The Importance of Personal Development with Léa Cléret

Dawn Baxter 

Hi, welcome to this episode. I am delighted today to be welcoming a lovely lady, Léa Cléret 

to come to our podcast and talk to me today about what it is like being a hard hitting impactful, female CEO.   Hi, darling, welcome to the podcast.

Léa Cléret 

Hi, Dawn. Thank you for having me, as always such a pleasure to have a chat with you.

Dawn Baxter 

It’s so nice to have you.  So I generally give my guests the opportunity to introduce themselves because I think you guys do a far better job than I could ever do. And do you want to let our listeners know who you are and what you do?

Léa Cléret 

Yes, absolutely. So my name is Léa, and I’m passionate about lots of things. I’m passionate about humans, and right now the role I have is that I am chief executive for a company called Leadership Trust. And leadership trust specialises in experiential learning applied to leadership development. So we use emotions to help people grow their self awareness and develop the skills that compose leadership. And we do that because our vision is to enable positive social impact by revealing possibility and energising change for a critical mass of authentic leaders. So leaders at the moment, we need a lot of very good ones. So our job is to educate as many wonderful people as we can to the art of leadership.

Dawn Baxter 

Love it, love it. And one of the things that I have really enjoyed hearing from you when we’ve connected recently, is the steeped history that the company that you are CEO of, the whole history that Leadership Trust has, do you want to talk us through a little bit about where Leadership Trust came from, and that kind of like steeped origin story?

Léa Cléret 

Yes, got it.  This organisation really is an incredible place to work. It was set up in the mid 70s, by a retired Special Forces Officer called David Gilbert Smith. And in the 70s, the economic situation in the UK was really quite difficult. And he thought that the leadership development training they did for Special Forces Officers would readily transfer to the captains of industry. And now leadership development is a standard thing, but back in the 70s it absolutely did not exist.

So he set up a foundation and the aim of which was to make leadership development, a normal thing that everyone should be educated to. So that job, I think now in 2022, you know, leadership development is something that a lot of people do. But he set up this Centre in the beautiful Wye Valley in Herefordshire, and what I love about this story is that he came with the Special Forces side the leadership development training they did for them, but then he met a wonderful lady called Janet Richardson, and she was a behavioural psychologist. And they fell in love. And so it really is the course that we still run today, it’s the same design as 45 years ago. And it really is their baby and it’s still that design that we’re running today.

What’s particularly interesting for me is that the research in behavioural psychology didn’t exist at that point. To be able to design what they did based on data, but 30 years on, all of the research exists and it’s confirmed that this type of education of using emotion to develop yourself has been proven to work. So there’s something quite magical about the course then. So yeah, it’s had a wonderful history, I think we have more than 80,000 people who have experienced the course. It’s been life changing, the way that it’s designed whoever you are, whatever your skills are, you will have a number of breakthroughs, during and after, and, you know, five years after the third year after the cause. So it’s a wonderful, wonderful place to work in the object of what we do is just so uplifting. When we run courses, you can actually see people going through transformation. And it’s just goose bump moment after goosebump moments. So we absolutely love what we do.

Dawn Baxter 

I love it. And I love talking to you about it. And we’ve obviously discussed Leadership Trust a little bit when we’ve connected last year. And one of the things that I really loved about talking to you Léa, is that I just feel so incredibly aligned to your overall mission. And that opportunity to expand people’s possibilities and give them the opportunity to really kind of figure out this level of self awareness that perhaps they haven’t had the tools to do by themselves. And that’s why I really wanted to speak to you as well, because this kind of theme that I’m running through the podcast at the moment is to give people who are listening, and I have a lot of fantastic listeners that are in corporate roles or are looking to develop themselves in multiple different ways. I want to give them the opportunity to see that actually, there is the possibility for strong female leaders to be there to be making these social changes in the right energy, using the right tools. And like you say, we do have the data, we do have the science now, it’s never been more available. So it’s just a great opportunity for us to use those things to our advantage. In terms of your life and your career, how did you end up being a CEO?

Léa Cléret 

Completely by accident, before I go into that, though, and I just have to highlight the huge quality of the work that you do and, you know, the impact that you’ve had on me, even though we’ve had chats a few times, your energy and the demeanour, and the way you go about your work. It has had its impact on me. So I think you did a fabulous job already in supporting so many to grow into their best potential. So how did I become? Oh, sorry, I think I’ve got a bit of a delay from you. But it’s absolutely heartfelt.

