“It’s that little extra something that makes the ordinary into extraordinary and the impossible into the ‘why not’?”
When her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of 10, it was what former head of trading and executive coach Alina Addison calls her ‘butterfly moment’. While she accepted the diagnosis, she says, she didn’t accept the prognosis, which was bleak. Instead she dedicated herself to discovering how to harness these extraordinary aspects of neurodiversity into something powerfully positive.
The result was a deep understanding of the superpower that is audacity: caring plus courage plus non-conformity. And that’s as relevant to leaders as it is to parents of neurodiverse children.
In this deeply personal conversation Alina shares with me how she interwove her personal story with her professional expertise, and developed a style of writing based on talking. We also touch on how audacity plus wine can equal a hotel in Transylvania…
Alina’s site: https://adaptaa.co.uk/
Alina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinaaddison/
Alison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-alison-jones/
The 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge: http://proposalchallenge.com/
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Alison Jones: It’s very nice to be here today with Alina Addison, who’s the founder of ADAPTAA, an executive coaching and leadership development company. She’s an accredited emotional intelligence coach, a former managing director and head of trading at Rothschild, and intriguingly, and I do hope we have time for this, manages a hotel that she built in Transylvania in 2004. You didn’t see that coming, did you?
She’s also the author of The Audacity Spectrum: Leading with care, courage and nonconformity.
First of all, welcome Alina. I kind of want to go straight to Transylvania, but I’m going to restrain myself.
Alina Addison: Thank you. It’s a delight to be here. Thank you for having me.
Alison Jones: It’s so good to have you. And it’s such a wonderful title, isn’t it? The Audacity Spectrum. Just tell us why that word and what it’s about.
Alina Addison: Oh, I mean, the audacity for me is really, and I think I started with the little extra. So before I settled on the word audacity, I really played with this idea of the extra, extra ordinary, you know, extra courageous, extra daring, extra caring because it’s that little extra something that makes the ordinary into extraordinary and the impossible into the why not.
And, I think for me, the audacity had that element of the extra to it, because most people, the definition of audacity in the dictionary, it’s a dual, interestingly, it’s got a positive and a negative.
Alison Jones: Yes. It’s ambivalent, isn’t it? That’s very audacious, and you don’t know whether they’re saying, wasn’t that wonderful, or how very dare they.
Alina Addison: Indeed and it is ambivalent, I love that word. And so you actually have this combination of awe, you know, how dare they but also there is this, you know, deflecting to it in terms of the negative admiration almost of someone who dares to stretch over a boundary, a line, and I was really curious.
So for me, that’s why I had this, it’s the extra, how can you take the extra courage or the extra tenacity, tenacity is a big thing, a big theme of the book, into something and channel it positively.
Alison Jones: and that is important because you lead with that lovely quote from George Bernard Shaw about how, you know, the reasonable man conforms to the world and the unreasonable, and therefore progress depends on the unreasonable man who forces the world to conform to them.
But you had a very, very personal story behind that, as well as your professional expertise, didn’t you?
And I loved the way that those came together. So could you share how your son inspired you to write this book?
Alina Addison: and Absolutely, no, thank you for that question.
So yes, so my son was diagnosed on the autistic or autism spectrum. When he was just turning 10, he’s going to be 20 in a couple of days time. So that was 10 years ago. And that was really that sort of butterfly moment, if you like, for me personally.
And it’s when I decided to learn as much as I could. I didn’t even know what autism was actually when that diagnosis came. So although I accepted, I always say I accepted the diagnosis, I didn’t accept the prognosis. And so I went on to find out, again, how can I channel that difference, that uniqueness, that extra ability that he had in a different way in positive ways.
Because a diagnosis, as I said 10 years ago, and we know a lot more about the spectrum today than maybe we did 10 years ago, but the prognosis wasn’t great. It was really bleak. And I still remember feeling lost. You know, that sort of powerlessness and you know, that tenacity of I’m not going to allow that to, you know, just take us back.
We will have to make two steps forward and one step back as always in life. But so, yes, so it really informed a lot of the idea. And he was absolutely the, I would say the catalyst for me. There was a different inspiration. I had a coach who had a similar story to mine. So John has been a big part of my inspiration of what I’m doing today.
