Episode 388: Journey to Success Through Adversity with Heather Fisher
Just as teams in sports are crucial for success, the importance of surrounding oneself with a supportive and empowering inner circle, especially in personal and business contexts.
In this episode, Adam Stott welcomes Olympic athlete and World Cup winner Heather Fisher, and they talk about her inspiring journey of resilience, growth, and personal transformation. She shares her experience of breaking her back early in her career and how it shaped her path forward.
Heather discusses the mental and emotional challenges associated with her alopecia diagnosis and how these life-changing events impacted her identity and self-perception. Heather has overcome adversity to become a world-class rugby player and Olympic athlete.
Show Highlights:
- Heather emphasizes the importance of resilience and the ability to adapt to challenges while maintaining a forward-focused mindset.
- Setting a “North Star” goal is crucial for staying motivated and navigating through difficulties, both in sports and in business.
- Creating positive triggers and surrounding yourself with the right people can bolster your strength and aid in overcoming adversities.
- Embracing vulnerability and authenticity can lead to personal growth and serve as a tool to connect and inspire others.
- Consistently aiming for effort and maintaining a growth-focused approach can yield success and fulfillment.
Links Mentioned:
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Adam’s website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
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Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
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Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
[00:00:00] Heather Fisher: Broke my back really early on in my career after my first World Cup, broke my back, lost my hair for 15 years now. That was really difficult because that was a real identical shift in who I was, what I looked like, how I was perceived, how I was taken, and the opportunities that were there or not there just because of how I lost my hair.
[00:00:23] Adam Stott: Today, I’m really excited to be bringing on an amazing guest on business growth secrets. We love bringing you super guests that have had all different backgrounds, experiences. And what we were talking about today is a winning mentality, resilience, overcoming challenges. So if you’re a business owner that’s felt like you struggled at times in the past to, Increase your resilience, go and take the action that you need to succeed.
[00:00:47] This is going to be amazing for you. I’ve got this amazing guest who is a world cup winner, an Olympic athlete that has gone out and achieved some amazing things in her career. So I want to give a big welcome to Heather Fisher. To the podcast. Welcome Eva. How are you doing?
[00:01:05] Heather Fisher: I’m all right.
[00:01:06] Adam Stott: Yeah. Thank you very much.
[00:01:07] Heather Fisher: You’d love the word amazing, don’t you? I do
[00:01:08] Adam Stott: love the word. I am. But yeah, absolutely. Absolutely love it. I’m enthusiastic.
[00:01:15] Heather Fisher: Yeah. But on that point, actually, you have to actually believe you’re amazing. Don’t you have to believe to, to even think about what we’re talking about now and businesses and success and that mindset, that growth, you have to actually believe that you’re actually good at what you do. I think that’s the first battle. I think so. The fact that you said amazing at four times. Okay. I’m like, all right, I’m here for it.
[00:01:32] Adam Stott: Yeah. Brilliant stuff. Well, I’m really pleased to have you here. You’ve got an amazing story, right? And I’m really looking to looking forward to hearing more about it.
[00:01:41] Why don’t you tell us a little bit, you had this wide spanning career in sport, been in sport for a long time. Why don’t you take us back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about how you got into sport, how you become a world world Cup winner, an Olympic athlete. It was a bit of info on the journey.
[00:01:55] Heather Fisher: Well, as the start is probably age 13 with a massive dream within. I just want to be Olympian. Watched it on TV. I’m going to tell the short version because I haven’t got loads of time, but short version is I had a vision had a passion, had the fire in my belly, which is absolutely crucial to part of success.
[00:02:12] And just saw it and thought, that’s what I’m going to be and started my journey at the age of 13 in the gym from 13 on a mission to change the world and being an Olympic athlete. Didn’t know it was going to be rugby. I didn’t know I was going to hit anorexia along the way. Didn’t know I was going to end up in hospital.
[00:02:26] Didn’t know I was going to break my back. Didn’t know I was going to lose my hair. But here I am 20 years later with Olympics calmness, five world cups behind me making the transition from sport into entertainment. And you sit back and you go, first of all, we don’t, I don’t really recognize my achievement because it’s just what we do every day.
[00:02:41] It’s just what, you know, what you do every day. It’s just what you do. And people go, it’s amazing what you’ve achieved. And you go yeah, thanks. And we move on very quickly. We actually don’t recognize. Potentially how good it is, what we’ve done or the trailblazing actions that we’ve created or behaviors and the mindset is taken to even achieve what we’ve done because we just love achieving.
[00:03:00] And we just love, for me, I love that fire in my belly to go and achieve and want to do more. I want to do more, but it started at age 13. I’m now 40 and I don’t look it. Thanks, Adam. I’ll take that as it. But it, the passion, the fire in the belly at times it goes. And it’s gone for sure a few times, but the ability to hold on to the bigger picture and what I want is really important.
