Mindful Monday’s

Transcript

Michelle

Welcome to Mindful Mondays. My name is Michelle Precourt. It's a pleasure being here with you today. I'll jump right into things very quickly. But I do want to take a moment to recognize where we are beginning our work today, all of us here, whether you're in Canada or around the world you're calling in from an indigenous community, and I'm broadcasting live from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh  Nation here in Squamish, British Columbia. I encourage you to tell us where you're calling in today. I’d love to hear from our viewers, where you're calling in from or if you have any questions for our guests. We have two amazing guests with us here today. I want to first start by saying hello to you, Jennifer.

Jenn

Hello, I'm excited to be here today. Thanks for having me.

Michelle

Of course, let me tell you a little bit about Jenn. Okay, so Jenn runs a coaching leadership organization called Jennifer Deane Coaching. She's been in this business for 20 plus years, leading individuals, leading organizations and doing an amazing job at it. So thanks so much for being here today, Jenn. And then Matt. Matt runs lead Lidera Consulting, a company out of Vancouver and has also been working with leaders building resilience, and ultimately, creating more cohesive teams. So I'm also really glad to have you here today, Matt, as well.

Matt

My pleasure. I'm happy to be here to kind of excited for the topic.

Michelle

Absolutely. So we have some chats coming in here. But I want to say something that is brand new for me. There's a “Michelle Precourt”, I don't know what you call it, someone created a new me. Someone created a new me and I have no idea who this person is. But that is spam, just so you know. There's a number of chat comments right in here that I did not put in there. And this individual has more than 4 million followers. Woohoo, good for you! But, folks, it's not me. I just want to say that right off the hop. So I'll have to report that into LinkedIn but that's new for me. I didn't know I was that cool that somebody wanted to mimic me.

So we're here today we're here to talk about building resilience. And so I want to jump right in and get things started. I’m loving to see the comments coming in here from some of our regulars like Youssef calling in from Ottawa. Elizabeth thanks for joining us. Julieta, Barb. Thanks so much, guys, for chiming in. Look forward to seeing your comments in the chat. So Matt, can I start with you today?

Matt

Yeah, sure.

Michelle

Okay. We're here to talk about resilience. But can we take a step back? What's resilience?

Matt

Well, you know, for me, often people will talk about that ability to bounce back, you know, from adversity or, challenges. And I think it's that for sure. But also, we build our capacity in a way that we can withstand all of life's challenges, because they're happening to us all the time. And I think recently, you know, we put a lot of weight on the pandemic, and that has been challenging. But there's also so many other things in life, you know, whether it's Black Lives Matter or global warming, you know, the war in Ukraine, all these things impact us, even if we're not consciously aware of it. So I think resilience for me is building our ability to not only withstand, but thrive, emotionally, physically and mentally, through, you know, all that life has to offer, including, you know, going to work every day.

Michelle

I really like what you said there just about that you don't even know, you know, sometimes you don't realize that you're in something deep until after the fact. And I do think that there's a shift there, that you can overcome it. 100% we overcome these things every day. And sometimes we don't even realize how resilient we are. And then there's those times when it's like no, you know what, I need some help with this. And that's also an amazing, an amazing gift. When you recognize that you need help and it's really hard. It's really hard to do that. Right? We have this idea of who we should be and how we think people should see us. And I think that this is even more true with leaders, this idea of vulnerability, and not wanting to be vulnerable. But at the same time, we're all humans, we're all people, it doesn't matter if you're an individual contributor, or, you know, running the show as a c-suite executive, and we can support each other through that. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But I just wanted to add those initial thoughts in there.

Jenn, I have a question for you, because I know that you focus on developing leaders. And so can you tell me a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of barriers or challenges to building resilience?

Jenn

Yeah, well, right now, especially the leaders I'm working with and talking to on a regular basis, are facing this barrier about the, you know, being required to go back to the office after such a period of working maybe from home. And this is such a big challenge to our resilience, because our resilience sits in our daily habits, it's our strategies, and our ability to be resilient sits in what we do every day. And so having this massive change to the way our life is flowing, you know, putting back in commutes, putting back in, you know, all sorts of time pressures can really force us to have to reevaluate our habits. And so that's where a lot of people are at. And then another barrier I'm noticing is, we know that there's a, we'll just call it a crunch around bodies, and in places and being able to hire enough people to do all the work we require in all industries right now. And so this shortage of people, this puts extra pressure on those that are there, right. So there's less people, there's more required of the people that are there. And again, that's a daily pressure that requires us to have strategies and resilient. So those are, those are a couple of things. I think that there's general obstacles related to organizational culture, different mindsets and beliefs that are embedded in the culture about work and resilience. So there's that but I could go on and on. But I'd love to ask others in the chat, like, what are you seeing out there? Matt? And Michelle, what would you add to that?

