How To Be A Strong Leader with Mari Williams

00:00 In this episode of the Team Super Dad podcast, I talk to Mary Williams, leadership coach, therapist, former teacher, and mum of five. Role theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Hey, welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. Great to have you back here. Johnny Jensen, your host and founder of the Team Superdad community. We are a community of dads, dads creating our best lives ever. And in the Team Superdad programs, we focus on focus, fitness, finance, family, and fun, basically in the free community, but also through our success systems and courses that we run.

00:51 So Mary Williams, yes, awesome lady. I met her through the KPI, Key Person of Influence community. And she is a leadership coach, but just also such an awesome woman to hang out with. So easy to be with. She's a mum of five with a couple of divorces in there, or certainly one, which we talk about a little bit in our conversation today. We talk about loads of things. You know, she works with leaders, mainly men, actually. She works with predominantly men, leaders of big organizations and businesses.

01:29 And she's just a lot of fun. Absolutely a lot of fun. So I hope that comes across in our conversation. If you are listening to this for the first time, then thank you for being here. How did you find us? Let me know. And if you enjoy it, if you're multiple times listener, then of course, please subscribe to the Team Superdad podcast on whatever podcast channel you listen to. And most of all, give us a review over at Apple Podcasts. I don't understand why other podcast tools don't really do reviews, but they're so helpful, mainly because they get you ranked. So give me some love over on Apple Podcasts. And of course, share this with other dads that you know. The Hero Academy is launching again in November.

02:12 It's eight weeks, but leading into a 12 months of accountability and mentoring. But if you're interested in transforming the areas of your life, focus, your fitness, your finances, your family, and the amount of fun you're having, then come on over and find out more about the Hero Academy and how you can participate. It's a great program for all dads who are looking to really ramp up their life. And blind me, we're heading into the end of 2020. Good. Be gone, ye beast. But let's have an awesome 2021. I'll see you on the other side. I hope you enjoy this chat with Mary Williams.

02:56 Hello, welcome to the Team Superdad podcast. This interview today is with Mary Williams, a fellow alumni from the Key Person of Influence community. Absolute amazing group of people. And I'm so fortunate to have been part of that. And Daniel Priestley and Dent. And if you want to check that out, then please go and do so. But Mary, good to have you here today, executive leadership coach and therapist. Tell us more about what you do and where you're at today. Oh, thanks a lot for having me on, Johnny. I've been looking forward to it. So I work with 10 to 3 senior level executives and CEO level who basically want life to be better.

03:36 You know, they're sitting in life thinking, this is not quite what I thought I would have, even if they're very successful. So other people might be looking at these people thinking, wow, you've got it all. But inside, they're thinking, this is, you know, there's something missing. It's not quite where I wanted to be. And they're not really sure how to get there. So I work from a very kind of therapeutic background, but with sort of strong elements of coaching and bringing in sort of mediation skills. So it can be anything from, you know, working on their deep self-worth and self-confidence to helping them be a better parent, to helping them be a better partner, to helping them actually manage their team better. So I come with a sort of a huge bag of, you know, tools and tips

04:17 and experience myself. But it's, I really just want people to get to living the life that they want to lead. Yeah. And that's exactly why you're on here because people who've listened to this podcast before will know that's exactly what Team Superdad and the Hero Academy is all about. So you, I love the way the universe draws, you know, the right kind of people towards us. And if people don't believe in all that sort of stuff, then consider it does happen because it's when it's a conversation, isn't it? When you start talking about things, you notice things on people's profiles, you notice posts that they share. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's exactly the kind of the person I want to talk to, talking about whether, you know, you can become be part of the coaching group at the Hero Academy.

04:59 Academy. But also, as a woman, it's massively important to me that we put amazing women, let alone powerful or intelligent or beautiful, just at the real heart of it, amazing women around the Team Super Dad community. Because that's my commitment in life as well. Yes, I'm single at the moment, but that's not how I plan to stay. So continuing that better understanding and knowledge of women. And we'll come on to your post from recently later about menopause and pre-menopause. We just touched on miscarriages as we walked into this. And knowing myself as a business person, as someone who's owned businesses, run teams,

05:40 these things happen in life. Yeah. But then we just go into work and it's like, come on, team, let's like, we're actually inside your in pieces. Yeah. So absolutely awesome. So on this, you know, one of the things for me about Team Superdad is there's that moment where you realize things are okay or things are okay in this department, but not quite in that department. But somewhere in amongst all that is, this wasn't what I planned. This, like, let alone when we're kids and we want to be a racing driver or a scientist or a spaceman or something like that, we still get to post-finish university or we start our first business. We maybe fall in love. Like our plans for what we want to achieve seem to get weighed down by the process of life.

06:26 I know that's common, right? But if you can back that up or tell me different, but like what's the impact of that as well in the people, you know, as you see in people you work with? I think, so to kind of go back to the beginning of that, I think one of the problems is that we've transitioned as a society from people who kind of grew up, got married, had kids, you know, went to work, you're in the same job for 20, 30, 40 years. You know, you finish, you retire, you've gone a few holidays and you drop dead. You know, we've kind of gone from that to being very eye-focused. So actually, I really want, you know, every day to count. I want to have a variety of jobs and careers. You know, I want to live my life. And I think that's the difference. And so I think we kind of grew up with this plan of where we wanted to be.

07:11 And actually, what I think is one of the key problems is that we don't have enough flex in that. So actually, it's in books, it's in movies. It's almost like a cliche, it's like an advertised sort of cliche of this is how you, this is what life should look like. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I call it that, you know, I mean, they say they call it the Disney effect, you know, that we kind of all want that happy ending. And actually, if we can understand sort of, you know, where we're headed. Oh, totally me. I would say I'm totally a Disney girl. You know, it's like I was watching something the other day and there was a, you know, really just a sort of bit of a, not a sad ending, but a kind of a not a happy ending. And I kind of went, why have I just watched that? Why have I just watched this whole series? Where is the happy ending?

