Mastering Leadership Communication with Shelly Starks

Carolyn: Hi, I’m Carolyn Swora, host of Evolve a New Era of Leadership. This is a podcast where we have leaders tune in weekly to about different ways of approaching leadership, ways that you might not have necessarily thought involved leadership, but we’re here to help stretch those boundaries because our workplaces are hard to exist in without burning out.

So welcome. our guest today is Shelly Starks. Shelly is the CEO of Inline Consulting Services, and she’s been working for over 20 years in the coaching field and in business advising. we’re going to talk today about communications coaching. I’m going to ask her Why she got into that niche area of coaching.

And she also is going to talk to us about a theory and this theory that has really helped her unlock with her clients, some really big things. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Shelly and learnings for your own leadership journey as well.

Hello, Evolve listeners. Really excited to be bringing you another episode of Evolve, a new era of leadership.

And this week we are going to be talking to Shelley Starks. Shelley, welcome to the show. Thank you, Carolyn. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah. Now I don’t remember how we met but I do know that your passion, your tenacity and the work that you do with your clients around coaching.

I really enjoyed our sort of intro conversation. I thought this is like an energy of somebody that I want to have on the show. And then we started talking about some different ideas. So where we’re going to go today. So our audience knows is around role and identity theory. So , tell us a little bit about why leadership.

Is of interest to you and what you do in your job. 

Shelley: Sure. So I actually have done a lot of different things. I’ve not had a linear career path and some of the people listening will probably relate to that. And for whatever reason, I just need to say, that’s okay, because you end up finding your way to where you’re supposed to be.

And when something lights you up, You got to follow that because that’s where the passion and that’s where the gifts that you are here to give to people, the thing, the people you’re here to serve, that’s where you’re going to be able to find those people that you’re here to serve.

And this is what happened with communications coaching. I had done a lot of different types of coaching, you know, leadership. I had done sales coaching, all kinds. And. I liked it, but what really lit me up was when I was able to give people tools on how to communicate. So how does someone problem solve, make decisions, you know, discuss things with you.

And if you can figure out how that other person communicates, and then just even in that moment, figure out how to communicate to them and their behavioral style, their defensive gates go down. There’s magic. It’s literally like an emotional intelligence level raises in that individual conversation.

And you’re going to see a different result. And so I thought, you know what, there’s just not enough people practicing this. This isn’t a very old thing that’s been out. It’s not like it’s something new, but we’re not using it, especially in leadership roles. So whenever I finally decided. I think I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up is that I really want to help people learn to communicate and it sounds really simple, but we’re so stuck in the way that we do things, especially as if we get into a leadership role, we’ve got a lot of hats that we’re wearing and so the things that we can go on autopilot, we want to.

And then the things that we have to do that are not the fun things, you know, we only do those if we’re forced to. So when it’s something that’s an internal force, like you need to do it yourself and somebody externally is not telling you to do it. Sometimes you let that go by the wayside and communication is one of them.

Because we think if we’ll just communicate in our style, They’ll just need to get to know me or get to know how I do things, right? Right. Well, you’re only wrong about 60 percent of the time when you do that. 

Carolyn: I love what you just said there, Shelly, around autopilot. So if I’m hearing you correctly, we can leave this autopilot because there are certain things in our day that do need to be on autopilot for lack of a better word, but you know, just not conscious awareness too.

And what I’m hearing you say is communication is not one of those places where we should be on autopilot. And yet how many of us do that? 

Shelley: We all do it. We all do it. We do it with our spouse. We do it with our kids. And especially women and leadership, I feel like there’s a lot of things that they’re doing as well that are not just in the role.

But during the day, you got to be thinking about those things, right? I got to pick up my son at 4 o’clock from practice. I’m going to make sure I get this and this done before I do that. That’s always integrated into what we’re thinking for the day. So it’s easy to go on autopilot on the things that we’re not accountable to ourself on, and communication accountability is personal. 