Michelle

Yeah, great, great idea. Getting our viewers to chime in here, because maybe together we can, I'll use your word, Matt, riff a little bit here and to provide some ideas to folks who might be a bit challenged right now in the workplace and are challenged with, with this idea of bouncing back. You mentioned two really good things here. I wanted to reiterate what you said. So you talked about habits. Jenn, you talked about these habits that might not be serving us in the most meaningful way. And and it makes me think about some of the work that I do around mindfulness, right? If we're mindful of our habits, and mindful of our triggers, then we have an opportunity to go hmm, yeah, you're right, I do lash out at this or I do step away and become silent and say nothing and retreat, then there's an opportunity to consider what might be some alternatives. And this again, goes to the work that I do around mindfulness and a question that I commonly ask, and whether it's resilience or something else. Who is it that you admire for what they do? And maybe you can ask them about, you know, wow, you reacted in such a professional way. Or you reacted in XYZ? And how do you do that? Right, learning, learning from others. And you also hit on another really key point. Anyone who's subscribing to jobs on LinkedIn, so many, so many opportunities out there. But what that tells us is that there's a lot of vacancies. So you are so right, Jenn around people who have to work harder because of having a skill shortage. So again, we don't have all the answers here. So we'd love to hear from our viewers. Matt, maybe you have some comments as well to share.

Matt

Well, one, of course, I love what you're saying when you're talking about mindfulness and the examples that you gave about being aware in the moment. And I think sometimes people may misunderstand that mindfulness means I have to sit in the yoga position, you know, on the floor and meditate and of course, it can be that, but, how do you be mindful in the moment? And so I think one is being aware. Am I happy right now or grouchy? And how do I want to be or do I feel irritated or, competent and confident in this conversation. So that's one. I'm also seeing a comment from Elizabeth, who says, you know, well, the added pressure of leaders needing to inspire others while they're struggling themselves. And I think that came back to what what Jennifer Dean was saying is, there can be a cultural belief that as leaders, we're supposed to always have it all together. And as you said at the beginning, Michelle, what we're all humans, it doesn't matter what level you are CEO or employee or unemployed. And so I think it's helpful to remember that one, we're just human. And two, the other thing that comes up for me is that we can all learn. Youssef, I think made a comment about a superpower. You know, we all know people who seem to be just born resilient. But we are all capable of learning some of those habits that will help us to stay more resilient. And one, when I think of Elizabeth comment is recognizing that, hey, when I'm human, too, I don't have to do it all alone. And then three, what are some of those little habits that I can start to create that will help me to feel better day to day?

Michelle

Fantastic summary there, I'm going to just pause for a moment and drop something in the comments that might be of interest to folks. I was saying to our guests today that, that just on the weekend, I'm like, hey, wait a minute, I wrote an article about building resilience in the workplace. So I'm going to drop this in the chat here and folks can take a look at it when they have some time. Okay, so thanks so much for all of the comments in the chat. I do want to go back to you, Jenn. So we talked about challenges but what are you seeing in terms of positive trajectory around more resilience in the workplace? Maybe I'll start with you Jenn on that.

Jenn

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one example that I thought of to share was that one of the things I see. I work a lot in healthcare and with healthcare leaders and physician leaders, and one of the great things I'm seeing in workplaces is the systems that are being put in place to help people go on vacation, like it's so important that we get those breaks. And when I was just on vacation last week, and I was monitoring my emails, monitoring things. And I do have, you know, people that work with me on my team that also took the brunt of that what I'm seeing. In healthcare they actually have partnerships, dyads, and partnerships, between, you know, physicians and health care leaders, or between two health care leaders, where when the other person goes on vacation, they are absolutely stepping into the shoes of that person. And that person can completely shut off. And I think that's a really great system or structure that I'm seeing a lot of. And that's just one example. But I'm sure, Matt, Michelle, you're seeing others.

Michelle

Matt, why don't we hear from you next?

