Speaker 1: Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
Speaker 1: activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
Speaker 1: And I'm doctor add Neru Kar, a physician and medical
Speaker 1: correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
Speaker 1: layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
Speaker 1: men's time as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's
Speaker 1: time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
Speaker 1: are partnered with or without children, or in a career
Speaker 1: where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
Speaker 1: you for all family structures. We're here to take a
Speaker 1: time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
Speaker 1: our time. Hi d D, how are you high? Eve? Today?
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with a story that I tell
Speaker 1: about how damn scared I was to record the audio
Speaker 1: book for fair Play. Like physical manifestations of stress, you know,
Speaker 1: panic attacks, shortness of breath. Anytime I thought about recording
Speaker 1: the audio book, typically authors of nonfiction do record their
Speaker 1: own audio, and it was something I knew I really
Speaker 1: wanted to do some man wanted to conquer, but I
Speaker 1: was really paralyzed with the idea. So I kept putting
Speaker 1: it off and off, because often I think in the
Speaker 1: face of fear, one of the best coping mechanisms that's
Speaker 1: probably not the healthiest is procrastinations. So I did that one,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't working because every time I think about it,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, why do I have that pit in
Speaker 1: my stomach? Oh? God, this the audio book I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: It's the back of my head. Often fear for me
Speaker 1: sits as butterflies in my stomach, for really tightness in
Speaker 1: my chest. I do know that those feelings since being
Speaker 1: very early. I remember feeling that first probably is a
Speaker 1: kindergartener or earlier in thinking, you know, why is my
Speaker 1: stomach always hurt? So I decide to do something about
Speaker 1: my fear. I decided to prepare. I start to read
Speaker 1: about how people combat fear. Preparation is a really really
Speaker 1: important one. One woman, I think she said she gave
Speaker 1: her Ted talk over a thousand times to herself before
Speaker 1: she actually delivered it. And so my preparation for reading
Speaker 1: the audio book was to sign up for a voiceover class. Cool.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of living in Los Angeles pre pandemic.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people here who are trying
Speaker 1: to be actors or voiceover specialists apparently, and so there's
Speaker 1: lots of classes. So I found one in Burbank, and
Speaker 1: I show up for my first voiceover class, and the
Speaker 1: people adity were really diverse and interesting. I became friends
Speaker 1: with a woman who was auditioning to be a rat
Speaker 1: in a new movie or some sort of rodent and
Speaker 1: a man who was auditioning to be Charlie the Star
Speaker 1: Kiss Tuna apparently that was going to be coming back
Speaker 1: as a campaign. And both of these people gave me
Speaker 1: really important life lessons, how to project, how to use
Speaker 1: soft drama hands when you're talking into a microphone, and
Speaker 1: then high drama hands when you want to really emphasize
Speaker 1: a point. Rodent lady told me that my job is
Speaker 1: gonna be so easy because I get to read my
Speaker 1: own words as opposed to Rodent speak, which is obviously
Speaker 1: not even English. And the reason why that was so
Speaker 1: important to me was because I realized that the preparation,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna be talking about the ready set go
Speaker 1: for a work of fear being ready, preparing through these
Speaker 1: voice over lessons, getting set by having a community of
Speaker 1: spiritual friends, which were Charlie the Darkest Tuna and Rat
Speaker 1: Woman at that point in my life, and then just
Speaker 1: going to go they're ready the set, and then going
Speaker 1: immersing yourself, going to the studio, saying those first words
Speaker 1: and getting better and better by chapter is what got
Speaker 1: me through a time a dity that was really really
Speaker 1: stressful and hard. And so I think about those damply lit,
Speaker 1: poorly attended p t A meeting style voiceover lessons who
Speaker 1: knew how important Charlie the Darkest Tuna would be to