Carolyn: If you are 

Shelley: expecting somebody else to hold you accountable for that communication piece, that’s never going to work.

Carolyn: You have to own that. It’s such a loaded word accountability. I mean, I do lots of values work with clients and accountability is like, well, they need to be accountable. No, you need to be accountable. So I really appreciate what you’re saying there. So tell us, like, how did role identity theory, what’s it called?

Shelley: Yeah. Identity role theory. 

Carolyn: So how did that show up for you? And why did it become something that you thought was really going to help your clients in terms of coming off of autopilot and communicating better? 

Shelley: When I was in a sales training franchise, You know, I had a lot of clients in that franchise, and we had a lot of tools available to us.

And this wasn’t specific to the franchise. This tool, it’s been around a while, but I noticed when I did speaking engagements, or whenever I did intros to new client classes. That when I talked about this, it resonated with people, whether they were female or male or in leadership or not in leadership. And it started kind of creating a life of its own where I would say, you know what this lady would say, my husband has a sales team.

Would you do their sales kickoff with this? Because it’s something that people can easily digest super easy to digest, but it resonates so largely in the short amount of time that you explain it, that it starts to make you really think outside the box. it gives you some permission to understand why you might be doing the things you’re doing, or why there’s reactive things happening in your life based on some previous experiences that you need to be conscious of so that you are intentionally changing direction on those and changing your mindset.

Carolyn: Right. Now, and let’s, before we get into hearing about itwhy do you think that this is so important in today’s workplace? Like, why do we even really need to give a shit about this? 

Shelley: Well, 1st of all, communication is the number 1 thing that we have in every area of our life regardless of our work.

But the problem is that we’re getting to a situation now, especially after coven where people are wanting to feel something. They want to feel like they’re accepted. They want to feel like they are needed at that role. They want to feel like the company. You know, appreciates them instead of just being a number.

We’re tired of, I mean, we don’t have pensions anymore, Carolyn. So staying at a job for 30 years, company is not going to be able to just hold that and hold people under their thumb with that anymore. and besides that, I feel like we’ve launched after COVID into a new, you know, entrepreneurial like phase of culture that people are challenging themselves to say, maybe I could do something on my own, or maybe, you know, if they feel like they can that courage.

The problem is,is that the organizations that we work for, they’re in the day to day, you know, on the business, like they’re not looking in the business. And so when we have our people on the business is great. But, you know, there’s something that I coach in my coaching program that is called the three legged stool.

the three legged stool is, You can put anything on those legs, but I always start at it with it, with the leadership that we’ve got a client facing leg. We’ve got a bottom line legs of the business, and then we’ve got the internal client facing leg. And if we always, we forget about the people that make it run to handle the other two pieces of that stool.

And if that leg comes off, guess what happens to the stool? It falls over. Yeah, and so then every leg is affected. So you can’t just silo that out. So, if we’re not being intentional about communication with our people, they’re not feeling like you heard and understood them. They’re not feeling important and they’re going to find another place to go.

Your most expensive asset. And your most expensive liability is your people. 

Carolyn: So I’m hearing a real theme of authenticity here. People can sniff through the BS. And so if we aren’t showing up in our communication, being present and authentic, if we’re not showing up and being realpeople just aren’t going to really feel valued or wanted and can pick up and go elsewhere.

Shelley: I also just had a conversation earlier this morning with somebody. She does a lot of psychotherapy type stuff and we were talking about the fact that, you know, even over zoom, we have a 6 cents as humans. And so, if you’re not being authentically, you, or you’re extending yourself into another behavioral style, because you think you need to be effective in that role.

People feel that. And what happens is that we lose trust. I don’t care how much trust you built over time. If they feel every time they talk to you that this isn’t the real version of you, the shoe’s going to drop later. And I don’t know what that feeling, I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I just feel it.

You’re not going to get the best version of your people. 

Carolyn: Yep. 