Dawn Baxter

Thank you so much.

Léa Cléret 

So how did I become a CEO? I think it was a bit by accident. Although the person who offered me the job would probably say it was completely by design, that I actually don’t have a background in business at all. And I think that, that is a message I want to put out there,  is that CEO is a fantastic role and I absolutely love my job. And I’ll talk about that a bit after, but my background is philosophy. So I have a PhD in moral philosophy. And what I’m passionate about is how humans make decisions about how they’re going to behave. And the beginning of my career was in drugs. So I was with an organisation called The World Anti Doping Agency. And my job was to understand why athletes engaged in performance enhancing substances. Then it was to develop the prevention programmes, based on the knowledge we’d uncovered through research. And then it was to have an advocacy role with the sport governing bodies to get them to implement prevention programmes. And then I got asked to do the same thing in corruption, so I do dabble in some really nice stuff. 

Dawn Baxter

In order to help people in the right directions, you have to go where the work is, right?

Léa Cléret 

Exactly. So my job was to understand how athletes would get, so a match fixing is one of the big forms of corruption in sports. So when athletes get paid to deliberately lose, and that’s linked to illegal betting. And so my job was to try and get athletes to not do that. And then I had a moment because we were trying to get all of these athletes to behave in a very moral way and then other people in the organisation were, doing all of the wrong things. And, you know, there was a clash in my head of how can I be asking all of these people to behave in a certain way when everyone else is doing exactly the opposite.

So that’s when I started working with Leadership Trust, because I really love the methodologies, I didn’t know them prior to that. But the experiential methodology of getting people to feel certain things, to recognise and be able to anticipate behaviours, for me was really interesting in the case of corruption, because corruption, it’s not something you wake up one day and think today, I’m going to take a bribe, it’s very slow grooming process that the organised crime is very good at doing. So that’s how I got working with leadership trust on this project. And then there was an opportunity that came around to become the CEO of the organisation, and the organisation was going through a massive culture change. And I think that that’s why the owner of the company asked me to take the reins, because it wasn’t so much about the business side of the business, it really was about the culture. And the one thing actually, that made me take the job was this incredible team of women that were already working in the business. And I could see how hard they were working and how competent they were at their jobs. And I was like, well, if we gave them the space to be able to do their job, like, this is going to be fireworks all over the place.

So for me, it was a bit of a scary decision to make, because I had no business background whatsoever. At that point, I had a sort of my relationship with money, I’d never been involved in a professional setting in any revenue generating activity. So you know, suddenly, I’m in business, and it’s about money. And when you’ve been working in not for profit, and non governmental organisations, going to the for profit sector suddenly was a bit of what’s the word? You know, it’s almost a betrayal, suddenly you no longer have a higher purpose, you’re going down to the dirty business making world.

Dawn Baxter 

There is that disconnect and the feeling around it, I have been able to marry those two feelings quite seamlessly. But what you’re saying there is absolutely right, that oftentimes we do feel like you can’t have that moral purpose and be inherently business and financially driven at the same time. That’s such a great point to make Léa.

Léa Cléret 

Absolutely. And I think that people like you and I have got a role in dispelling that myth. Because I’ve worked in, I’ve worked with and I’ve been around, not for profit organisations, that are very toxic places to work with, that have completely lost sight of their purpose. And I’ve worked with for profit businesses that are making a huge difference to the world and are amazing groups of people. So I think in this day and age, we have to be very careful that the structure of the organisation doesn’t predispose the good that’s happening. And I think that the alignment that you can find in some business where the value that you’re generating creates the wealth that goes with it. And it’s not because you’re for profit, or that you’re a foundation that basically, the structure, the legal structure behind your business shouldn’t define the good you’re doing to the world. So that was a long answer to say how I became CEO.