Speaker 1: me in my creative journey. But I want to thank you,
Speaker 1: Charlie the Darkest Tuna Man and Rat Lady, who didn't
Speaker 1: give me releases to use their full names, but I
Speaker 1: I'm calling you by that, and we love you and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of you today. It's amazing how something like
Speaker 1: writing a book you face so many of your fears,
Speaker 1: and you likely had fears when you were writing the
Speaker 1: book and doing your research, but you were able to
Speaker 1: push through and then when it came time to sharing
Speaker 1: it with the world and sharing your work with the world,
Speaker 1: even if it was in a studio for an audio
Speaker 1: book recording that only you would hear. Initially, it seemed
Speaker 1: like something that was insurmountable. And often what we see
Speaker 1: with fear is that sometimes it can be a very
Speaker 1: legitimate fear of I want to climb Mount Everest, but
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to climb out Everest, and that's a truly
Speaker 1: legitimate But equally legitimate are these fears that may not
Speaker 1: seem scary from the outside, but boys, do they feel
Speaker 1: legitimate inside with what's happening with our biology and our
Speaker 1: brain and our heart palpitations, that amygdala, that fight or
Speaker 1: flight response, And that's the thing that's so fascinating to
Speaker 1: me about fear is that the part of our brain
Speaker 1: that recognizes fear, the amygdala, which we've talked about in
Speaker 1: our very first episode of this podcast. That brain structure
Speaker 1: and all of the structures around it called the limbic
Speaker 1: system or the reptilian brain. It processes fear the same
Speaker 1: way whether you're at base camp of Mount Everest and
Speaker 1: looking at the peak and saying I'm going to climb
Speaker 1: this mountain or your own personal Everest in your case
Speaker 1: recording the audio book, same fight or flight response, same
Speaker 1: Amigdala response. And I love the practice that you ascribe
Speaker 1: in your book, Ready Set Go, because it really helps
Speaker 1: us overcome that a Magdala response. The more you practice
Speaker 1: something and visualize it and imagine yourself in the scenario,
Speaker 1: it dampens that heightened emotional state because you are truly
Speaker 1: facing our your fears. Your brain doesn't recognize something as
Speaker 1: imaginary versus real. So when you rehearse scenarios, which is
Speaker 1: that woman with the TED talk who practiced a thousand times,
Speaker 1: she may have truly to the world only given one
Speaker 1: TED talk, but to her and her brain and her amygdala,
Speaker 1: she gave a thousand and one Ted talks of already
Speaker 1: said go framework. So, if you think about preparation, having
Speaker 1: that spiritual friendship, community doesn't have to be a stark
Speaker 1: is Tuna man or the actual repetition itself of doing
Speaker 1: so for you? What's what piece of the framework. Is
Speaker 1: it the preparation that makes fear easier for you? Is
Speaker 1: it the community of support or is it the actual
Speaker 1: doing and doing and doing the go part? I think
Speaker 1: all three are so critical, but at different points. So
Speaker 1: early on in the project, at the inception stage, that
Speaker 1: first part of thinking about it is the great hurdle.
Speaker 1: And then once you have whatever you're afraid of, something
Speaker 1: that you've done once or twice and are still afraid
Speaker 1: that practice and perfecting, sharing with other people to get
Speaker 1: that support and buy in, emotional buy in, and then
Speaker 1: ultimately the doing. But it's a process and it can't happen.
Speaker 1: You can't go from zero to sixty. You have to
Speaker 1: take all of those necessary steps. It also helps to
Speaker 1: prime the brain when you take all of those steps,
Speaker 1: because you can't just look at everyst and say all right,
Speaker 1: I'm ready going to climb. It's a whole marathon. It's
Speaker 1: a training and you have to almost train your brain
Speaker 1: to overcome the fear. And I think the ready, set,
Speaker 1: go mindset and framework helps us to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because for me, being able to combine
Speaker 1: ready and set a lot is often a way for
Speaker 1: me to come to combat fear. Shout out to my
Speaker 1: friend Zoe, She's sleeps in bed with me. When I
Speaker 1: go on tour, have to give a giant speech. And
Speaker 1: I remember after conquering the audio book Fear, the next
Speaker 1: one right after that was the first talk I was
Speaker 1: giving unfair play it was in Radio City Music Hall.