[00:03:26] Adam Stott: It’s super interesting that you said that you saw age 13 and it was the Olympics that inspired you. What was it about that made you go, this is what I want. This is what I want to do. What do you think the spark was? Can you put your finger on it?
[00:03:41] Heather Fisher: Yeah, well, first of all, there’s a few things. I always felt different.
[00:03:44] I know people out there who feel different. I always felt different. I still do now. I feel different. It’s not people go, yeah, I feel different. You know, if you really feel different. So that was a very young age. I recognize that. I think self awareness is absolutely crucial and underrated in business.
[00:03:58] I think self awareness is one of the biggest skills you can have. So I became like really super aware of myself at a young age. Watching the Olympics then almost made me feel like they were the crew of the crew. They were like, The CEOs in the world, there are, and the money makers, there are people who just have this fire and passion to want to do and be more, not for the money, Adam, and not for the medals.
[00:04:20] Because you never know in sport, you know, we said it earlier, money’s very formulaic. You can see figures, you’ve, you know, you’re out and you can balance it out. In sport, I can give as much as you, it doesn’t mean I’m going to, Get money or get medals. So it’s all about intrinsic, so I suppose, motivation.
[00:04:35] It’s not because of what you’re going to get off the back of it. Right. And for me being an Olympic athlete was the cream of the cream. And I thought in my heart, I knew I could do it. And that’s all the knowledge I had.
[00:04:46] Adam Stott: Hey everyone, hope you’re enjoying the podcast. We’ve got a free training that I’m doing right now online from the comfort of your own home called Stand Out Brand.
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[00:05:19] So you believe that you could do it before you had that strong belief. And this is something that obviously we’ve been training business owners for a long time. And some of the businesses that go or business owners that go all the way to the top, they do have a strong belief and they have that determination.
[00:05:38] And what you’re describing is what I often describe to business owners as like a North star goal. You’ve got a guiding goal and a guiding goal to go and take action and get stuff done, which is awesome. Where did that take you? So when you have a North star goal, it’s like, Hey, this is where I am.
[00:05:55] This is where I want to be in the future. Don’t 100 percent know how I’m going to get there, but I’m going to follow the North Star until I actually do get to that goal. So what twists and turns did it take you on to move you towards? What did you experience?
[00:06:09] Heather Fisher: I think just taking what you said as a North Star.
[00:06:11] I think having a North Star is. Makes life so much easier because you can see the bigger picture. And so when you have those bad moments, you will have those bad moments and you need to be, have to navigate yourself through those bad moments. That is absolutely key. You need to know, you can adapt to absolutely anything.
[00:06:28] However, if you don’t have the North Star, that is okay also, but you have to work it out very quickly. So going back to what you said about what have I navigated my through, I broke my back really early on in my career after my first World Cup, broke my back, lost my hair for 15 years now.
[00:06:45] That was really difficult because that was a real identical shift in who I was, what I looked like, how I was perceived, how I was taken and the opportunities that were there or not there just because of how I lost my hair. So that guided.
[00:07:01] Adam Stott: I think it’s interesting that when you talk about those two things, there’s two very big things.
[00:07:05] It’s almost like the hair had more impact
[00:07:08] Heather Fisher: massively.
[00:07:08] Adam Stott: That’s interesting, isn’t it? Yeah,
[00:07:10] Heather Fisher: we all we judge. Do I believe that we should judge? No, but we do judge it. We have this unconscious bias that we all have and do. And if I asked you, well, I’ll probably know your answer and I shouldn’t know your answer because I shouldn’t assume, but what is success to you?
[00:07:23] Adam Stott: Growth.
[00:07:24] Heather Fisher: Keep going.
[00:07:25] Adam Stott: Yeah. So it’s all about. Growing, becoming more than you were, and, you know, living a life of purpose and growth and keep improving yourself.
[00:07:35] Heather Fisher: So what if you had that growth, but you were homeless? Is that success?
[00:07:40] Adam Stott: Well, that’s security, right? So this is the hierarchy of needs. The first thing in order for somebody to take care of first is survival.
[00:07:47] Heather Fisher: But what if they haven’t? Got that foundation.
[00:07:50] Adam Stott: Well, that’s the first thing they must do is the first part of success. If I was homeless would be the hierarchy of needs. I need to make sure that I can survive first. We will have to go through that.
[00:08:00] Heather Fisher: Yeah, I agree. But how many people in business and sport don’t have that security?
[00:08:03] And so many people actually, who, when I think about success, I think the world sees success as Money and we see successes being at the top of our game, the top two of our game, when it’s Olympic CEOs money, we see all the top, but actually so many people just fall short top and the top shouldn’t just be success because actually some of the best people I know, creative industries are probably here and it’s not about the money, the medals, or it’s about, like you said, the ability to take a risk.
[00:08:32] And grow. But then when you haven’t got the backing or the security that makes life so tough. So to be able to navigate yourself through a new business or a goal of being Olympian or a goal of making the transition from sports entertainment, there are different types of resilience in my eyes. So being able to be adaptable enough to take yourself through these journeys of different types of resilience and accepting this is what it’s supposed to look like.
