🎙️ From Victim to Vision: Emotional Mastery for Better Decisions with Hadley Nightingale

Emotional intelligence and leadership drive success as Hadley Nightingale reveals how accountability and emotional control shape powerful decisions.

In this episode, we explore the realities single parents face in business and the fine line between victim mindset and true accountability. Hadley Nightingale breaks down how impulsive decisions or avoidant behaviors both stem from unmanaged emotions, and why mastering those emotions is the key to making aligned, confident decisions in business and life.

Hadley Nightingale is a business leader and advocate for self-leadership, helping individuals move beyond emotional reactivity into clarity and accountability. Her work empowers leaders to navigate fear, commitment, and high-stakes decisions with emotional intelligence and confidence.

👉Connect with Hadley here:
Website: newzealandpropertybuyers.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hadleyn

#LeadershipDevelopment #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfLeadership #EntrepreneurMindset #Accountability #MindsetMatters #DecisionMaking #HumanPotential #SingleParentSuccess #PeakPerformance

✨ 🌎 Want to Work with Dr. Campbell?
Discover how emotional intelligence transforms leadership and performance through Peak Performance WITH Emotional Intelligence (PPEI) programs and keynotes.

👉🏻 Self-Mastery Tools for Reaching Your Peak Performance: https://drjacquelinecampbell.com/self-mastery-tools

👉🏻 Or if You're an Event Planner Looking for a Speaker Visit her website: https://www.drjacquelinecampbell.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Around uh a change in in mindset from like a victimhood mentality for lack of a better term, to you know, what are the and and an ownership from victim to ownership, I suppose, is probably the the best way to explain it.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

That's a really good point because I feel like again, this is a stigma, and maybe this is this is what the audience is needing to hear because I always believe when we're just connected and we're in flow, the conversation that happens is supposed to happen. So, what you're talking about is the victim mentality coming out or the victim mindset, and a lot of times there's stigma when it comes to females playing victim.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Welcome to the Resilient Minds Podcast. Stories of grid, growth, and success. On this show, we focus on the real stories behind the success, the struggles, the resilience, and the courage it took to keep moving forward even when times got tough. My goal is to provide you with stories of hope and transformation, showing that no matter the challenges, there is a way forward, and you can find it. This is Resilient Minds.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Hey, I'm your host, Dr. Campbell, and I'm here with Hadley Nightingale, and he is the CEO of New Zealand Property Buyers, and he's also a business coach. And I'm super excited to hear what he has to teach us today about his transformational story. But I'm also really biased because I'm super excited about the investment properties that are in New Zealand. So thank you so much, Hadley, for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

Amazing. Thanks so much for having me. Really looking forward to the conversation today.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Sure. So can you tell me what how's the combination with you know being the CEO of a property buying company as well as being a business coach? How did that come about?

SPEAKER_04 1:54

Yeah, so I suppose it's just been a uh a natural evolution to a degree with some of the stuff that we're doing, and then people asking about, hey, look, do you do you offer coaching? Do you can you help me out? I'm I'm a bit stuck here. So that's just sort of been a natural evolution over time. And I think with the the journey that I've been through and and where we are now from from where we started, there's probably a lot of a lot of gold for people that you know, I think sometimes as uh you know when you go through your own journey, you don't see the gold that you that you uncover along the way until you start talking to other people and they're like, wow, that's amazing. You know, oh okay, I I just thought it was my my thing that I that I've overcome. So that's really the the biggest part of it.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Well, I think part of it too, especially if you're like helping people through a period of struggle, you've probably struggled with that too. So like if you're helping with them with something really, really big, it was probably not a pretty sight with the transformational journey.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Yeah, I mean 100%. And there's also the the saying too that if uh if you need to improve something yourself, then you're better off to teach it because you you then hold yourself accountable to be able to get better at that, at that specific thing as well. So there's also that that flip side to it too.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Right. I I completely agree because I feel like I well, one, I was in the mental health field before I came into more speaking and training, but I mean, I've I've been humbled too by business, don't get me wrong, but I feel like I learn the best when I have one-on-one conversations because we both connect, we get in the flow, and everybody has their own insights, their own lessons. And then you both come to insights together that really help both parties. And that's because we're connecting, and that's where the best ideas come from. So I also feel like no matter how many people you help, they're still helping you too by default.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Yeah. Yeah, I 100% agree. Everything's everything's reciprocal, and I think you can learn something off everyone you meet. And it doesn't necessarily need to be a business thing, but just in every interaction, I think there's there's some degree of knowledge transfer. Um, you know, and it doesn't matter whether they're a 90-year-old person or a or a four-year-old having a conversation with them. There's always there's always something inquisitive that they've they've got to say or something that you can pick up.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

I completely agree. What um what happened that it sounds like you had a maybe a fork in the road or something happened that created a transformational journey? Usually there's a starting point to it. What was yours?