Speaker 1: She had gone to was a kid on many field trips,
Speaker 1: but I remember I think it was right after Condoleeza
Speaker 1: Rice and right before Diane von first Bour. I was
Speaker 1: the only one that was required to do a stand
Speaker 1: up ted talk type speech. Everybody else seemed to have
Speaker 1: been afforded a nice chair in some sort of panel discussion,
Speaker 1: which would have been easier. But I do remember that,
Speaker 1: and then having Zoe there, she was my set, and
Speaker 1: then the going. Like you said, I probably did feel
Speaker 1: like I gave that speech a thousand times by that
Speaker 1: time I got up on that stage because I poor Zoe.
Speaker 1: She has she probably knows her an Air and Aaron
Speaker 1: out there shout out to you. I have two people
Speaker 1: who probably know my keynote speech now better better than
Speaker 1: I do. Fear is a tricky thing, and there's some
Speaker 1: people who have really mastered fear, they still get afraid
Speaker 1: and do it anyway, you know. I think about someone
Speaker 1: who I really admire, Sarah Blakely, and she talks a
Speaker 1: lot about fear and the fear of failure, which is
Speaker 1: something that we're going to be talking about later in
Speaker 1: our episode, and how her father growing up would always
Speaker 1: ask her, so, how did you fail today? And she
Speaker 1: had to celebrate her failures and so she didn't have
Speaker 1: a fear of failure, so she could try new different
Speaker 1: things as an adult. But I think about how we
Speaker 1: all have a very distinct and unique relationship to fear,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily that the fear isn't present for
Speaker 1: people who take risks both in their life and in
Speaker 1: their work. It's that they figured out strategies, tools, and
Speaker 1: mechanisms to have that fear, do it anyway and overcome
Speaker 1: a lot of those primal urges to step back into
Speaker 1: safety and comfort. So a lot of the strategies that
Speaker 1: we're talking about is not necessarily to remove the fear
Speaker 1: because fear is naturally an important thing for evolutionary growth.
Speaker 1: Fear is a signal of something, and when it's adaptive,
Speaker 1: it can be really positive. But when it becomes maladaptive
Speaker 1: prevents you from reaching your highest potential, that's when it's
Speaker 1: a problem. It's okay to be afraid, but the trick
Speaker 1: is to figure out a strategy that's personalized for you
Speaker 1: so you can do it anyway, whatever that it is. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that framing. We are not here to tell
Speaker 1: you to be fearless. I never understood that word. Do
Speaker 1: it anyway, and that's why we're so excited to talk
Speaker 1: with our amazing guests, Brad Johnson and David Smith. David
Speaker 1: and Brad are co authors of the book Good Guys,
Speaker 1: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace,
Speaker 1: a topic that's close to my heart, and we'll be
Speaker 1: speaking with them after the break about their book and
Speaker 1: their research. So stay with us. We're so excited to
Speaker 1: have Dr Brad Johnson and Dr David Smith, co authors
Speaker 1: of the book Good Guys, How Men Can Be Better
Speaker 1: Allies for Women in the Workplace, with us today. Welcome
Speaker 1: Brad and David. Glad to be here, Eve, and add
Speaker 1: thanks to you. Great to be here with you. So
Speaker 1: before we start talking about fear I would love for
Speaker 1: our listeners to know a little bit more about your story.
Speaker 1: How did you come into this work. It's such a
Speaker 1: fascinating story and I would love for you to share it.
Speaker 1: You know, Brand and I started our collaboration on this
Speaker 1: topic when we were both teaching at the Naval Academy's
Speaker 1: faculty there, and we quickly recognized Nick early on in
Speaker 1: our time together that we had a lot of different
Speaker 1: kinds of connections in terms of why this work was
Speaker 1: important to us, you know, our academic backgrounds and clinical
Speaker 1: psychologist and his focus on mentoring relationships. We we definitely
Speaker 1: saw where there was different access to different kinds of
Speaker 1: important resources. But the other part that I think is
Speaker 1: really important is the personal connection to doing this work.