[00:08:56] But when you accept, we almost become, this is how it should be. It’s like when people go at the moment, Oh, there’s no money. There is.
[00:09:01] Adam Stott: Yeah, of course,
[00:09:02] Heather Fisher: there’s no money and people struggling, but people are still doing well. We can’t sit here and go, there’s no money. There is go and find it. So it’s having enough resilience to go.
[00:09:11] This is how it is. This is what we’re dealing with, but this won’t define us. So for me with my hair loss and what I’ve gone through, my broken back and not being selected, being at my top, top best, not being at top best. It’s almost accepting That I will not define myself by a stat or defining myself by being selected or not selected or a medal but almost putting myself in the position of defining myself on my effort and effort for me is growth.
[00:09:39] And
[00:09:40] Adam Stott: if I put
[00:09:41] Heather Fisher: my effort in every day, my effort might not be a hundred percent, it can’t always be a hundred percent, but I can always aim for a hundred percent.
[00:09:47] Adam Stott: Aiming for a hundred percent effort every single day and staying consistent, right?
[00:09:51] Heather Fisher: In every situation. At the moment, I’m not my best at the moment, but I’ve just come off the back of, you know, another stint of glandular fever, you know, off the back of working in Paris, the Olympics, I’ve been at my absolute bottom.
[00:10:02] Like to come back from Hong Kong last week. I’m really struggling, but it doesn’t mean I can’t show up. It doesn’t mean I can’t be a good person. It doesn’t mean I can’t consciously be aware of my actions and how I affect people. It doesn’t mean I can’t love opportunities. It just means I’m not operating at my 1000 point percent.
[00:10:19] Adam Stott: Yeah. And I think that’s a really good frame because there’ll be a lot of people that are listening that sometimes do feel down and feel like the world’s against them or feeling like they’re trying, but they’re not quite getting there. And then having a reframe. in their mind really helps them. So you’re almost saying that the reframe for you is, am I putting the yards in?
[00:10:39] Am I putting the effort in? Am I doing the things consistently? Because, you know, how has that worked for you? And if we got into let’s take the broken back as a huge example, you know, how did that happen? And what was the, and how did you feel when that happened to you in terms of, and how did you rebuild your resilience?
[00:10:58] It’s almost like a treble question. Yeah. So the first thing
[00:11:00] Heather Fisher: is when I talk about broken back, I say it so flippantly. Like, but actually the risk was being paralyzed. That was a real life conversation. If you go back to playing and I was selected for Hong Kong sevens for England, there might be a risk that you’re paralyzed.
[00:11:13] If I say that out loud and really think about it, that’s really scary. It’s enough to make me
[00:11:17] Adam Stott: go, I’m
[00:11:17] Heather Fisher: not going to do it. But actually I had to know what could be. I had to know, couldn’t go through life thinking, what could I be? And there were people out there who want to succeed and want certain things, but aren’t willing to go through.
[00:11:29] Yeah. They’re not willing to go through it. And you have to face it. You have to go through it to know what you can be. But when you go from, I felt invincible. When you put your England kit on, you put your GB kit on and your badges on, you tuck your shirt in so no one can get ahold of you and you pull your socks up.
[00:11:44] You feel absolutely invincible playing for your country in front of thousands of people, however, you wear a clown suit. You’re just, we’re just entertainment to the rest of the world, but for us, it’s our absolute, it’s our life. It’s what we do. We’re there to be the best we can be. So you are, I felt like I was absolutely invincible.
[00:12:00] So when I got taken out in the air, I went up for a ball, got taken out, pulled the ball back, but landed on my knees and pulled back. So I hyperextended my back and I broke my back in four places and was in a plaster cast from my neck to my waist for two years, a year and a half, took me two years to recover.
[00:12:14] Life changing. That’s Life changing because I was on a machine day and night. I was on rehab five, six hours a day. I had the same song on repeat. I was training in the dark.
[00:12:24] Adam Stott: What song was it?
[00:12:25] Heather Fisher: Emily Sunday. Basically, I was basically about what people see the cloud because it’s almost like what they see from the outside.
[00:12:33] No one knows that I’m on the rise. Only I know that I’m on the rise. Everyone out there doesn’t know what’s happened and no one knows I’m going to come back stronger. No one knows if I’m going to come back actually in here right now, I’m on the rise and I’ll be okay. But when it’s clumsy, the rest of the world thinking I’m okay, but actually I’m not okay right now.
[00:12:50] So it was every Sunday and I had it on repeat the whole time alongside of like positive mantras just in my head positive, because I didn’t know if I was going to make it back, but I’ll tell you what, there was no other option. I think sometimes in business and when people set businesses up, there is no other option.
[00:13:07] This is what I’m going to do, and this is how I’m going to do it. It has to work. And so failure or coming back from a broken back was no option. However, two and a half years later, when I got back to the field and we had an honest conversation, I was as strong as I could have been. And I had to go through vigorous testing at the intensive rehab unit in Bishop.