Shelley: They’re not going to want to be able to give you the best version of them. And when someone spends more than eight hours a day in one role with you, don’t you want the best version of them at some point to show up?

Carolyn: Absolutely. So why don’t we dig into this identity role theory. So maybe top level, what is it? 

Shelley: it is a theory where we are connecting the psychological pieces of who the core pieces of who we are to the roles that we identify as.

Okay. So identify your identity. Let’s just imagine. And if someone has a piece of paper and they’re listening and they want to go over this, it’s visually, this is an easy way to do it. If you just take a piece of paper and draw a line straight down the middle of that paper. Page on the left hand side.

You write the word identity on the right hand side. You write roll on that left hand side. I want you to write the number 10. And the reason is, because when we come into this world before anything else is comes on us and puts pressure on us, or has stress on us, or we mess up on anything we come into this world as a 10.

we come in as a 10 and the 10 being because that’s our identity. That’s who we are. Right. The best version of you like you’re okay. Spirit version that came through, like you were made to be perfect, right? Like that was, that’s what you’re, you were made to have that value.

And it, when we have, let’s put a 10 up there, right? Because I want to identify that it’s a 10 on the right hand side. I want you to write all the roles that you are in your life. Are you a mother? Are you a wife? Are you an employee? Are you a sister? Go ahead and write out all of those roles. Because we, and especially women have, you know, they tend to, those things tend to run together more than men, right?

Men kind of compartmentalize a little bit more, but they actually don’t. there’s a lot of theories out there that, say men actually have a lot of this touching too. They just don’t, they don’t have the capacity necessarily to want to, you know, deal with all of it at the same time.

So they deal with it one thing at a time because that’s their strategy behind how it works. We, on the other hand, as women tend to kind of, Oh, I got to think about that. Well, wait a second. This one needs to take priority. So it’s a different way that we handle it, but it’s all the same. We’re still touching the same boxes, 

Carolyn: Okay. So let’s, so we’ve got our list of all the different roles that we play. So, like partner, parent, daughter, Friend there could be community places we’re part of sports teams and of whatever sport we might like. So, so there’s a lot of different roles, right? We don’t have to confine it to like these big Canadian in my case, like that would be another.

Yeah. Okay. So, so if you’re following along, like Shelly said, you’ve got these two columns. So we’ve got 10 under the identity column and under roles, we’ve got a list of a whole bunch of things. 

Shelley: Yes. 

Carolyn: Okay. Where do we go 

Shelley: now? if you just pay attention to the fact that 10 comes across the line to all of our roles and it’s usually early on roles like you’re a sister or your daughter, right?

Those are early on roles because we added roles as we got older. here’s what happens. We have something happened as a child. We, got in trouble for something, or we hurt our sibling, or something happened that we literally had this thought of. I’m not good enough or I was bad about that because kids, that’s how they process that.

Right. So what happens is that when you, let’s say you were a daughter and you hurt your brother and you got in a lot of trouble for that. Well, that, that role started, you started feeling less in that role as a sibling. You weren’t necessarily a 10 anymore. And so now you started to feel like you just weren’t good enough.

So it comes back across over to your identity as let’s say, it’s a 6. Okay, a 6 comes back over to the identity side. Well, the crazy part about identity and role is role could be independent of identity. Identity cannot be independent of your roles. So, when that 6 comes over, the 6 is going to go back to all of the roles on the right hand side of that page.

You’ve now taken yourself from a 10 down to a six because you’ve devalued your value. You feel like you are the person that made the mistake that is in this. If let’s say you get a divorce. No matter whose reason or whose fault it is for getting a divorce, both of you have to own parts of that. I’ve been there.

No matter whose fault it is. Let’s say you started to feel like a three because your marriage failed. In your mind, my marriage failed. That comes back across over to our identity, but because that is part of our psyche and a part of who we are as an actual person, like we were born as a 10 before all this other stuff came in, that affects our psyche and now it’s coming across to every single role as a three.