Speaker 1: You know, it started early, you know, the beginning of
Speaker 1: my career, my Navy career as a pilot. I was
Speaker 1: married and still I am married to my wife, who
Speaker 1: who also was a nable officer, had a very similar career,
Speaker 1: parallel career paths, and of course, you know, we talked
Speaker 1: a lot about our experiences in the workplace, but there
Speaker 1: were so many differences in terms of how the workplace
Speaker 1: was just this very challenging for her compared to me
Speaker 1: in ways that that I just didn't understand. I didn't
Speaker 1: see it because I didn't experience it in the same
Speaker 1: way that she did. And if I was looking for
Speaker 1: help I needed a mentor, or if I was looking
Speaker 1: for hey, what should I do next? And those kind
Speaker 1: of things were just right there at my fingertips. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to look very far for her, not as much,
Speaker 1: and and so I think her sharing some of those
Speaker 1: experiences really got in touch one of my sense of fairness,
Speaker 1: but also too with the idea that lots of other
Speaker 1: women are experiencing this too, And so a lot of
Speaker 1: ways that was that personal experience was also part of
Speaker 1: the curiosity and the inquisitiveness that I have around this topic.
Speaker 1: And I'll just offer a quick thumbnail that I think
Speaker 1: will help you understand my personal narratives. So I I
Speaker 1: have a sister. She's a Navy captain, very senior, very successful.
Speaker 1: I called her one weekend and she sounded kind of down,
Speaker 1: and I said, Shannah, what's going on? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: we had this road race with members of the executive team,
Speaker 1: and she's the only woman on the executive team. Most
Speaker 1: of the men she works with her younger. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: what happened on the on this ten k you ran? Well,
Speaker 1: I won, And I said, well, that actually sounds great
Speaker 1: to congrats and she said, well, I was feeling good
Speaker 1: when I crossed the finish line. I felt yeah. And
Speaker 1: then all the men started crossing the finish line, and
Speaker 1: I could tell they were shocked that I beat them all.
Speaker 1: And and then they all started coming up to me
Speaker 1: with their own excuse, kind of like, hey, good job, Shannon,
Speaker 1: but yeah, my achilles or I was really dehydrated. And
Speaker 1: she realized they felt bad about being beaten by a woman.
Speaker 1: And then she started internalizing and feeling guilty that she
Speaker 1: had run so fast. And I said, Shannon, can you
Speaker 1: hear yourself? A dude would never say that, he'd just
Speaker 1: be like in your face. And those conversations with my
Speaker 1: sister over twenty five years in in really parallel navy careers,
Speaker 1: have just piqued my concern, my curiosity, like Dave, kind
Speaker 1: of triggered my sense of injustice, I think in some ways.
Speaker 1: And that in addition to looking at all the research
Speaker 1: showing that women just get less mentoring and sponsoring and
Speaker 1: lower quality sponsoring, I think all of that together has
Speaker 1: been kind of part of what's instigated my interest. I
Speaker 1: would love to ask you about your work with impostor syndrome.
Speaker 1: It's something that I have certainly faced in my own trajectory.
Speaker 1: I've some of our listeners may be new to tackling
Speaker 1: their impostor syndrome. I'd left for you to give us
Speaker 1: some of your thoughts on why this happens more to
Speaker 1: women than men. I'm so glad you're thinking about this
Speaker 1: impostor issue. Dave and I wrote an article in HBRE
Speaker 1: on how we can be better mentors for people with
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome, and I think if you're really dig into
Speaker 1: the research on this, you do find there's a gendered element.
Speaker 1: So more people, more women do report having impostor feelings.
Speaker 1: But I think what we lose sight of is very
Speaker 1: often that is a consequence of the culture or the
Speaker 1: context in which they're functioning. It's a culture that gives
Speaker 1: them messages that you don't belong. We've never seen a
Speaker 1: woman in this role. You're weird, right, and and that
Speaker 1: certainly creates cognitions and feelings that I don't belong. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to make it. Everyone's watching for me to
Speaker 1: make a mistake. Any minute, I'm going to blow it,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna show me to the exit. I mean,
Speaker 1: the irony is all of us have those feelings. Men too.
Speaker 1: Every time we enter a new job, we feel like impostures.