[00:13:26] I was full time in there. They measure your sleep, your eating your recovery, your blood, everything. And it’s daily got back. And the one thing we hadn’t tested was a chaotic environment, rubbish, real chaotic. So as much as we can test nicely, if someone’s going to take me out, they’re going to take me out.
[00:13:43] And so having a real conversation with a doctor, with my parents, my mom, my stepdad at times, and they said, if you take this risk and play, you are risking being paralyzed. That’s an honest conversation. And I remember sitting there and I said, Asking my parents what they thought and as they’re about to take a breath, I went, don’t worry, I’ve already made a decision.
[00:14:03] I’m going to go for it because I cannot go through life knowing what I could have been. I have to know what I could have been, but then at the same time I lost my hair. And so, was
[00:14:12] Adam Stott: that the stress of everything that was going on? I’ve
[00:14:16] Heather Fisher: always been a bit mad at animal in my training. Like, I’m a bit of a beast behind the scenes and I will put myself through a lot, so when it comes to pitch, it’s always easy.
[00:14:24] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:14:25] Heather Fisher: But I think that combined with my parents went through a couple of divorces that combined with my stepdad, it was like my life.
[00:14:31] Adam Stott: Before we even go there, I really, I actually want to just circle back. She said some really interesting things there. You said she had some mantras, some affirmations, you’re listening to the same song.
[00:14:42] You know, I love that. I think that self awareness and self management, you mentioned self awareness, you know, were there any other routines or habits that just allowed you to keep going? They say that, you know, when you’re going through hell, just keep going, right? Was there anything else that you.
[00:14:59] You did specifically because this is the thing I feel like this for business owners. If they had that awareness of they’re in a cash flow crisis, they’re in a situation with their team, they feel like they’re losing everything. Things are going wrong for them. If they had that self awareness and that ability to manage their mind, that’s the thing.
[00:15:16] That’s the business growth secret that takes them through it. Yeah,
[00:15:19] Heather Fisher: you can’t just wake up and have a mindset.
[00:15:21] Adam Stott: No. This is why I wanted to understand your habitual things and how you got to that. Right.
[00:15:26] Heather Fisher: So I was working with the minds. I’ve been working the mindset coach since I was selected for England early days.
[00:15:30] So probably since I was 16.
[00:15:33] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:15:35] Heather Fisher: And I had to work on it. Started off with visualizing pink elephants crossing the water, believe it or not. So and my elephants kept falling in the water, Adam, because I visualized them not making it. And to the point where my elephants, my pink elephants would fly and I would be, I’d be able to see bigger.
[00:15:51] But that’s really hard to do. Even now I can see pink elephants and they’re dipping their toes in. They’re not crossing the water. And that’s probably a realization of what I feel like right now. I’m dipping my toes in, but I’m not brave enough to step out and go, this is me. When I went through my hardest parts, it was.
[00:16:07] Have the right team around me. And when I say team, I don’t mean rugby team or GB team. I mean, selecting the right people to be in my team. I’m doing it now. My inner circle trusting those, having the right people in the right places and my mentors, people who are going to pick me up from my weakest moments, people who are going to say what I need to hear, but tell me the truth and be honest.
[00:16:26] And then. That’s one skill. So selecting your team and not being afraid to move people out of your team. So if they’re being negative or they don’t actually serve your purpose because you have that self awareness that tells you, actually, every time I speak to them, they get me down, move them. They don’t need to know they’ve moved.
[00:16:43] We just need to know. Second one, alignment, aligning yourself with your vision. So, yes, we’re having a bad moment, but we don’t have to go ignore it, pretend I’m not having it, because I need to be positive. We need to acknowledge it. We need to acknowledge what it looks like, what it feels like and then we need to tune into it.
[00:17:02] We don’t need to latch onto it, but we need to tune into it to understand it, so we can recognize it when it happens again. So we recognize the triggers, and then we can create triggers. So, triggers of positivity and ones that just build us that awareness, so we understand it’s coming if it comes again, because it will come again.
[00:17:18] Adam Stott: Yeah, for sure.
[00:17:19] Heather Fisher: Positive mantras all the time. I’d have quotes written everywhere, like everywhere. Even at home I’ve got a big white wall and I just write everything on it. Everything I’m feeling positive, only positive, all on my wall.
[00:17:31] Adam Stott: Yeah, lovely.
[00:17:32] Heather Fisher: Kind of chalkboard, chalk paint, write it all on. I write it all on.
[00:17:36] And it also shows the journey I’m on. Like, I’ve got to find the sweet spot. I think in business, like, it’s not always about being here. And we don’t really want to be here, but if we can find a sweet spot, we’ve got the balance and we can recover and we can achieve. How many people in business do you know who actually recover?
[00:17:54] When I say recover, I mean, take time out do things that make them happy. We are so consumed because we are the business, but you know, this more than anyone, you can’t be the business. You have to look out and see it from a distance. We can’t be in it all the time. It’s no different, but that’s visualization.