07:52 My daughter, you know, the Avengers, not the end game one, the one before, we didn't watch the trailer, so we had no idea. And I always say to my kids, especially when they're a bit scared, right? Don't worry, there's a happy ending. So after three hours, my daughter at the time must have been six. Clearly, my ex-wife was not too happy about me taking to CSC that, but we all want to see it. And she goes to me, well, that wasn't a happy ending, was it? Is that the one where they all evaporate? Like 50% of the people die. Yeah, totally. That's it. That's it. Lucky if to go, there's a sequel that'll be. Just got to hang in the ear for it. But I think that's the thing, isn't it? Is that we kind of do all want a happy ending. We want to be happy. And actually, people kind of disregard the word happy, but it's the only emotion we don't try to move away from.

08:36 If you think of every other emotion, we're always kind of going, great, I'm here, but I want this. And when you get to happy, you're just like, oh, I'm happy. Great. You know, you don't want to move anywhere from happy. So who's right? Who's right? The cynical people out there that say, you and your, I'm quoting someone here, you and your bullshit Disney flipping happy ending or the means of this world are like, no, no, I'm going to make some money. I'm going to fall in love. I'm going to have kids and we're going to live happily ever after. I know there's no rights or wrongs in life, but my view is that it's possible. It's attainable. It's something to strive for rather than accept second best.

09:16 So I agree. So I turn myself to be a positive realist. So I am very optimistic about life. I'm very positive. I believe in love. I don't believe in the one. I think there's many ones out there. But I absolutely think that you can find somebody to live with, you know, long term that you're with, whether it's forever or for 10 years, 20 years, whatever. But I think there's realism that we have to also look at life. We have to take action in it. So I think what I see is people coming out of relationships who are very disillusioned, but actually, to put it really bluntly, they just haven't sorted their stuff out. They haven't gone, well, if I'm routinely picking this type of of personality, this is an issue in me.

09:58 I am attracting that personality, whether I like it or not. And that's what I see in my clients. You know, they come in and they say, I'm bullied by every boss, or I, you know, I pick the wrong partner all the time. You know, that was me. You know, I've had three long-term decade relationships. And if you look at them all, the personalities are very similar. And you don't realize till the end. I know, I know. Like, that looks so different. No, no, they're not. They've just got the same stuff hidden in different ways. When I realized that about my ex-wife and my only other long-term relationship, I thought, oh my gosh, they're not the same. And then you realize, okay, yeah, they are quite fun. Yeah. There's an element of like wildness to them, but then also insecurities.

10:38 So I don't mean that as a slight against them, but I was kind of swooping in because I wanted to look after them and save them. Well, guess what? The slightly wild, independent woman does not want to be saved. You reminded me of something I read recently, and it was saying that in every movie, there's, I can't remember what he calls her, something like the crazy it girl or something. And he basically says she always has to be a bit quirky and sort of need fixing so that the hero can come in and he can fix her. But of course, the quirk of her is that she doesn't really want to be fixed. Yeah, that's me. And then, and then devastated that neither of them. It's fine. I've worked it out now. 46. I'm like, brilliant. Oh, Mary, I think you've frozen.

11:18 Drum roll as Mary. We're waiting for Mary to unfreeze. They call this filling. That's how you're describing yourself. Then that's the issue: is that ultimately, you know, she doesn't want to be fixed and you don't need to be fixing her. So I'm the same as you. That one of the things I did was I picked people who needed fixing because I was over an overcarer and I was an over-carer because my mum had needed fixing. So actually, you know, what I was doing was effectively, it sounds awful, but choosing my mother in different partners as a way of trying to heal myself and my relationship with my mum and trying to heal them. But actually, their personality did not suit me in any way. They didn't support or look after me because, of course, they were my mother and my mother was emotionally distant.

12:01 So I picked men that were emotionally distant. And yet, I'm the most, you know, emotionally intuitive, caring person I know. So I needed somebody emotionally intuitive and caring back. And I picked the opposite. You have to look at yourself and see what's going on in your life that you are drawing towards you. Like you said about attracting, you know, the universe, kind of bringing people together. I believe the universe gives you what you need, but it's whether your need is a healthy need or an unhealthy need. So you have to look at yourself. Exactly. And if there's dad's lute listening to this, saying, This wasn't what I tuned in for, Johnny. Like, it actually is. There's an important message here, which underneath the kind of, oh, yeah, I want to get fitter.

12:41 I want to get better at work. I want to have a better relationship with my kids. There's so much of the internal piece that has to come. And it can be uncomfortable for some people. And they don't have to dig into it in like years of therapy and stuff, but just actually to look back and go, oh, yeah, she was quite like that. Or, oh, I do do that in all my meetings. Yeah. And there's some real opportunities to get a sense of what it's like for the other person, like the person you're managing or the person you're in a relationship with. And I think what you say is right. So, you know, me, I'm very pro-men. You know, however, people want to identify, you know, I identify as a woman and I'm, you know, and I'm, and I'm a heterosexual, and so I'm, I'm very pro-men.

13:21 And I love the energy that men give. You know, certainly, you know, men around me in my business have been incredibly encouraging. You know, men around me in my life are some of my best friends. You know, I think men have a lovely energy to them, which I feel is quashed from quite early on. And we were just talking about the whole sort of big boys don't cry. You know, I'm not allowed to show emotions. Actually, you know, I'm working most of my client load is men. And it's men who are effectively coming saying, I think I'm this really sensitive, intuitive, understanding, loving, caring person. But sort of society or my parents have given me this idea that, you know, I'm not allowed to cry. I'm not allowed to show emotion. I'm not allowed to be vulnerable, not allowed to be all these things. And so I've kind of shut it down.

14:02 And so, of course, then when they're in a relationship with somebody who needs that from them or they want to be a better father, and I see this a lot, you know, parents that I worked with, they don't know then how to engage back into that emotion to be able to respond in an appropriate way. And it just breaks my heart every time I see these men who are these, and I use the word beautiful human beings, you know, sensitive and warm and loving. And I have, you know, I have men sit in my room and say, you know, I don't want to cry. I don't want to cry. I'm so pathetic. And I'm just like, I kind of, you know, almost I love you more when you cry because you're showing me that you're a real human being who has real feelings, you know, and I and I do.

