In today's episode, we reflect back on 2024 and get you thinking about what you want from 2025. This is a great way to bring 2024 to a close and be intentional about 2025 so grab your favourite notebook, a cosy blanket, and a warm drink, and dive into this reflective episode to set the tone for a brilliant 2025. 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

Sponsor my 50th birthday Great North Run to find a cure for diabetes 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the May cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Some of my most popular episodes have been on overthinking and worry and I know from personal experience how much it can hold you back and impact your self-esteem.   So I jumped at the chance to interview Nicole Freeman, who coaches many senior professionals around overthinking. 

In this episode you’ll hear more about… 

• How overthinking is linked to avoiding our feelings 

• The 3 key fears that come up for many of us 

• The signs that you may be overthinking 

• Practical steps you can take to deal with overthinking and build more positive thought patterns 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

You might also enjoy episode 110 ‘How to stop overthinking’ and episodes 122 and 123 on worrying. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

More about Nicole Freeman: 

Nicole is a highly regarded ICF accredited coach working with mid- and senior-level professionals. With chartered accountancy and MBA qualifications as well as experience as an interim FD, business consultant, owner of her own multi award winning business and having run a small family business, she’s commercially focused with strong business acumen, and comfortable across a range of industries. Her background as a top performing audit and transaction senior manager, and then project manager to the UK leadership team in one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, means she’s well placed to understand the challenges those in professional services face.  

Her areas of expertise are around perfectionism, people pleasing and 

procrastination, things common for high achievers. As a trusted confidante, sounding board and thinking partner, Nicole is a natural asset to individuals and organisations keen to unlock their full potential through coaching. 

Nicole’s website: www.nicolefreeman.co.uk  

Find Nicole on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-freeman-coaching/  

Nicole offers a free Mindset MOT you can book at: https://tidycal.com/nicolefreeman/mindset-mot 

This episode was prompted by a request from one of the members of my Women Leading community who asked how she could build more personal resilience around the impact of decisions she was making at work and be a little more “Teflon coated”. 

Perhaps you relate – you need to make tough decisions as a leader but you take things to heart, you care about people and their wellbeing and sometimes the decisions you make can have significant impact on others.   

Or perhaps you are the person who is implementing the decisions that others have made and cascading unwelcome news or making unpopular changes.  You may be involved in a restructure for example or taking a team member through performance management. 

Now, I didn’t want to call this ‘how to care less as a leader’ because I don’t think that those of us who care a lot would embrace the idea of caring less.  Caring, having empathy, being conscious of the impact of our decisions on people - these are all wonderful traits for a leader to have and may well be a huge strength of yours as a leader. 

However, if caring has no boundaries around it then you could be heading towards sleepless nights, self-doubt and possibly even burnout. 

In this episode I’m going to explore 3 insights and 3 tools and techniques to help you if you are someone who cares too much as a leader. 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the May cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Get in touch with me via LinkedIn or my website to chat about how I could work with you or your organisation. 

I’ve got another episode where I am a guest for you, this time I’m talking about how to get your voice heard at work with Aoife O’Brien on her Happier at Work podcast. 

One of the key issues we discussed was the challenge of being interrupted in meetings, particularly for women. I provide strategies for managing interruptions and finding opportunities to speak up, including utilising allies and the powerful strategy of amplification. 

In this episode you’ll hear more about… 

• The impact of gender bias on confidence. 

• Strategies for managing interruptions and finding opportunities to speak up. 

• The importance of integrating body language tools and my "Cloak of Authority" to feel more in control in challenging situations. 

• The significance of delivering feedback upwards in a diplomatic and solution-focused manner. 

• The importance of body language and ending contributions with confidence. 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Women Leading: 

My Women Leading community gives you the support and strategies you need to: 

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations 

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing 

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively 

⭐ Stop people pleasing  

⭐ Lead under pressure 

All for just £49/month  

And if you’re not already an avid listener to Aoife’s Happier At Work podcast go follow it now.  She has some fantastic guests talking about all aspects of work. 

We all know we should be coaching our teams but it’s hard to know how to do that without going on a coaching for managers course.  Until now!   

In this week’s episode I interview Jude Sclater about her book ‘Think Like a Coach’ which is a wonderfully practical step by step guide that any manager can use to become a coach-like manager.  Jude simplifies coaching for us, defining it as giving someone your attention while they think out loud and emphasizes the importance of listening and asking questions 

We discuss… 

- Jude’s 3 principles to help you become more coach-like with your team 

- When to coach your team and when not to! 

- Jude’s ‘Two Step’ approach to get you coaching straight away 

- The number one step you can take to create psychological safety in your team 

- How to coach in 5 minutes or less 

- How to support a team member experiencing strong emotions  

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Women Leading: 

My Women Leading community gives you the support and strategies you need to: 

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations 

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing 

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively 

⭐ Stop people pleasing  

⭐ Lead under pressure 

All for just £49/month  

About Jude Sclater: 

Jude Sclater is a coach, author, and trainer. Her book, “Think Like a Coach: How to empower your team through everyday conversations,” introduces the innovative Coaching Two-Step model that simplifies coaching down to its core principles, enabling you to swiftly adopt a coaching management style. 