[00:18:09] Another skill you need. Visualizing yourself on the pitch before you even got there. Visualize yourself at the Olympics before you even got there. We will have people who will take videos of the pitch we’re going to go and play on at Commonwealth Games, Olympics, World Cups. So we recognize that we can home ourselves in and go, that’s where we’ll be.
[00:18:24] That’s my swap and change room. That’s how it’s going to look and feel. So we can start to build that into a program before we even go out to Olympic Games.
[00:18:30] Adam Stott: That sounds incredible. How much of the success. How much of the success that you’ve had, would you put down to that type of coaching because you’ve obviously had training on the pitch, you know, you’ve had coaching on the pitch, but that mind training that you’ve had and that coaching, how much of your success and your long term success would you put down to that?
[00:18:49] It’s everything.
[00:18:50] Heather Fisher: It’s everything because I think from a very young age, there was no choice but to do well. Like I had quite a rocky childhood. That we didn’t ever feel easy that we remember my childhood. So there was no going back. I could only go forward. And my aim was to always springboard.
[00:19:10] I saw myself on a diving board to spring to the next level, spring to next level. And I know women’s sport is only on the up now for God’s sake, how does it take for me to just be able to be themselves and fermented themselves and just take gender out of the equation. I just let every frigging human just achieve and be there, reach their potential because all it’s about, right.
[00:19:27] It’s reaching potential, but then we have to reach a potential. With or without socials, because you might not have the following, because you’re female, or you’re this, or you don’t fit into these boxes, is another barrier. But then springboarding enough that you can go, I’m now at this level, and now I can springboard and change the world even more.
[00:19:44] But, to do that and to believe in that, you have to have this mindset of, first of all you can do it, and don’t get me wrong, there are days I wake up that I think I can’t do it. But it can’t define my day. It has to be a moment in time. It has to be a thought in time.
[00:20:01] Adam Stott: Yeah, I love that. Moment in time.
[00:20:02] Because I think a lot of people don’t look at it like that. They looked at it as a moment in time. It’s just that moment.
[00:20:09] Heather Fisher: It doesn’t have to be forever. 440 minutes a day. And in England we’d always say, how many moments About day. Can we win? So instead of seeing our day is like five sessions where we have to be our best selections here, selection there, making weight, you know, making PBS every day you want to PB, you know, it’s no different in business.
[00:20:29] You want to be able to win every day. You have to recognize you can’t win every day, but if you can win more moments. And you can be consciously aware of then how you react to those moments so you can consciously adapt again, you’ll always win.
[00:20:43] Adam Stott: Yeah, I actually love that. I think that’s such a great tip for people that are listening to look at it like that because, you know, something similar that I’ve heard is that, A feeling only last 90 seconds.
[00:20:54] It’s just your choice whether you want to refill it. And a lot of people, when they get into a negative, just refill the feeling and they keep saying it back to themselves and they keep recycling it and they end up just talking themselves down down. And they can’t, and that’s very much that moment in time.
[00:21:09] If you’re winning your moments and you keep building them up, you know, what’s the score. If you, even if you won, if you lose 440, you still.
[00:21:16] Heather Fisher: When you say out loud, I just listened to you. We say it so easily and we verbalize it. It doesn’t take away that when you’re in those moments, they are really tough moments.
[00:21:29] So the ability to the ability for that moment, when you’re in that moment, the first thing is don’t let it own me. You can feel it. You can see it. You’re having physical reactions. Don’t let it own you because as soon as it owns you, You become it and you know, and everyone knows we’ve become our thoughts and our feelings.
[00:21:51] So be able to stay in control. I think business people, sports people were control freaks. But use that to your advantage and take control of those feelings because you’re right. They’re only feelings and a feeling is energy
[00:22:03] Adam Stott: and
[00:22:03] Heather Fisher: energy is just like emotions are just energy in motion.
[00:22:07] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:22:07] Heather Fisher: So actually we have to let that, let it ride.
[00:22:11] I see myself like I’m walking along and there’s all this weather happening above and you walk through the sunshine and you might walk through a hurricane or it might start raining, but we’re still moving. But this weather’s just changing and we’re always changing. So being able to have control in those moments for me is real perseverance because.
[00:22:29] Anyone can show up and deliver a podcast and I can make it sound nice. But the truth is when you’re in those moments, they’re really tough moments, but that is where you need your character to come to life and go switch your thinking, change your environment, change your situation, course on who’s going to help you take time out, put yourself, put your efforts in something else.
[00:22:48] Take time out and don’t be afraid to take time out because there’s business people you have to trust yourself. One bit advice I would give myself is to trust myself because I know that just because you’re not at the office doesn’t mean you’re not working. We’re always going, we’re always on the go and that’s okay, that is okay to do that.