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Uh which one? Which one? Um so I mean the the the first part of it was basically after I left school, I decided to buy some property. Um, made some really bad decisions with that. And then it was around 2006, 2007 with financial crisis and what have you. And then uh at the time banks were just lending money to anyone and everyone, provided you could you could fog a mirror, you could, you could get a loan. And so bought a pest property that was way too expensive, made some bad decisions with that, and then basically had to move to Australia to find some, find a job that would uh then pay more than what I could earn in New Zealand. And then my my psychology around that became if I if I just if I can drive my my truck day and night uh and and I can just live off four hours of sleep, that means that I get sort of 16 to 20 hours of work in a day, uh, therefore I can make some more money, therefore I can make my repayment. And if I just work harder, then you know I can I can get to where I want to be. So did it work for a short period of time.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Before the human themselves shuts down, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And until you until you realize that it's not great for your health, that um that you we when you're in isolation for that long and we were driving like to the the middle of nowhere where there were you'd be you know three, four, five, three or four hundred Ks away from the from the nearest town. Um and you know when things go wrong, it's up to you to try and fix them. But you also realise too that well, you don't realize it at the time, but it's once you come back out of that that you've you basically have to learn how to communicate with people again. Um because you've got no one to talk to, or the people that you do talk to that you see, your conversation solely sits around, hey, there's a flood over the road up there, uh, yeah, everything's good, yep, cool, see the person, gone again, and then you you back and you sit with yourself for for long periods of time. Um, and then so when you you go back to, you know, we'll call it civilization, and people are saying, Oh, this happened in the sport on the weekend, or this happened on the news, or this is going on, or you know, there's so-and-so's wedding next weekend. Do you want to come to that? And you're like, Oh, I'm away. I'm away, I've got no idea what's happening with that because I haven't seen TV for for weeks on end. Um, so that's the that's probably the the challenge with it.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Right. What I know about people when they're sitting alone in silence, the brain starts talking, right? Like you're literally sitting alone with yourself. What was that like? What was the narrative? What did it sound like?

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Um, I I think for for a long while there, it was really about the the the issue was more so about the decisions that I've made and me being in my 20s, saying, like, why me? Yeah. I'm just like I was a 19-year-old kid when I got into this, and then now I'm in my my 20s, and this is between sort of 20 and 29. Um, you know, why me? Why do I why do I have to do this? Um I I should be out partying, doing stuff with my friends, or uh being having the ability to go off and do what I want to do. And the journey at the start was fun, don't don't get me wrong. We were gonna hold I was going to hold in new places I'd never been and seeing a whole lot of new stuff, and that was really cool. Um, but I I feel as though that the that the 20s were out the window and gone due to a bad decision at 19. Um and that's that's really the uh the the the tricky bit with it when you're when you are by yourself and then you you're going, well, you know, I I've been to some places that no one will, you know, very few people will ever go, but you know, it's still me out here by myself.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

What do you think the hardest thing that you've ever had to deal with or overcome was?

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Uh to to change topic slightly from that, probably the the hardest thing that I've ever had to do was to uh when my daughter was eight months old, uh myself and uh her mum went our separate ways. Now, that one that there's and I was in fact I was talking to her about it last night. Um and that's probably been the hardest thing that you know that I've ever had to do, and it's probably a bit of a continuation of what I was just mentioning before, is that like I don't think in life you set out to well, I mean for me anyway, my my ambition was never to hey, you know, have a kid, um, you know, become a single parent, and then everything else that flowed on from that wasn't the wasn't the plan. Uh and so the the pity party and the poor me kicked off again with uh with that too.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Right. And I I feel like there's an added area that business coaches do need to be cognizant of when it comes to single parents, because there's it's on both sides now. There's so many single moms and single dads, and running your own business. Yeah, it sounds great because you can work whenever you want, right? But that's not that's not necessarily how it is. Like you work when you have to, but then what do you do with your kids? You know, so we're consistently juggling that. And if business coaches don't understand how to how to assist a single parent, then they're really gonna give bad advice.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Yeah, I mean, it it's tough, right? It's I suppose the that we do week on, week off. So um to a degree it allows me to go head down for that, that first week, and then when daughter's back with me, then not so much. But the uh the the the trick then being is is that to to try and switch in and switch out of that. But I've also got a six month old now as well. So it that it's also really strange to to see your kid, and that this is probably gonna sound completely out of the gate as well, but like having eight years of of seeing your child every second week, and you don't know what it's like to to see them every day. You're like, did does does your kid get excited to see you every day when they see you? I because I don't know. I she was like eight months old, and then uh and then now we've got this little fella that you know he's he's six months old and and growing uh like a mushroom, and it's just um it's now balancing that too, and like, okay, so we've got work, we've got daughter that comes every second week, and then how do we mold that into what we're doing as well?