Over 20 years her career has spanned audit, project management, and learning and development for companies such as Deloitte. Pearson and Penguin Books. She draws on this vast experience to coach and train managers from consulting, legal, and financial service industries, guiding them from individual contributors to great team managers.  

Links from Jude: 

Website: www.thinkwithjude.com  

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/judesclater  

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thinkwithjude  

Blog Signup: www.thinkwithjude.com/signmeup  

Booksellers: www.thinkwithjude.com/think-like-a-coach#buy 

This week’s episode is a little different in that I am the guest and you get to hear me being interviewed for once!  In this episode I recorded for Lucy Gernon’s 360 LeadHERship podcast you’ll hear… 

• The story of my career and how and why I became a coach 

• My top tips on making the right first impression on a new line manager or senior stakeholder 

• How to hold your own and build your influence with the key stakeholders in your organisation 

• Some of my top tips for being confident around senior people 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Women Leading: 

My Women Leading community gives you the support and strategies you need to: 

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations 

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing 

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively 

⭐ Stop people pleasing  

⭐ Lead under pressure 

All for just £49/month  

And if you’re not already an avid listener to Lucy’s 360 LeadHERship podcast go and add it to your follow list now. 

Whilst some women sail through perimenopause, lots of us struggle with symptoms including brain fog, sleep issues, hot flushes and anxiety.  Those symptoms can impede our ability to work, impact our confidence and cause an alarming number of women to leave their jobs. 

I explore this with my guest Emma Thomas, founder of Managing the Menopause and host of the Middling Along podcast. 

We discuss: 

• Why employers should care about supporting women through this transition  

• What managers can do to be supportive of colleagues struggling with perimenopause symptoms  

• How to talk to your line manager about your symptoms and what support you can request 

• Emma’s SENSE model for managing symptoms through lifestyle changes 

• Insights on how caffeine and alcohol impact your sleep 

Emma is also teaching her SENSE model inside my Women Leading community at our bi-monthly menopause gatherings where we meet to share experiences and coping strategies. 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Be Bolder 

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover: 

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt 

⭐ Mastering your mindset 

⭐ Courageous conversations 

⭐ Speaking up  

Women Leading: 

My Women Leading community gives you the support and strategies you need to: 

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations 

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing 

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively 

⭐ Stop people pleasing  

⭐ Lead under pressure 

All for just £49/month  

About Emma Thomas: 

Emma is the founder of Managing the Menopause - her experience in coaching, internal communications and change management make her perfectly placed to help organizations plan and execute strategies to become more ‘menopause-friendly.’ Emma lives in Oxford with her husband and two children, and is also a Director of the Udjat CIC, which operates a wide-range of projects within Oxford and beyond. 

Emma’s website: www.managingthemenopause.com   

Emma’s podcast: www.middlingalong.com 

When I was sent a book called The Emotional Overdraft I instinctively knew that this was a topic that was going to resonate with me personally and you as listeners to this podcast.  

An emotional overdraft is when you as a leader habitually overcome your employer’s challenges at the cost of our own physical and mental health. Sound familiar?

I am seeing this happening a LOT at the moment with the women within my Women Leading community so I was excited to dive into the topic with the book’s author Andy Brown.

We discussed:

• The cost of going too deep into your emotional overdraft
• How to start paying it back
• What behaviours or drivers create our emotional overdraft
• The role of management skills and influencing in changing a culture which relies on people being emotionally overdrawn
• How to approach urgency and filling short term gaps more strategically
• How the emotional overdraft shows up outside of work

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer. And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career.

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge:

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days!

Influence & Impact:

Join the next cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions.

Be Bolder

My Be Bolder 4 week confidence and assertiveness course will be running again in February.  In it we cover:

⭐ Tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt

⭐ Mastering your mindset

⭐ Courageous conversations

⭐ Speaking up 

Women Leading:

My Women Leading community gives you the support and strategies you need to:

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively

⭐ Stop people pleasing 

⭐ Lead under pressure

All for just £49/month 

About Andy Brown:

Andy has over 30 years’ experience as an award-winning adviser and coach for people-based businesses. He’s also a podcast host and the author of Amazon #1 best seller, ‘The Emotional Overdraft: 10 simple changes for balancing business success and wellbeing’ a book for entrepreneurs, leaders and founders that articulates the often overlooked mental and physical costs of leadership

Links from Andy:

Buy the book in the UK 

Complete the free Emotional Overdraft Self-Assessment 

Connect with Andy 

Follow Emotional Overdraft on Instagram 

Get all the latest Emotional Overdraft articles 

Do you worry about what other people think of you?  