[00:23:06] Adam Stott: Absolutely. I think I’m coming through that conversation of going through The broken back and then we came to then your second challenge. And this is why I hear a lot of people, sometimes you can win with people where you can take someone in a moment and you can say to them, right, we’ve got to change that mindset.
[00:23:21] We’ve got to build the resilience. We’ve got to do some things differently. And then somebody can pep themselves up a little bit. And I go, all right, yeah, I get it right. And now I’m going to do it. And then they start moving in the right direction and then something else happens and it just crushes them.
[00:23:37] Right. Not many people can bounce back again and again and again and again. And I think that’s where the real skill lies. So, you know, I’d like to mention about the alopecia then that being that huge challenge that you experienced that really attacked you in a different way. No. Physically because you’ve been physically attacked from your broken back, but then we get the alopecia and you said that changed your part of your identity.
[00:24:03] Yeah. So how do you bounce back from that
[00:24:06] Heather Fisher: from the alopecia? I haven’t. I haven’t bounced back from it. It’s something I have to deal with every day of my life. What I struggle with is we judge people for it. How they look, and I know we are all our own brand and I actually believe we should be all our own brand, especially in business as for you are your own brand.
[00:24:25] If I can’t turn up and show up and look the part, why should I expect my customers and my clients to turn up? So we should, however, that does come with the pressure. But then when you lose your hair, I think males struggle with losing their hair, let alone females. And people don’t talk about female baldness.
[00:24:40] alopecia and it’s a bit of a taboo subject because it changes. I’m basically a girl with a lot of muscles. Which I’m proud of because I’m an Olympic athlete, but I feel myself hiding because I’m a girl with muscles and girls don’t have muscles. Well, we do. Thank you very much. And I’m bored on top. So people think I’m just a, totally a guy and I’m fully female, just a little different.
[00:25:02] So how we define a femininity, which comes down to how we defining just, yeah, what we think is masculine and female, but also with that comes masculine female energy traits, like people in business. People think you have to be a certain way. Women are on the rise, but we’ve only really ever seen males.
[00:25:19] Succeed and lead. So women should find their own way of leading. We don’t have to copy and imitate men. We need to find our own way of leading. And that comes from different skill sets. When you lose your hair, I challenge, I suppose, the perception of what people think of me, what people look at. First of all, they’re not sure if I’m a guy or a girl.
[00:25:38] Secondly, they’re not sure how to tape because I probably look quite intimidating and quite a strong character. But actually, I’m quite introvert. When I first lost my hair, I felt disgusting. Like, I can’t tell, like, I struggle. Disgusting. I didn’t recognize my I didn’t recognize myself back in any reflection for about five years.
[00:25:57] I didn’t look in the mirror. Still getting used to talking about it.
[00:26:00] Adam Stott: It’s a very difficult
[00:26:02] Heather Fisher: because I think what, because what happens is you’re judged the green grass, the plane robbery was safe for me and the mix is safe. It’s easy for me to do because I’m not judged for what I look like.
[00:26:16] I’m judged for my stats, my performance.
[00:26:19] Adam Stott: And what would you say to somebody that Is going through something similar, not necessarily alopecia, but they kind of have those feelings as well as far. I think it’s, I think it’s important to be vulnerable as well.
[00:26:31] Heather Fisher: It’s just so raw, Adam, because we look at people who are succeeding and go, Oh, they’re okay.
[00:26:38] They’re doing really well. But actually, don’t always believe what you see. Perception isn’t always reality in business, you know, and in sport, and in, and on social media. But when you lose your hair, you lose a massive part of your personality. I don’t ever think that part of my personality ever came back.
[00:26:54] It’s on the rise, but we never see bored people. We never see bored women presenting. We never see bored women out there as feminine. , we don’t see it.
[00:27:03] Adam Stott: Yeah,
[00:27:04] Heather Fisher: We don’t see you. We now see, we see black, we see disability, we see neurodiversity. We still don’t see bald females.
[00:27:13] .
[00:27:13] Heather Fisher: And so for me, felt to be a bald female.
[00:27:15] You said earlier. What’s the aim? If I’m totally being honest with you, the aim is to put bald women on the map, but bald just isn’t bald. Bald is like being different.
[00:27:25] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:27:26] Heather Fisher: It shouldn’t matter the color of our skin and what we look like. Like, base it on potential and base it on performance. If I’m good at what I do, give me a shot.
[00:27:34] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:27:34] Heather Fisher: Not just because you think I’m different because I’ve got no hair.
[00:27:37] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Heather Fisher: Hair shouldn’t define me. Yeah. But it does. Yeah,
[00:27:44] Adam Stott: I think it’s really interesting and super interesting that you are very vulnerable about it. And you’re very open to talk about it, even though it is raw. If someone was going through something similar, what do you, what would you say to them?
[00:27:56] Because you’re obviously, you might not be all the way over the hill, but you’re certainly on that journey. What tips would you give them to deal with something that difficult that happened in their life? You have
[00:28:05] Heather Fisher: to own it. Like you have to own it. That’s the first thing. We all have things that we feel vulnerable about, but I don’t hide it.