Carolyn: so we start off as a 10 and then different things are going to happen in these different roles. And what I’m hearing you say is it’s like a, becomes a permeable membrane where it comes back over. And so then I hear this tone of, like, an inner critic shows up and it brings your overall sort of sense of worth.

It brings it down on all roles. And this is happening on an unconscious level, I’m gathering. 

Shelley: Unconscious level. And, you know, you may not even realize, you might think that you’re really good at something, right? But if you really pay attention, if you’ve had another role, that’s impacting your identity, that’s coming back across over to a different role, you might start doubting yourself when before you never doubted yourself and you can’t figure out why you’re doubting yourself.

Carolyn: And it’s 

Shelley: because it all comes back to our identity. Our identity is the core piece that we have to protect and we have to go and nurture our identity because our identity is not what we do. It’s who we are. So we blend those. You know, you might have been a mom that didn’t work, and when your kids left, you didn’t know who you were, because you were a mom.

we have to start paying attention to the subconscious piece of the identity. And the subconscious piece is, we need to be intentional about protecting that identity. Finding ways to fill our tank, our love tank for ourself. Right to make sure we are nurturing our inner being so that we’re the best version of ourself to all of those roles.

Everybody can relate to this because we all have done it. 

Carolyn: Yeah. 

Shelley: And maybe you lost your mom card. I crack up sometimes. I’m like one time when Abigail was little, I took her to a movie and I didn’t read the previews on it. And it was a really risque movie. And I was like, Oh, lost my mom card.

Oh my God. Cause it’s so true, but you know, I had to be really careful over the years that I didn’t, cause there were a lot of those things that happened in my roles that made me feel less that. 

Carolyn: So, what I’m hearing you say then is that we need to keep them separate and not let them just so now we’re back to intentional and awareness.

And this is where the self compassion comes in, to be able to accept the different roles that we have and recognize, I guess, that different pieces of our identity might show up in those roles, but how do we have that kindness to ourselves to be okay with that?

With all of that 

Shelley: part of the thing is that you need to spend time with you. 

Carolyn: Yeah. And who has time for that? I’m sure your clients tell you 

Shelley: that it’s like, yeah, when am I supposed to do that? Of course. I understand. I own a, I run a business and I have a family and I, you know, have hobbies and things that I want to do as well.

It’s, we always find time to do the things that are important to us. And so if you realize that your version of you is showing up, you know, it’s lower levels, less than a 10, and you’re showing up in every single one of those roles, less than a 10, because you have, you know, you’re allowing that to blend over, what could you possibly be accomplishing?

If that’s your guide, like you, that’s what drives you, what could you possibly be accomplishing? If you were, you know, A full 10 or even if you were a nine and it’s not possible. Somebody says to me, well, Shelly, I’m never going to see myself as 10. That’s okay. But you also need to not be,you don’t need to be the version of you that made a mistake.

And you got to give yourself grace at some point, right? Like at some point it was a mistake and you have to forgive you. 

Carolyn: So I have two questions. The first one is like under that identity column, do you ask your clients to fill out or complete? what frames your identity? What are important parts of your identity?

Shelley: yeah. So when we do this as an actual client, it’s more of a, it’s a longer term exercise. It’s. Yeah, one week because theytake it with them and they are actually, you know, going to be filling out what they feel like is their identity. And it’s interesting because they don’t know the other part of the role side because they don’t tell I don’t reveal that side.

Okay. Always come in with roles. As their identity, because they’re identifying as the role. So that’s the, that’s where the power is on the one or on the coaching, the team coaching is that they’re able to see, Oh, it just like clicks. It’s like, Oh, wait a second. I did it. I identified myself as my roles, but they didn’t talk about things like, you know, it’s important to me that I spend quality time with my children, or it’s important that I my meditation time so that I am, you know, making sure I’m centered for the day and not having all the noise.