14:42 I respect people who are able to show their emotions, you know, much more than I respect the ones who kind of just sit there, just, you know, not going to cry. not gonna cry. You know, it's just like, why not? This is just a messaging system. Well, especially when things are going wrong, you know, when the pressure's on in work and then your relationship starts to struggle, and then you get back at because it's a stress, and then you're snappy at your kids. It's like, actually, maybe what there is to do is just be like, I'm really upset right now. Oh, hang on a minute. I've got a reason to be as well. What can men do to

15:19 just to say again to people who are listening? I don't plan like lists of questions. I do have a structure around what I think we're going to say, what we're going to talk about, and we get together before the podcast. But I love that our conversations flow naturally. So that's kind of intentional as well. What can men do to like interrogate's the wrong word? What can they do to like have a look at their own emotions, like unpick some of their stress or upset or like, why am I so tired? Why am I so snappy? Like, what can they do to unpick some of that? Like on their own? Like, it's a self-assessment. Okay. Okay. So I'll teach you a tool if that's all right. Oh, yeah, please. So I call it thought strings. And I imagine a piece of rope with knots on it. And what I think is, okay, so let's say you realize that you're angry.

16:05 And so you put anger as your first knot. Now, if you go and talk to people about being angry or you just think about being angry, you're just dealing with the anger. Okay, but odds are, because I think of anger as a symptom of something, that's not what the actual problem is. So let's say I feel angry and I say to myself, okay, so I feel angry. Why? And then I think, okay, I think it's related to that phone call I've just had. Okay, so what happened in the phone call? Someone called me unprofessional. Okay, so actually, unprofessional is my second knockdown. Okay, so it wasn't anger, anger is the response, but unprofessional is the not. So then why did they call me, you know, why does it matter to me that they call me unprofessional? Well, actually, my value is that I'm professional because I want people to be treated equally and it's my job and it's my career.

16:49 So actually, okay, job, career, sorry, people being treated equally is the third knockdown. So do you see how we're already quite far away from anger? Yeah. So you keep working down and actually what you'll find is, well, you know, why do I worry about my job? Well, because actually my job equals my house and my business and my house equals safety and love and protection for my children. It ends up me not being on the streets. So can you see how actually the real issue that I'm angry about is fear of ending up on the streets. If this person's ability, you know, sorry, I'm losing my words. This person's thought of me being unprofessional is true. Maybe I'll lose my job, my house, and my kids and I will end up on the street.

17:30 Now, if I can respond from that, that fear, and if I can answer that fear in myself, that entire thought string disappears. Okay. If I just, you know, walk around the house shouting at people, feeling moody, staying angry, nothing is resolved. Okay. So you see this often with people who've got, say, a fear of presenting. You know, they come in and they want to learn tips and tools about how to speak better. And I'm saying the issue is that you're worried if you present badly, you're going to lose your job, which will put you on the streets, which means you failed. Okay. So actually, we then work back from that. Okay, so how likely is it you lost your job? If you lost a job, what would happen? Where would you go if you had no money? Who would put you up? And you remove that baseline fear because most of us wouldn't end up on the streets.

18:12 So when you remove that baseline fear, the brain then carries that message all the way back up to the top and the top feeling evaporates. Yeah. Yeah, I see people could use that in the reverse way, not the reverse process, but if they're thinking, I want to start a business or I want to change my job or I want to do something bold. Quite often there's a hesitance around doing something bold. You could go through that same process of like, what am I, what am I, it gets the same, it's the same conversation. What am I scared of losing? Why won't I take this risk? What was the worst thing that could happen? Yeah. So what you're doing is your brain is always looking for threat. Your brain is always looking for threat because it's all about survival. Survival. And it sees emotional threat and physical threat as the same thing.

18:55 I know that. Yes, if I'm rude to you or I hit you, your brain just registers it the same. Okay. So actually, the problem is that our brain just has not evolved from kind of cave caveman, you know, saving teeth cat standing outside your cave. It hasn't evolved. So then it's looking at starting my business and the brain goes, oh my God, what if I start my business and it goes down this chain to a worst case scenario? So actually if you can locate your worst case scenario, however ridiculous that might be and soothe the worst case scenario problem plan around it. And that's why I say I'm a positive realist because let's look at the realism of situations. Businesses fail. Yeah, relationships fail. And you can say, if it fails, I will still be okay.

19:37 Because that's the thing that people don't have if they don't have great self-worth. I will still be okay if this marriage fails. If this business fails, I will still. still be okay. Then, what you'll find is that fear line will just evaporate because it comes from the root cause. So, you talked earlier about people needing to be in therapy or something for years. One of the reasons I love the cognitive hypnotherapy that I trained in, as well as the coaching, was I'd done the years, I'd done CBT, I'd done counseling, I'd done three years of psychotherapy, and still I had actually really bad anger, I still had low self-worth. I understood my life and where it came from brilliantly, but I hadn't shifted it. And so, what I liked about what I did was it went straight to the root cause. We're not going to spend years talking about this whole thought string, we're just going to go in and we're going to work on it.

20:20 Yeah, that's so important for men and women, but we're talking about dads here, but it's so important that if you're thinking, oh, well, I don't, I don't want to go and see a counselor, I don't want to go, there'sn't there's a case for doing that, but actually, in a practical performance-related way, whether it's work, whether it's home, whether it's fitness, whether it's parenting, there's a cause and effect. If you can get to what's the heart of what's going on, then you can improve the situation. And people's relationship, their kids work very much like what you've just said. And they're like, Well, it's just a nightmare. We're not getting on, they don't understand me. I'm constantly shouting at them. Actually, what too often what we shout our kids about is what happened to us at work, not what the kids, it's not the kids' messy room, really, it's what happened to us in the workshop, or it's or it's um, it's triggering in you a response that maybe you felt as a child.