But yes, so I think that it started as a personal book and I know you are the expert in writing and exploratory writing, but I was going to write a personal book, almost a memoir. That’s how the idea started and then I realized it’s not easy to do a memoir or write a personal book and that then transitioned into a professional book and then a bit later transitioned into also practical.
So I just say it’s this hybrid cocktail of personal, professional and practical.
Alison Jones: I mean, that’s one metaphor for it. I think also what I see is that you are locating your book in the unique space that you occupy in a Venn diagram. So you bring all that leadership development experience and that experience as a mother and the insight you have as a coach and out of that is born something really unique.
And I think that’s where for me, the most satisfying books land, where it isn’t where somebody has gone, what will sell? It’s where they’ve identified something right at the core of their lived experience. But it isn’t just a memoir because I think that can be quite self indulgent. It really is seen through the lens of what can I learn from this and how can I help other people with this?
Which I think you’ve done brilliantly.
Alina Addison: Thank you. Thank you. And yes, I always say, I mean, the story, it was informed by my son because, and two of the chapters in my book are The Courage to Say No and The Art of, well actually The Courage to Say Yes and The Art of Saying No because that’s part of our story. He could not hear no, I mean, physically, even to this day, it’s a very difficult part of that spectrum to accept negation, to accept a no.
And I was on the other side of never being able to say anything but yes. So you can imagine what a challenging time that was for us. And I always used to say as a Head of Trading, I could negotiate with almost, almost anybody. The one person I couldn’t negotiate with was my own son. And so that was a massive, huge training ground for me.
In learning to say, no, you know, that’s still a work in progress for me. I will admit to that, but I’m definitely better now than I was 10 years ago. And yes, he’s been a wonderful teacher and a wonderful student at the same time.
Alison Jones: Because actually often we are very quick to say no, aren’t we? Or we’re quick to accept, no. So having somebody challenge you like that, it’s quite interesting. Did you find yourself becoming more audacious?
Alina Addison: Yes, I think I was actually, that’s probably part of my own personal story. Through this process, which is a lot of self reflection, of course, I discovered that I was quite audacious throughout my life ever since I was a child. And it’s difficult for me to, well actually really pinpoint where that was and for me audacity is… the book will then reflect, it’s not just courage.
So I introduced this extra dimension of caring and of course the non conformity. So that’s my definition of audacity in the book. It’s caring, courage plus non conformity but it’s the caring part which is more unconventional if you like.
Alison Jones: And multi dimensional, because it’s about caring for yourself and others, isn’t it?
Alina Addison: Totally. It is actually almost three dimensional. Some will argue maybe even four dimensional, but because most people, more extraordinary leaders, let’s call them that way, or, leaders, successful leaders are very caring, or they care a lot about their mission, they care a lot about the purpose.
Then, of course, they also care about others. They have to bring people with them. And then you also have to care about self, which is a difficult dynamic to tend to the three of them?
Alison Jones: Absolutely.
What do you hope this book will do for people? I thought it was very interesting when you were talking about leaders. We think we know what leaders are, but as you say, actually, you know, if you’re leading a family, you’re a leader. You know, if you’re leading a conversation. So what’s your hope for the book, for its readers?
Alina Addison: That’s such a wonderful question, Alison. For me, when people ask me, what do you do, Alina? I say, I give people courage. And I think my hope for the book is that it’ll go slightly beyond, yes, I would love people to feel courageous in as much as to recognize these unique abilities that we all have within, you know, a spectrum that could be wide or could be narrower. But really own those unique abilities that we all have. And in my work today is I work with people to reframe, if you like, some of these extra abilities or, you know, the too muchness or the too not enough. People come and ask to tone them down, for example, or, and I always get a lot of resistance to that.
And yes, of course, you can learn to dial them up and dial them down. There is an equilibrium. But it’s so much better to own who we are with our bright and the shadow side in an authentic way. So my hope to answer your question would be that once people have read the book, they will see themselves in that light effectively.
Alison Jones: And I realised I didn’t push you on the question of why you shifted from extra, from the idea of you, you know, focusing on the word extra, to the use of the word audacity. I mean, we said, what a wonderful word it is, but what was it that made that decision for you about how you were going to frame the idea?