[00:28:14] I talk about it. I might get upset about it, but I’m not afraid of that because I think it’s part of my healing process. It’s also part of, it’s
[00:28:20] Adam Stott: also
[00:28:21] Heather Fisher: part of me. And if I’m going to turn up and be authentically me. Well, I can’t hide,
[00:28:27] Adam Stott: but
[00:28:27] Heather Fisher: it means I have to be strong.
[00:28:29] Adam Stott: Yeah, it’s interesting. She said to me first that you said, what have you gone today, Adam?
[00:28:33] And I went, ah, and you went, and I can’t remember what I said, but he said, I’ll tell me the truth. It’s important to tell the truth. And I’m like yeah, of course.
[00:28:40] Heather Fisher: Because I don’t want the fluffy stuff. And the fluffy stuff is going to get us somewhere, like don’t get me wrong, when you’re in the changing, you’re about to face New Zealand and you’ve got Olympic qualification, you know, we need all the positivity in the world.
[00:28:53] But if you’re not every day, you wake up. And you have to be your very best for qualification for Olympics or playing on, you know, come off games. You have to be your very best. However, there are days you wake up and you don’t feel your best, but you still have to know that these are your non negotiables.
[00:29:09] And actually part of that is me being me. There are times I’ve been upset in change rooms over something. Someone’s I’ve walked through tournaments and stadiums and people are throwing me wigs and I’m like, okay that’s rude.
[00:29:24] Adam Stott: That is pretty rude. Right. You
[00:29:27] Heather Fisher: know,
[00:29:28] Adam Stott: really?
[00:29:30] Heather Fisher: Yeah. It’s rude.
[00:29:31] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:29:31] Heather Fisher: It’s rude, but I still have to sign up and go and perform.
[00:29:35] Adam Stott: Yeah. How did that impact you? Did you, cause it was interesting.
[00:29:40] Heather Fisher: I’ll do that. I do what you said. I’ll create a positive trigger.
[00:29:43] Adam Stott: Yeah that’s what I was interested to go and then you move it to attack rather than because a lot of people you said you’re naturally introverted. A lot of people just shrink.
[00:29:52] But if you rise in those moments,
[00:29:55] Heather Fisher: there’s to rise. You have to rise. You cannot, you can’t, I don’t want to be defensive. If I bark at every dog down the street, I’m gonna get down the street.
[00:30:05] Adam Stott: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:06] Heather Fisher: I haven’t got time.
[00:30:07] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:30:07] Heather Fisher: I’ve got bigger things to go and do.
[00:30:08] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Heather Fisher: But I have to, I’ve had to create positive triggers.
[00:30:11] So one of them was that I literally do it all the time. I go, and I become bigger and I go, that’s another one I do. I clip my finger. And the last one I reset. Yeah, that’s my reset. And on the pitch, I pulled my socks up, even though they’re up. I pulled my socks up. So when I look down, I would go like, Oh, have it out, look up and I’m fine.
[00:30:31] So now I still do that, but I mess my shoelace and then I rise again. So I’ve created positive triggers.
[00:30:38] Adam Stott: And I think that’s a huge thing for people that are listening to do for them as business people to create those triggers because a lot of people have these moments. Some of them are not anywhere near as intense as what we’re talking about here.
[00:30:48] You know, so like in terms of personal attack, because that’s almost like a personal attack. Some people. You know, I don’t
[00:30:55] Heather Fisher: mind being poked out of toilets with broomsticks. I had to
[00:30:57] Adam Stott: get my boobs out.
[00:30:58] Heather Fisher: You’re laughing, but it’s the truth. Imagine if I was to get you to drop
[00:31:02] Adam Stott: your trousers
[00:31:02] Heather Fisher: and prove it. What the hell?
[00:31:07] You laugh, but it’s the truth. In those moments, I’ve had to hold my dignity.
[00:31:12] Adam Stott: Yeah,
[00:31:13] Heather Fisher: just go, I’ll educate you and we’ll get there, but that shouldn’t be the case.
[00:31:17] Adam Stott: No, it’s definitely tough. In all inclusivity,
[00:31:20] Heather Fisher: we shouldn’t, we’re in 2024,
[00:31:24] Adam Stott: wake up. One of the things I thought was really interesting is you mentioned about those triggers and you know, the reset, these different aspects that you helped manage.
[00:31:32] How do business owners create those triggers for themselves? How did you create those triggers? And is there some guidance that you could give them on creating that type of trigger?
[00:31:40] Heather Fisher: Question, just thought about it. Do you have triggers?
[00:31:43] Adam Stott: I think it’s self-talk. There’s positive triggers, you know, that I would I, a lot of self-talk would, I do positive triggers.
[00:31:51] So I would say to myself, you can fucking do this. You can fucking do this. You’re gonna do this. So my self-talk is very strong. And my trigger would be to go into that trigger. That’s what I would do whenever I would thinking like, oh, I don’t wanna do this. Like, get it done. A certain language that I would say to myself, yeah.
