Podcast: The High Performance
Published Date:
Fri, 05 Aug 2022 00:00:16 GMT
Duration:
10:04
Explicit:
False
Guests:
MP3 Audio:
Please note that the summary is generated based on the transcript and may not capture all the nuances or details discussed in the podcast episode.
Trigger Warning: Themes of trauma, sexual assault and suicide.
Gemma Morgan began her career serving as an officer in the British Army and is now a speaker, writer and leadership coach. In this exclusive extract from this month's High Performance Circle keynote, Gemma exposes the life-changing impact that culture can have on our performance and wellbeing. Her message is hard-hitting and uncompromising - “Safety came from minimising myself, from denying large parts of me.” With searing honesty, she describes her battle back from the brink…
Watch the full keynote here on the High Performance Circle for free: https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/all-content/gemma-morgan-woman-up
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In this compelling podcast episode, Gemma Morgan, a former British Army officer, speaker, writer, and leadership coach, delivers a powerful keynote speech on the profound impact that culture can have on our performance and well-being. Through her personal experiences, she sheds light on the hidden struggles faced by individuals within organizational cultures that perpetuate gender bias and trauma.
Gemma's journey in the military shaped her identity and instilled in her a belief that toughness equaled safety. However, this perception masked the underlying gender bias and sexual assault she encountered during her service. The military culture normalized inappropriate behavior, leading to desensitization and a lack of safe spaces for individuals to address their distress.
Despite her accomplishments, including recognition as the best young officer and captaining her country at a World Cup, Gemma grappled with the psychological and emotional aftermath of her trauma. The nightmares, unwanted recollections, and feelings of isolation intensified, leading to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Leaving the military was a daunting prospect for Gemma, as she had left behind her civilian community and faced the challenge of adapting to motherhood while battling her trauma. The transition to civilian life brought forth new struggles, as her military-honed traits were perceived as too aggressive and forthright in the civilian world.
Gemma's story highlights the double bind faced by individuals who fail to conform to societal expectations. The shame and self-blame associated with not living up to the ideal soldier image compounded her struggles. This emotional turmoil led to years of hiding and concealing her veteran status.
Gemma's powerful message underscores the urgent need for organizational cultures that foster safety, inclusivity, and support for individuals who have experienced trauma or discrimination. Her experiences serve as a reminder that high performance cannot be achieved at the expense of individual well-being and that true success lies in creating environments where everyone can thrive.
[00:00.000 -> 00:03.920] Hey everyone, welcome along to another Bite Size episode of the High Performance Podcast.
[00:03.920 -> 00:07.360] These episodes are for when you still want to engage with high performance,
[00:07.360 -> 00:11.360] you still want some content from us, but you haven't necessarily got an hour or
[00:11.360 -> 00:16.480] 90 minutes to spare, or you just need a little hit of inspiration or information,
[00:16.480 -> 00:20.800] something to take you closer to a life of high performance. And I think the key with these
[00:20.800 -> 00:26.640] conversations and the content that we share is that it's not always wholly positive.
[00:26.640 -> 00:31.920] Sometimes hearing other people's difficulties, other people's traumas, other people's hard
[00:31.920 -> 00:37.760] times and how they got over them can be really beneficial to all of us. And what I'm about
[00:37.760 -> 00:43.560] to share with you now is a small clip from an amazing talk that we hosted on the High
[00:43.560 -> 00:45.760] Performance Circle. Just a quick reminder,
[00:45.760 -> 00:48.060] the High Performance Circle is our members club.
[00:48.060 -> 00:50.360] It is totally free to be a member.
[00:50.360 -> 00:53.600] Just go to thehighperformancepodcast.com,
[00:53.600 -> 00:56.040] click on Circle, and you'll get your invite,
[00:56.040 -> 00:58.080] and you will get access to keynote speeches,
[00:58.080 -> 01:01.380] to high performance boosts, to newsletters, to offers,
[01:01.380 -> 01:02.800] all kinds of amazing stuff.
[01:02.800 -> 01:05.000] And I'm gonna share with you something
[01:05.000 -> 01:09.080] from an amazing lady called Gemma Morgan. She's a speaker, she's a writer, she's a
[01:09.080 -> 01:13.640] leadership coach, but she actually began her career serving as an officer in the British
[01:13.640 -> 01:18.940] Army. And in this keynote speech, Gemma exposes the life changing impacts that culture can
[01:18.940 -> 01:26.560] have on our performance and our well being. Her message is really hard-hitting. Her message is uncompromising. She talks about
[01:26.560 -> 01:32.960] safety came from minimising herself, from denying large parts of her. And she describes
[01:32.960 -> 01:37.380] with searing honesty her battle back from the brink. I just need to let you know that
[01:37.380 -> 01:42.380] there are themes of trauma, of sexual assault and of suicide in this short clip from High
[01:42.380 -> 01:48.080] Performance. But I know that so many of you will benefit from the things that Gemma has to share, and
[01:48.080 -> 01:52.920] if you want to hear the full keynote speech from Gemma Morgan, please just sign up to
[01:52.920 -> 01:54.320] the High Performance Circle.
