Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to have Bonnie Saint John on the podcast. For over
Speaker 1: fifteen years, Bonnie has circled the globe as a keynote speaker,
Speaker 1: Fortune five hundred leadership consultant, and thought leader. Bonnie combines
Speaker 1: the lessons she learned as an amputee she had her
Speaker 1: right leg amputated at the age of five, an Olympic athlete, rhodescholar,
Speaker 1: White House official, and entrepreneurial business woman into flexible, highly impactful,
Speaker 1: yet entertaining presentations designed to provide insightful and inspirationial solutions
Speaker 1: to the challenges of today's dynamic global workplace, so that
Speaker 1: all in one breath. NBC Nightly News called Bonnie one
Speaker 1: of the five most inspiring women in America. Her latest
Speaker 1: book co author with Alan Haynes, is called micro Resilience
Speaker 1: Minor shifts for major boosts and focus, drive and energy.
Speaker 1: What a delight it is to chat with you today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Scott. This is great, It is great,
Speaker 1: and what a fascinating concept. You know, in the field
Speaker 1: of positive psychology we talk about, you know, resiliency is
Speaker 1: kind of a buzzword in a way, but micro resiliency
Speaker 1: has not become a buzzword yet, but maybe now it will.
Speaker 1: Could you talk a little bit about what the differences
Speaker 1: between macro and micro resilience. Well, it's on a couple
Speaker 1: of different levels. It's the problem a lot of people
Speaker 1: think of resilience, you know, the problem we need resilience
Speaker 1: for is something really big, like rebuilding a town after
Speaker 1: a hurricane, or recovering from cancer or a divorce or
Speaker 1: abuse children, you know, getting back to normal or getting
Speaker 1: back to life. Those are big problems. We're not looking
Speaker 1: at that. We're looking at smaller problems. Is how can
Speaker 1: I be more resilient this afternoon than I was this morning.
Speaker 1: So it's we've defined the problem as much smaller. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've started to realize we've been doing this work for
Speaker 1: a while that it's like, oh my gosh, it's so
Speaker 1: much easier to make progress if you just define the
Speaker 1: problem as smaller. We also define the solutions as smaller too,
Speaker 1: So we're really looking at small things that you can
Speaker 1: do in the midst of a busy day. And we
Speaker 1: purposely scoured the research looking for things that are so
Speaker 1: easy you can do them, like while you're in a
Speaker 1: conference call or while you're in your car commuting. And
Speaker 1: the criteria we also had is that they need to
Speaker 1: have same day impact. So with macro, what we define
Speaker 1: as macro resilient solutions are things that you have to
Speaker 1: do for a while, like you know, you eat healthy
Speaker 1: for a while, you get enough sleep over time, you know,
Speaker 1: and these habits do you good. We were looking for
Speaker 1: things that have an immediate payoff. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: macro and micro go well together. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: saying macro is not important. You know, it's the things
Speaker 1: we all know we should do, and it is very important.
Speaker 1: But even if you were doing all those things perfectly,
Speaker 1: which I don't know anyone who is, but even if
Speaker 1: you were, you still might have a tough day. You
Speaker 1: might have, you know, a deadline get changed, or something
Speaker 1: happened with your children and you feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thrown off my game and I got to get
Speaker 1: back on track. So it's small things that help you
Speaker 1: be more resilient, not if you're you know, down in
Speaker 1: the dumbs, but even if you're just an average person,
Speaker 1: you could still be more resilient. And the great thing though,
Speaker 1: is that it goes well with macro and it also
Speaker 1: can have cumulative effects. So micro certainly supports the macro,
Speaker 1: and it even works where if sorry to interrupt, but
Speaker 1: even if you like are having a tough day, so
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff gets thrown at you in a day,
Speaker 1: normally you'd be so exhausted and wiped out at the
Speaker 1: end of the day you might say, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I just want to eat a burger and you know,
Speaker 1: sit in front of the TV. I just did that.
Speaker 1: So if you have a tough day, but you don't
Speaker 1: get drained by it and thrown off by it as much,
Speaker 1: even though the same things happened, you're more inclined to
Speaker 1: go home and sleep better, eat better, and maybe even exercise.
Speaker 1: So the micro can support better macro as well. I
Speaker 1: really like that. So you talk about a lot of
Speaker 1: different of these micro resiliency factors. Let's go through some
Speaker 1: of them. One big one I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are really going to want to improve is to
Speaker 1: help focus better. You talk about creating an island in
Speaker 1: the stream. Is that right? Yeah, So we call it
Speaker 1: a zone. And it came about because I would read
Speaker 1: what organizational gurus would say, and they'd say, you know,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be interrupted so much, so maybe you should
Speaker 1: only check your email twice a day or three times
Speaker 1: a day. And for most people, including me, it's just
Speaker 1: not very practical to do that, And so we came
Speaker 1: up with this idea of saying, instead of you know,
Speaker 1: only checking your email a couple of times a day,
Speaker 1: and you just create islands in the stream. You know,
Speaker 1: we have so much communication coming at us. Can you
Speaker 1: just carve out an hour here or there and just
Speaker 1: have less interruption during that time so you can get
Speaker 1: focus work done. Yeah. I mean I would love to
Speaker 1: know how to do that. A key thing for it
Speaker 1: is communication, I think, because if you can communicate with
Speaker 1: the people around you, the people who you interact with,
Speaker 1: and let them know, you know, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: certain focus times. And it depends on what you do.
Speaker 1: Some people can do this, you know, three times a day.
Speaker 1: Some people can only do it three times a week.
Speaker 1: So but whatever the level you're at, you know, if
Speaker 1: you can bring a little bit more focused time in,
Speaker 1: you'll be so much more productive and you'll feel like
Speaker 1: you have more time. But you have to communicate with people.
Speaker 1: So for example, on my team, I tell people, if
Speaker 1: you need an answer to something you know right away, urgently,
Speaker 1: text me and I'll know that that's urgent. But if
Speaker 1: you can just ask me a question and I can
Speaker 1: get back to you, you know in three hours or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever I have a break, then just email
Speaker 1: me and I'll know I can handle it that way. So,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a really simple example. But communicating with
Speaker 1: people about why you need zones and what is the
Speaker 1: threshold to break it. You know, you can't really relax
Speaker 1: if you're in a zone if you don't think anyone
Speaker 1: can get a hold of you in an emergency for sure.