Dawn Baxter 

I love that though, because I think in terms of for females who are looking at their situation, and considering what parts they want to play in the world, especially in a world that’s dealing with the kind of things that our world is dealing with, you know, at the moment, it can, it can be kind of difficult to understand that culturally, there are some things that have shifted, that haven’t quite made it to the masses yet in terms of comprehension. For females to have that opportunity to be part of something that is extremely meaningful to be part of something that is extremely purposeful, and still to be able to make good money and be involved in money and being involved in how money is spent and having power and influence in that space that actually could create some good for the world. And it’s a little bit like taking care of your own little garden patch isn’t it? Like your own little vegetable patch, if you are in your corner of the world doing good things, that’s never going to create bad things. But we tend to have this disconnect between being able to earn money and have influence and power I use that word very loosely, because I feel feminine power is slightly different to again, the comprehension of the stacked, feeling the word power has, but our own power to actually do good things and to do things that we’re passionate about, and to have that autonomy that perhaps we previously have not been – we’ve not had the space to do so for such a long time when it comes to the history of things. And I think in terms of leading with emotion, and leading with energy, these are things that previously we’ve been taught to, maybe not to be proper business, like you have to be have something tangible and practical. And these aren’t, these aren’t proper business assets, when in fact, every time I speak to somebody wonderful like yourself, one of the things that comes through for me is always just this amazing energy this amazing spirit, this feminine energy that that is so powerful and so brilliant for business, but it’s a little bit strange that it’s always been denied.

Léa Cléret 

I know. And I think that’s why the work that you’re doing now, Dawn, is so important to get the message out there, that making money is not a bad thing. That women making money is not a bad thing, and it is possible. And that the more good we do in the world, the more authentic we are, the more we’re going to make a difference. And you’re right, you know, in most of the time when we talk about businesses in the wider media, it’s to say what bad things a business has done, and because of the representation of who runs the business, statistically, at the moment, there are still many, many more men who run businesses. Women, so there’s this sort of picture that we end up having in our head of what business means, which is, it does bad things, and who do I have to be to be able to run a business and that’s a very certain stereotype of CEO and I just can’t commend your work enough to breaking, busting all of those myths about you know, what a CEO looks like you’re looking at one right now, I’m a mixed race woman, I started my first CEO position, aged 36. I had no clue about business, no clue about money. And we pivoted the business, and we’ve done absolutely fabulous work. So where I was lucky, and I think that that’s probably the feminine side is that the reason I joined the company was out of a form of universal love to the team that was already there. And I could see these amazing people. And even though I didn’t have the business side, for me, I just thought, well, I’m just going to work extremely hard to deserve their respect, and to deserve them following me in whatever direction I’m going to take. 

I need to make sure I go in the right direction and I think that if more people knew that that was possible, it wouldn’t be such a stretch for people to start thinking, well, maybe I could do that job. Maybe I could set up my own business. And when it comes to money, I think we see a lot of very rich people at the moment. And we know that the divide in between the very, very rich are getting richer and they’re getting further removed from the rest of us and the more people start making money, and the more people start spending money on doing good things, that the more we’re going to perhaps reverse the direction of travel that we will seem to be going down at the moment.  So I can develop into leading operations like these where you can really end up making a big difference and it’s not so much about the object of your company, if you run it Apple Juice factory and you treat your people well, and you make sure that you’re running a functional business where everyone has a role to play, and everyone is valued. And you’re generating that, well that in itself is a really, really important part of the puzzle, you don’t have to be inventing, you know, clean energy machines to be making a real contribution. And I think that that’s often overlooked, that just being a nice business person is a massive contribution to making the world a better place.

Dawn Baxter 

I love that. And I think that is such a valuable idea for us to consider. Because sometimes we do get kind of caught up in this profound nature of our work. And in fact, actually just being a decent human being, and just contributing, like you said, positively, is actually really, really impactful, and not necessarily too far outside of our comfort zone. And I think that whole idea of valuing your people, I love that because I think that so many people that I’ve come across, one of the reasons why they’ve looked at different opportunities for themselves, or they’ve started up their own businesses, is because at some point in their history, they have felt like they had more to give, and that that potential was being overlooked. And perhaps that that, you know, that person might not have quite felt as valued, as they would have liked to have felt. And I think just simple things like that, that quite rightly, like you say, it’s simple, and it’s easy, and it doesn’t have to have this massive kind of outward impact, but it will still have that ripple effect, it will still have an impact. And for the people who are in that organisation it’s massive, it’s life changing. 

Léa Cléret 

It is, and it really, really should not be underestimated. You know, even if you’re in a small business, if I go back to my apple juice factory, you know, even if you’ve just got 10 people working in your company, if it’s 10 people that you pay properly, that are happy to come into work, it means that it’s 10 people who are better partners, better parents, who contribute outwardly in a better way. And that in itself – job done.  If everyone was like that we’d have, you know, a much better place to be. So I think it’s really not underestimating the power of just being a decent human being is so important.