They don’t really say those kind of things that are more feeding the inner being, as opposed to, you know, giving you what you need for those roles. So we get confused by them because we are, we identify as the role. 

Carolyn: So what kind of question Do you pose to them? Like, is it like, what is your identity or how do you describe your identity?

What’s that opening question? 

Shelley: Yeah. So typically it’s,if you were to imagine what it means, like to describe what your identity is, would it be, I usually try to give them a pendulum question, like, would it be that you are, you know, you’re this core person and your belief system and like the things that actually get you up and drive you in the morning.

Or is it something where you’re, I’m a mom and I’m a sister and I’m a this, you know, because I want them to see when we come back and do the exercise, they’re like, oh, my gosh,I did that.

And it’s not the wrong answer. It’s just that we’ve literally. Shaped informed our culture to blend the two of them. And now that, you know, it now, you can’t unknow it. Right now you have to separate you have to be intentional about separating them and knowing that 

Carolyn: How does this then tie back to mindful and intentional communication? 

Shelley: So I use a tool called extended disk and I use extended because the extended version of disk because extended actually is you receiving messages that you need to be another style in order to be most effective. So not your own style, but you’re getting messages from somewhere, your family from work from somewhere.

That you need to extend yourself and being in another style to be effective. But what we’re finding is that when we do these assessments, and I’m seeing this huge arrow across the quadrant that tells me Carolyn is needing to be 80 percent in a totally different quadrant than her actual core behavioral style.

She’s probably exhausted. She’s probably stressed. She’s probably in burnout and what’s happening to every single 1 of those roles. Is that those are being impacted by that burnout because now her identity is being linked to the role of her feeling like she needs to be that other style 

to be effective. She’s just extending herself and that doesn’t have anything to do with your actual role in a job and the stresses of that role. That job role could be a wrong role for you in terms of people orientation or task orientation.

But when I use the extended version, and then we’ve done this exercise, they totally it literally clicks for them. Oh, I’m extending myself into another behavioral style. I’m putting a role on myself. It’s causing me to reduce my identity value and it’s coming across to that identity and now it’s coming all the way across to every other role in my life because you’re probably feeling burnt out at work, but you’re probably exhausted at home.

So you don’t feel guilty that you’re not giving your kids the amount of time that you need because you mentally just don’t have it or it just ties all together. 

Carolyn: Yeah. it’s such a great way to say like, Hey, you’re not living who you really are. And it’s taken a lot more energy and now you’ve got some sort of data to help them realize it.

Shelley: Yeah. And usually they’ll sit with that and they’ll say, yeah, you know what? My dad was, very successful and this was his style. You know, and so you got messages as a kid that this is the style you needed to be in order to be effective. What’s happening, though, when you show up in that style, it’s so inauthentic and authentic is a real word there, but.

It’s so not you that you come across as being maybe aggressive or angry or snippy, you are not living in that space where you should be living and communicating in the way you should be. They feel that they don’t know they can’t put their finger on it.

but they know it. 

Carolyn: Yeah, that’s yeah, our nervous system will communicate that and in the co regulatory environment. you must be like witnessing some real ahas for people. You talked about, you know, the quadrant where I’m having to communicate to that example, how does that value get calculated?

Is that like based on a team that you’re in? Or like,how do you know? I hesitate to say where you should be, because I don’t like to should anything, but I guess it assesses your environment, kind of where the rest of your environment is at. 

Shelley: So you want to take the assessment in the mindset of your role at work, because sometimes we show up in different ways and roles at home than we would at work.

And so you want to take it in that mindset when I’m in my job, when I’m dealing with the people at work, how do I answer these questions? Not how do I answer them as a core human, but how do I answer them at work? Because you’re inadvertently going to answer things that are core you, that are authentically you, because those are going to be questions that resonate and you’re going to answer them.

Then you’re going to answer some things that are so far away from your behavioral style. And we’re going to be able to pick up on the fact that is an extended version of you. It’s really fascinating. So when I show the core Quadrant for the entire team. And there’s arrows going all different directions.