21:09 Or, so, so, I know, you know, when my kids leave everything around, or they're, you know, how many kids have you got? Uh, well, I've got five, five, but I was a very young mum, so my oldest three are now 30, 27, and 25, and then I have a 16 and 14-year-old at home. Um, and what uh mix are they? Um, so they're girl, boy, boy, girl, boy. Oh, so you really can answer the our girls harder than boys, which is right. And you know what? I think, I mean, I think, I think each come with their issues, actually. I definitely think each come with their issues, but um, but but but so for me, you know, when what I what I worked out with doing a kind of thought string exercise was that when my kids were leaving things on the floor and things like that, it kind of wasn't that they were leaving stuff on the floor, it's I felt really disrespected, and disrespect, you know, is such a hugely strong

21:57 emotion. Um, and it helps you to understand what's the root cause going on for me and how am I how am I being responded to? Because often our stuff in our parenting, it's it's our stuff, it's how we were brought up. And I can remember because I used to run parenting classes for three years. I mean, to work in schools with parents, right? And, you know, we used to do this exercise on letting go of our labels. And I remember this parent crying her eyes out because she'd been labeled clever by her parents. And she said she just felt awful to be the kind of clever one in the family. She could never not be clever. And so you look at these labels that we give our kids. And the problem is that we kind of grow up and onwards and we become parents ourselves.

22:37 And then we take that. Do you know what I mean? So she would never call her child clever. She'd never say, oh, that's really clever because she didn't want to label her kids. So we're just replicating our stuff. Yeah. Every day and giving them the same rubber. And the issue is that actually the way that you parent is probably the way that you team lead. Okay. So actually, if you look at your team, you are the parent of your team. Yeah. So then you carry your stuff into your team leading and into your job. And if you didn't feel great as a kid, you're not going to probably feel great leading, you know, a company or running your own business. If you've got lack of confidence as a partner, then you're going to struggle to have lack of confidence.

23:14 It's like the analogy I use is if you imagine that your life is a puddle and you are the puddle, if we drop in a stone in the center, it will ripple into every single area right to the outside, whether you like it or not. And so all of those things that you talked about earlier, that, you know, can I exercise more? Can I, can I, you know, can I be really hench? You know, can I, can I have better friends? Where are the activities I want to do, et cetera? You know, whether you deem them to be an outer ripple or an inner ripple, they're going to be touched if you're not confident in yourself. So for me, my view of it was find a therapy that goes in and drops in healthy, healthy stones.

23:53 So take out that lack of self-worth, put in the lack of self, put in a self-worth or a self-confidence or whatever it is you need, and it will ripple out. Because the reason that you don't go to the gym is because you don't value yourself enough to look after yourself to do that self-care. The reason that we smoke, drink, you know, all of these things is because, yeah, we can say I'm busy and absolutely, you know, I do that too. But it's also about value. If I value myself enough to eat well, if I value myself not to drink, if I value myself not to smoke, it's about finding that balance and really loving yourself from the inside. So it sounds really kind of woo-woo and a bit, oh God, you know, but it's self-sabotaging is, I've just, we're just part of the Change Your Game Mastermind and we've just read the big leap.

24:40 and that whole idea of self-sabotaging. There's a glass sealing place on ourselves, and then when we start to butt up against it, we sabotage so that so rowing with your wife, having a fat gut, sniffing coke at the weekend, you know, like these are all that might sound dramatic to people, but I know that there's a lot of things that some dads do and it's like it feels like the trappings of success, but actually it's evidence of self-sabotaging and 100%. Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm sort of running my own podcast. And one of the people I interviewed, you know, he said that they had the trappings of success. They had, you know, the gardener and the pool boy and they had the big house and the money. And he said he was just driving home with his wife one day and just thought, why are we not picking up our own kids?

25:23 You know, and he said, suddenly they just kind of went, whoa. And they literally sold up and moved and downsized. You've really got to do it. I mean, I grew up that way, right? And look into the touchline, see if my dad was there, look into the touchline. And with my story, my journey, my mum dying, all the stuff that happened, like it gave me my plans of how I wanted to parent. But I want as often as possible when my kid looks up that I'm there. And I think that particularly in the way the world works today, that's more and more possible, let alone flipping now when we're in Zoom calling everything. Parents shouldn't feel guilty either about not going to work or about not missing

26:07 their kids' stuff. Because I think that's about that is about values. Yeah. And recognizing where they upset comes from, which we're talking about here, why am I upset about this? What's my feelings? Yeah. But I think, if I can just interrupt, I think it's also really important to understand that actually kids need you to fail. They need you to fail sometimes. It's crucial because if you are the perfect parent, they grow up with this image of I'm going to have to be this perfect parent. And actually, you know, I see people who don't have kids because they're like, I just, I could never be the parent that my parent was. And it literally holds them back. As much as I see people not having children because they don't want to be the parent, you know, the bad parent, they also don't want to aim for this perfect parent because they're already believing they're going to fail.

26:48 And I always say to parents, the biggest gift that you can show your kids is how to fail and how to fail well and how to say sorry. Because actually they need to see that, you know, I remember with my kids that, you know, they used to go to their dad every other weekend. And then just for some reason, we'd kind of got muddled up in what we were doing. And I was due to pick them up. And at like four o'clock in the afternoon, I get a call from school going, are you going to come pick the kids up? And because I had a really difficult mum, the guilt I felt that my poor kids have been sitting there for half an hour, you know, no one going to pick them up was just, it was out of proportion. But they need to know that actually, you know, sometimes my parents are going to be late, but they're still going to be, they're still going to come and I'm going to be safe.

27:29 They need to recognize that failure is okay. They need to recognize also that adult responsibility means sometimes you can't be the one on the sidelines and you can't go to every play and you can't do that. And they need to understand that they can feel sadness and they can feel grief and they can feel, you know, cross with their parent and that they can have this whole range of emotions and yet the relationship can still be really positive. So it's okay. We give our children the power to communicate that stuff. Yeah. Absolutely. Our previous generations, we would, I might speak for yourself, but I would get told off, but not get told, not get told what I've been told off. I'd be totally wrong, but not explain why, you know, and so then you're just left with the experience of I'm really in trouble and I'm not really sure I know why.