Speaker 1: And then also the converse, you can't relax if you
Speaker 1: feel like people can get through to you at any
Speaker 1: time as well. Right, both extremes like you know, like
Speaker 1: your mother who might not respect boundaries. But what happens
Speaker 1: too when you communicate with people around you, is that
Speaker 1: they probably want the same respect too, and so it
Speaker 1: becomes a mutual agreement about how do we help each
Speaker 1: other to be more productive? Yeah, in an ideal world,
Speaker 1: in a world where everyone's respectful of each other's boundaries
Speaker 1: and cares. You know, what do you do if you
Speaker 1: just have like a really jerk boss. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I do, but necessarily, but what do you do if
Speaker 1: you have a you know, just a boss who like
Speaker 1: emails you at like eleven pm is like I want
Speaker 1: a grand budget by four am. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: in that position and you really don't want that to
Speaker 1: be your life, then you know you need to start
Speaker 1: looking for a plan for how to get a job
Speaker 1: or how to get a new boss, you know, and
Speaker 1: that can take a while, but you know, we make choices.
Speaker 1: When I worked in the White House, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of things were emergencies, and you know, Glow it
Speaker 1: was a you know, an international emergency, and so if
Speaker 1: you choose to work in a place where that's the case,
Speaker 1: then you know that's what you're going to have to do.
Speaker 1: But often you can negotiate with somebody even if you think, oh,
Speaker 1: this person will never let me have focused time. If
Speaker 1: you explain to them, look, I just want to do
Speaker 1: the best work for you, and this is what I
Speaker 1: need for this. You know you might make some headway.
Speaker 1: You might. You can try it. Like as you say,
Speaker 1: you know, some people are just jerks, but if you
Speaker 1: appeal to their own self interest, you know, you might
Speaker 1: be able to make some headway. I like that. Now
Speaker 1: you are quite an interesting person on easy John. Wow,
Speaker 1: let's just talk about you for a second. So okay,
Speaker 1: first of all, you just mentioned you're a White House official.
Speaker 1: Now under what administration? Was that? The Clinton administration? They
Speaker 1: bill Clinton administration? Wow? And how did you get involved
Speaker 1: in that? It was that that was after your Rhodes scholarship.
Speaker 1: It was I had left England and gone to work
Speaker 1: for IBM in sales. Actually, so I was working in
Speaker 1: sales for a couple of years and then he got
Speaker 1: elected and some of my friends were in the campaign,
Speaker 1: and so they started putting out dealers for resumes for
Speaker 1: people to apply, and I put my resume in and
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot about it because you know, you
Speaker 1: put it in during the transition. And then I get
Speaker 1: this phone call in February or March after the inauguration,
Speaker 1: and I got this message, you know, and I tried
Speaker 1: to call back and the phone kept ringing and ringing
Speaker 1: and ringing and finding I would get somebody and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, we want to interview you for this
Speaker 1: job for the National Economic Council. And they said, but
Speaker 1: you know, we'll call you back and let you know
Speaker 1: when the interview is. And they didn't call me back,
Speaker 1: and I called back, and you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was chaos. They're trying to organize the whole, you know, government,
Speaker 1: they're trying to restaff the top three levels of the government.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of this going back and
Speaker 1: forth and back and forth, and find they said, we
Speaker 1: think we can schedule your interview on Wednesday, but we'll
Speaker 1: call you back, and I'm like, no, no, no, I'll
Speaker 1: just come. I got on a red eye flight and
Speaker 1: at the time, the ticket to fly out there cost
Speaker 1: half of my monthly salary working as a sales rep
Speaker 1: at IBM, and it's not reimbursable by the government. So
Speaker 1: I had to bet half of my month's salary and
Speaker 1: go get on a plane. And I went out and
Speaker 1: it was crazy. It was actually Thurgood Marshall's funeral the
Speaker 1: day I was there, and so everything was off. We
Speaker 1: had to reschedule everything, but we finally got the interviews.
Speaker 1: The funny part about this story is afterwards somebody was saying, well,
Speaker 1: I applied for a job in the White House too,
Speaker 1: but they didn't really want to hire me. And I said, oh, really,
Speaker 1: what makes you think they didn't want to hire you?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, they never answered any of my calls,
Speaker 1: they never returned any of my phone calls. And I
Speaker 1: just think it's funny that I didn't let that be
Speaker 1: a negative signal. Well, that's a like a resiliency factor
Speaker 1: right there, or positive psychology too. Yeah, there's so many
Speaker 1: examples of that in my life, where if you just
Speaker 1: let yourself tune into the signals of reality, you might
Speaker 1: have given up. I mean, come on, a one legged
Speaker 1: black skier from San Diego with no money, that's nuts.
Speaker 1: So what did you study as a Rhodes scholar? I
Speaker 1: studied economics at Oxford As an undergrad. I did politics
Speaker 1: in economics, so I was always interested in basically politics
Speaker 1: and economics. And then what were you doing at IBM
Speaker 1: economic related stuff? No, I was actually doing sales. I
Speaker 1: was selling computers, selling computers. I was really interested in
Speaker 1: working there because it was the you know, it was
Speaker 1: the beginning of the whole PC revolution and not politically correct,
Speaker 1: but you know, personal computers, and it was you know,
Speaker 1: technology was up and coming. And I started programming computers
Speaker 1: when I was twelve actually, and I was just really
Speaker 1: interested in learning. I thought it was the future. I
Speaker 1: wanted to learn more about it. And sales in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I had a really great sale training
Speaker 1: program because I've been in my own business now for
Speaker 1: over twenty years. And if you're not good at sales,
Speaker 1: you know, you really can't be an entrepreneur. So learning
Speaker 1: both of those things was really helpful, so interesting, and
Speaker 1: when you were at the White House, you know, as
Speaker 1: you know, Billklinnin was a Rhodes scholar as well. If
Speaker 1: you ever like talk insider road stuff with him, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I remember that Oxford table. I don't think anyone has
Speaker 1: ever asked me that, And the answer is no. We
Speaker 1: never rolled up our sleeves and had a sort of
Speaker 1: Rhodes scholar love fest. Not. I enjoyed working with the team.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of really sharp people that really
Speaker 1: thought about the future and thought about data, and I
Speaker 1: think did a lot of good things for the country
Speaker 1: too that didn't get reported that you don't get credit for.
Speaker 1: You know, it was great team. What did you do
Speaker 1: there when you worked there? I was on the National
Speaker 1: Economic Council, okay, and I was responsible for working on
Speaker 1: human capital issues, so anything from labor policies, education policies,
Speaker 1: training policies, and what the National Economic Council was. It
Speaker 1: was invented under Clinton, and it was to look at
Speaker 1: the national implications of domestic economic policy. So for example,
Speaker 1: when the National Security Council would look at something like
Speaker 1: the most Favored Nation status for China, they would think
Speaker 1: of it in terms of human rights and in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, international power, but they wouldn't think about
Speaker 1: what's the impact on jobs. So they wanted the National
Speaker 1: Economic Council to be able to analyze, you know, the
Speaker 1: domestic economic impact of a lot of the international policies
Speaker 1: that we do or the decisions that we're making. Well,
Speaker 1: that was a really important time to look at that stuff.