SPEAKER_03 10:55

That's a good point because parents who are full-time parents, they don't get a break. No, you know, like a lot of people they feel bad for single parents because they're like, oh, poor you, that sucks, and it's gotta be so hard. But that's one of the benefits too, is that sometimes if you do, if you're co-parenting, I mean, yeah, you can get some alone time for at least for rest and self-care or to hurry up and get some work done. But like that's two sides of the same coin in in terms of parenting and running your own business. Like nobody really has it easy.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

No, but I I think there's, and it was something that I was talking to her about last night as well, was like we we get to choose in life uh how how we assess things. And and we can either look at the the like when when this first happened, um there was there was that, there's been litigation that's been going on around that for the last seven years, and it it really comes down to a thing of you know, it was poor me for the first two years, and then it really came down to a thing of like, right, we've we've got this. I can't change the trajectory of of where the the litigation side of things is is going. That's that's going to be something that plays out and and it just is what it is. Um The thing that I can control though is how we start to live our life. And that was a conversation that myself and my wife had at the time. Was like, what what are the controllable things that we can that we can control? What's the stuff that we can't? And then that was really one of the biggest mindset shifts for us. Was like, we can't parent the other parent. We you know, we can't change anything in their house. All we can do is focus on us and where where we want to go. Um, and then what are the what are the strategic things that we can do to make that happen? And I suppose with that too, it it came about. Well, I suppose it brought us some freedom um to a degree, and the things that that used to affect me don't affect me anymore. Um, but that was where the growth started to go. Right. You know, you've got whatever's happening over here that I can't do anything about, but I can do everything about what's happening over here. So this is the path that we need to go down, and this other stuff will chip away as we go.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Right. It gives you a chance of at least separating them to give you clarity. But when it comes to, and this is just something me as a woman talking to a man who's been through these two things that to me they sound like the first one um was the bad business decision, right? Or the bad property. Yes. And then the second one was a relationship, but it's the same theme that I've seen in men, which leads usually to a fear of failure. Is that how you experienced it, or was it more complex than that?

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Um, I don't think for me personally, so much around a fear of failure, because I'm I'm not worried to go and try new things. Um, I'm I'm more about right, cool, let's give this a go. And if it doesn't work, at least we've we've said we've we've given it a crack. Um so it's it's more so I think around uh a change in in mindset from like a victimhood mentality for lack of a better term, to right, you know, what are the and and an ownership from victim to ownership, I suppose, is probably the the best way to explain it.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

That's a really good point because I feel like again, this is the stigma, and maybe this is this is what the audience is needing to hear because I always believe when we're just connected and we're in flow, the conversation that happens is supposed to happen. So, what you're talking about is the victim mentality coming out or the victim mindset. And a lot of times there's stigma when it comes to females playing victim. And so whether it's parents with your kids or parents without your kids, single moms, single dads, or the victim mentality, like both genders, they can do it. And I also recognize too, and this is you know coming from my own lessons, right, and air quotes, but they're failures, right? They're just reframed. But like I've had a lot of fear of failure too, even though I primarily see that with men.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Yeah. I mean, I I think around the um the the victim side of of things or the or that sort of mentality, um, is is probably from from my experience anyway, isn't as well displayed in in guys as what it is in in ladies. You know, you you ask a guy how he's doing, and he's generally gonna tell you he's fine. And it it's it's a little bit like it's yeah, yeah, yeah. How you doing? Yeah, I'm good. Even after all that stuff, yep, no, it's sweet. I'm just head down working away. And it's a bit like the duck, it's it's a bit like the duck sitting on the water where their feet are doing a million miles an hour, being their brain, and everything on top looks fine, but you know deep down inside that's not not quite the uh the reality of things.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

That's a good point, too, because even when people are saying, and and I'm sure you see this in in your business clients, and I'd love to know what your experience with investment clients, too, because money brings up all kinds of fear and insecurities. Um, but people who act like they either have it all together or they're fine regardless of what's going on, or people who are freaking out, right? Like neither one of them have full clarity. It's usually the person who's grounded, aware, authentic, they can feel their emotions. But how do you deal with that when you're either business like when you're coaching them or whether you're helping them with their investment property?