Speaker 1: That's just part of the human condition. But when I
Speaker 1: hear that from somebody I'm ntoring or I'm an ally with,
Speaker 1: I want to focus more on where are those messages
Speaker 1: coming from, not is there something wrong with you that
Speaker 1: you have self doubt. I want to look at the
Speaker 1: context and then begin to devise strategies for pushing back
Speaker 1: on that and also changing that context so that those
Speaker 1: messages aren't being transmitted to women. I wonder if you
Speaker 1: could talk a little bit about how to combat fear
Speaker 1: in those situations, meaning whether it's legitimate fear right. I
Speaker 1: was reading Katie Kuric's autobiography and she's talking about the
Speaker 1: men that dropped their pants when women were entering their offices.
Speaker 1: So there could be legitimate fear and trauma of being
Speaker 1: a certain way of looking, a certain way of being
Speaker 1: a marginalized population in an organization. I like to joke,
Speaker 1: you know, women are not really allowed to be loud
Speaker 1: and wrong. There's a fear around what if I say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. I am that token, so I'm here
Speaker 1: to represent everybody and everything. Even I saw in Whitney
Speaker 1: heard when she had her bumble I p O. The
Speaker 1: lawyers in her I p O statement that goes out
Speaker 1: to potential investors said there's extra risk here because this
Speaker 1: is a female founder, and there's market risk because she's
Speaker 1: going to be subjected to so much more scrutiny. So
Speaker 1: how do you again think about ways to combat your
Speaker 1: own fear when there are legitimate reasons why, as you said,
Speaker 1: minorities populations would be conditioned to feel trauma from and
Speaker 1: have actual reasons to be afraid. There's so many things
Speaker 1: we could talk about here. Let me start with the
Speaker 1: cognitive or the self talk. I'm such a fan of
Speaker 1: all the cognitive therapy work around anxiety. When we have
Speaker 1: anxiety about performance or anxiety about being inadequate, one of
Speaker 1: the really powerful techniques for combating anxiety in that area
Speaker 1: tends to be really watching, identifying, and then tweaking or
Speaker 1: managing myself talk. So when I'm saying things to myself
Speaker 1: in that context, like I must perform perfectly on this
Speaker 1: to represent all women really well and be absolutely flawless. Um.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite cognitive psychologist, Albert Ellis, would say,
Speaker 1: you're musturbating. You need you need to stop that, or
Speaker 1: same with I should I I should be perfect, I
Speaker 1: should show up and knock it out of the park
Speaker 1: on behalf of all women. He would say, you're shooting
Speaker 1: on yourself and you need to stop that. But I
Speaker 1: can look at my catastrophic thinking, right, I tend to
Speaker 1: bloat out of proportion and say, oh my god, if
Speaker 1: I don't show up today and get it perfectly right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be fired, or all women are going
Speaker 1: to be cast in a negative light. It's going to
Speaker 1: be catastrophic. Let's pull that back and and just check
Speaker 1: that what I prefer to do really well. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that's a legitimate wish. I think we could all
Speaker 1: wish that. But would it be catastrophic if I'm not perfect? No?
Speaker 1: And so there's some personal work I can do here
Speaker 1: with my own self talk and really examine. I'm such
Speaker 1: a big fan of what we're telling ourselves, and I
Speaker 1: think that wonderful mentor can call this out to or
Speaker 1: just a great ally or colleague, kind of like me
Speaker 1: with my sister. Right, I can say, Shannon, can you
Speaker 1: hear yourself? I mean, no, wonder you're feeling sad or
Speaker 1: down on yourself? Are guilty if you're saying that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have made those men feel bad about running so
Speaker 1: fast and crushing him in the race. What if we
Speaker 1: change that? What if you're narrative was you know I
Speaker 1: really performed well, and I feel proud of that, and
Speaker 1: how they react to that is really up to them.
Speaker 1: So I can twist that narrative a bit. I can
Speaker 1: attack the shame too with some behavioral exposure therapy, and
Speaker 1: I can do my own personal exposure therapy by putting
Speaker 1: myself in a situation where I I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to be embarrassed or not get it right, or people
Speaker 1: are going to be looking at me, and recognize that
Speaker 1: I can tolerate that. It's another cognitive therapy intervention. Again.