Speaker 1: And now it's also important time to look at that
Speaker 1: different perspective. Now, very different perspective So what are some
Speaker 1: lessons you learned from having your a leg amputated at
Speaker 1: really the start of your life? Right, Well, the growth
Speaker 1: was stunted when I was born, so I never really
Speaker 1: had a normal leg. I had braces and orthopedic shoes,
Speaker 1: and the amput did my leg when I was five,
Speaker 1: and that allowed me to have a prosthesis, an artificial
Speaker 1: leg that allowed me to actually walk a lot more normally.
Speaker 1: So it was much better, although I still was the
Speaker 1: crippled kid. You know, I didn't get picked for teams
Speaker 1: or you know, be able to represent the school for
Speaker 1: sports or anything. So the chance to be me neither.
Speaker 1: If it makes you feel any better, you were the
Speaker 1: last person picked for teams, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: had both my legs, so it's worse for you really, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had no excuse, but I you know, it was
Speaker 1: neat to get a chance to say you can be
Speaker 1: a champion, you can be strong, you can be trying,
Speaker 1: you can train and be an athlete. And so when
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, that was when I started skiing and
Speaker 1: I immediately started racing. So cool, So you certainly didn't
Speaker 1: let that stop you. No. My brother used to say
Speaker 1: that I started so far behind the starting line, I
Speaker 1: had to like run to get to the starting line
Speaker 1: with everybody else. So I had momentum. Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that. Really, that's such a great metaphor
Speaker 1: as well. That's probably literally true. Very cool. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I can see how your whole life in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways has been a lot of micro resiliency and
Speaker 1: macro resiliency. Let's talk about the role of emotions. That
Speaker 1: could be a really big limiting factor if we can't
Speaker 1: get your emotions under control or you let it kind
Speaker 1: of hijack the rest of your system when you're under
Speaker 1: a really tense situation. I'd personally love to get some
Speaker 1: tips on what you've learned to kind of prevent that
Speaker 1: from happening. It's interesting emotions kind of go through a
Speaker 1: number of the frameworks, but that immediate feeling of feeling
Speaker 1: hijacked by your emotions is we put the research it
Speaker 1: in that area into the framework called reset. So it's
Speaker 1: how do you reset that hijack that you can get?
Speaker 1: And it comes OU don't know if everybody's heard the
Speaker 1: term amygdala hijack. He's listening, but it comes from the
Speaker 1: concept of an amygdala hijack. So when are dellah in
Speaker 1: our brain sends a threat, it like sends out the
Speaker 1: fire alarm and the adretaline, and you know, it sets
Speaker 1: off all all of our smells and bells. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: so when we get set off, smells and bells can
Speaker 1: help calm you down. Actually, it's what we talk about.
Speaker 1: So when you're having that reaction, it often is an overreaction,
Speaker 1: right because when we were primitive human beings, we needed
Speaker 1: to have that strong reaction to a possible threat because
Speaker 1: we might have to fight, or we might have to run,
Speaker 1: you know, we might have to do something. And now
Speaker 1: often we feel threatened in an office, you know, gosh,
Speaker 1: I didn't get invited to that meeting. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Does that mean I'm not going to be moving forward?
Speaker 1: You know, it's my boss not like me. Or you
Speaker 1: overhear something at the water cooler, you know, and so
Speaker 1: you can feel threatened, But it's in situations where you
Speaker 1: really don't need to fight. You need to think more
Speaker 1: clearly and you need to be more collaborative, and setting
Speaker 1: off your your adrenaline and your cortisol actually can do
Speaker 1: the opposite, can make you much more tunnel vision. So
Speaker 1: smells and bells can calm you down. If you're getting
Speaker 1: input that makes you feel threatened, certain smells can really
Speaker 1: calm that down and break the reaction. Doctor Joan Borisenko,
Speaker 1: who was one of the early mind body researchers at
Speaker 1: the Harvard Mind Body Institute, talked about this and she
Speaker 1: talked about vanilla and nutmeg and cinnamon, and I said, wow,
Speaker 1: you know those are all holiday spices. Is that because
Speaker 1: you know we have that association with holidays And she
Speaker 1: said no, no, it's the other way around. There's a
Speaker 1: physiological reaction, which is why we use those smells on
Speaker 1: holidays because they calm us down and cut through our
Speaker 1: stress response. But then where are the bells coming in?
Speaker 1: So the bell sounds, she said, sounds can do that
Speaker 1: as well. It's interesting. Eileen Fisher, the clothing mogul who
Speaker 1: has stores all across the country. I got to sit
Speaker 1: in on one of her meetings with their senior staff
Speaker 1: and they have one of those like Buddhist metal bowls
Speaker 1: that sits on a little pillow and at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the meeting they ring the bell and then have
Speaker 1: a moment of silence and then ring the bell again,
Speaker 1: and then the meeting starts, and it is amazing when
Speaker 1: you experience that. It's like a palette cleanser. It just
Speaker 1: calms you down. It makes you very present in the room.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of woo woo, but there's actually really
Speaker 1: good science behind. It's calming your amigdal of reaction. Oh, Bonnie,
Speaker 1: I am taking copious notes. You're the professor. You can
Speaker 1: know all this stuff already. Right, Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. I didn't know about bells and smells,
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you I have tried everything else. I've done, meditation,
Speaker 1: I've done I have a bed of nails that I
Speaker 1: that I sleep on, which feels really good. It hurts
Speaker 1: so good. There are these little like you know, it's occupy.
Speaker 1: It's like an acupuncture Matt. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever heard of it. I thought you're kidding. No, it's
Speaker 1: so good. It's so good. It really relaxes you. I've tried.
Speaker 1: In terms of smells, you know they have you can
Speaker 1: have like lavender. I really like lavender and peppermint and lemon.
Speaker 1: I don't know the science of a roma therapy. I
Speaker 1: haven't studied all this, So I mainly say to people,
Speaker 1: you know, you can experiment and see what works for
Speaker 1: you and if you if you do have an association,
Speaker 1: like my husband Alan has an association with spearmint that
Speaker 1: his grandmother used to grow it and make it into tea,
Speaker 1: And so in addition to whatever physiological properties it has,
Speaker 1: it does have, you know, emotional associations as well. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm going out tomorrow and I'm going to
Speaker 1: look like Santa Claus. I'm going to have something bells
Speaker 1: on me. Trust me. That's so funny. With a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about taking a deep breath too when
Speaker 1: you feel like you're getting that emotional hijack. The trick
Speaker 1: there is that a lot of people will take a
Speaker 1: deep breath and you see their chest expand, and that
Speaker 1: shallow chest breath can actually exacerbate that autonomic reaction, and
Speaker 1: so you really want to take a deep belly breath,
Speaker 1: and by practicing the deep belly breathing that is actually
Speaker 1: a much better way to reverse that reaction. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they kind of refer to like as like putting
Speaker 1: air into a balloon. Yeah, if you can put your
Speaker 1: hand on your abdomen and if you if you don't
Speaker 1: feel your abdomen moving when you're breathing, you know you
Speaker 1: need to do it differently. Singers do that. I was
Speaker 1: just going to say opera singing. Yeah, but it takes
Speaker 1: a lot. I think you have to understand too. It
Speaker 1: takes them a while to really develop those muscles. And
Speaker 1: so if you want to use that as a way
Speaker 1: to calm yourself down, which is great because again you
Speaker 1: can do it during a meeting, you can do it
Speaker 1: on a conference call, you can do it while you're driving.