I have to say to the leaders, we are going to have to sit people down and make sure they understand who they really are. that’s part one of this process is what is my style? I need to know what my style is, right? Really, truly my style. And then the second version what is my team style?

And then the third piece of this is how do I communicate to them in a style that makes them comfortable? 

Carolyn: Yeah, it’s the team style. That’s what I was trying to understand. Yeah. Wow. I love that method. And how long does. You shouldn’t say how long, what, what happens, what do you find happens with your clients after they’ve had this data, this realization,what’s within their capacity to change?

Shelley: So we don’t just do it in a session and then I’m gone. I usually do three sessions. So three back to back, whether that’s once a month or every other week. And then I do a quarterly refresher, but I leave them With tools, so there’s some accountability to the leadership and the leadership accountability to 1 another so that they are utilizing because of behaviors.

This is a behavior and you have to go into this going. I have to change your behavior. And if I’m not willing to change a behavior. Then I’m not going to see a different result, but I really want to see a different result. And this is why we talk about them and their behavior. And then the behavioral styles of the people in their home when we first do this on the 1st session, because this makes them have a different psychological connection.

Oh, my gosh. My husband is totally like that. Like, well, how do you typically find whenever you ask him a question and he doesn’t answer it. He goes all the way around and gives you a million different details. What does that feel like to you? That’s frustrating to me. Okay. But now, you know why he does it and he needs to do that because he needs to give you all that information because that’s how his he’s processing.

So, once he gives you all that, you just prepare yourself for that. Ask him, because what’s going to happen is as soon as, he may not make a decision in that whole process of telling you all those details, but when that behavioral style does make a decision, that’s the finite decision.

You want to catch him as he’s coming around with all these details, because once he makes a decision, if you don’t like it, he’s stuck.So now you, now I’ve made it personal, like now they’re like, oh my gosh, this is my personal life, you know? I want to do this because I love my family.

They may not want to do the behaviors at work because they’re just that work to make a paycheck or whatever, but they will want to make the behavior change at home and it bleeds over to their, to the business. 

Carolyn: And I’m going to guess some clients want to do vice versa, right? Like they want it to be better at work and it bleeds over into their personal life.

Shelley: Happens a lot. 

Carolyn: so authenticity and anchoring to our identity. Is it’s kind of like a way of defining authenticity right now. And it burns less energy. I’m hearing you say, which means it’s a really fantastic resilience tool to anchor yourself in your identity, not your role. 

Shelley: Absolutely. The other thing is, is that it takes time for you.

That’s when I said earlier, you should spend time with you. Yeah, because I realized as I got older. And this is only since I’ve gotten into my forties. It’s interesting how these different phases of life give you different buckets of wisdom. I was very much a people pleaser and was always doing the, what everybody expected me to do, or what I thought they wanted me to do.

So I extended myself for a good chunk of my career. People loved me. Like they thought I was great. They thought I, you know, I was just not, I didn’t, I was living in a version of me that wasn’t really me. Right and so, because of that, I don’t feel like they got the best version of me, even though they thought they did.

Yeah, and I didn’t have the best version of being for me. After I went through this health crisis in 2022, had a radical hysterectomy. It took me down a path that I. Was not expecting. it caused me to shake my core to say, just because I do something and I’m good at it doesn’t mean I should do it.

and just because somebody expects it of me doesn’t mean that I’m required. So I was able to take this experience and take this 20 years of behavioral analysis, coaching that I have, I’ve been certified in this for 20 years. And blend this together and be able to say, oh my gosh, this was a missing.

I’ve been coaching this for a while, but this is a missing piece for me. And so I needed to go spend some time with me. ‘ cause I needed to learn who that really was. I was living this life because of all my roles. It really wasn’t me. And I don’t, I don’t think anybody would say, oh my gosh, this version of you, Shelly, is so different from the original.