Matt

Well, I love you know, Jenn's comment there. Because sometimes structures can help us, you know, especially to the degree we might be filling as leaders, we're supposed to do it all ourselves. And one, I don't know if people will think this is a good thing. Because what I'm seeing a lot of is on things like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, where leaders, even those in this genre, like health care, and that are actually being vulnerable, and saying, hey, you know, over the last two years, and again, it's not just a pandemic, I'm struggling, or I'm feeling anxiety, or I'm, and I'm seeing that's a shift, in my opinion, where we're willing to admit that we're feeling challenged, too. And I think as leaders, that vulnerability to use your your word from earlier, Michelle, is helpful, because I think a lot of times people think, what's wrong with me, I must be the only one feeling this way, you know, there's something wrong when actually, you might be more normal than you think. So that doesn't help alleviate the problem that we're feeling anxious, but I think it allows the others. So to answer your question, a trend that I'm seeing is the willingness to be transparent around whether I'm struggling or not. And I think that's helpful. The other of course, through podcasts like this. I don't mean that as a sales pitch, but with the internet, there's so much information out there about what to do or what you can do, helpful information that I think there's more information available to us now than ever. The trick is, are we moving on that, like we can read it, but then are we going ahead and doing that? And that's a challenge.

Michelle

Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. I want to show a comment from Petra Mayer here because I think that this is sound advice really, really hard but sound advice. So it's this last sentence here, “we must resist the danger of slipping into the role of the victim”. I completely resonate with that. There have been times in my life where I have been so ticked off about X, Y, or Z. And, frankly, that it's not helpful, right? So an example could be, Matt gets promoted, and I don't, and I'm really upset by that, it doesn't mean that I can't be upset at it. But how do I move past this victim, I didn't get the job, because I'm a woman. I'm just throwing that out there. But that can be a real, that could be a real insecurity for people in the workplace that their male counterpart got the job over them. And maybe that's true, maybe it's not, don't know, there is some systemic discrimination out there. 100%. But it's this idea of how do you bounce back from rejection, which is huge, really hard to do. And then rather than, this is again, where the mindfulness work comes in, is, our brains are hardwired to attach to the negative. This goes back to our ancestors of many, many moons ago, who were always on the fight the protective side, and our brains haven't evolved that quickly. So the dangers of today's world aren't saber tooth lions, they are job rejections, they are staffing shortages, they are, my kid has COVID and I have to stay at home and I can't do my job. These are some of the types of dangers that we're seeing. All of this helps us to be, to build those resilience mechanisms in place. But if you can let go of all of these things are just happening to me, versus these things have happened. I don't know if that's something that either of you to want to comment on. But I saw that from Petra, and I thought it was worth sharing.

Jenn

I think it's a very good comment. And I think there's a big difference between victim-hood and vulnerability what we've been discussing. And I think that we can sometimes get mixed up between those two and you know, victim-hood is dangerous, and it can, it can be contagious, in an in a culture, where is vulnerability, you know, accepting, you know, being open and transparent about how you're feeling versus, you know, playing the passive person where they're, you're not feeling in any control whatsoever. So I think that we can help leaders understand the difference, and you can hear it when someone's speaking, you can hear where they're coming from, and as coaches and, and all of us support and coach leaders around this topic, you know, we can help them see and hear their own inner dialogue and help them see, you know, and move more toward vulnerability, trance in transparency versus victim-hood.

Michelle

For sure, Matt, I want to I want to ask you to chime in here because I know that you have a program that helps build resilience. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Matt

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking. And just picking up on a bit of what Jennifer said there too, is being vulnerable doesn't necessarily mean I have to cave in. And using your term, you know, mindfulness is being aware of, well, if, this is how I'm feeling now, what is it that I do want and then shifting my mind toward that without stepping over, you know, an emotion or a feeling that's important for me to acknowledge and be aware of, and then getting clear on well, what is it that I'm wanting more of? And this kind of comes back to Peter Senge, you know, some of the old notions around the circle of concern versus the circle of control. So for example, in the sounds in theory all right now, but I'll ground it. I may care about global warming, but I can't control it. And so if I stay in the worry of global warming, I'm going to have that social threat that you're talking about where my amygdala is triggered, I got adrenaline, cortisol and high anxiety and I'm not feeling very good. To that degree, I can be clear, well, what is it that I want? And what can I control? Okay, I can start to recycle, I can ride my bike to work. You know, there's certain things I can do that will help with global warming. Now what happens is the threat starts to be reduced through me focusing on what I can control, and it feels less out of my control. So anyways, that sounds a little bit of theory, but the practice of looking for what can I do now? I put into one of the practices I call it optimism, but it has to do with them. Looking for what's possible, what can I do. But what I've done with the resilience in that, as you and Jenn and I talked. It came from the pandemic, when I saw so many leaders struggling. And I didn't know how to help. And so the course was born from that. So it's six very practical strategies. One includes mindfulness, by the way, of what you can do that will help build, are nice to say, rebuild your resilience so that you're better able to navigate all these challenges that happened to us every day. Some of them are so practical, that people will say, well, I already know that. And my cheeky comeback to that is, are you doing it? Yeah, so for example, most people know they should be drinking more water every day. That's not profound at all. I know that, as Jen takes some water, way to go. But are we doing it? And so of course, some of the the strategies that I talked about are more more intricate than that. But that's just one example. So six practical habits people can do, based on what most resilient people do that helps you build your resilience.