Alina Addison: Yes, it’s always a silly, simple question to this, you know, or answer to these questions, Alison, for me was, I had this, how do I call it, mischievous, which is part of the audacity. It’s just to play with the word and even when I went to my publisher, so I courted , or we were courted with a different high profile publisher, and it’s an interesting story in itself, but they didn’t, actually they didn’t like the word ‘audacity’…
Alison Jones: …oh, interesting…
Alina Addison: …because they associated too much with the negative connotation rather than the positive, so, but I was too attached to that, in a way. But the other silly idea in their head is I was going to write this book which was going to have the most A’s in it, the letter A. And I remember even putting it forward, and of course it was silly, and of course they said no to that, so that was part of my practice of accepting no’s. But they did allow me to keep an A for each of the chapters. So now I have this, yes, the audacity star with the eight apexes and you know, the peak, the apex of each. So at least I negotiated a little bit of that. So, audacity, it just sounded extraordinary. It almost was overused, if I can even dare say that.
Alison Jones: Yes, well you are on the Extraordinary Business Book Club, so you know, be very careful, but yes. No, I think you’re right, extra, we almost, it’s such a familiar word that you almost miss the whole point of the extra, don’t you? Because you’ve heard it so often.
Alina Addison: The little extra, and I love the word extraordinary. I mean, I said, I made an almost full page on it. And interestingly, my first, so one of the things that I do is Audacious Leaders Retreats, but it started with Extraordinary Women Retreats. That was my very first retreat six years ago. And then I had the extra mile.
So I’m playing with those, not interchangeably, but for me, they are sort of very close, interchangeable.
Alison Jones: This is something that I work with a lot of people who are, they know the content, they know what the book’s about, but it’s about landing that point, isn’t it? It’s landing the phrase or the word that’s going to communicate the idea to people and it’s really hard and it doesn’t always land immediately.
Sometimes it evolves over time. Sometimes you’ve been working with a program and called it one thing and then you realize that’s not it. It’s something else. It’s really hard.
Alina Addison: Yes.
Alison Jones: I want to talk to you about the, well, the whole piece of the writing. So that’s one part of it. How do we name this thing? What, you know, what’s the expression of it in the book?
And interestingly, how that plays into structure, which you just talked about with your A chapters. Just more broadly, across the kind of, from conceptualizing to doing the final edit, how was the writing process for you? What did you love? What did you despair of?
Alina Addison: Oh, it’s been a long process for me if I were to be almost radically, brutally honest.
So I process by speaking, less so by writing in a way. So I, you know, in the human design, they say I’ve got sort of eight gates in my throat. So I ended up working with a book coach, who I loved. That was at the beginning and then she helped me a lot to navigate and transition from this idea of mine of doing a personal story into more of a hybrid story because I still didn’t let go of the personal side.
And I couldn’t do what you said in your TEDx, which I love by the way, the six minutes a day. It just didn’t work for me. And so what I did, I was writing during the pandemic. So most of my writing actually happened during the pandemic and it was on a Saturday. So I did try and I’m quite a disciplined person, but the idea of sitting down and doing it every day, for some reason, just still didn’t click.
And so I would do writing on a Saturday. And then she’s based in Canada and I would meet her on a Sunday. And so that was the process of writing, but it was through working and brainstorming together, by talking together, and then I will go and write again. So I grew with it or it grew with me.
Alison Jones: That’s so interesting. So when you’re writing, for you, it was more capturing what you’d expressed, and the talking was where you did the thinking.
Alina Addison: Totally.
Alison Jones: Did you record that, transcribe it or anything?
Alina Addison: We did. No, we did. We did record. Absolutely, it was in the zoom days. I didn’t actually, and this is something that I’ve discovered about myself, I didn’t go back to those. So for me, the processing was in the moment, I would record. I very rarely went back to the recordings.
Because I would then go and I did, I have lots of notebooks. I do write and I love to hand write. So I have lots and lots of notebooks. I’ve got a big pile of them which is again, sort of putting the processing from the talking into some word form.
Alison Jones: So interesting, isn’t it, what different people’s modalities are. And I’m guessing with a book coach, the book coach’s modality is almost certainly writing because, hello, book coach. So coming together with two different modalities, really interesting and really productive as well.
Alina Addison: Yes.
Alison Jones: Diverse ideas. yes, brilliant.