28:14 And it brings me to the whole, you know, how we used to say, you're a naughty kid, you're a naughty boy, you know, that sort of stuff. And actually, but we don't tell them what it's done. Or we say to them, if you're good at the end of the week, I'll give you ice cream or whatever. Well, what is good? What is the measurement for good? How do I know what good is? So when I used to teach parents, I used to say to them, you know, be specific, a bit like an appraisal. You know, if you do this, this, and this, and this this week, you know, you'll get your ice cream or your toy or you get your phone back or whatever it is. And, and, and I think it's so important to quantify. If somebody is being told I am naughty or I'm bad, they will take that on as a whole self-belief. Yeah, yeah. Say, your behavior here was not okay. Right now, you're being naughty.

28:56 Yeah, you separate the behavior out and then you can also say to them, you can have the whole kind of moral conversation about, you know, when you bit that kid or when you punch that child or whatever it was. You can then talk about it as a behavior, as an experience they are having and you give them the sense of control over it. But if we're non-specific, it's like someone saying to you, do a good job for the next year. I'll give you a pay rise. What does that look like? Totally. Well, that's powerful in our relationships, in our management of people. And I first heard and learned this in some landmark courses, but just that sense of you're not a bad person. You're not rude, you're not lazy. You're not a crap employee. You're not a shit apprentice. You're not like the worst driver here.

29:38 Like what you did today was a real clanger. Yeah. I love you, but when you said that to me this morning when I left for work, I felt like you didn't love me all day. And that's why I ended up shouting at you tonight. Yes. This is game-changing in our experience of life because suddenly everyone's not against us. Yes. Yes. And it is, it's that ability to work with somebody. And I think that's the key. And I think, you know, you said that, I love you, but, you know, that is a beautiful way to communicate to your child. You know, I love you, but when you do that, you know, when you present that behavior, I struggle because I feel and it's about owning your feelings. I feel this. Yeah. So when you leave your clothes all over the room, I feel upset because I've taken my time and energy to make them nice for you.

30:23 You're owning your feeling because they might not care less that they've left their clothes all over the floor. So if you own your feeling. But the I love you, but is so important because what it's saying is I love you and value you as a person, you know, whatever your behavior, I might not like you right now. I might not like that behavior you're showing right now. And I think, as you said, it's important that we recognize that we're going to feel that in our partnerships too. We're not going to love the person we're with or, you know, like them all the time. We're not going to like their behavior. We may love them very deeply, but it's important to be able to say, you know, when you do this, I feel this. Not, you know, I don't love you or whatever. And I, and we just, we miss this nuance of communication so much and it causes so much damage. Yeah. And slightly jumping off to another subject slightly,

31:09 how in your professional work and in your personal life, you've got ex-partners and dads to your children. How are your relationships with those people? Because that's something that a lot of dads and mums who've separated really struggle with. Have you got a good actually kind of the next book I want to write is called How to Separate Well, because I just think it is imperative to. Do you notice how much I struggle to even say that then? I couldn't even... It's so difficult. No, it's so difficult when actually you want to be like, no, it's possible to get on.

31:46 It's okay to be upset and angry at each other and still work it out. People call it, I'm totally committed to mediation being more about proactive mediation rather than, so what do you two want to say to each other? Well, seeing as you are, no, it's like that. Actually, we're here today to fix some stuff. So how you split up, now you've got a part, the kids are going back and forth between you. How, or what can you say to people and be as share as much personally as you want, but what can you say to people about successfully managing that? And I think for people who aren't separated, they can still hear a lot in this because it's about how do you manage conflict in your relationship.

32:26 So I think what is really key to remember as you separate that this is about the two of you. This is not about your kids. And likely, you both love your children very much and want the best for them. And you just have to kind of almost, you know, root that flag in before you even start the whole process. And both of you have to do that. And it breaks my heart when I see women, you know, keeping their fathers from their children, you know, or disregarding their input in their lives. You know, it literally breaks my heart. And unfortunately, it is, you know, more women, I think, that I see that happening with because it tends to be women that tend to get the majority share of the children, which beautifully now is changing. Yeah. It's important that people remember that it happens both ways. Yes. And it's okay to say more mums do it to dads than the other way around.

33:11 In the same way that it's okay to say more men hit women than I, you know. More men get punched. Yes, they do. It's a different subject though. Absolutely they do. Absolutely. They do. But, you know, certainly from my experience and from what I see around me, women tend to end up with the kind of main share. And I love that this is changing, actually. I love that this is changing. But I think if you can kind of root that flag in of just always almost being able to go back to your flag, when it gets hard and going, okay, you know, kids are prioritary, kids are priority. I think the other interesting thing to really remember is you are about to both behave at your worst. You know, arguments about money, arguments about housing, arguments about the children that you love whilst you're, you know, feeling heartbroken that you've either fallen out of love with somebody because it's still heartbreaking if you're the one who's fallen out of love with them or they've left you and you didn't realize.

34:01 So you're going through kind of almost like three or four traumas at once. You know, kids, houses. If you think about the fact that our housing is, you know, it's our kind of core thing we need is, you know, love, shelter and food. So you're arguing about something which is a baseline, you know, survival instinct. Then you're arguing about your children who you love and adore. Then you're mourning the loss of a relationship and you're mourning the loss of your plan. Right back to what we were saying at the beginning, your future plan. Except that there's a hell of a lot of trauma going on. going on for you right now, and it will bring out the worst in both of you. So, I think that's key. And if you can understand that, what it does is it lets you be much more able to let go of those shirty emails and the shirty texts and the things that are shouted on the doorstep.

34:46 As you know, I recognize that we are both under so much pressure right now, we are reacting from our worst selves. And I think that's the thing that I often see destroy people: they say that person has become this. It's like, no, they are responding from this right now. So, I always say to people, when you're breaking up, almost expect a two-year gap between you breaking up and you getting on with this person. So, my first for me, we are we are having the first couple of sane conversations with each other, and it's five years. Yeah, there you go. It is, it's years, and actually, you may never get there, and it might be about you setting boundaries.