Michelle

Yeah, of course, of course. So I did share your website in the chat, is that the best way to get a hold of you Matt?

Matt

Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. That's great.

Michelle

Yeah, it does make me think of this, just what you were saying about the the habits or the things that we know we should do, or the things that we know we shouldn't do. And yet, our habits are really hard to change. And in one of my programs, I also talk about this idea of training the brain, right. So you can go to the gym and build more muscles or work on your core, or practice yoga, or all these types of things. But we don't necessarily think about our brain in that same sort of way. That if we notice that we're always going to the negative and that global warming and what's happening with the heating of the earth. And all that sort of thing is going to rip us apart, and we're all going to die. That, you know, that will tear us all apart really quickly, right? So what are some things that you can do to take a step back, and I really liked that analogy, the, you know, recycling and riding your bike and all those types of things. And when I think about workplace environments, well, maybe we can't, you know, we can't control what's happening. If it's a publicly traded organization, we can't control the stock prices. But what can we do as leaders is to drive sales, to increase customers, to work on employee retention, that's a huge one, these days. All of those things are going to help with the numbers that are on the stock.

So I think this has been a really, really excellent conversation. Jenn, I do want to ask you a little bit about tools or resources that you might have in your back pocket, or, actually, I'm also going to pop this up here, Petra Mayer, once again, chimed in. Thanks, Petra, about a book, so many amazing books out there. And I'm going to add this one to my list, because I've been in a bit of a reading frenzy these days. So thank you. Jenn?

Jenn

Yeah, well, I, I think that resilience starts with each individual. And one area that can really support you is to understand your, your own leadership identity, you know, who you are, what you believe, what's most important to you. And so, we all think, you know, we know our strengths, some of us might have done work around our values. But it's a good time in life now with all the challenges to reconnect to those things. And so one of the things I've been I've been doing with leaders and teams actually is a program that I call Leader Stamp, and is a program designed to take you through a process of either connecting for the first time or reconnecting to your values, your vision, your strengths, and your passions and your purpose. So I think that that is a great way to really reconnect to who you are, what's important and what you want. So that's another way to build resilience is to just tap into that part of yourself. That's really important. And that drives you and motivates you.

Michelle

100%. I do a lot of work around values as well, because again, what you had said earlier, Matt, about mindfulness isn't sitting on the floor, cross legged, yes, we can do that. But being mindful of our values, and if there's a misalignment. I've had that misalignment in the past, working for amazing leaders, but we lead in different ways. And so that impacted my ability to do what I wanted to do because we had different paths that we were going down and so there was this misalignment. Tapping into values can be a huge, a huge awareness to understanding what you need, but it could also make you realize that you're having all these bumps in the road. And why are we having these bumps in the road, it's because, oh, I want something different. And you know, it's that round peg, square square hole analogy. If you're always trying to fit into something that doesn't really work for you, then you're always on this bumpy road, right? And life isn't perfect. We all know this. This is the you know, the esoteric part of the conversation. But if we figure out how to take a step back and be more mindful about what it is that we need, and what it is, that's no longer serving us, we might be able to ride the waves a little bit more readily.

So with that, I'm looking at the time and it's about time to wrap up, I really want to thank you both for chiming in sharing your thoughts and your expertise. Thank you, to our viewers who have shared your time with us very much appreciate that. I'm here the third Monday of every month, unless there's, you know, a holiday or some sort of scheduling conflict with the guests that we have. But on August the let me just quickly check my dates here. The next Mindful Monday is August 25. I'm speaking with a career development expert Lotte Struwing. And she's got a lot to share on this topic. Our agenda for the day is, it's a question actually, what is succession planning, professional development, employee engagement and retaining top talent all have in common? It's career development. So join us on August 25. More to come. Quick closing. Thank you so much, Matt, for joining me today.

Matt

Thank you. Thank you.

Michelle

Thank-you Jenn.

Jenn

Thank you, Michelle. Such a great topic and look forward to next time and all the future Mindful Mondays to come.

Michelle

I wish you all a good rest of your day and until next time, be well