Speaker 1: Albert Ellis would give his patients assignments like go to
Speaker 1: a mall, have a banana on a leash and just
Speaker 1: pull it through the whole and everyone's going to stare
Speaker 1: at you, and you're gonna feel like an idiot? Can
Speaker 1: you tolerate that? Right? And you can if you make
Speaker 1: yourself do that. So, if shame is part of it,
Speaker 1: or feeling like you're gonna embarrass yourself for others, can
Speaker 1: you deliberately expose yourself to some of that and do
Speaker 1: it with an attitude of humor so that it becomes
Speaker 1: a little less overwhelming when it actually occurs. By the way,
Speaker 1: there's a shell servicing poem where this kid wants a dog,
Speaker 1: and then he's just carrying his hot dog around on
Speaker 1: a piece of string. That's that's what I think. It
Speaker 1: also reminds me of Sarah Blakely, who is a very
Speaker 1: successful entrepreneur and the founder of Spanks, and she often
Speaker 1: talks about her father growing up wouldn't ask her, you know, so,
Speaker 1: how did you sick? See today he would ask her, so,
Speaker 1: how did you fail today? Tell me all about it?
Speaker 1: And so it became the gamification of failure, and so
Speaker 1: that sting of failure becomes so much less pronounced. I
Speaker 1: love that adity. And you know, when we wrote about perfectionism,
Speaker 1: we actually said, hey, if you're mentoring somebody with perfectionism,
Speaker 1: give them an assignment to, for example, send you an
Speaker 1: email full of typos and then not tell you they're
Speaker 1: going to do it right, and then just tolerate. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, how's my mentor going to evaluate me with
Speaker 1: such shoddy work. Well, give them assignments to do that,
Speaker 1: so they come right into exposure with that, and then
Speaker 1: they get the experience and it's not going to kill him.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that women are more prone to perfectionism
Speaker 1: than men? It might be a little question. Yeah, we do,
Speaker 1: and there's some of that in the research, and I
Speaker 1: think we inherit some of that, I think from the
Speaker 1: experiences we have with family members and especially for girls
Speaker 1: with their moms, and so that that can be one
Speaker 1: place that they learned that. And this again back to
Speaker 1: the environment, right, the relationships you have around with people.
Speaker 1: But again I think women more likely to be in
Speaker 1: those token where they're the minority way more likely to
Speaker 1: to be I think susceptible to this. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: an evidence space note of reality here too. Write you've
Speaker 1: heard of the prove it again bias that women encounter.
Speaker 1: She representing all women, is more likely to have to
Speaker 1: prove over and over again she can do the same job.
Speaker 1: And we know that men get the nod on potential
Speaker 1: right even if he's never even demonstrated that before. So
Speaker 1: there's an element of truth here, of genuine reality that
Speaker 1: women are pushed to have more flawless performance. When they
Speaker 1: do make a mistake, we tend to remember it more,
Speaker 1: especially if there are a minority in the company. So
Speaker 1: they have some realistic hurdles here around being under the
Speaker 1: microscope and exhibiting flawless behavior. And that gets back to
Speaker 1: the fear internal fear of failure. You know, if I
Speaker 1: apply for that position or for that advancement, or whatever
Speaker 1: the case might be, and I don't have everything and
Speaker 1: I fail, it's like again the fear of failure, of
Speaker 1: fear of letting down all women out there. That again,
Speaker 1: it's it's real. Can we talk about your fears? It's
Speaker 1: sort of these meta levels of fear. We're talking about fear,
Speaker 1: as we said, in different ways, impostor syndrome, self talk
Speaker 1: type fears, things that frees us, legitimate fears and the
Speaker 1: context of being, as you said, a token our minoritized population.
Speaker 1: But I actually think that even if you didn't have
Speaker 1: this whole layer of expertise, I would have still wanted
Speaker 1: to come to you. Brad and David say, the military
Speaker 1: teaches a lot about fear. I wanted to ask each
Speaker 1: of you, what is something that you have learned in
Speaker 1: writing all of those articles and read all of your books.
Speaker 1: What has most surprised you about your own fears and
Speaker 1: how you've gotten over them. Yeah, you know, Eve, in
Speaker 1: terms of what has surprised me in my case, the
Speaker 1: one that I'll use was terrible fear of public speaking.