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Yeah, I mean that conversation. Yeah, I mean, that that conversation normally happens sort of at the start with people where they're like, hey, look, um that and that they're generally the people to ask you about what's the guarantee, or like, do you have a guarantee on what you do? And for us, the the answer to overcome that is is really look, I can guarantee that I'm gonna do what what we've discussed because we wouldn't have been in business as long as what we are have. The the part that I can't guarantee though is how you're gonna react when it comes time to do something. So ever everyone's good until they have to sign the piece of paper.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Everyone's good until they have to make the decision. And then it's a case of how are you gonna manage your own fear to get you from here to across the line. And and that's the that's the bit that you know, I'm not a psychologist. I I you know, I I haven't got the skills to to work through that with people, but it it more so comes down to for me to make them aware that you know everything's good now because it's easy, there's no stress, there's no pressure, you don't need to make any decisions other than are you gonna work with us, yes or no? But there will be come a point where it's like we've found you what you want, you've got stuck in position X and you need to do Y. And and can you pull the trigger and actually emotion look after you get your emotions in check and actually go out and do the thing that you need to do or make the decision that you need to make. Um, and that's that's probably the biggest part where it shows up for us.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So it's making the decision at the beginning, you still see fear come up. It's not just when they already own the property, if things, you know, something happens with the market, or you know, because I don't invested in property, so I don't know what like a bad decision looks like and how it would cause problems.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

I mean I mean, once once they've bought it, the that they've already made the the biggest decision is committing to something. And I think that's commitment's really the the biggest thing, I think, for for a number of people is like the idea sounds good. Everyone likes the idea, and especially in New Zealand, everyone loves property, it's just uh like it's a cultural thing. Um but the the thing with it is is like the idea sounds great, it's like skydiving. Yep, cool. I've I didn't but I'll be the first to admit I've got no intention of jumping out of a perfectly good plane. Um but the thing is is like it sounds like a good idea until you get up there. Yeah, you're on board and then the door opens, and then you've actually got to jump out of the plane. And the the the buying the property is the same thing. Like, let's go and do it, but then we've got to go and jump out of the plane and go, no, no, I'm not, I'm not doing this anymore. You know, well hang on, this is this is what you wanted, and we've got you to hear.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Now you need to to work through whatever you've got to work through to you know to get past that that point.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Yeah. So you just made me think, um, I went skydiving several years ago and I was doing it tandem, right? So the guy had me strapped to him, he opened the door and he looked out and he goes, Are you ready? And my whole body went cold, and the butterflies came, and he's like, Well, wait a second, are you ready now? And then he did it like three or four times, just checking if I'm ready, and I couldn't speak. I don't know if he was trying to wait for me to say yes, but like I could tell it was very, very obvious what my body was going through. And of course, when we jumped, it was the most, if anybody has ever considered going skydiving, you should absolutely do it. Was the most freeing thing, but I felt like it was that letting go of control right before you made that decision because your body's response, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

So it's interesting that you say that because I'm like, oh my God, it was the worst feeling. Then it came to be the very freeing feeling. Do you ever feel like people impulsively jump into stuff like that when it comes to investment properties?

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Yeah, so like you said before, there's the two people you've got to watch. There's the the people that are fanatically into this and they'll just say yes to whatever. And you've got to sort of just get them back to the center to be like, hey, look, you're I I get that you want to get somewhere, but the the way that you're going is you you're getting yourself into trouble. Um, but then there's also the people that are too scared to make a decision at all. And that they don't quite realize that they're still making a decision by not making a decision. Um, and then knocking them back, you know, getting them up to the the middle to go, right, we're we're gonna make a um we are gonna make a decision here whether it's yes or no. Um, but we're gonna do it with all the information that we possibly can, and we're gonna do it in a reasonable time frame, not erratically and not over three months. So it's it's about sort of bringing those two personalities back to the middle to sort of make a uh informed decision is what I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