35:26 You know, that's also the sad thing. But for me, it was about recognizing that, you know, my children's father was, and I've been very lucky. Both fathers have been brilliant fathers. You know, the reason I've never, I live in Cambridge, the reason I never moved away because I never wanted to move my children away from seeing their fathers. And I think, you know, for us, it was also really regular contact. So, with both fathers, we had a routine. It was every other weekend, plus every other Tuesday, and every other Thursday, which sounds really complicated. But the idea was they never went more than four or five days without seeing their dad. Yeah, you know, both fathers lived quite close to me, you know, so we have regular contact.

36:03 The first relationship, it was better. We used to go to parents' evenings together. You know, actually, my first husband was the first person who saw my fourth child born, obviously by a completely different father. He was the first one to see her and hold her and love her. And actually offered to, you know, if anything happened to me, if we were both killed, he said, I will take the extra two children to keep the family together. Yeah, wow. So, I think it's about recognizing, you know, this person is an amazing father. Just because I don't want to be their partner anymore does not mean that they are not an amazing father. And that's where our conversation needs to be now. Yeah. And I think being aware of what kind of compassion we would offer to other people in the world, then make sure you could offer it to your ex because

36:46 there shouldn't be much of a reason why you can't offer that much compassion. Yeah. But I think it is also about accepting where you are. You know, if one of your partners has gone off, if your partner's gone off and got another partner, you know, that is painful. Oh, yeah. And trying to force yourself into a relationship with them, you know, that's amicable and friendly when you're going through grief and pain, that's never going to work. So it's about balancing how do I retain, you know, how am I civil with this person? And how do I allow my child to see that we can be civil together? Because odds are your children are going to grow up and have broken relationships. So what's the model you want to show them to resolving that? And anybody who's listening to this is in this situation, it could be grief from a death, it could be grief from a relationship.

37:27 That grief process, is it confusion, joy, upsetting? Six phases of six stresses. I'm not sure what they are. I can pull it up and share it. But if anyone has listened, search up the stages of grief because you think you're going mad because you can't work out one day I was really sad, next I was really happy, and I was really angry. And actually, no, that's real. That is exactly the order it goes in. It's just coming out. So I think, so my key to people is, you know, be fair and stay on the moral high ground. I worked with a client whose ex, you know, had been really abusive to him, you know, very, very abusive.

38:02 And that was why he left in the end. And then continued to be obnoxious through the entire separation. And I used to say to him, Have this image of you standing on a hill and the wind is blowing, you know, through your hair. And that is your moral high ground. And I said to him, every time, you know, you feel yourself dropping down, come back up to this moral high ground and just take a breath and go, okay, moral high ground. How do I want to behave? So this is not about their behavior. It's not about retaliation. It's not about revenge. It's not about tit for tat. How do I want to behave? What do I think is right? What do I think is fair? Because whatever happens, whether you end up losing huge amounts of money. So I've lost, I was actually the one who'd inherited money. So I've lost about £150,000 over three different long-term relationships.

38:46 And actually, you know, part of me is like, that's smart. You know, the other part of that is that. You're the Robin Williams. Okay. You know, but the other part of me is, you know, okay, there's a fairness here that we live together and that this is where I'm going to. And I am always, whatever their behavior, I'm going to try hard to react to my moral high ground. Now, I've sent the shirty texts and the shirty emails, you know, you do because you're going to be emotional, but it's just let it go. Focus back on your kids. What is best for the kids? You have to step over your own feelings and do that. And I would just like to say I did mediation with both exes. You know, one was more difficult than the other.

39:24 The first one was much easier. But, you know, my first husband, he and I, you know, we were friends to the point where I would go around and have a barbecue with him. You know, he nearly died at one point, and I was in floods of tears. You know, it's drifted now because my children are, you know, 25, 27, 30. I don't see him very much. But, you know, the second, the second ex is still around. You know, we chat on the doorstep. We, you know, we had a joke the other day. I sent him a text and I said, What is it with our teenagers and the fact they won't wash? You wash, I wash. Why don't they wash? You know, we just have these little silly interactions. So we're not friends, but we can be friends as well. It's possible. I think that's I think everybody should remember that. It's like, what is possible? What would really work here? And then just keep coming back to what's possible. What's possible?

40:07 Exactly. And just I know you've got some stuff you've got to jump off for, but the just finally, oh, there's so much we could talk about. But in particularly as part of the Hero Academy and my F5 process, focus is in there because fitness, finance, family, and fun, focus is right in the middle of all that. We can't go to the gym regularly if we haven't got a powerful reason enough to. We can't learn how to be financially free if we're not committed to learning of what the different options are. So focus is so very important. When a man, when a dad is in a sense of sort of overwhelm, that could be stressed through success, it could be stressed through things going wrong.

40:52 How do they quieten things down so they can refocus? Because I know from my experience when it was like the business was growing, but it was, but I didn't really have enough control over it. I had trouble at home and things started to, as the walls closed in, everything went wrong. Now, if I could have focused a bit better and got the right sort of support and help, which again is part of my inspiration for everything that I'm up to. But just like I asked earlier, what can a dad do to unpick some of those emotions? When everything feels like it's closing in, how can a dad center himself and focus on what's important?

41:30 What can you say about that? So I think there's a couple of things here. So I totally believe that whether you're leading in your life as a parent, you know, as a CEO, whatever it is that you're doing in your life, you are leading in some way. I totally believe that it will come to the core. And, you know, obviously that informs all of the work that I do. So I think actually, it sounds really silly, but sitting and closing your eyes and actually centering yourself somewhere in you, there is a you that kind of in some sense hasn't gone through all the junk that you've gone through. It's like a kind of pure you, and that you knows what you want and it knows what your visions are and it knows what you're capable of achieving.

42:06 If you can almost sit with your eyes closed, and I tell people, sit with your eyes closed, find that space in your body, put your hand on it and connect with it and just tune into that version of you that does know what is right for you. Okay, so that's the first thing I would say. Just literally spend a few minutes. It sounds a bit woo-woo, but do it. It works. Do you know what? It's important you said both those things here. It is a bit woo-woo for some guys. Meditation seems like, what the hell are you talking about? I've actually got an expert hangout tonight with two media, two meditation people. But I take people back to the point when we were kids, where my boy says, I want to play for Tottenham, I want to do this, I want to do that. He is loving the idea of picturing his future. It's just a game.