Speaker 1: I always hated that. I mean, I couldn't stand that.
Speaker 1: I avoided it at every turn. And and the irony
Speaker 1: is that after a career of being a professor and
Speaker 1: speaking constantly, that has been the cure, exposure therapy and
Speaker 1: doing it every day. But I can tell you back
Speaker 1: in the years when I was avoiding, and I did
Speaker 1: that for a long time, I would only speak under duress. Right,
Speaker 1: You'd have to almost tie me down to get me
Speaker 1: to speak. In those years, I made no progress whatsoever, zero.
Speaker 1: And it was really only when I started forcing myself
Speaker 1: to do this every day, get up in front of classes,
Speaker 1: that I could just feel the angs idy ebbing and
Speaker 1: eventually kind of disappearing. I think it's unhelpful to offer
Speaker 1: a mastery model, right, Hey, I used to be afraid
Speaker 1: of this, and now I've kicked its rear end and
Speaker 1: now I have no anxiety. That's so unrealistic. Rather, what
Speaker 1: I say is, hey, I'm really doing a lot better
Speaker 1: with this. I've learned all these techniques. I really value
Speaker 1: exposure because it's been very helpful. But I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: if you stand me up in front of a room
Speaker 1: of five thousand people, I might still have anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to deploy all my techniques and it'll
Speaker 1: probably go fine, but I'm gonna still feel the anxiety
Speaker 1: because I don't want anybody who's listening to me to
Speaker 1: think that it goes away. Ever, we're just on a
Speaker 1: journey of coping effectively, and I think that's what I've
Speaker 1: tried to do. I came into my second career in
Speaker 1: a lot of my writing much later in life. Doing
Speaker 1: research and theorizing and putting your ideas out there could
Speaker 1: be very anxiety producing as well. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I learned is that having a mentor or somebody
Speaker 1: else who can walk you along and can come alongside
Speaker 1: with you to kind of slowly stepped that up. I
Speaker 1: think it's helpful too. Has it been nice for you
Speaker 1: to do it together? Because I a lot of what
Speaker 1: I wrote about in my second book, Around Fear was
Speaker 1: that having spiritual friends, however those come along for you
Speaker 1: as writing spiritual friends. Did it help to have each other? Yes? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, in the military we use the term wingman
Speaker 1: a lot, and I think that, I think truly in
Speaker 1: this space, Eve, because we're two men, especially older white men,
Speaker 1: writing about gender and women's experience, in the workplace. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're painting a big target on our chest right when
Speaker 1: we go up, and so just to have another guy
Speaker 1: up there with you, bumbling along and you know, we're
Speaker 1: both stepping in it together and when we get it wrong,
Speaker 1: we have to just laugh at ourselves. But it does
Speaker 1: help to have somebody there with you kind of walking that.
Speaker 1: I love that, But I think it's Brad mentioned there's
Speaker 1: also an opportunity to, you know, to have some humor
Speaker 1: and maybe something for us. It's often self deprecating humor
Speaker 1: around the mistakes we've made, and to be able to
Speaker 1: kind of feed off of each other with that. And
Speaker 1: then again, I think sharing what you've learned along the
Speaker 1: way is really helpful too. I will say, I think
Speaker 1: humor is so helpful, and I think you both have it,
Speaker 1: which is why you come off so authentically and why
Speaker 1: you can be two white men talking about gender. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Brad and Dave. You make me laugh. You're super vulnerable,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of important things to say, and
Speaker 1: we were so happy to have you here. Hi, it's
Speaker 1: me Eve. I wrote find your Unicorn Space as a
Speaker 1: permission slip for you to reconnect and discover that thing
Speaker 1: that makes you come alive without the guilt, without the excuses.
Speaker 1: Especially in our all too busy world, making time ourselves
Speaker 1: is essential work. It improves our health, our relationships, and
Speaker 1: it just might be the antidote to burnout. Join me
Speaker 1: on a journey to find your Unicorn space visit unicorn
Speaker 1: space dot com. So a DD this week's time out,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping our listeners can resonate with the ready, set
Speaker 1: go framework for tackling fear. Tell us more ready is
Speaker 1: what we were hearing about earlier about preparation. When you
Speaker 1: can prepare, things feel easier. Has there ever been a
Speaker 1: time where you were on stage or maybe your first
Speaker 1: time you're on air, did you prepare to do that?