Speaker 1: So cultivating that deep belly breath is a great way
Speaker 1: to calm yourself down TOATS. So give me one more
Speaker 1: way to calm me down. This is uh. I have
Speaker 1: a very strong personal interest in this one. Another great
Speaker 1: one is from the research by Matt Lieberman at UCLA
Speaker 1: is just labeling, and so he talks about when you're
Speaker 1: you know, in an emotion is like taking control of you.
Speaker 1: You can label it with a word or several words,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to even do it out loud.
Speaker 1: You can just do it in your head. So if
Speaker 1: you're you know, if you're in a meeting and something's
Speaker 1: happening and you know you can like speel the steams
Speaker 1: starting to come out of your ears. You can say,
Speaker 1: you know, am I frustrating? Am I angry? Am I?
Speaker 1: You know? If you can put words on what you're feeling,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling disappointed, I'm simply the act of putting
Speaker 1: words on it actually de escalates some of that emotional reaction.
Speaker 1: I think of it as like a train coming out
Speaker 1: of the station. It's like, you know, it's picking up
Speaker 1: steam with this emotion. And I think by labeling it,
Speaker 1: you're creating a little distance. Right, so it's over there
Speaker 1: and I'm over here, and I can put a word
Speaker 1: to it, as opposed to it being carried away by
Speaker 1: it or absorbed by it. What about like trying to
Speaker 1: full your system. Like let's see, you're really anxious and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's totally feels like excitement. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I do that when I'm speaking. A wht do that
Speaker 1: backstage is they'll say, you know, oh, I'm nervous, And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you don't have to label it nervous.
Speaker 1: You can label it excited. You know, I'm anxious to
Speaker 1: do well or and it is your body when you're backstage,
Speaker 1: you know, when you want to give a speech. It
Speaker 1: is your body trying to help you. But again, it's
Speaker 1: this outdated way that your body's helping you. And literally
Speaker 1: the hijack that you get when you go to speak
Speaker 1: deprives you of access to your brain. You know. That's
Speaker 1: why we get that feeling when you go out and
Speaker 1: stage and you can't remember anything you were supposed to say.
Speaker 1: It's because your body's telling you stop thinking, go hit someone. Oh.
Speaker 1: I can't stand being when I'm on the stage, and
Speaker 1: then I start to like listen to myself talk and
Speaker 1: then I start to panic because I'm like, it's a
Speaker 1: weird out of body experience. Yeah, it doesn't happen that often,
Speaker 1: but it's better to be in flow when you're on stage,
Speaker 1: right it is. I mean, I practice. I tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, I have been speaking for twenty years now,
Speaker 1: and you know, practice makes it much easier to be comfortable.
Speaker 1: But I still, you know, get worked up if you
Speaker 1: really care about what you're doing, or if it's a
Speaker 1: difficult speech. I've had some difficult speeches where I'm in
Speaker 1: a group and maybe I need to deliver a difficult message. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I can get very stressed out too, and I'll be
Speaker 1: backstage and I'll actually be telling my body in my
Speaker 1: head you know, thank you. I know you're trying to
Speaker 1: help me by you know, making my heart race and
Speaker 1: my palm sweat. But it's not helping, you know. Let's
Speaker 1: do this differently. You can talk my body up the
Speaker 1: ledge too. Yeah, it's not helpful. It's not helpful. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about what's really up up the
Speaker 1: positive psychologyality reframing your attitude. We know that optimism is
Speaker 1: such an important trait, scure characteristic, and that it is
Speaker 1: protective of health, even more than not smoking. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you do that. Optimism is actually a better
Speaker 1: predictor wow of health. So how do you change from
Speaker 1: pessimism to optimism. Well, you're probably familiar with like ABCD reframe,
Speaker 1: which we talk about, but reversy well I was going
Speaker 1: to say we all leave that alone, but reversy is
Speaker 1: one that I just made up and I've done it
Speaker 1: with groups for many, many years now, and it's so
Speaker 1: much fun. It's like a quick and dirty way of
Speaker 1: doing it. You know. ABCD reframe is great and it
Speaker 1: works for like if you have a if you're in
Speaker 1: a real rut. It's a good way to help you
Speaker 1: pull yourself out of the rut. But I like to
Speaker 1: do reverseit you in workshops because it's so quick and
Speaker 1: easy to explain. Oh wow, tell me so REVERSI. You
Speaker 1: just ask people to write down a limit or an
Speaker 1: obstacle that they're facing. We often have an index card
Speaker 1: and they can write it on a card and then
Speaker 1: we just say, flip over the card and write the
Speaker 1: opposite on the other side. So if somebody says I
Speaker 1: don't have time or money to get a higher degree.
Speaker 1: You know, I need a degree to advance in my career,
Speaker 1: but I don't have the money or time, they flip
Speaker 1: over the card and they just write, I can get
Speaker 1: a higher degree. I can get the next degree. There
Speaker 1: was a woman who was doing this on a radio show.
Speaker 1: She heard me on a radio show and she emailed
Speaker 1: me afterwards and she said she wrote down, I'm going
Speaker 1: to lose my house after the divorce, and she flipped
Speaker 1: over the card it said I can keep my house.
Speaker 1: And what it does is it just tricks your brain
Speaker 1: for a minute or so to think maybe it's possible.
Speaker 1: Because we get so stuck on our limits and obstacles.
Speaker 1: We're so convinced they're real and they're true that the
Speaker 1: ability to flip the card and and just entertain the
Speaker 1: idea for a moment that maybe it isn't true, allows
Speaker 1: different creative thoughts to come into your head. I know
Speaker 1: you're all about creativity too. Oh yeah, I liked multiple
Speaker 1: aspects of what you just said. Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: So the woman who said I'm going to lose my
Speaker 1: house after the divorce, she emailed me after the radio
Speaker 1: show and she said, I wrote that down. I flipped
Speaker 1: it over and she said, I started to realize my
Speaker 1: mother is elderly and she's fine living on her own now,
Speaker 1: but in a few years she won't be. But what
Speaker 1: I can do. We we're into my house now with
Speaker 1: our combined incomes, I can keep the house. So she
Speaker 1: thought of a new creative idea. There was a guy too,
Speaker 1: who was in one of our workshops, and he said,
Speaker 1: I can't do the innovative things I want to do
Speaker 1: in my department because I didn't get my budget increase.