42:47 So if that does feel a bit woo-woo for some people, actually, hang on a minute, go for a walk, sit down, get excited about what you do want life to look like. And then come back and start to recommit to it. And I have to say, so I'm not big into meditation at all. I think it's something, it's a natural state we should just be able to tune in and out of in our lives. And I think we will have actually, there'll be those times when you've either just lost yourself in a book or you've stared at the clouds or whatever it is, you know, even just been focused on the football and you've just zoned out everything else. You know, that to me is a meditative state. So that's kind of where I come from on it. But knowing this core of you, being able to tune back in. So I teach, you know, top, top-level CEOs who are in the middle of multi-million board-level negotiations, literally standing in front of a whole group of people they're trying to persuade.

43:33 Just pause and look out of the window, recenter yourself to this place and come back. And they'll just think, you know, you're taking a kind of pause and you look away and you come back. So it sounds woo-woo, but I don't know. I know the best people. The fear is they're all going to think I'm flipping weird looking out the window. Actually, no, they think, oh, what a calm and collected dude. Yeah. Security, confident inside, you're like, oh my God, oh my God, are we on? But, you know, outside, you're just going, okay, and recenter. And I, and I, um, I used to have an ex who played a lot of squash and I could watch him getting more and more stressed as he played because he played quite a high level. And I would sometimes just look at him and just go, re-center yourself, you know, recenter. And he kind of do a, you know, and sent himself back into his game. So that is the first thing. The kind of second, again, it's a tool.

44:17 Imagine you're in the center of a tornado. and everything in your life is just swirling around you. And again, it's visualized, push the tornado out so that you're standing in the center. Because what's in the center of a tornado? Peace. The calm. Peace and the calm and the quiet. So everything in your life, positive realist, we can't get rid of everything in your life. Let it swirl around you, but just push it out. And then just imagine saying, okay, so now I'm in this calm place. All the stuff's still there. I can't make it go away. I'm just going to reach in my hand and I'm going to pull out one thing. And your body will kind of, your brain will just pull out. Let's say it pulls out, what am I going to do about my kids? Or what am I going to do about that team member? Or what am I going to do about my fitness? Whatever it pulls out. Last week, mine was, my car has blown up.

45:02 I don't really want to spend this much money. What am I going to do about it? Exactly. So whatever it is. And the beauty of this exercise is, again, it feels a bit woo-woo, but it's not. What you're saying to your brain actually is, what is the biggest priority right now? And it would naturally pull out. And then you just look at that thing and solution find. This is what I'm saying. I'm so good at that, Mary, is people don't often realize this as well. Our brain is constantly filtering out millions of signals. So our brain is already, when we're walking along, we can hear birds, cars, the sky, airplanes. Our brain is, I say, there's a million things you could hear right now. I'm going to give you 10. And so actually, when we start to take a little bit more control of that and say to the brain, oh, could I focus on problem X for a little bit, please?

45:44 It should come as no surprise that better solutions start to come. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, we have 11 million pieces of data coming at us every single second. And it's, I've just written a whole lot. That's a lot. I've literally just written about this in my book. We can hold four in our conscious brain. I said 10. It wasn't even 10. We are filtering continuously. And so that's kind of my key message here is you've got filters whether you like them or not. You've got baggage whether you like it or not. You've got behaviors, beliefs, systems, et cetera, going on whether you like it or not. So my kind of thought is, you know, if I want to be somebody who's powerful and in control of my life, then actually I need to sort my filters out and make sure that my filters unconsciously are filtering in a really healthy, great way for me.

46:28 If I choose to ignore that and just pretend I'm fine and I'm successful and I haven't got a lack of confidence or whatever, then I'm just ignoring a place where I could grow. I'm literally just ignoring a growth spot. So actually just say, right, I am a person. I want to live my life. I may not even know what my purpose is or where I want to go. I just know I want it to be better. I am going to take control of my filters. And if you do that and you get support, and yeah, I'm totally anti-sitting in therapy for years. I don't like it. You know, I want to get in. I don't want to get on. I'm very kind of, I can be quite a terrible stereotype, but quite male in my thinking. And I'm like, come on, let's move, you know. You know, so for me, that was why it worked. Right. Okay, I've got a lack of self-confidence.

47:09 Right. Let's get in there and work on self-confidence. I don't want to talk to you about how I felt last Tuesday. I want to work on that topic. Yeah, that's probably why you've got a lot of male clients is they like it. They're like, I don't want to talk about this. I want to deal with it. Exactly. I want to deal with it. And so what I say to people, the kind of, you know, the final thing is, you know, if you think of your emotions and your rational thoughts, like telegrams, they are sending you a message. Now, if you decide to discount and tire one side of that messaging system, you're just putting yourself at a disadvantage. If you bring in that emotional messaging system, but you bring it in a way where it's healthy and it's controlled and it feels good, you know, you are ultra powerful because you can do the rational and the emotional in these stressful situations, which means you don't get into such stressful situations because you make better decisions because you're more productive, you're more efficient, you're exercising well,

47:58 you know, life starts to come together. It's that stuff of drop the right stone in the middle of the puddle and everything starts to change. And so that, you know, that would be my key message, whether it's about your parenting, whether it's about your work, whether it's about how you feel personally, you know, go and work out what are the wrong stones that have been dropped in and what are the ones that you need to drop in instead. You know, that would be my big key. You've got filters. Your brain is working to protect you, but it will protect you by going, great, you feel better when you drink or you feel better when you smoke. You feel better when you shout. You feel better when you hit. You know, it's going to protect you by thinking these are positive behaviors that help you when actually there's a negative effect.