[01:54.320 -> 02:02.880] It's free, it's there for you, and I believe it will get you closer to a life of high performance.
[02:02.880 -> 02:06.000] I didn't recognise it as gender bias at the time.
[02:06.000 -> 02:08.000] I loved what the army stood for.
[02:08.000 -> 02:10.000] I was so immersed.
[02:10.000 -> 02:16.000] Maybe it was from some sense of loyalty, but my training was formative,
[02:16.000 -> 02:21.000] shaping me in ways that would last long after discharge.
[02:21.000 -> 02:25.000] I relished this carefully constructed identity.
[02:25.000 -> 02:29.000] I believed that if I were tough, then I'd be safe.
[02:29.000 -> 02:34.000] If I were tough, then they wouldn't treat me that way.
[02:34.000 -> 02:41.000] And the army began teaching me that I was capable of so much more than I ever imagined.
[02:41.000 -> 02:46.800] I've never felt more alive. And I miss being a sister in the Brotherhood,
[02:46.800 -> 02:51.700] the connection and knowing that someone's got your back. I miss the
[02:51.700 -> 03:00.520] adrenaline, the discipline, the training, the soldiers, I miss all of that. But I do
[03:00.520 -> 03:05.000] not miss wearing men's boots in a smaller size because they didn't make it for women.
[03:06.000 -> 03:10.000] I do not miss wearing uniform that cut across my boobs and thighs.
[03:11.000 -> 03:14.000] I do not miss the less palatable side.
[03:16.000 -> 03:18.000] The atmosphere was boozy and boorish.
[03:19.000 -> 03:23.000] It was expected, demanded even, that everyone would join in.
[03:27.000 -> 03:29.000] And during my early months as a troop commander, I was sexually assaulted.
[03:31.000 -> 03:35.000] It was Christmas drinks with officers going to the sergeant's mess.
[03:35.000 -> 03:38.000] And as I was leaving, a senior soldier approached me.
[03:38.000 -> 03:40.000] He pushed me to the corner.
[03:41.000 -> 03:44.000] I remember the stench of his breath.
[03:51.160 -> 03:58.700] And I remember his hands lunging all over my body. I didn't say anything. Speaking up would have been career limiting, so I kept quiet.
[03:58.700 -> 04:05.840] I mean, after all, uninvited groping, well, it was commonplace. We were known as Doris, Split-Ass, Lumpy-Jumper,
[04:05.840 -> 04:13.840] down the lines. It was all just, well it was accepted as banter, this jovial part
[04:13.840 -> 04:21.000] of army life. But it taught me to check my bedroom door each and every single
[04:21.000 -> 04:25.280] night.
[04:28.680 -> 04:32.820] It was normal, and so somehow it became accepted. We became desensitized, because when you join the military,
[04:32.820 -> 04:37.320] they take over every part of your life.
[04:37.320 -> 04:38.800] You're bound by the rules,
[04:38.800 -> 04:41.360] and you are trapped behind the wire.
[04:44.880 -> 04:51.360] Now, I was the first young woman to be awarded the Carmen sword by the Princess Royal as recognition for being the best young
[04:51.360 -> 04:53.360] officer in the Corps and
[04:53.440 -> 04:57.720] playing sport at the highest level, I captained my country at a World Cup.
[04:58.640 -> 05:01.440] So to the outside world I seemed just fine.
[05:02.720 -> 05:09.400] But the nightmares haunted, being there again and again, the smells, the faces.
[05:09.540 -> 05:12.200] It's more than memories.
[05:12.200 -> 05:15.940] It's these, well, they're silent fragments
[05:15.940 -> 05:18.100] of unwanted recollection,
[05:18.100 -> 05:21.700] the kind that confuses past and present.
[05:24.240 -> 05:31.360] Red Wellington boots, trapped in the ice sheet, occupied. A knock knock
[05:31.360 -> 05:40.000] knocking through the night. And whilst in uniform there was no place to unravel it
[05:40.000 -> 05:47.080] to make sense of its meaning. I tried, but the brotherhood,
[05:47.080 -> 05:50.840] they scattered like I had some contagious disease.
[05:52.480 -> 05:55.600] I was terrified of what might be wrong with me.