Speaker 1: So he flipped the card and he wrote, I can
Speaker 1: do innovative things. And what he realized, and it's so
Speaker 1: obvious when you say it. What he realized was, if
Speaker 1: I go through my existing budget, I prioritize and I
Speaker 1: take out the least important things, the old things, you know,
Speaker 1: get rid of those, I can reapply the money to
Speaker 1: the more innovative things. And it's so funny because it
Speaker 1: sounds so obvious when you say it, but he was
Speaker 1: so stuck in his thinking he didn't see it until
Speaker 1: he flipped the card. Wow, that could become like an
Speaker 1: expression like flip the script, you know, like flip the card. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And actually you can do it in a even quicker
Speaker 1: way than that. There was a doctor that we put
Speaker 1: through the program and he talked about how he's in
Speaker 1: urgent care settings. We said, every time he gets a
Speaker 1: new patient walking into the room, he has a little
Speaker 1: feeling of adrenaline, like a threat response, and so that's
Speaker 1: really exhausting. And so we had him say, you know,
Speaker 1: when he could feel that happening and new patients coming in,
Speaker 1: he would just say to himself, this is going to
Speaker 1: be a great patient. This is going to be a
Speaker 1: great opportunity to meet somebody. So he would just instead
Speaker 1: of thinking, oh, no, is this person cann have blood
Speaker 1: or stitches? You know, he would say, oh, this is
Speaker 1: going to be great, So he would literally just flip
Speaker 1: the script in that, you know, thirty seconds if the
Speaker 1: person's walking in the door, I really like that. And
Speaker 1: so this is not this is totally not not about
Speaker 1: like being diluted or like optimis like unrealistic optimism. So like,
Speaker 1: how do you define optimism? How do you find that word?
Speaker 1: Let me just back up a on reversity, because I
Speaker 1: think this is important. Great, it works, It works by
Speaker 1: tricking your brain into being more open minded. But it
Speaker 1: also works if you're talking to other people. So if
Speaker 1: you're going around saying your limits and your obstacles, people
Speaker 1: are just going to agree with you and commiserate and say, oh,
Speaker 1: me too, you know, my life sucks. But if you
Speaker 1: are talking from the other side of the card, people
Speaker 1: can give you new ideas too. So it's it's how
Speaker 1: you're showing up. And I think it's often important too
Speaker 1: that you do talk about what's on the second side
Speaker 1: of the card with other people, because then you can
Speaker 1: get new ideas and so, you know, you may be
Speaker 1: so stuck in your own thinking you're not going to
Speaker 1: think of it. So it is important to also talk
Speaker 1: to other people There's one company where they decided to
Speaker 1: use reversy in their staff meetings every week, and they
Speaker 1: would have one person put in a limit and everybody
Speaker 1: else would say, let's try to help reverse it. It
Speaker 1: can be fun as a social exercise as well. That
Speaker 1: sounds just market this. We are you are like a
Speaker 1: board game or something reverse. Well, there's reversy. What is it?
Speaker 1: It's a fellow It's like reversing. Yeah, that's cool. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I do want to ask you then, so you could
Speaker 1: sceptualize optimism not as just having a sort of wishful thinking, right,
Speaker 1: but in seeing possibilities. So that's cool. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like creativity. You're giving me a little bit of an
Speaker 1: Amigeal hijack here because I'm talking to somebody who's a
Speaker 1: professor in positive psychology and you're asking me to define optimism. Like,
Speaker 1: isn't there like an official definition at u PEN for optimism? Well, no,
Speaker 1: there's no. What is Marty Seligman's definition? Well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he certainly views it as having a sort of
Speaker 1: explanatory style. So you have a certain like when you
Speaker 1: see something that goes wrong, you don't overgeneralize, you know,
Speaker 1: about it? You don't you know, catastrophize about it, and
Speaker 1: you sort of put in pet active and you sort
Speaker 1: of and you don't take it too personally as well.
Speaker 1: So he kind of sees it as like a mindset
Speaker 1: or like an he he refers to as an explanatory style.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about that in the book too,
Speaker 1: is the PPP versus CCC. Yeah, is, as you say,
Speaker 1: not taking it personal and not saying it's permanent or prevalent,
Speaker 1: so not over generalizing, but then asking yourself the questions
Speaker 1: of what are my choices? You know, what am I
Speaker 1: committed to in this situation and what is the challenge?
Speaker 1: So so that is a tool that we give people
Speaker 1: that is related to Marty Seligment's work on that great
Speaker 1: and it's it's also something that is based in prior
Speaker 1: experience as well. You know, it's not just optimism for
Speaker 1: the future of that it's just completely blind. You know,
Speaker 1: I know everything will be all right. It's because you've
Speaker 1: had successes in the past, so you can you know,
Speaker 1: realistic optimism and you can pull yourself into a more
Speaker 1: successful explanatory style. You know. I had to interview Wendy
Speaker 1: cop the founder of Teacher but that was one of
Speaker 1: the questions we asked her. We were interviewing her for
Speaker 1: the book we wrote, How Great Women Lead. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know the whole story about
Speaker 1: how she found to Teach for America. I don't know
Speaker 1: the whole story. Now, what was her senior thesis at
Speaker 1: Princeton and she came up with this idea for this program,
Speaker 1: and her teacher told her is totally unrealistic. This is
Speaker 1: you know, this is a crazy idea. It's not going
Speaker 1: to work at all. So we were really curious. We said,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you know when you're being too optimistic?
Speaker 1: And then, you know, what Teach for America does is
Speaker 1: take inexperienced college grads and throw them in the most
Speaker 1: difficult classrooms in the country and say, hey, try to
Speaker 1: help these kids catch up with three grade levels, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we said, you know, could be too optimistic.
Speaker 1: And what she said is we tell the teachers we
Speaker 1: put in the classroom to be at the intersection of
Speaker 1: optimism and reality. So take your kids and diagnose all
Speaker 1: their learning disabilities, you know, understand how far they are
Speaker 1: behind and reading or math, and really know what you
Speaker 1: have and then sheet a really challenging goal, you know,
Speaker 1: bring them along to go after it. So I've always
Speaker 1: liked that explanation too. Is it's not about just how
Speaker 1: do you define optimism, but are you committed to optimism
Speaker 1: and reality at the same time. Oh I really like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, having positive imagination that's realistic exactly. I
Speaker 1: really really like that. So let's talk about the body
Speaker 1: for a second, because you had mentioned a little earlier
Speaker 1: in this interview the importance of the body mind connection,
Speaker 1: and you know, we shouldn't forget that when we talk
Speaker 1: about resiliency. So talk a little about some of the
Speaker 1: ways that you can kind of maintain high energy physically.