Dawn Baxter

I’m suddenly feeling like we should be, we should be running for office or something. All of a sudden, I can see lots of things that I feel like we could help the bigger corporations and government structures in our world with, I think we’ve just figured it out. That’s the answer to the universe and everything. Right?

Léa Cléret 

Exactly. So vote for us.

Dawn Baxter

Job done, that’s our 42. Thank you, everybody and good night.  I mean, if only it was as easy as just saying be a decent human. But I think you’re so right in that we can get caught up in whether we are being a perfect version of ourselves and not allowing ourselves that kind of inner compassion and kindness, when it comes to really striving for doing good things. And being better people on a personal level, when actually simple changes like that can make such a massive difference. And I loved what you said about how if you pay people well and they’re happy in their jobs, they are better parents, they’re better partners, they’re better people in the outside world. Because I think that’s kind of like the golden nugget that is so often missed, that if you are the person who is adding to the pressure, who’s adding to the pain, who’s adding to the stress, then you’re not going to get, not only the right performance from your people, the right support from your people, the right energy from your people, but you’re also contributing to all the other external factors that might be weighing them down and changing who the landscape of that person will be. Outwardly as well, so it gives it gives a lot of force to just such a really simple but like you said something not to be underestimated.

Léa Cléret 

Absolutely, and we had an example here. And it was, you know it for me it really highlights the power of you being enough.  So we had a guy come on one of our courses, and I had a chat with him, and he was beautifully candid with me. And he said, well, you know, I came onto the course and my life up until then it had been pretty much easy go lucky, not getting too committed, not getting too involved, sort of breathing through my world. And then he said, but you know, I was adopted and so my inner belief was that I was easily disposable. And my ideas and suggestions could also be easily disposable. So he came on to the course and he had this amazing breakthrough moment. And he explained to me, his return back home, and his little daughter ran up to him, Daddy, Daddy, and he just got very emotional and his wife, what’s going on, and he said, I’m worth something. And from then on he, so, of course, you know, his career got a lot better, he got a lot more involved with work, more committed everywhere else, but he started getting involved with charity, charity that focused on adoption. And he became a spokesperson for the movement, he got very involved in changing some of the legislation about adoption, and he’s had a massive impact on that. And it was really just a matter of him becoming his authentic self, becoming comfortable with who he was, you know, developing that self awareness and learning how to relate better with the outside world. And the direct impact of that was him, his relationship with his partner with his children, and with the impact he’s had on the world, which has led to massive progress in the adoption process. And that can’t be that’s just, I think that’s a total, you know, no further comment.

Dawn Baxter 

No further comment, that’s a mic drop moment. And what I love about that is there’s this theme that I talk all the time, and you probably will have heard me say before, but I talk to my people all the time about the ripple effect, the things that you perhaps can’t always tell that you started, but then has a positive effect on the outskirts. And you don’t have to know where that ripple ends, you just have to know that you were a part of that positive change somewhere in the journey. And I love that, I love that idea that that breakthrough and something that you have provided in terms of that person’s perspective on themselves is so different, that it has made those other positive changes that at the beginning of the journey, you could never have predicted, you could never have forecasted.  And that is such a beautiful thing.

This is one of the things we do in our agency. And with my teaching, which is a little bit unorthodox in the marketing spectrum, is because we use positive psychology as part of our marketing framework, we do not necessarily work on just numbers and metrics. I mean, we do  obviously work on numbers and metrics, because we have to have the data.  And we are just, in our own little world, we are a little science geeks, but at the same time, we really do add value to the ideas of the things that we can’t, right now measure that there are things that are happening that you can’t necessarily get a metric on right at this moment. And we give weight to that, we give power to that because it’s like a little bit like if you’re on Facebook, and you’re posting all of the time, and you know that the reaches a certain amount, but you’re not getting the same level of engagement. You might think well that post is rubbish. We’re looking at how many people had eyes on that and, how many lurkers for lack of a better term had a positive change by seeing that that day.  We can’t measure it because they didn’t do anything with it other than potentially look at it, but we’re still giving value to that idea that something good has happened beyond what we can immediately see. And that’s a very similar kind of ideal and I love that I just I think if everybody had that feeling about what they did, they would worry less about taking the step and take more action.

