Confidence, Balance, and Success
Description
Finding Fulfilment Beyond the Corporate Climb
James R. Elliott explores the intricate interplay of confidence, resilience, and authenticity, unveiling how embracing failure, adaptability, and personal balance empowers individuals and leaders to cultivate truly inclusive and thriving cultures.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood welcomes transformational coach and international keynote expert, James R. Elliott, for a dynamic discussion centred around confidence, balance and success. Joanne and James explore how authenticity, resilience, and the willingness to embrace change are fundamental to driving both personal fulfilment and organisational growth. Together, they challenge conventional career narratives, interrogate the myths of corporate stability, and examine the importance of psychological safety, encouraging listeners to break free from self-imposed limitations and explore what’s truly possible when you create space for growth, experimentation, and self-care.
James brings over twenty-four years of global experience empowering business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals to build successful ventures without surrendering their sense of purpose or wellbeing. Working previously with the likes of IBM, Novell, and Lenovo, James has witnessed both stellar leadership and toxic workplace cultures firsthand, which fuels his passion for enabling others to find their spark. His approach is shaped by his own journey—from corporate highs and unexpected redundancy to embracing entrepreneurship—and by his commitment to fostering perseverance, adaptability, and human-centred leadership. His superpower lies in unlocking potential for confident, balanced, and meaningful lives and careers.
Throughout their conversation, Joanne and James highlight how businesses benefit when leaders foster inclusive cultures that value authentic expression, support career pivots, and embrace diverse learning styles. They dissect how the cult of “busyness” and fear of failure can act as barriers to innovation, wellbeing, and true belonging. Instead, they advocate for strategic self-reflection, lifelong learning, and balancing ambition with healthy boundaries—illustrating that sustainable success comes not just from hard work, but from working smartly and investing in wellbeing.
This episode’s key takeaway: True confidence and success stem from challenging limiting beliefs, nurturing psychological safety, and choosing to thrive, both as individuals and within our organisations. Listeners will leave inspired to reflect, connect, and shift their own practices toward a more inclusive and fulfilling future. Tune in to discover how to cultivate the right conditions for yourself and those around you to grow and truly belong.
Published: 08.05.2025
Duration: Shownotes:
AI Extracts and Interpretations
The Inclusion Bites Podcast #158 Confidence, Balance, and Success
— app.castmagic.io
Other Links
SEE Change Happen: The Inclusive Culture Experts
— seechangehappen.co.uk
Inclusion Bites Podcast on YouTube
Clips and Timestamps
Embracing Change in Leadership: “It’s creating that success, is by planning to change, planning for change and and having a almost a almost a change and growth roadmap for yourself and for your team.”
— James R. Elliott [00:20:01 → 00:20:12 ]
The Power of Authenticity at Work: “And my biggest thing is be authentic. And if you’re authentic and being real and and and as not permission to be an ass for, but it’s it’s, you know, being being raw and real and and and yes, sharing your opinions, share your thoughts whether you’re not been or whether you’re you’re someone at a at a kind person, then that’s not that’s not the firm for you. Or if you’re afraid that you’re gonna get fired or think you get fired for being real and authentic.”
— James R. Elliott [00:22:29 → 00:22:54 ]
Viral Topic: The Flaws of Modern Education: “I hate how the current school system, and I have several problems with it. I think it creates robots and it makes peep designs people to be automatons in a, in a, in a, you know, industrial world, corporate world, I suppose. But not even, not even successful corporate people because the corporate world still use great thinkers, great innovators, people who go above and beyond and think outside the box versus just do what you’re told.”
— James R. Elliott [00:29:06 → 00:29:26 ]
Viral Topic: Future Careers and the Impact of AI
Quote: “What is a job type in the future that may not be there in the future because of AI or automation or robots or or whatever? You know, I think, look at, okay, what what could I do? What would I love to do? What would light me up? Pretending that anything was possible because it is, but let you know, for people that maybe that’s not quite the realm yet, pretending that ending is possible. What would you do? What could you do? What would you love to do?”
— James R. Elliott [00:34:14 → 00:34:34 ]
Viral Topic: Rethinking Hustle Culture: “It’s whoever works the most effectively, the most efficiently, most creatively. And while they while they, you know, and inspire others, empower others, lead others to success, those that’s who wins, not just work, work, work, work, work harder.”
— James R. Elliott [00:38:11 → 00:38:23 ]
Viral Topic: The Power of Rest and Creativity: “my greatest ahas and creativity and awareness moments and moments of generating ideas and solutions came when I was resting or doing something else or doing self care and doing something else, not when I was in the middle of the thing.”
— James R. Elliott [00:40:03 → 00:40:17 ]
Viral Topic: The Power of Small Daily Learning Habits: “and I think gently I would invite people to call themselves on that and call themselves out because if you’re on this thing all day or if you’re scrolling at night for desk scrolling or if you’re watching, I don’t watch TV, but if you’re if you’re watching any amount of TV a a day, not to not to say don’t play. Definitely have time, have play of fun, whatever your thing is, but at least, you know, maybe take half an hour, forty minutes a day, less TV or less doom scrolling or whatever and invest whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s books, whether it’s whatever invest.”
— James R. Elliott [00:47:45 → 00:48:13 ]
Perseverance and Growth: “even turn a few pages because in a year you’re going to have one or three books done versus none. So I think that that that all this we’re talking about ties back in a theme of perseverance and resilience, and growth and success.”
— James R. Elliott [00:48:25 → 00:48:38 ]
Viral Topic: The Importance of Walking and Diet: “Walking is one of the best forms of exercise actually burns a higher percentage of fat. It just takes a little longer. So if you want to walk and walk for an hour, hour and twenty, not that a half hour walk is not great for you, but in terms of walk for an hour or run for twenty five, twenty, twenty five minutes, it’s it’s it’s a choice. But again, whatever people do, I think is is fine. They don’t have to do, you know, join a circuit training or a dance class or whatever the the exercise and just and eat better. I’ve learned that eating and and diet is is a huge, huge thing, even to the point of where certain foods still will make me exhausted, will make me depressed, anxious foods and will affect our mental health.”
— James R. Elliott [00:51:30 → 00:52:20 ]
Viral Topic: Modern Workplace Challenges and Solutions: “So it’s fascinating the the solutions we come up with to new and modern problems. If we just think outside the box and instead of thinking, oh, I can’t or I can’t do this because, or I’m not able to, or I can’t do it now because whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re a business leader or someone in in a business looking to grow into a leader, I invite you to be very, very careful with with what you say and and with what thoughts you allow to run your mind.”
— James R. Elliott [00:58:12 → 00:58:35 ]
Definition of Terms Used</
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