Speaker 1: As I say this, as I'm drinking water, I know
Speaker 1: me too. We look not at a lot of intense
Speaker 1: nutrition or anything, but we just talk about micro managing
Speaker 1: your metabolism. So, for example, a lot of people say,
Speaker 1: drink six to eight glasses of water a day, and
Speaker 1: that's great, and that's a macro habit and it's good
Speaker 1: if you do it on average, it's going to work well.
Speaker 1: But what we find most people do is they have
Speaker 1: great water habits until they're under stressed. So I've got
Speaker 1: a proposal that I have to get out tonight, or
Speaker 1: a big presentation have to do, and then thinking about
Speaker 1: drinking water completely goes out the window. And that's at
Speaker 1: the time when they need it the most. You know,
Speaker 1: your brain is a higher percentage of water than the
Speaker 1: rest of your body. So you could be feeling fuzzy
Speaker 1: and the ideas aren't coming and you know your brain's
Speaker 1: not performing as well, and you don't even feel thirsty yet.
Speaker 1: So it's important to not look at just how much
Speaker 1: water do you define average? But are you drinking water
Speaker 1: when you need it the most? So again, this is
Speaker 1: what micro resilience is about for us, is your hour
Speaker 1: by hour performance, not just are you doing it on average? Right,
Speaker 1: So let's get some specific tips. When you talk about
Speaker 1: the sciens of hydration. I don't know much about that science.
Speaker 1: It's a lot about you know, people do better on
Speaker 1: tests when they drink water first, and your brain performs better.
Speaker 1: I do pull more poorly when I give talks because
Speaker 1: then I have the pe doing the middle of the talk,
Speaker 1: and it's awkward. Gallons of water either. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I'm a woman of a certain age. I'm fifty two
Speaker 1: and so, oh, you're young. I think many women will
Speaker 1: tell you at my age that problem about having to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom more often is a big problem.
Speaker 1: So I do. I have to balance the hydration and
Speaker 1: it's desire to under the restaurate exactly, but it's good.
Speaker 1: Another example like that is exercise too. Is a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, you look at exercises. I do
Speaker 1: it three times a week or four times a week,
Speaker 1: and I'm good on average. But if you have a
Speaker 1: big day, a big important day, you say, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't have time to exercise today, but I did it yesterday,
Speaker 1: I did it tomorrow. You know, I'm good. I'm good
Speaker 1: on average. But the micro perspective is different, because what
Speaker 1: you're saying is there's research that shows if you do exercise,
Speaker 1: just you know, a moderate amount of exercise, you're smarter
Speaker 1: for hours afterwards. You access memory better, you connect the
Speaker 1: dots of ideas better, you generate more creative ideas. So
Speaker 1: if you understand that research, you would say, I have
Speaker 1: a big day to day, I can't afford not to
Speaker 1: exercise because I need to be smarter today. I love that. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about nootropics? You know, supplements to
Speaker 1: help with that. I don't know what nootropics are. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a new field. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: wild West because they're not FD eight, they're not FDA approved.
Speaker 1: But there's this like supplement company called QUALITYA where they
Speaker 1: try to like put lots of neurotransmitter things help the
Speaker 1: brain think faster and smarter. It's people are experimenting with
Speaker 1: these supplements. Well, this is the first time I'm hearing
Speaker 1: of it, and so I dare not tread where the
Speaker 1: FEA has not yet tread either, So so you don't
Speaker 1: have a big supplement routine. Then I take vitamins, and
Speaker 1: I do think that's important. I take really high quality
Speaker 1: vitamins because you know, I think a lot of our
Speaker 1: food is coming from soil that doesn't have the same
Speaker 1: nutrients that used to have. And I don't think you
Speaker 1: can just count on getting everything you need from even
Speaker 1: a balanced diet. So I do. I do take vitamins.
Speaker 1: But even that could be controversial, right, I think some
Speaker 1: people say it's worthless, but I find that it definitely helps. Oh,
Speaker 1: anything can be controversial. I can make anything controversial. So
Speaker 1: we talked about the body. The other things we talked
Speaker 1: about water. The other thing we talk about for micromanaging
Speaker 1: your metabolism is your blood sugar level too. And again,
Speaker 1: you can eat healthy generally, you can be eating a
Speaker 1: healthy diet, but if you're skipping lunch and you know,
Speaker 1: letting your blood sugar fall, you're still wasting a lot
Speaker 1: of energy with just ups and downs. So we're just saying,
Speaker 1: you know, notice what you're doing hour by hour, not
Speaker 1: just what you're doing on average. And you know, so
Speaker 1: healthy snacking, eating low glycemic food, not a lot of
Speaker 1: sugar that throws you up and down. A lot of
Speaker 1: this is if you think about it. So if there's
Speaker 1: five frameworks you know for your brain not being hijacked
Speaker 1: so much reframing to the positive micromanaging your metabolism, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is about looking at what is it
Speaker 1: that drains you. If you want to be more resilient
Speaker 1: every day, look at what drains you and where are
Speaker 1: there unnecessary drains that you don't need to have. So
Speaker 1: having a roller coaster with your metabolism just takes away
Speaker 1: a lot of energy you don't need to lose. Spiraling
Speaker 1: to the negative too much, you know, it wastes a
Speaker 1: lot of energy. The hijack we talked about is really
Speaker 1: an inappropriate, primitive response to modern problems. So if you
Speaker 1: can reprogram yourself to do that, it's like having an
Speaker 1: operating system upgrade, right, So a lot of just like
Speaker 1: not wasting so much energy and then you feel so
Speaker 1: much better. Have you read the book like what fills
Speaker 1: up your bucket? No? I haven't. Who wrote it? Tom
Speaker 1: Rath has? Oh yeah, he's strength Speners. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Tom Rath and Strength Finders, and he has written about
Speaker 1: filling up various buckets for optimal vitality and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I think it just dovetails very nicely with your own work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. I think what's unique about what we did
Speaker 1: is that it cuts across so many different fields. You know,
Speaker 1: it's neuroscience, it's positive psychology, it's physiology. And you get
Speaker 1: a little bit like I'm saying, we're not trying to
Speaker 1: be nutrition experts, we're not trying to be brain experts,
Speaker 1: but we give you some handles on things across the board.