Léa Cléret 

Absolutely, you’re absolutely spot on and I really love that idea and all the work that you do on the marketing and the sales on the back of it and you know trying into make positive change through that method of marketing, I think marketing is everywhere. And it’s so important that it’s done well and properly. So thank you for that.

Dawn Baxter 

But yeah, it’s just one of those. It’s one of those small themes that make us just a little bit different. And I think, sometimes, especially in our industry, it can be a bit difficult for us to show those things. Because, again, there’s almost like an archaic way that things are done. And if you step out of line of the way things are done, you are rocking the boat a tad too much. And we really, really love having the opportunity to actually completely make our own rules based on what we believe is the right way. And it’s a little bit like what you were saying about the course that was created in the 70s, that behavioural science data, wasn’t there. But there was a trust in that situation, there was a trust in that course. And then it comes it comes through to fruition that actually now that is measurable, and it is absolutely right on which I love that. And I think that there is that whole feeling of that there should be a level of allowing yourself to trust in the things that you feel and trust in, have a little bit of faith in perhaps the things that you can’t immediately measure.

Léa Cléret 

You’re absolutely right. And I think that’s perhaps what you were referring to, a new style of management. And earlier, we were talking about fear, and how a lot of the time fear gets in the way in the fear that we’re not the establishment, or we’re not part of the established way of doing things. And that getting in the way of you actually starting doing the things you want to do in the way that you want to do them, because that’s not how they are currently being done. And I think whatever we can do to show people that business has existed in a certain way, and it’s been run in a certain way for many, many years. As a result of, you know, the world that has it stood, but there are lots of different ways to make business that also work. And we don’t have yet the data to show that it’s true. And that’s where I’m starting to get excited. Because in my job the way I did the pivot of the business, I did it in a completely non finance driven way. I did it purely from a people behaviour team transformation way. And it’s proved to have been incredibly successful. So we could probably have achieved the same way using a different method and probably be more numbers driven. But now I can show you that that way of doing things also works. So yes, of course it can be improved and if I had to do it again would there be things I do differently with what I know now? Yes, of course, but not starting something because of the perceptions we have and the limiting self beliefs that we have. I always love that story with Sarah Blakely and Spanx and how she started and when she used to go and visit, you know, knicker factories, and she turned up and she’d have people with clipboards. Deciding whether knickers were comfortable or not. And then she wanted to do it differently. And everyone was would tell her no, no, that’s not the way you do it. And she did it anyway. And we all know the success of Spanx. And of Sarah Blakely after that.  So trailblazing can be scary, but if you feel it, and that’s what you firmly believe in, it’s always worth a try.

Dawn Baxter 

Yeah, and I love that you whenever we talk about things like this, you’ve always bring it back to that area of alignment. And if you feel it and if you can actually have what is right for you in terms of your energetic capacity, because it can make everything so much easier. If you have that understanding of yourself and what you want to do. Being a thought leader is not easy, and ripping up the rulebook, especially when everyone around you is telling you that this is gospel is so hard. And yet we know from the people that we’ve experienced in the industry and the friends that we have, that now that we’re working in the ways that we do that actually, that can be the genius of the piece, that can be the thing that is missing, and can very often be that be the thing that makes a change in industries that need a change that needed that shake up.

Léa Cléret 

I could not agree more, Dawn that is, I’m going to write it on a t shirt. And I’m going to remember, remember that all the time. And I have so many examples of when I first started, where I had people coming in, I had a lot of unsolicited advice when I started out, and people coming to tell me how to run the business and the decisions that should be made and all of that, and I didn’t agree with most of the advice that was being provided. And it can be very discouraging, and I can understand why people would have the fear that if they do it their own way, it’s just not going to work then. I think it trust your instincts and the way that things are isn’t necessarily the way they should be. And if you can contribute it in a different way and I think that’s a really good reframe that your way of doing things can provide you with the niche that you need to be successful in business and that is really difficult. And it does take a lot of self confidence to be able to do.  Self confidence or just completely ignoring your imposter syndrome, knowing that it’s there and just plainly ignoring it. But the way that newcomers run the sorts of challenges in business, that’s always because they can see a different way of doing things and they go for it. So go for it.

