisha, it’s okay, you’ve got permission to do it”, as well, “Now, hang on, so what’s been stopping me from doing it?” and you’ve got to listen to external voices, because you’re not listening to your internal voice.  That’s the key message for us all, isn’t it?

Trisha Lewis: And the other message is, of course, that John is the great connector, but he won’t connect people who he doesn’t see turning up as being real.  So, it wasn’t like I wasn’t being real, I think he could see my struggle.  I think it was kind of clear, I was slightly oscillating in the style of the place I was put in. 

But he had a conversation with me, I joined a group that felt aligned, so all of these things are part of the unsquashing mission, and I was doing this myself because that conversation would never have happened if I hadn’t been constantly curious, constantly knowing that I needed to evolve, that every step back I’d got backup, because I was, “No, there’s something missing here, what is holding me back?” etc.  So, that curiosity is what gets you out there.  You ask questions, you start conversations.

Wendy Harris: Who knew?!

Trisha Lewis: Who knew, exactly, who the heck knew!  And obviously, it was a bonus having us there in the flesh, in real life, because you got the body language and all the rest of it going on, and we were hugging and all those lovely things that we did.  But even still, just being approachable there online in a way that people, like John and Janine, can feel that they can connect with you.  That personal step, you’ve at least got to go there, and that is a bit of vulnerability and all those other things that we know about.

But those people are there for you, they’re not there as a bunch of blinking zombies trying to eat you, you know, that’s the other thing; stop thinking of them as a negative force.  They’re generally, 99%, a positive force if you allow them in.

Wendy Harris: Yeah.  It’s that forensic style that you have adopted, and I can see where that comes from.  And I love curiosity anyway, and when I’m training, I’m like, “If you’re not interested 1%, don’t do it”.  So, it’s having that natural curiosity of wanting to find out more and to be open, to explore and to take on board other people’s suggestions and things as well.  And I know that certainly, I’m personally going through this, kind of trying to figure out the now, how I want to go about something.  I’ve kind of exhausted how I felt about some of the posts that I was doing, and how I was presenting myself, so I know that I’ve kind of…

It’s growing pains, and it’s not just limited to being a new business or an established business or a kid of 13, these growing pains are just another layer, isn’t it, of where you’re going?

Trisha Lewis: Well, I’ll just literally give you the sentence that I was going to share at one of the sort of darker surrounding pivotal conversations, because you’ve literally touched on it.  I have been married more than once, but my second husband — I’m now on my third, okay!  Most people know that, very happy, been together for years and years.

But my second husband, I’m very good friends with, but there was this moment where it was a definite tipping point where he said something like, and I won’t put on a northern accent but, “I am who I am, and that’s it”.  That, to me, was a real clash of deep value difference, because what you’ve just said is how I feel, which is I am still evolving, I am still becoming, to use Michelle Obama’s book title, I am still on that journey, and I aim to be on it until my last breath.

Wendy Harris: Well, that’s interesting, because my now second husband says, “I don’t think I’ve changed”, and we’ve been together 20-odd years, and I said, “Oh yes, you have.  You’re just in denial!”  And I hope to goodness that I have changed.  The fundamentals want to stay the same, fundamentally, I want to stay the same person, but I know I have grown, and that’s what we should all strive for.  What is it they say, “You’re a long time dead, learn something new every day, embrace it”.  Yes!  Trisha, thank you so much for sharing and for bringing Janine back into the show, I think it’s great.

Trisha Lewis: She actually wrote the forward in my book as well, so we’re pretty much soul sisters, yeah.  And there are so many fabulous people I’ve met on this journey, including yourself, so thank you for having me on.

Wendy Harris: No, honestly, it’s been my absolute pleasure.  I really do believe that listeners will get a lot out of going, “I need to be asking myself some questions”, so that’s great.  But once they start asking those questions, it’s likely that they’re going to need to ask somebody.  So, Trisha, if they need to come and find you, where’s the best place for them to come and find you?

Trisha Lewis: If you really want to get to know the sort of stuff I put out there, and definitely I want you there with me on LinkedIn, okay, my website is actually pretty good, and I think now reasonably easy to follow, but you can just go straight into the Discovery Call thing, because hopefully you will have got the impression from this that I am very easy to have a conversation with.  I do short one-to-ones and I do longer programmes, but it all starts with you. 

So, yeah, that’s what I like best, is just get to know me, or direct message me on LinkedIn, or just spend a while behind the scenes looking at my stuff on LinkedIn, on my website.  But please, please, just get that conversation happening.

Wendy Harris: Well, we don’t mind nice stalkers, do we, Trisha, we don’t mind that?  And you are what I would call a WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get.  So, I do hope that people do carry on that conversation with you, Trisha, thank you.

Isn’t it great when you get the opportunity to have a good old chinwag with a fellow WYSIWYG, like Trisha Lewis?  The key moment for me in all of that was just how important it is for us to align ourselves with ourselves and with a like-minded community.  So, please, do carry on the conversation with Trisha.  On our website, we have put up a free resource from Trisha, “More you in your content”.  There are also her social media links, so that you can, just in a couple of clicks, be starting the conversation with Trisha.

We’d love to hear your key takeaways, so please do drop us a line on the show or leave us a review on your favourite platform.  Until next time, when we’re going to be joined by Rob Cressy, seriously big personality.