How To Use Your ‘Soft Power’ To Create Impact Without Burnout

How To Use Your 'Soft Power' To Create Impact Without Burnout

Dr Joanna Martin is truly a force for good in this world, and the epitome of ‘soft power'.

She's a renowned visionary, coach and catalyst. As founder of One of Many, she leads a movement of grassroots leadership training and coaching for women, helping them to change their corner of the world for the better.

She's also a diplomatic wife, a sometimes-too-tired mother, a protective sister, and a caring friend. She has a very cool head, but a very big heart!

I caught up with her to talk about her work and how women can access their ‘soft power' and get the support they need.

Watch the video interview below or download the podcast;

Why did you create One of Many?

“Well, I was nursing my son James at the time, he was about six weeks old, and there was this moment where I realized that the quote from the Dalai Lama that gets thrown around a lot, ‘the world will be saved by the Western woman', which he said at the Vancouver Peace Summit in 2009?

It's kind of always resonated for me, but I had this realization that wow, he's not talking about prime ministers or presidents or necessarily leaders of companies. He's talking about me. That was a realization I had, and not just me, my neighbour and my sister and my mum and my gran and my aunt and my community.

And there are so many of us women who care. I call us grassroots women leaders. Women who care and want to change things. And I just got that it was us he was talking about.

And if enough of us can step up to be able to make an impact in our corner of the world, doesn't have to be huge, maybe our corner is just our family and bringing up the next generation, maybe our corner is our village or our local community.

If we can step up and lead and make an impact in our corner of the world, but here's the kicker, not the old way. Because in the past, the only way we could see them doing that is through Superwoman and burning ourselves out.

But that's not necessary! Provided we have the tools for living sustainably on an individual level, we can impact the world to become more sustainable I think at a global level.

So for me, One of Many was born as I guess a leadership and coaching organization to support women who want to make an impact but don't want to compromise their own wellbeing along the way.

Can you explain Superwoman, Bitch and Martyr?

One of the things that we notice from our women is we're all awesome.

We're capable, we're intelligent, we know what we ought to be doing, and every single woman in our community, myself included, has moments where we're not at our best. And usually it's a swiss cheese model of a few things, lack of sleep, too many things, looming deadlines, whatever it might be, we all have our unique escalation path. We get to this point where we get triggered into what we call the disempowering archetypes.

Superwoman is kind of our pin-up girl, because so much of our cultural paradigm and the business paradigm and our family patterning tells us that we have to be Superwoman. Achieve, no matter what, do it all by yourself, be the best, and we all either choose Superwoman, sometimes we look at that and go I don't want that. We check out and we choose anti-Superwoman, which is kind of like all that that's not.

And then Superwoman's got a few cousins. Her cousins are the Bitch, the Victim, and the Martyr. If we spend a lot of time either in Superwoman or anti-Superwoman, it's not long before bitch mama comes out. She's shouting and yelling at the kids trying to get them into the bath and out the other bath, right?

Victim is like ‘oh, it's all happening to me, there's nothing I can do anyway because they're doing that and they're doing that, global pandemic and the this and the that. And everything, all the center and control is outside and there's nothing I can do, I'm powerless to change anything'.

And then, this is my poison of choice; Martyr. Putting everybody else's needs before our own. If we've got children, putting our kids' needs first. If we've got elderly neighbors, our parents, our spouse, our boss, everybody else that we work with. Putting all of their needs before our own and putting ourselves at the bottom of the list. That's kind of martyrdom.

And they're not helpful. We're not centered in power and we're not able to respond in a powerful way when we're in victim, bitch, or martyr. It's just not possible.

Can we avoid these archetypes?

Yeah, absolutely. We've got a great tool actually, called Trigger Tracking. It helps identify what triggers in your every day life cause you to flip into the disempowering archetypes.

Because it is like that, right? We're doing okay and then all of a sudden we're a pile of self pity on the floor. We're doing okay, and then all of a sudden we're shouting at our spouse, right? So there are usually triggers.

And if we have a look and dig into enough of the triggers, we start to see patterns. That gives us two lots of information.

One lot of information is we can consciously notice the triggers, and then when they happen, consciously choose to bring a different archetype (and we have 5 ‘soft power' Powertypes that we teach at One of Many).

The other thing the tool helps us to do is identify old stuff that we're dragging around. Because a lot of the time we're dragging around emotions from our past. It's not even what happened in the moment. It's what it reminds us of or the bucket of stuff inside it splashes around in, you know?

Or it's limiting beliefs. We get triggered when someone triggers our ‘I'm not good enough'. I notice that one with my husband. We have a fabulous relationship. But just something about a particular tone of voice of his, the way that he says thing to me, I just take it as a criticism and it triggers my I'm not good enough. And I'm in defensive, and all he was doing was making a totally non-personal observation!

So this work improves your relationships?

Absolutely. But also there's so much research that shows carrying around this old emotion, old traumas, actually directly impacts our physiology.

When women start to let go of some of the old stuff they've been carrying around, and really embrace their soft power, their health improves, because their health choices take priority.

What are the 5 Powertypes you teach?

We have 5 women's archetypes that we teach at One of Many, that we believe give you access to the inner resources (your soft power) that you need to handle ANY opportunity or challenge that a mature woman might come across.

  • Warrioress – the energetic, playful, independent and courageous part of you
  • Lover – as well as your sensual being, lover is the centre of your self care
  • Mother – source of unconditional love, solace, safety and comfort
  • Queen – holds the vision, decisive and sure, deeply committed to her realm
  • Sorceress – the wise woman part of you, your connection with ‘god', the ‘divine' or the ‘Universe' or your intuition.

What is your new Living the Change programme all about?

Living the Change is an online coaching and training program to be able to support women who are grassroots women leaders, who have a desire to want to impact, whether that be in a small way with their family or a huge way globally.

But we are committed to helping them do it in a new way. From the women's Powertypes, from what we would call soft power as opposed to burn out.

So if you're looking to have impact without burn out, and you want the most complete tool belt to be able to do that, that's what this is created to do.

And I'm really super proud of it because what we've managed to do is pull in all of the tools that we've been teaching for over five years and we're organizing them in such a way as someone can work their way through it at a pace that works for them.

And while the tools are fabulous, the real reason that people are joining is for coaching. Most of us need someone else outside of us to hold the mirror up and say oh hello, did you just notice that about yourself? “

Thank you so much Jo, I'm a huge fan of your work, the ability to lead your life from ‘soft power' really complements our work at Happy Hormones so well.

Doors are open for the Living the Change programme until 22nd May. If you miss the cut off for this entry, go to the One of Many website and get on the Waitlist for the next one. Or check out their other programmes.

Leave a Reply