You know, you said that you're not a psychologist or you don't have that training, but to me it sounds like you manage people's emotions every day. You got impulsive people who are not aware, and then you have very fearful people who have a lot of avoidance, right? You're and you're always just trying to bring them to center and balance so they have clarity, so that I'm I'm sure there's so many things that can go wrong in the deal, or or they can kind of mess it up in some way, but At the end of the day, if they let's say they can't manage their emotions, it comes back to the person who worked with them to get them signed on, right? Because they're trying to project the blame.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

Yeah, I I think the the game that we're in or the the the industry that we're in is is very much one of dealing with emotions. And just to sort of tie back to what we were saying earlier, like if if you'd met me in in my early 30s, it was like emotion wasn't a thing because we'd sort of just grown up with you know, you don't cry, you just get on with it, you don't, you know, uh feeling down, why would you do that? The sun's shining today. And so, and then I've gone from like that extreme of just been able to bottle everything up to this of like, and I say this to my wife all the time it's like I've I've back juggling people's emotions all day because you you get yourself to a point where like you've you've had a property, it's about to be sold, and then they turn around at the 11th hour and go, Oh, I've just rung my lawyer and said that we're gonna cancel the contract because I just haven't got a good feeling about this. And you're like, well, we've just worked for the last four, uh, the last month to try and get you to where we are now, and then you don't like the look of something or the feel of something, so we're going back to square one again as opposed to logically looking at things. Um, so yeah, juggling emotion is the uh is probably uh the the daily the daily thing for us to um to do that. But yeah, it just it's a skill base.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Absolutely, and I'm I'm sure your transformational journey and looking within helps you, whether you're helping with people properties or with business coaching, it helps you help them throughout the process, even when those emotions come up. Really quick before we end, though, I have a couple of questions for you. The first one though, is what is like a lifeline or a coping skill, a resource or a habit, hobby, anything that really helped you with your transformational journey when things were the hardest?

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Um probably one of the the biggest things I did was is that I I I go and see like uh an energy healer every every it used to be like weekly, now it's monthly. Um, but just to have someone external to check in that's neutral, uh, that and I think too, like for me anyway, with finding someone like that is is to find someone that's not going to just validate everything you say, um, and that it's it's someone that's got just like a neutral tone across, you know, whether it's good, bad, or otherwise, to sort of like we were saying before, bring you back to the center as opposed to to you know validate everything that you say because it comes out of your mouth. So that was that was probably a big part of um you know that, and then also to just getting back out in the fitness side of things, back running, back to the gym. Um just something where running's a running's a little bit different, but if you if you can pick up a skill, uh like I've gone back to playing golf um as well. So it's like golf, you can't think about your problems while you're while you're doing something. So if you can go and play golf for a couple of hours, or you can go practice golf for half an hour, uh, you're thinking about your your swing, you're thinking about what's going on, uh, and you can't think, oh, this happened or that happened, or why is this happening? It's you've just got to focus on on where you are. Uh I think animals do that as well. Uh, you know, if you you know if you've got a dog or more so a dog than anything else. Um, but that's also something that we've we've done as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

What's wrong with cats?

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Oh, cats. Don't get me started on cats. Cats only care about themselves.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

I got my cats. I got two cats. So I actually I asked you for one, but you gave us like four. So we have energy healing, physical fitness, dogs, not cats, and then gull.

SPEAKER_04 25:54

Well, uh, yeah, I suppose it all fits into the self-kare bucket.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Absolutely. My other question is for for any business owners out there that they are at a comfortable place, they weren't sure if they should, you know, invest in some property. I personally am very interested in New Zealand because it's absolutely beautiful and I love the accent. But what should they know right now about the market?

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Uh, I think every market's different, and there's not just one market is the is the thing. And if if you are gonna go and buy, is it it's more so a case of looking at do the numbers work for me today? Uh, because we can always find an excuse as to why we're not gonna buy something. Interest rates are up, there's no confidence in the market at the moment. Um, so it's just about assessing a deal on you know what we know today, and then what happens in the future, let's mitigate that down the path as we go. But if we can make a decision on today's rates, stress test them slightly higher, and then just commit and make a decision. And and especially for your first one, do it uh buy something that's boring, that's just like a standalone house or a duplex. You don't want to go out and buy something that's a nine-block apartment, or you know, uh a block of nine units and go for the biggest thing you possibly can because you just get yourself in trouble because you haven't got the experience.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

That is a lot of wisdom right there. So I really appreciate you start small, guys. Start small. All right. So um your links will be in the description below so people can go ahead and contact you. But thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate talking to you.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

Yeah, no, it's been really great. Thanks, Dr. Campbell. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Thank you.