As it progresses, of course, you get into rewriting, revising, trying to cut the thing down, to hit the word count, all the proofreading and edits and so on. How was that?
Alina Addison: Oh, I mean, it’s interesting. I didn’t expect it to be that long in a way. So for me, it will be by the time…
Alison Jones: production process?
Alina Addison: Oh yes. It’s a lot of waiting for me. I suppose with the traditional publisher, this is the other thing, the not knowing. So I was really, you know, going naked into this process because this is the first time that I’ve done it, but there’s a lot of intensity in the writing and then you have to wait.
And then for someone like me who sort of likes more the consistency of it all, but again, I got used to it and I mean, I work with an editor and then the edits for me, the most difficult part was actually taking things out, letting go.
Alison Jones: Yes. Oh, it’s so hard. You sweated blood over them and now you’ve got to cut them out, really? Yes. And once you’ve done it, you go, damn, they were right.
Alina Addison: Yes, totally, you know, the essence and I always say when I used to work in the financial service industry and the credit and I remember, that was 20 plus years ago, the lesson that we got was, of course, it’s much harder to write one or two pages than it is to write 20.
Alison Jones: Absolutely. Because you’re putting all the work onto the reader. When you write the 20 pages and you’re doing the work for the reader when you write one, I always think business books should be, the shorter they are, the pricier they should be, because you’re saving your reader so much of their precious time.
Alina Addison: Totally.
Alison Jones: That’s so funny.
So I always ask my guests for their best tip for a first time business book author. I mean, you’ve given us so much already. I’m being a bit greedy, but if I asked you, what one thing would you say, what do you wish you’d known before you started that you’d like to tell people now? What would you say?
Alina Addison: Well, actually because it’s business, so mine wasn’t intended to be a business, interestingly, when I started, and it evolved into that. The thing that really caught me out is the referencing, because you do a lot of research. I mean, it’s a business book, there’s research and there is referencing, and I wasn’t disciplined enough to record it.
So I would say if anybody’s thinking of a business book that it’s important to obviously reference and reference it throughout. But, oh, I came at the end and realized I need to even, you know reference the page number. So that would be, you know, it’s a practical tip, if you like that I wish someone told me early when I started this process.
Alison Jones: Yes, well, it depends on your publisher and what they demand of you in terms of, you know, Chicago or Harvard or whatever. At Practical Inspiration, we don’t insist on page numbers, but we do need full credits. I mean, that’s good practice. And most of our books have an academic market as well, and librarians and academics demand citations and rigour.
And you think you’ll remember, don’t you? You think you’ll remember which book you got that from and you don’t, and when you do remember the book you can’t remember the chapter. So, yes, absolutely.
Did you use anything like EndNote or RefWorks or any tool like that?
Alina Addison: I didn’t. I mean, that’s a sort of, again, the enthusiasm of the beginner not really having the toolkit with me. And it’s interesting, in the end I sort of negotiated, so I don’t have the page numbers because I think that would have been a massive headache and I was so grateful for that. I know in terms of, but I think if I were to do it again, I will be a lot more, yes, grateful you know, or just careful as well to do it early on.
Alison Jones: Yes, absolutely. It’s a great tip, super practical. Thank you.
Also, I’m going to ask you for a book, a recommendation. So if people haven’t read a book that you have read recently and loved what would you gift us?
Alina Addison: Oh, and you know, that’s such a difficult question for me, I have a pile of books to think about what is, especially in terms of the business, but it’s one that I read recently and it’s called The Click Moment by Franz Johansson. And he also wrote the book called The Medici Effect, but The Click Moment, why it really landed with me, because it’s this definition of success and he’s very non unconventionally, I suppose, saying that success, the conventional definition of success is, yes, you put in a lot of hard work and you strategize and you plan, but there is an element of you know, actually it’s a randomness, I think is what he says, which is sort of luck, which is yes, it is unconventional, so I am, you know, I haven’t finished it, but it’s fascinating to follow that thread. And for me, I have explored a lot about this concept of serendipity. That there is no coincidence and of course it looks like a coincidence, it sounds like one, but there is something there.
So although I love the concept, I disagree slightly with him you know, I’m sure he would, but there is randomness, but there is an element of non randomness if that makes sense.