Dawn Baxter 

And I love that because I remember feeling like I had lots of ideas and lots of things that I wanted to do, and not being in a position that I have the autonomy to actually make the decisions and see them through and test them out and do those things. And there’s nothing more frustrating than being that visionary and having the ideas of how things could be and then being stopped or being unable because of circumstance to execute them and give it a try. So I think if you’re in a position where you are lucky enough to have that level of autonomy, and you can try these things and do these things. If it feels inherently comfortable for you, then you definitely should. And one of the things that I think is, it’s come to light a few times for me and let me know if you agree Léa, but I think that sometimes, especially for female leaders, there has to be a level of inner work and self awareness for ourselves, for us to unlock what those things could be aware of where we feel comfortable, and where we actually want to be to make those changes. I know I these things happen to me in my 30s because that’s the age where I started to explore, which seems ridiculous when I say outloud.  But that was that was the age where I wanted to explore who I really was as a woman, and what I was actually going to do whilst I was here, and I started to mature in a way where it wasn’t just about coasting through life anymore. It was actually about figuring out what is my purpose here? What do I want to bring to the table. And that that seems to be a common theme throughout so many of the amazing female leaders that that we look up to, and that we know.

Léa Cléret 

I couldn’t agree more Dawn. I invest massively in my personal development and my continuous professional learning. I absolutely would not be where I am. And I would not have had the strength to do what I did if I hadn’t had the development and the support. So I’m very, very candid with the fact that I have coaches and I have different coaches for different things. I see a therapist once a month. I keep learning new stuff. So I’m taking my pilot licence at the moment, I’m always trying new experiences. I can see your face. Yes!

Dawn Baxter

I’m so excited for you. I didn’t know you’re doing that. That’s amazing.

Léa Cléret 

I’ll come and pick you up. We’ll go for lunch somewhere cool.

Dawn Baxter

That’d be wonderful. I’m in.

Léa Cléret 

But yeah, the personal development, and the support is so key in any form of success because actually, the definition of performance that Leadership Trust uses is that Performance equals Potential minus Interference. So performance isn’t about doing more and finding ways to be able to work harder, it really is about understanding what’s getting in the way of you reaching your potential. And you can do that alone. But it takes a lot of time. And it’s a lot more painful that if you get support you need, so a lot of, often I talk about Roger Federer and Roger Federer is, in my view, the best tennis player in the world, and he has a coach and no one is going to go and tell Roger Federer that he’s got a coach because he doesn’t know how to play tennis, a coach is just outside of you, providing you with information that you can’t see, because simply of where you’re standing. And the support that I got, so the latest piece of coaching I’m doing, which is absolutely amazing, has to do around money blocks. And women’s relationship with money is a very, very complex relationship, because it’s linked to self worth, it’s linked to boundaries, it’s linked to over delivering and undervaluing your, I can see, we’ve all been there. And if I hadn’t done that piece of work

Dawn Baxter

Preaching to the converted.

Léa Cléret 

So definitely in a personal development, and that support, and a lot of the insecurities that limit us in business ventures, if you work them through, with a coach or therapist or you know, whoever you decide to want to support you, all of those just give indications as to, what your blockers are, so you can work on those, you can address the business issue differently. And I know that I’ve had a lot of situations where my initial thought was to go in a certain direction, and then having worked it through, with someone looking at it from the outside, I ended up making a decision that was completely different, which was much better for the business.

And the only reason I was going to make the initial decision when either out of fear or out of insecurity or, whatever other blocker I may have had. So I can’t say that enough, the investment in, in yourself and in getting the user guide of who you are, at the moment I’m flying aeroplanes I’m learning how to play aeroplanes, you can get your pilot licence, you know, sort of within a 60 hour learning period and that’s quite a simple machine compared to being a human being. So who has spent 60 hours on learning their own user guide? Would you go out in an aeroplane without having been given the user guide and being shown how it works? You probably wouldn’t, and I would advise, I would definitely advise against it, but whoever gave you your own user guide, how do you know how you’re set up, what you react to particularly, what’s stopping you, and all of those things. And if, if you can spend a bit of time learning about that, then it’s like, suddenly, you’ve got the keys to your own Ferrari, that’s who you are, we’re all these incredible, incredible machines. And given the keys and the user guide, you know, you’re pretty much limitless as to what you can go out and do and even if what you want to do is have a chilled life, somewhere nice, and not going down the road. And I think that that’s the message I also want to support is that the high achievement, we’re definitely in a in a world of high performance and high achievers, and delivering a lot of stuff. And, I do want to chip back in that it’s perfectly fine, to just be happy at work and find your fulfilment outside of work. And, if you’re not an entrepreneur, that’s absolutely fine. Just make sure that you’re deciding that you’re not just making the decision that you’re not an intrapreneur out of fear. But if you just naturally aren’t, that’s absolutely fine, too.