Perhaps it stops you contributing in meetings for fear of judgement from others.  

Or keeps you awake replaying conversations in your head feeling like you said something wrong.  

Or it means when you’ve got something challenging to say you water it down to the point where you’re barely making a point anymore.

If any of that sounds familiar then keep listening because in this short episode I’m going to give you some insights and strategies you can use to reduce those worries and allow you to perform at your best at work.

This is the third in a series of three podcasts this summer around mindset so if you’ve not already listened to episode 166 on overcommitting and episode 168 on people pleasing do bookmark those to listen to.   

One of the most powerful things you can do is learn how to say no which is why I’ve created my free How To Say No challenge which will take you from saying yes and regretting it to feeling comfortable saying no in just 5 days. Head over to carlamillertraining.com/sayno to access that.

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, trainer and founder of Women Leading, the community that helps women lead without overwhelm.  I’m on a mission to empower women leaders in the workplace and make leading less lonely.  

And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career.

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge:

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You get a short email containing a short video each day, taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days.

Access it at carlamillwertraining.com/sayno

Influence & Impact:

Join the September cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions.

Find out more at https://carlamiller.co.uk/influence

Women Leading:

You can now join over 40 women in Women Leading for just £49 a month and learn to lead without overwhelm.  It includes peer support calls, group coaching calls, regular menopause events and a live leadership or wellbeing workshop each month on topics including…

• Managing an Overwhelmed Team
• How and When to Coach Your Team
• Reducing Drama in your Team
• Setting and Holding Boundaries

Find up more and sign up at https://www.carlamillertraining.com/womenleading 

You may also find episode 32 Why we look to others for validation useful

Today’s guest Sue Musson has handled many a crisis in her career, including leading one of the largest NHS Trusts through the pandemic.  In this episode she shares what she’s learnt about keeping calm in a crisis. 

We discuss: 

• Sue’s overall philosophy for coping with a crisis 

• How to calm yourself down from the initial state of panic 

• How to keep your team calm in a crisis too 

• The importance of taking personal responsibility as a leader 

• What to do when you don’t know what the right decision is 

• The keys to successful communication when managing a crisis 

Sue shares some great stories from her own leadership experience, as well as her 6 step crisis management framework from her book Firecracker Leadership. 

My name’s Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, trainer and founder of Women Leading, the community that helps women lead without overwhelm.  I’m on a mission to empower women leaders in the workplace and make leading less lonely.   

And this is the Influence & Impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader.  In fortnightly episodes I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. 

About Sue Musson: 

Sue Musson achieved her first board-level leadership role at the age of twenty-seven. She is keen to share what she has learned to help other women build their confidence and impact. 

For 30 years, Sue has led numerous organisations including her own successful businesses under the Firecracker brand. She recently completed her term as Chairman of Liverpool University Hospitals, one of the largest NHS trusts in the country, with 14,000 staff and a turnover of £1.2Bn.  Sue led the trust through a merger, the pandemic and the opening of a new hospital by the Prince and Princess of Wales.  

Her experience of leadership spans the full gamut of highs and lows, which she recounts with honesty, insight and humour in her new book, Firecracker Leadership.  

The book achieved number one bestseller status in three categories on Amazon and became a top ten bestseller in the USA. Firecracker Leadership is endorsed by the Mindvalley Book Club: “We are happy to endorse Firecracker Leadership (which) is a wonderfully written and structured book. It is packed with great ideas and quote-worthy wisdoms…It is a wonderful book that we are happy we got our hands on.” 

Concepts from the book have been featured in publications like Forbes, European Business Review, Elite Business, She Can Code, HR News, Startups Magazine, Training Journal and The HRDirector.  

Having served for fifteen years as a non-executive director and chair of five of the UK’s most significant healthcare organisations, Sue continues her public service by chairing panels to appoint UK judges in addition to running her own businesses. 

Sue’s website - https://www.suemusson.com/   

Sue on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-musson-a0119416  

FREE RESOURCE - How To Say No Challenge: 

If you struggle to say ‘no’ then this free 5 day challenge is for you.  You’ll receive a short email each day containing a short video taking you through the 5 steps of my How To Say No framework. We’ll get you happily saying no in just 5 days! 

Access it at carlamillertraining.com/sayno 

Influence & Impact: 

Join the September cohort of Influence & Impact to learn how to tackle self-doubt, increase your impact and become brilliant at influencing.  It’s a small cohort working closely with me and includes 6 workshops and 2 peer coaching sessions. 

Find out more at https://carlamiller.co.uk/influence 

Women Leading: 

My Women Leading community gives you the support you need to: 

⭐ Set boundaries and expectations 

⭐ Prioritise your wellbeing 

⭐ Coach your hybrid team effectively 

⭐ Stop people pleasing  

⭐ Lead under pressure 

You can read more and sign up here: https://www.carlamillertraining.com/womenleading