[05:55.600 -> 05:58.600] I was terrified of what it might mean.
[05:59.480 -> 06:01.320] Manning up, well,
[06:01.320 -> 06:07.880] manning up was a socially ingrained way of coping. Now it's hard
[06:07.880 -> 06:12.600] for anything to stay secret in a world where people live, eat, breathe, work,
[06:12.600 -> 06:20.600] socialise together and before long the inevitable gossip started. There was no
[06:20.600 -> 06:29.360] confidentiality, there was no safe place, there was nowhere to hide. Loose tongues saw fit to undermine my credibility.
[06:29.360 -> 06:32.720] It's hard to believe that you're part of a military family
[06:32.720 -> 06:37.040] when you feel betrayed by your colleagues because it violates everything
[06:37.040 -> 06:43.760] that you've been taught to believe about army values and army life.
[06:43.760 -> 06:49.240] And then when the military community deny your distress in order to
[06:49.240 -> 06:56.360] protect their own narrative, it is profoundly damaging. I never wanted to
[06:56.360 -> 07:02.200] leave the army, not then at least. Leaving was a scary prospect, after all I'd left
[07:02.200 -> 07:05.920] my civilian friends, my whole civilian community behind.
[07:07.600 -> 07:15.120] What I wanted, what I needed was genuine support to stay inside. There was the trauma to process,
[07:15.680 -> 07:22.240] but what came after was in many ways more significant. You see, it's fine when you're on
[07:22.240 -> 07:25.000] the inside, when you're part of the club.
[07:25.000 -> 07:30.000] But the problems start when you feel rejected, cast out, isolated.
[07:30.000 -> 07:33.000] It is utterly dehumanising.
[07:33.000 -> 07:38.000] Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD,
[07:38.000 -> 07:45.680] well, that was just the tipping point on top of an already fractured mind.
[07:47.840 -> 07:51.160] When I left the army, I wanted to conceal my veteran status
[07:51.160 -> 07:53.660] because I needed to fit in with civilian circles,
[07:53.660 -> 07:58.320] but life as a new mum, well, it wasn't what I'd imagined.
[07:58.320 -> 08:00.800] I'd just left this highly disciplined,
[08:00.800 -> 08:04.680] organized, status-driven environment.
[08:09.060 -> 08:17.680] And I'd gone into motherhood, holding this newborn baby that would not stop crying. I kept a weapon next to my bed. I was hypervigilant
[08:17.680 -> 08:25.680] at all times, scanning each parked car, checking for marks on the road, all the while as I pushed the pram down the
[08:25.680 -> 08:33.080] high street. It was like living hovering next to a fire alarm, just ready for anything at
[08:33.080 -> 08:41.000] any time. And everything the army had taught me, well, it was now considered too masculine
[08:41.000 -> 08:49.360] for civilian life. I was deemed too aggressive, too forthright, too abrupt.
[08:49.360 -> 08:56.480] Well, when you're training, no one ever tells you of the dangers of the double bind.
[08:56.480 -> 09:07.880] And so for years I continued to hide. My failure to live up to the soldier ideal carried with it this deep and consuming source of shame.
[09:08.260 -> 09:09.240] I couldn't look at it.
[09:09.240 -> 09:13.180] I couldn't tolerate its meaning.
[09:13.180 -> 09:15.040] And then my failure to conform
[09:15.040 -> 09:17.880] to what society expected of me as a woman,
[09:17.880 -> 09:20.360] as a mum outside of the wire,
[09:20.360 -> 09:25.140] well, it crushed the fragile reserves that I had left
[09:27.060 -> 09:29.060] Well on behalf of everyone at high performance
[09:29.100 -> 09:32.180] Thank you so much to Gemma for sharing what she did with us
[09:32.700 -> 09:35.180] Just a quick reminder of the high performance podcast
[09:35.380 -> 09:39.880] Dot-com is where you can hear the full keynote speech and you can find out so much more as well
[09:40.040 -> 09:46.960] But I just want to say thank you so much for keeping coming back to high performance for keeping sharing this podcast for helping to grow our reach
[09:47.320 -> 09:52.720] We've never had more people listening to high performance outside the UK than we have at the moment and that means a great deal to
[09:52.720 -> 09:55.320] us so huge thanks for the continued support and
[09:56.320 -> 09:59.120] Make sure you stick with us because in the next few weeks
[09:59.120 -> 10:04.040] We have got some stunning guests joining us to share their version of high performance
[10:04.560 -> 10:06.560] See you soon
[10:00.810 -> 10:05.130] some stunning guests joining us to share their version of high performance.
[10:05.130 -> 10:06.130] See you soon.