Speaker 1: And so what we found when we put people through
Speaker 1: the program and that we followed them for a while,
Speaker 1: they just it's like they move forward in a quantum
Speaker 1: leap and people say things like you didn't change me,
Speaker 1: you just made me more me. I just feel more
Speaker 1: like me. Sounds good. It is because I think it's
Speaker 1: your best you, and it makes perfect sense. If you're
Speaker 1: not being hijacked as much, if you're not hangry all
Speaker 1: the time, if you're not wasting all this energy, you're
Speaker 1: more of the best you that you want to be,
Speaker 1: for sure. So how do people can they still be
Speaker 1: part of a program or is that over? If you
Speaker 1: go on my Facebook page, you can sign up for
Speaker 1: a series of classes that we're doing. You can see
Speaker 1: what the dates are and things on there and how
Speaker 1: to sign up. Is that all online? That's online and
Speaker 1: it's that Actually, those are just free classes that we're
Speaker 1: doing during the book tour. You could get the book
Speaker 1: and those are the main ways we do corporate programs,
Speaker 1: so we'll take groups of people through the program in
Speaker 1: corporations as well. Very cool. Sure a bunch of listeners
Speaker 1: will be going to your Facebook page after they hear this. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about renewing your spirits because you refer to
Speaker 1: purpose as a way to renew your spirits, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's we all have observed this phenomenon that
Speaker 1: when somebody's really purposeful, like they're on fire and they
Speaker 1: have so much energy, and problems seem smaller, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's even like when you're in love, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you just don't let things get to you as much.
Speaker 1: And so how could you tap into that kind of energy?
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing is even people that you think
Speaker 1: have an obvious purpose, like a teacher or a doctor
Speaker 1: or a nurse, we find that those are people that
Speaker 1: can get the most burnt out on purpose. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: that so what we talk about in the micro renew
Speaker 1: is how do you tie that into your day? How
Speaker 1: do you make sure that purpose is present in your
Speaker 1: day hour by hour in a way that gives you fuel.
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate a little bit about like how people
Speaker 1: can get this that's a purpose if they kind of
Speaker 1: feeling lost. Well, we find with a lot of people
Speaker 1: that we worked with in the program is that for
Speaker 1: most people, you need to do some work to kind
Speaker 1: of clarify your purpose. And even if you are a nurse,
Speaker 1: for example, and your purpose seems obvious, you still should
Speaker 1: clarify your unique purpose. You know, not just well, I'm
Speaker 1: a nurse. It's life and death. But why did you
Speaker 1: go into nursing? You know, what is it that makes
Speaker 1: you passionate about nursing? So in the book, there are
Speaker 1: three macro exercises that you can do to help clarify
Speaker 1: your purpose. So before you can do the microwork of
Speaker 1: tying it into your day, you kind of need to
Speaker 1: do the macro work to clarify. So those are things
Speaker 1: like there's Values Detective, which helps you examine your detect
Speaker 1: your values of what you really believe in, what you're
Speaker 1: passionate about. There's goals looking at you know, what are
Speaker 1: the most meaningful goals in your life? And then tagline
Speaker 1: kind of pulls it all together is, you know, can
Speaker 1: you come up with a motto that kind of summarizes
Speaker 1: this purpose work that you did. So once you're clearer
Speaker 1: about your overall purpose, then we can move to the
Speaker 1: micro exercises of how do you tie it into your day?
Speaker 1: And it's simple things like it can be a touchstone.
Speaker 1: There's a woman Sylvia Burwell Matthew Silvia Matthews Burwell, and
Speaker 1: she was at the Gates Foundation and again, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems like a place where there's obvious purpose, But
Speaker 1: you can get sidetracked into paperwork and rules and governments
Speaker 1: and egos and all the things they have to deal
Speaker 1: with while they're trying to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: So she hung a picture in their conference room of
Speaker 1: a ten year old girl from Africa, and she called
Speaker 1: it the Boss. So if they're in a discussion about,
Speaker 1: you know, how do we solve this health problem, you know,
Speaker 1: this part of the world. Should we solve twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the problem for eighty percent of the people, or
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the problem for twenty percent of the people,
Speaker 1: she would use that picture as a touchstone and say, well,
Speaker 1: what would the boss think? And it kind of pulls
Speaker 1: you back to perspective of not just you know, what
Speaker 1: do the egos and the governments want? But what could
Speaker 1: I you know, look this girl in the eye with,
Speaker 1: you know, with a straight face and say this is
Speaker 1: what we're going to do. You know? Would you feel
Speaker 1: good about yourself? So it's a touchstone to bring our
Speaker 1: whole team back to a sense of purpose. I really
Speaker 1: like that. Can you tell me more stories? Tell me
Speaker 1: a story about it. The brick layer. Oh, this is
Speaker 1: an old parable that I've heard. It's been reprinted over
Speaker 1: and over again, but it's you know, there's a man
Speaker 1: laying bricks and someone was walking by and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing. He says, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm laying bricks, and he's pretty obvious. And he walks
Speaker 1: further down the wall and there's another guy laying bricks
Speaker 1: and he says, what are you doing And he says, well,
Speaker 1: I'm building a wall, and he goes to the next person.
Speaker 1: He says, I'm building a cathedral. And then he goes
Speaker 1: to the next person. He says, I'm worshiping Gone. So
Speaker 1: they're all laying bricks, but they're seeing what they're doing
Speaker 1: really differently. I felt that a lot when I was
Speaker 1: training for the Olympics and I was waiting tables and
Speaker 1: you know, some diner in Colorado. But I wasn't just waiting,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't just waiting tables. I was on
Speaker 1: you know, I was preparing for the Olympics. I was
Speaker 1: supporting myself while I was training. So it's having a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose makes it easier to get through the
Speaker 1: drudgery that we all have to go through in life. Man.
Speaker 1: So you okay, you were in the Olympics, were you
Speaker 1: like one of the like amputees ever to be in
Speaker 1: the Olympics. Well, no, I was actually competing in the Paralympics,
Speaker 1: so it was a fair fight. I was racing against
Speaker 1: other amputees. Gotcha, Okay, gotcha. It's interesting. I competed in
Speaker 1: the third iteration of World Games, World Winter Games for
Speaker 1: the Disabled, so it was the third time they had it,
Speaker 1: so they hadn't even come up with the name Paralympics yet.
Speaker 1: Actually when I competed in it, and it was under
Speaker 1: the auspices of the Olympic International Olympic Committee, so on
Speaker 1: my medal, I actually do have Olympic rings and it
Speaker 1: was the early part of that movement for people with
Speaker 1: disabilities to compete on an international level. You're so badass.
Speaker 1: That's a great compliment. I'll take that. It's definitely a compliment. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to share one more show, please do It
Speaker 1: harkens back to the takes us back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: One of the pieces of research that really set us
Speaker 1: on this course of action was Jim Lair was looking
Speaker 1: at tennis players and why certain tennis players always win.
Speaker 1: You know, like you're watching the Australian Open, which we
Speaker 1: just had in tennis, and there's so many people playing,
Speaker 1: but you're only looking at a handful because you know
Speaker 1: one of them is going to win, because they always win.