[00:32:07] Because
[00:32:07] Heather Fisher: I can see from the moment I met you. Yeah. From the moment you sit here. You must switch into a. A different Adam.
[00:32:12] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:32:13] Heather Fisher: Is that right or wrong? Yeah.
[00:32:14] Adam Stott: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Good on
[00:32:15] Heather Fisher: her.
[00:32:16] Adam Stott: Yeah.
[00:32:16] Heather Fisher: But should we be switching or should we, have I switched?
[00:32:23] Adam Stott: Maybe a little bit. You’re not
[00:32:24] Heather Fisher: sure?
[00:32:25] Adam Stott: A little bit.
[00:32:26] Heather Fisher: Because I, it’s really interesting because we have to switch, but actually you’re quite real. The guy I saw out there is guy I see here and there’s power in that, but when you’re, when you have those moments of needing the trigger. Some people will switch character and we don’t need to switch character.
[00:32:43] Adam Stott: No, I don’t. Yeah.
[00:32:44] Heather Fisher: We just need to be able to access what’s within us and what’s driving us. So it’s almost about thinking what’s driving and what’s the bigger picture. What is this for? And am I willing to go through this to get to there?
[00:32:56] Adam Stott: I think what I do when I do this, when we talk about Trigger, I know you probably just include this, you know, if you want to, when you do the edit.
[00:33:02] But what I do, is the when I know I have to do something, what I do is it’s more of a switch of focus. So what I would do is a moment ago before I sat down, I was focused on the team. I was focused on running the business. Now my switches are now focused to you and I’m like, I’m focused on this story, right?
[00:33:24] So I’m focused on what, how can I get to know you and give some value to my audience through that relationship. Yeah. That’s where I switch.
[00:33:33] Heather Fisher: That’s not an easy skill. Like how many people in business have to be every part of the business? Like they are this, then they have to do the finance, have to look after people.
[00:33:41] But actually they might just be really good at running a business. There might not be the creative brain or good leading teams or good decision making, but we’re asking all these business people to be and do all these things. So I think part of life and being successful in a team and in business is getting the right people in the right places.
[00:33:58] You don’t, I don’t have to know everything. I can stay in my lane and I’ve got the right people in the right places doing their thing and trusting those people to do their thing.
[00:34:05] Adam Stott: Yeah, absolutely. Very important. Should we go to wrap on that? Yeah, go to wrap on it for the time. Yeah. Okay.
[00:34:11] No, I’ve really loved chatting with you. I’ve really enjoyed it. And I feel that some of the things that you’ve mentioned are incredible for business owners. I love the minutes aspect. And just the managing the mindset and understanding how important it is. That is, and for me, business success often comes down to that mental toughness, the resilience to take the action.
[00:34:35] So all of the lessons that you said are super important. I know that you help people out there on there. So what’s the best place that people can get in touch with you? But would that be Instagram, for example?
[00:34:45] Heather Fisher: I think my handle is heatherfish29 I’m on Instagram. So yeah, any DMs, give me a shout, anything I can help with.
[00:34:51] I do a lot of mentoring, I do a lot of coaching. Mindset is absolute key. But don’t be afraid to be different. Embrace who you fully are, create your positive triggers and just walk positively in the direction that you’re going and know that you’re going to hit the bumps on the road. Know that you’re going to hit them because they’re coming.
[00:35:08] And you know, they’re coming. So you know, they’re coming, you have to be prepared.
[00:35:11] Adam Stott: Absolutely. Look, it’s been incredible. Thank you again. Really enjoyed it. Brilliant. And of course, what another amazing episodes. I really enjoyed that, that interview there with Heather. She absolutely incredible.
[00:35:23] We’ll put her link in the description so you can get in touch with her, contact her. Go and follower. And of course, if you’ve been listening to this, and as you’re sitting there right now and you’ve been listening, if you found some real value in this, you probably know somebody that’s been through a tough time or has experienced some tough times.
[00:35:41] So take a moment to go and share this podcast Wherever you’re listening. Perhaps you are watching me on YouTube or maybe you are listening on Spotify or iTunes. This could help a lot of people. So really consider who is the person in your mind that you feel could get a ton of value from this, and go and share that.
[00:35:57] That’s the way this podcast grows. And I think it’s a great message here today that can be shared. And thanks again for listening.
[00:36:03] Heather Fisher: Thanks, Sam. Thank you, everyone. If you find me on Instagram, I think it’s Heatherfish29. You’ll see me because I’m a big ball rugby player. But yeah, give me a DM, give me a shout.
[00:36:10] And if I can help you then, yeah, get in touch.
[00:36:14] Adam Stott: Hey everybody, Adam here. And I hope you loved today’s episode. Hope you thought it was fabulous. And if you did, I’d like to ask you a small favor. Could you jump over and go and give the podcast a review? Of course, I’ll be super grateful. That is a five. Star review.
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