Speaker 1: Because I always feel like things that I can do
Speaker 1: on a fly now I can only do in the
Speaker 1: fly because I had hours and hours and hours and
Speaker 1: hours of preparation the first time that I did that. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think over preparing is the key when you're first
Speaker 1: starting something because it just primes your brain. You know
Speaker 1: that doomsday scenario that Brad mentioned, it's so interesting because
Speaker 1: it can be very detrimental, but earlier, because we're rehearsing
Speaker 1: all of the things that can go wrong, and that
Speaker 1: causes a lot of anxiety. But if you're able to
Speaker 1: prepare and get ready for it, it gives us a
Speaker 1: sense of control and lack of control is one of
Speaker 1: our greatest fears. Well, I love that so much, and
Speaker 1: so you get you get ready by your preparation, whatever
Speaker 1: that means to you. I will say that the reason
Speaker 1: why this framework is ready, set, go is because you
Speaker 1: don't want to get stuck in preparation over preparing, and
Speaker 1: over preparing means you will live in your in your
Speaker 1: fear and you will not get to the go part.
Speaker 1: So write down a way that you can prepare for
Speaker 1: something that you are afraid of. Set so when you
Speaker 1: set the way to set yourself up for success, to
Speaker 1: go for That third step is really what Brad and
Speaker 1: Dave were talking about, which is spiritual friends. Set yourself
Speaker 1: up with people around you who can remind you can
Speaker 1: do this, who you can do it with. This podcast
Speaker 1: a lot less scary because you're my co host. So
Speaker 1: think about who can set you up for success, Who
Speaker 1: can you bring along on your fear journey, who you
Speaker 1: can talk to about your fears. You could do it
Speaker 1: with to maybe make it less fearful, the way David
Speaker 1: Brad wrote their first book together and finally the last piece.
Speaker 1: After getting ready and finding your prep, getting set, and
Speaker 1: bringing a spiritual friend along with you, it's time to go.
Speaker 1: And go doesn't mean necessarily doing the thing you're afraid of.
Speaker 1: The go is doing a thing that will expose you
Speaker 1: to what you're afraid of. So prepare, set yourself up
Speaker 1: with those friends, and think of a go that can
Speaker 1: expose you to that fear. So if it is fear
Speaker 1: of public speaking, maybe just sign up for a zoom
Speaker 1: where you have to share a story in the group,
Speaker 1: a writing class. We have to share your words. Take
Speaker 1: a hot dog, tie it on the string and drag
Speaker 1: it through them all and explain to people why you're
Speaker 1: dragging a hot dog through them all. So I would
Speaker 1: ask in time out today, write down a way to
Speaker 1: get ready, get set, and then go. So that's today's
Speaker 1: time out, and next week we'll be back with our
Speaker 1: very last episode of the season, taking all of the
Speaker 1: knowledge and advice we've heard so far and bringing it
Speaker 1: full circle. Full circle, so you can start thinking about
Speaker 1: making a commitment to your creativity, harnessing your special powers,
Speaker 1: and thinking about what it means to build an active
Speaker 1: legacy for yourself. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heeart podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm
Speaker 1: Eve Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Speaker 1: Play and find your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
Speaker 1: media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
Speaker 1: at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr add Narucar, a
Speaker 1: Harvard physician with a specialty and stress resilience, burnout, and
Speaker 1: mental health. Follow me on social media at Dr add
Speaker 1: Nerucar and find out more about my work at doctor
Speaker 1: a d D dot com. That's d R A d
Speaker 1: I t I dot com. Our Hello Sunshine team is
Speaker 1: Amanda farrand Aaron Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart
Speaker 1: Media team is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Kranschit.
Speaker 1: We hope you all love taking a much needed time
Speaker 1: out of us today. Listen and subscribe to Time Out
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your favorite shows. H