You know when you speak to someone and they say something so profound it leaves you pondering the conversation for days, even weeks later?
That’s what speaking to Hanny Allston was like for me.
And it wasn’t just one thing she said, it was several; including from the role of coaches to how you respond when the Imposter Complex kicks in.
Hanny is many things.
A talented and elite athlete, having won the 2006 Junior and Senior World Orienteering titles (in doing so, she became the first non-European to win an Orienteering World Championship and the first person, male or female, to hold both the Senior and Junior title in the same year).
She also won the 6 Foot Track Marathon in 2015 (including setting a new women’s record), a podium finish at the World Orienteering Championships in Scotland (2015), Oceania Skyrunning Champion (2015), two top 10 finishes on the World Skyrunning Series in the Italian Dolomites and Hong Kong (2015) and the Ultra Trail Australia 50km (2016).
She’s a winner of the Telstra Businesswomen’s Award for Tasmania for the retail and online store she runs with her partner Graham called Find Your Feet.
She’s also the host of the Find Your Feet podcast (one of my favourites!), a running coach, fiancé and a soulful, insightful woman and for whom running represents play.
While we talk about her athletic achievements in this episode, we dive deep into the internal work Hanny has done in recent years and discuss:
* what success means to her
* how she struggles with the Imposter Complex,
* why it is so important for women to do the deep internal work necessary to identify who we are, to find our sense of self and draw our confidence and resilience from that,
* the danger of relying on a coach to fill a gap in our self-confidence,
* the importance of understanding how the Imposter Complex shows up for you and the need to use emotional intelligence to respond it, and
* why running is play for Hanny.
Some of my favourite quotes from this conversation:
- “Success is a willingness to put one’s self on the edge and to sit on that edge which means that a failure to me is not to be willing to put one’s self in that position" (meaning success or failure has nothing to do with the result but instead how you willing you are to pursue your goal)
- “We also need to be confident in ourselves when we can’t have [physical strength]…I think we need to also be willing to do the deep internal work to work out who we are in our sense of self and find a strength and resilience from that as well.”
- “For me, the Imposter Complex kicks in when self-doubt kicks in. But it also kicks in when fear kicks in — and I think they are completely separate things. Self-doubt, sometimes you need to turn and the find the education or resilience in other ways. In the situation of fear, like in the lead-up to the Ultra Trail Australia where I was terrified, that’s when you just have to lean in and have faith.”
- “I wasn’t a good role model if I wasn’t well or not the healthiest version of myself’.
I could talk to Hanny all day. So I hope you love and enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Click here to listen on iTunes.
Notes and resources:
To find out more about Hanny, visit the Find Your Feet website or on Instagram or Facebook.
You can find the Find Your Feet podcast on the website or on iTunes:
- Episode with Dr Sally Chapman on Holistic Health and Hormonal Harmony.
- Upcoming episode with Dr Clive Stack on fear (coming soon).