Dawn Baxter 

Yeah, I love that. And I had a really good conversation, a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently, where we had noticed the rise of the “traumapreneur”, which is perhaps somebody who has gone into that world,  gone into that life based on a previous trauma, whether that be a work trauma or life trauma, that has then given them this sense of lacking in self worth. And by trying to bridge that gap and create this idea that they were a high performance, a high delivering person that it gave them that sense of self worth, because that initial sense of worth was missing. And that just breaks my heart. Because although everybody has some trauma, like we all have some trauma somewhere.  And that’s, that’s just how it is. So who we are.  The idea that the motivation behind it, or the purpose behind it is still in this feeling of scarcity or lack in yourself, as a human, that you’re looking at yourself like, you’re not a Ferrari, that breaks my heart, because the potential is there. And what you said is so right, with the right tools, and the user guide and the keys, you absolutely can be limitless.  There is nothing to stop you. And it’s about figuring out what those real deeper level of intentions are for you. What are the real reasons that you’re doing what you’re doing? Like you said, Is it because of fear? Is there some other block there that’s actually kind of swinging your decision or changing your perception. And these are all really wonderful conversations that I feel like, especially you Léa, we could probably sit here and and ponder this all day, we can probably do a day festival of conversation around this around this subject.  But if you were if the for the women that are listening right now that that are in that impasse in their lives that are considering what is available to them in terms of, could they someday be a CEO? Could they someday have the business that they want? Could they even have the confidence to apply for that new role that they’ve seen that is of interest to them? What would your one piece of advice to those listeners be?

Léa Cléret 

Can I have two?

Dawn Baxter

Yes, of course you can.

Léa Cléret 

So for me, by default, the message to everyone is that you are a Ferrari. Like, that’s the non negotiable truth about everyone is that everyone has and it’s by virtue of being human, we’re just amazing creatures. So, that’s advice number one is that you’re just awesome, so take that as a starting point.

And the second piece is that, for me, the most important is to know what you want. And I think a lot of the time we get drawn into wanting things that we deep down inside, don’t really want. And I think if right now, you’re in a situation where you’re not quite happy, where you are, maybe it’s really horrible, or maybe you’re just lacking the spark. Question number one is really identifying ultra clearly what you want. And a true version of that, it’s not just oh, I’d like to be an entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs seem to have a cool lifestyle that would deal better with me, it really is what’s your calling? What’s your mission? Because once you know that, it’s super straightforward to get it. And, you know, when I talk about identifying what you really want, it’s understanding that anything is available to you. And it really is more a question of choice, so do you want to be a CEO because you’ve got something to prove? Or do you want to be a CEO because it’s a role that absolutely fantastic. And I could talk about that for hours because I absolutely love my job. And do you not want to be a CEO because you’ve decided that CEO is out of reach for you, and that you don’t look like all of the CEOs that – you don’t look like what you think CEO should look like? Or, you know, do you have a limiting belief about that? So if you can identify, honestly, truthfully, authentically what you really want, it’s 100%, yours for the taking.

Dawn Baxter 

I love that. Thank you so, so much, Léa. I’ve really, really, really enjoyed our time together today. And I know that my Pretties will absolutely adore this episode. So thank you so much for joining me. And I think that’s going to have to be part of our messaging. Now I’m going to have to put that out somewhere that you know you are a Ferrari, I love it.

Léa Cléret 

Or you can be a Land Rover if you prefer off road. But yeah, everyone is top of the range.

Dawn Baxter 

Top of the range,  I love it.  Thank you so much. And I hope that you will join us again some time and I just can’t thank you enough for taking this time with me. And if you’re listening Pretties I will put the details of Leadership Trust and Léa in the description so you can go and check out this amazing company and brand. And again, just thank you so much for joining me.

Léa Cléret 

Well, thank you Dawn, I really really enjoy that.