It’s just the core piece of me. Right. 

Carolyn: I’m going to guess, maybe it’s not like visually different, but I’m going to guess the energy, the way that you interact with people comes from maybe a softer place. Maybe you’re more generous, more compassionate, right? Because ultimately I find the way we treat others is ultimately how we’re actually treating ourselves.

Shelley: Well, and I grew up with a mother that had, she’s a very direct. And I am very direct, but not as direct as her. And so when I was as a young professional, I thought I had to be super direct. Yeah. It didn’t come across as being direct. 

Carolyn: I 

Shelley: came across as being bitchy and so I didn’t realize that until a little bit later when people are like, Shelly, you just seem so, you seem so worked up about this, but that doesn’t really feel like something you’d be worked up about.

why are you being so aggressive about that? And I didn’t feel like I was being aggressive. I just thought I was showing up in a role that I was supposed to show up in that style. When I learned not to do that, It was less exhausting for sure. 

Carolyn: Yeah. There’s, you can really see the, you’ve got some new uh, new legs and other stool to talk about if you haven’t done it already, right?

There’s resilience, energy, and authenticity are like three other legs of a stool here. You can use a three legged 

Shelley: stool in anything. 

Carolyn: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a great, a great tool. What advice are, what insight, anything else you would like to share for the leaders listening right now, before we close off?

Shelley: I think that when you start down this journey of figuring out who you really are, there’s going to be some things that you didn’t realize that you were able to do. So instead of thinking this is just going to be hard and I’m not going to like what I see because I’ve been living in an inauthentic space or I’ve had to because of the roles that I’m in, try to give yourself some grace.

When you are going through a period of your journey, it’s a journey, meaning it’s not a destination. It’s, all along the way. And when you discover certain things, you’re going to start realizing certain things don’t serve you anymore. Certain people in your life, aren’t the people that are meant to be there.

The energy changes and shifts in you. And therefore the energy that You attract changes and shifts, and so you got to give yourself a little bit of grace to be ready for those waves of different things coming because it’s going to be different. if you get scared, and you just decide, I don’t want to go there and go back to your old ways, you’re just going to stay stuck in the same exact spot.

For the rest of your career, the rest of your life, and we’re here to do way more than just a job. 

Carolyn: Yeah. I love it. Well, Shelley, where could our listeners find out more about you and your work? 

Shelley: On all the social media platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook Instagram, but Shellystarks.

com is the best way to reach me. 

Carolyn: All right. Perfect. Perfect. Now, before we close out I ask all of our guests three questions that revolve around evolve my book right there, that book. And so are you game for those three questions? I am. I’m ready. All right. Well, the first one has to do with self awareness, which we’ve obviously talked aboutin our conversation today.

Is there a short insight that you can share with us? I always find when we can hear each other’s stories of elevating our self awareness, it leads to other insights for us. So what could you share with us? 

Shelley: Really I thought about this for a while and what I came up was that I don’t serve anyone when I try to please everyone.

Okay. And that I need to be considered in that equation when I’m trying to please people because That’s something I grew up with, but it doesn’t serve me and it doesn’t serve anyone else when all I do is please them. Yeah. Sounds like you’re practicing what you preach.

I try very hard to do that because when I come into coaching, I use my personal examples a lot because I feel like they feel it and they know that it’s not just a technique or a tool, right? It’s really something that can change the way that they come across to the rest of the world.

Carolyn: Yeah. So second question is around rituals, routines, things that you do to help regulate yourself. 

Shelley: We live in Florida and we live on the water and I love the ocean. we try to spend a couple of times a week just watching the sunset, even if I go down to the beach. I go and walk on the sand with no shoes or the other thing I love to do is I do a lot of gardening with no shoes on because I like to ground.