Alison Jones: Yes, it’s such a fascinating relationship, isn’t it? What’s that famous, you know, the harder I work, the luckier I get. There is a sense of being ready to take advantage when the click moment or, you know, I’m not quite sure how he’s using it, but that’s a really interesting concept.
Don’t know it. Thank you for the recommendation. Love that.
And before I go on to my last question, which is about how people can find you, I think we’ve just got time to go to Transylvania. Can you tell us?
Alina Addison: Absolutely, what would you like to know about?
Alison Jones: Well, I mean, I don’t know what I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know anybody that’s built a hotel in Transylvania before. Just what? Why? How? When?
Alina Addison: Well, no, absolutely, very happy to.
So, I was born originally in Bucharest, so in Romania, so, Transylvania is part of Romania, and I know a lot of people sort of sometimes don’t realize that, and I then came to the UK to study more than 30 years ago. And I got married and my husband had, it was his idea, not mine, to have, and I’m talking about more than 30 years ago, to have a hotel as students.
And I still remember the audacity of the idea and it’s one of the click moments and how life then takes on. I became an investment banker, my very first bonus, literally, we said what we will do. And we said, what about building a holiday home? That’s how it started. And I went to my Dad and I said, we’d love to build a holiday home in Romania, Dad. And he said, really? Who is going to look after your holiday home, Alina? Go and travel the world, forget about a holiday home.
And then we had, you know, over a glass of wine and my husband, my ex husband, but my Dad, they were talking about if we’re going to have a home, why don’t we do a bed and breakfast?
Then at least someone will look after it. And that idea just became five rooms, ten rooms, ten rooms. It was really, I don’t know how many glasses of wine,
Alison Jones: There’s a really complicated equation here to be made between audacity plus wine equals amazing.
Alina Addison: Hotel. Totally.
And it was, I mean, my Dad was very, very enthusiastic about the idea. And it was an idea. I always, actually, I say that to my children, to my clients, set an intention, even if you don’t know how you will get there. Because at the time the idea came, we actually didn’t have the funding.
The funding then happened. So, you know, through a lot of bonuses later on, it was a big project, almost like this book. It took four years. One year to find the piece of land and then three more years for it to be built. It’s been operational for 20 years, as long as my son. So they were literally born at the same time, if you like.
I remember the gestation period of, you know, it was nine months, but this was four years and it’s been a while. I mean, it’s probably one of the things I’m most proud of in a way, because it’s survived, if I can even call it that, through a lot of the financial crisis in 07 and obviously pandemic and everything else, it’s still there.
And my Dad looked after it, now my sister, and I got to, you know, a great use of it these days because we do Audacious Leaders Retreats there every year. And I’ll be there next week.
Alison Jones: Wonderful. And now my brain is thinking about how that’s a great analogy for a business book and what’s involved in planning it and how then you invite people into it and they experience it. Amazing. Thank you so much. I’m so glad I got time to ask you that question.
And now Alina, the final question. If people want to find out more about you, more about the book, more about the business, where should they go?
Alina Addison: Well, my preferred platform is LinkedIn. So that’s where I sort of hang out, if you like. So it’s Alina Addison, it’s easy to find me on LinkedIn.
I also have a newsletter called Audacious Leadership that comes out once a month on LinkedIn. We have a website adaptaa.co.uk and yes, I think that’s probably, I mean, the other big project, I suppose, that I’ve started, and I think I sort of mentioned to you very briefly this year is LinkedIn Lives because I know how much effort and everything goes with, although, you know, it’s free for everybody, for you personally to do the podcast, it’s a lot of, yes, a lot of energy as I call it.
So LinkedIn seemed…
Alison Jones: …a lot of Saturday morning. Yes.
Alina Addison: Indeed, indeed.
So I do audacious conversations now on LinkedIn every other Monday. So 30 minutes and we just turn up, it’s someone that inspires me or I love, and we have a conversation and I don’t have to do what you do, all of the editing. It’s just, it’s there, it’s available on LinkedIn.
And then now we’ve transferred over to a YouTube channel.
Alison Jones: Fantastic. I will definitely check those out. And I recommend, listener, that you do too.
Alina, it’s just been such a joy talking to you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Alina Addison: Thank you. Thank you very much.