Speaker 1: He was like, why are they such consistent winners? What
Speaker 1: are they doing differently than the other people. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody's got world class skills. And he videoed them and
Speaker 1: he was watching what they did, and he couldn't see
Speaker 1: a consistent difference until he started looking at what they
Speaker 1: did between the points, and what he saw was they
Speaker 1: had certain behaviors that they would do that would help
Speaker 1: them rest their arms, get their focus back, go to
Speaker 1: the you know, even if the last point was bad,
Speaker 1: going to the next point positive. And he saw that
Speaker 1: as you went down the ranks of you know, how
Speaker 1: they were ranked, they were few and fewer those between
Speaker 1: the points behaviors. When he got all the way to
Speaker 1: the bottom ten, there were none of them. And now
Speaker 1: it's considered normal. They call it the sixteen second cure.
Speaker 1: They teach it in tennis camps. They've brought it into golf,
Speaker 1: they brought it into other sports. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: like world class athletes have absorbed the idea that you
Speaker 1: need to recover along the way to be world class,
Speaker 1: to be better than the best. And it makes sense.
Speaker 1: You know, if we're playing tennis and you're recovering along
Speaker 1: the way, by the end of a long match, you
Speaker 1: are hitting it harder, you are running faster. Your world
Speaker 1: class skills look better than mine because you're doing that.
Speaker 1: And so we wanted to bring that insight to the
Speaker 1: rest of us. Is you know, I grew up in
Speaker 1: the drive until you drop mentality that you just push
Speaker 1: yourself really hard and you know you fall over, You
Speaker 1: go see how tough I am. So this idea of
Speaker 1: recovering a little bit along the way is it's a
Speaker 1: redefinition of high performance. And so it's great when we
Speaker 1: do it with groups of people to really look at
Speaker 1: how we change the culture of high performance because driv
Speaker 1: until you drop isn't even enough anymore. You know, we're
Speaker 1: in such a competitive, fast paced world. It's like there's
Speaker 1: a balance between push and recovery, and push has gotten
Speaker 1: so speeded up. We have to speed up recovery. So again,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing is saying, if you can make
Speaker 1: the small packages of recovery more intentional, more research base,
Speaker 1: and more effective, you have a better shot at recovery
Speaker 1: keeping pace with the pace of life. Oh well, I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more with that. And I think Anders Erickson's
Speaker 1: work on experts at various fields has shown that definitely
Speaker 1: the case. With those who are doing deliberate practice, they
Speaker 1: only do it practice a certain restricted number of hours
Speaker 1: in the day at high intensity and then they rest
Speaker 1: the rest of the time. So is I think in
Speaker 1: the business world we don't always have that luxury either,
Speaker 1: is to be able to say, well, I'm only going
Speaker 1: to work so many hours a day, especially on Wall Street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so so it's all we had one executive say
Speaker 1: to us going through the materialist, You're not telling me
Speaker 1: that I can't work sixteen hour days. You're telling me
Speaker 1: how to do it with more energy. Right. It's maximizing
Speaker 1: your energy levels because you're recovering along the way instead
Speaker 1: of waiting till the end. Yes, and you recommend diagramming
Speaker 1: your energy levels. Right. Well, that's one exercise that came
Speaker 1: from a standar for a dschool professor, which is kind
Speaker 1: of fun. Is he's saying, track, keep a diary for
Speaker 1: a week or a couple of weeks and look at
Speaker 1: you know what activities that you do drain energy out
Speaker 1: of you, and which ones give you energy? You know,
Speaker 1: you feel like you have more energy actually did them.
Speaker 1: And for some of the things that you have to
Speaker 1: do as a part of your routine that you do
Speaker 1: over and over again, if it's sucking the energy out
Speaker 1: of you, can you redesign that activity so that it
Speaker 1: has more energy. And I think of it as putting
Speaker 1: things in there that are your values or that bring
Speaker 1: you joy if you can add to it. So, like
Speaker 1: I mean a simple example, like one woman I know
Speaker 1: who does bill paying every month and she sits down
Speaker 1: and she calls it a bill party and hurt her husband.
Speaker 1: They have martinis, they download a new album, and they
Speaker 1: do their bills and so it's you know, it's coming together.
Speaker 1: It's having a little fun and making that better. But
Speaker 1: you can do that with your commute. If you have
Speaker 1: a horrible commute, you know, how can you add things
Speaker 1: to your commute that make it a more fulfilling period
Speaker 1: of time. I love that. Well, I think we're kind
Speaker 1: of covered all the basis. I mean, how do we
Speaker 1: put it all together? Well, it's in the book too,
Speaker 1: I know, I know I set you up. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: But it's putting together your daily plan. And what you
Speaker 1: do is you go through the different frameworks and look
Speaker 1: at the things that you want to do, because not
Speaker 1: every tool that's in there you're going to want to
Speaker 1: use or you're going to think it has a return
Speaker 1: for you. So you find the things you want to
Speaker 1: do and you put it into your daily schedule. A
Speaker 1: lot of people use the alarms or the reminders that
Speaker 1: you have in your phone to help you remember to
Speaker 1: do some of these little things, because that's one of
Speaker 1: the big challenges too, is they're so easy. It's easy
Speaker 1: not to do them too. So you can do that,
Speaker 1: and it's great because if you sow this into your day,
Speaker 1: it has tremendous benefits. But it also does build build
Speaker 1: in the habits over time of doing it, and then
Speaker 1: when something hits you, you can be reactive as well.
Speaker 1: So if you're used to using your joy kid or
Speaker 1: you're used to doing reversing when something bad happens, you
Speaker 1: can also use it, not just in a proactive way,
Speaker 1: but in a reactive way. I like that. I like
Speaker 1: that a lot. Oh, Bonnie, thank you for such a
Speaker 1: fascinating interview and for being such an inspiring human being
Speaker 1: thank you. I wish I know you can be a
Speaker 1: little cynical about like self help gurus and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but for me, it's just my life. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: but you put a lot of science into this, and
Speaker 1: you obviously put a lot of thought. I don't yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't put you in the camp of a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that I do criticize. So I wish
Speaker 1: your book all the success in the world. I know
Speaker 1: it comes out tomorrow and you must be super excited,
Speaker 1: and I'm honored that you talk to me the night
Speaker 1: before the big release. Thank you. We've actually it's funny
Speaker 1: because we've been working with people on this material with
Speaker 1: since twenty eleven, and so we've worked with a lot
Speaker 1: of different companies and a lot of individual people, and
Speaker 1: even already this year we've done a number of corporate
Speaker 1: training programs, and so it's really exciting to see it
Speaker 1: come out and be available to everybody so that everybody
Speaker 1: can do it using the book. Yeah, that's great how
Speaker 1: you've made that so publicly available. So yeah, thanks again
Speaker 1: and all the best. Thank you, Take care. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barak Kauffman.
Speaker 1: I hope you found this episode just as thought per
Speaker 1: booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com