And this just really helps me kind of reset my, you know, electric circuit within my body. But if you ever get a chance to just sit in water is 1 of those things that helps to mute all of the other stuff around you energy wise, and it just gives you a nice neutral feeling. So, if you can float in a pool, be in the ocean, be in a lake, it’s a good way to kind of mute all of the noise.

Carolyn: I still kind of have me back walking along the beach and then I’m visualizing a sunset. And I mean, you can see, I love sunsets, right? That picture right there. I’ve got a tattoo. So yeah, when you’re walking on the beach, think of me this evening or this weekend when you’re there. 

Shelley: Well, we’ll have to exchange phone numbers.

I’ll 

Carolyn: send you 

Shelley: a sunset picture. 

Carolyn: Oh, beautiful. I love sunset pictures. Now finally, last question, and this has to do with co regulationwe are so interconnected to each other and I find music is a way that, that we can feel that interconnection. So my question is, what song or genre of music helps you feel connected to something bigger than yourself?

Shelley: So I actually write and sing music and so music is a big part of my life. But anything with a hint of blues in it. 

Carolyn: So 

Shelley: I feel that soul of that person just really. Kind of turning inside out. And in most cases,the blues, you know, even if it’s not singing about something that was like terrible to them, there’s something that’s connecting to their soul, that they’re like bearing their soul in that.

And it’s more they’re digging to a different level to pull out that sound. And so I like to always put some kind of. bluesy sound to anything that I sing or I write because people like, tell me later, Shelly, I really felt that like, wow, that really, like I got connected to that. And you’re absolutely right about music.

I have a brother with down syndrome, that’s 18 and he’s nonverbal, but any time that there is music around, he lights up and he wants everybody else to be dancing and he wants to be hugging people. And I mean, it changes his entire demeanor, you know, So I love this question because people should be spend more time saturating in music.

Carolyn: Yeah. You know, I had an aunt and she had downs. she was verbal. She lived till she was 52 and yeah, it was amazing. This was back cause she was born in the fifties. And they said that her life expectancy would be, you know, lucky if it got over 20. And so she was such a big part of our family and music.

I just remember she was just so happy and she had this rocking chair. And at the time we had cassette tapes and eight tracks, so she had her little machine right there and she would just listen to the music. And so every time I remember going into my grandparents house where she lived, there would be music playing and this big smile and she’d sing along it’s such a beautiful way to communicate with each other and really to show us how powerful our presence can be with each other.

And it doesn’t just have to be through words. 

Shelley: absolutely. And even when 

Carolyn: there’s no 

Shelley: words, you still feel things, you know, when somebody’s put their signature on a riff or, you know, a piano run or something, you literally are like, oh, I feel that. 

Carolyn: Yeah. Wow. Is there like an artist or a song or like, are you on any of these platforms?

Do people go check you out somewhere? 

Shelley: I am my first album is on Spotify, but my, when I was signed to Universal out of London, I, my EP did not, it got shelved, so the last thing that I had, which was something I wrote called Battle Scars, is not available out there, but if anybody wants to reach out to me and wants to hear it, I’ll send it to you on email.

Carolyn: Oh, beautiful. Well, Shelly, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing everything today with us. Thank 

Shelley: you for having me. I love these kinds of conversations and I just think what you’re doing is incredible for these leaders. So thank you for the platform. 

Carolyn: Oh, thanks, Shelly.

 That was the first time that I have had a conversation with anyone about role and identity theory. And I really appreciate how Shelly has taken a theory, a concept, her own life experience, her professional training as a coach and as a certified disc practitioner. And she’s blended these three things into a really useful exercise.

With her clients, maybe you follow along on the instructions that she shared with us. And if you didn’t, maybe it’s something you can go back to and try it. I know I took a few notes and made my own column of role and identity and that’s really sitting with me. Really so grateful that you have tuned into this episode and I hope you can come back for more.

We release episodes weekly and there is plenty more to come. Also, you can find me at carolynswora.com. So hop on over there, check it out. And while you’re there, maybe you’ll find a few things that you like. Take care.