48:41 So just own up to it and get on and clear it. Yeah. And it's so important in the world today. There is a danger at the moment that men can feel a little bit like they've lost the idea of what it is to be masculine or it's a bit like, I want to be masculine, but I don't know if I can be. Actually, if you go and find those, all those things that you just mentioned, really own those areas that are important to you, you can be strong in your masculinity without being overbearing in it. And that more than anything in the world today is so powerful where men can shine most. I 100% agree. And I think one of the sad things that I... I feel is that I feel a lot of men have almost felt embarrassed of being men, of being masculine.

49:20 You know, I think it's really, really sad. And I think in some respects, a lot of women have lost the ability to feel feminine. And I certainly know, you know, with me, there's a real push and pull between these two different parts of me. One where I am the kind of, you know, I want to be looked after, I want to be nurtured and I want to be cared for. You know, we all do, really. I also want to be accepted when I'm in my kind of powerful state. Call it masculine, feminine, call it whatever you want to call it. You know, I am a very powerful businesswoman and very powerful in my opinions and my presence. But I still have times when I want to be kind of, you know, looked after and nurtured and cared for. And I think men have that too.

49:57 And it's about us owning both of those spaces. I can be powerful and masculine, but I can be deeply sensitive and emotional and empathetic at the same time. And if you look around at really key male figures, I mean, you know, if you look at Will Smith, you know, he is very masculine as a man. Yet, actually, if you listen to a lot of his stuff, there's deep emotional sensitivity in there. Yeah, he's a great example. So I think, you know, blend both together. And if you know, own the man that you want to be in the same way that I would say to women, own the woman that you want to be. You know, you don't have to fit a stereotype. It doesn't have to be, you know, you're this or you're that. Be everything that you want to be. Not an embattled thing, but a pride and joy and a celebrated thing.

50:39 Enjoy who you are. Yeah. Awesome. Mari, there's so much stuff we could talk about. Do you know what? We definitely will get you back on because the post that you've put on Facebook recently, and I'm pretty sure it's a public post there and probably, yeah, it's about pre-menopause and menopause. And that's we touched on miscarriages as well. And, you know, there's so much about our relationships with our partners, let alone our sisters and our mums and eventually our daughters. As men, that it's why I love having awesome women on the show and around Team Superdad is that we can have a greater understanding and that in its sense it gives a greater, deeper connection with the women in our lives.

51:23 And it's so important. So we'll definitely get you back on and talk more about that. And the Hero Academy, and I can see you being an absolutely strong participant and voice in that as well. What about people who have felt moved to want to work with your or your book you mentioned? I don't think it's coming out, you said, but where can people come and connect with you? So my website is probably the main source of everything. And your podcast, yeah. And my podcast, which is also launching in August. So the website is www.mary-williams.com. And that's done as A-M-A-R-I, right? It is M-A-R-I, yeah. And remember the hyphen.

52:04 And so it's mary-williams.com. I've got the alternative leader podcast, which will be launching the end of August, and the alternative leader book, which is all about how do we lead in as a person, as a parent, as a partner, but in business, you know, how do we lead well from the inside? So it's a kind of a therapeutic self-help business, business coaching. It's a mix of everything in there. And that's going to be coming out near the end of the year, too. So there's lots sort of happening. So come and find me. I'm on most social media platforms as well. And all the links will be on the website too. Yeah, and I'm going to put it all in the show notes as well. So anyone who's listening to this and wants to be able to click something, just go to this.

52:46 You can find me on LinkedIn and stuff as well. So yeah, and I'm always happy to have, you know, I'd love feedback and I'm always happy to answer little questions and things like that. So yeah, definitely feel able to get in touch with me. Yeah. Love it. So much. So I just wonderful conversation. The idea behind proactive mediation as well. So it's so important for people connections in our relationships, deeper levels of communication, understanding with our children. This is just, it's, we've said a couple of times it's woo-woo this and woo-woo that, but actually old-fashioned, perhaps it was in the world we're in today. This is about deeper connection with ourselves and our loved ones and powerful conversation, powerful communication.

53:30 And I think, and I think if you look at everything actually, you know, we used to talk about, you know, communication and things like that, soft skills. And actually, if you look, especially through this pandemic, you know, what have been the key issues, leaders being able to communicate, but, you know, families being shoved together for long periods of time, you've got to be able to communicate. You've got to be able to be emotionally sensitive and emotionally mature. And I think this is the key thing: when you know who you are on the inside, when you own yourself, then you'll do all of these things. And so that's kind of my final message to your men out there, you know, is own yourself, own who you are. Stop trying to be anyone else. Just own who you are and start building that version of yourself to be stronger and even greater. more powerful. And then you two could have a Disney happy ending.

54:17 Come on. The circle of love. Mary, thanks so much. And don't you miss in. I'll see you on the other side of the outro. Hold tight. Brilliant conversation there. Thanks so much to Mary. I love having women on the podcast. I probably don't hang around with enough women to be fair. So the opportunity to chat for an hour, to realize actually just how similar we all are, I think is when you're young, it's really easy, isn't it? You know, you're just hanging out. Guys and gals, boys and girls, men and women, whoever it is.

55:00 But then as we get married and we can't exactly chat up or flirt with as many people, but our circle of female friends perhaps tightens as well. So it is just great to hang out with core women. If you've heard other women on any other podcast that you think would be great to have on Team Superdad, then please let me know. Come on over to the Team Superdad group on Facebook or the Team Superdad page on Facebook. Blimey, you can message me at Johnny Jensen. You can message at TeamSuperdad HQ on Instagram or Twitter. Really, just come on over. Let me know who you want to have on the podcast. And more than that, get yourself into the Team Superdad group on...

55:45 In fact, the easiest way to do that is go over to the Team Superdad webpage, teamsuperdad.com and click on the start here section. And that will link you up to the Team Superdad Facebook group, this podcast, which you've already got, and all the other ongoing fun and resources and events that we're having as part of Team Superdad. Oh, the Dad Call as well. Monday nights, every other Monday night, it's the Dad Call, which is a free men's group for you to come and participate in. It's not streamed. It's not recorded. It's just a safe space for dads. So get involved. I look forward to seeing you there and working together in the future. Spread the love, dads, onwards and upwards. Team Super Dad out. Bye.

56:29 This has been Team Super Dad. Find us at TeamSuperdad.com.