Speaker 1: Today, I have something a little bit different, but it's
Speaker 1: also something I'm going to be doing more regularly. It's
Speaker 1: an Ask Me Anything episode where I am here to
Speaker 1: answer listener questions. Today we're going to be covering everything
Speaker 1: from how I recovered from burnout through to my thoughts
Speaker 1: on meditation and how I politely push back on demands
Speaker 1: for my time. Oh and also the dating app that
Speaker 1: I use to find my fiance because yes, that was
Speaker 1: sent through to me as a listener question. Welcome to
Speaker 1: How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
Speaker 1: for optimizing your date. I'm your host, doctor Amantha imber So.
Speaker 1: The first question for this Ask Me Anything comes from
Speaker 1: Christian and Christian asks if you got distracted due to
Speaker 1: a mind overload like company, health status, family affairs, how
Speaker 1: do you get out of that? Well, Christian, I've been
Speaker 1: in this mind state quite frequently, particularly in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and what I find makes the biggest difference is writing
Speaker 1: everything down. I literally make a list, and then what
Speaker 1: I do with that list is that I add rough
Speaker 1: timings to each item on the list. How much time
Speaker 1: will this thing take me? Because what our brains often
Speaker 1: do is they get quite overwhelmed. They build this really
Speaker 1: big list, and it's really easy to overestimate how long
Speaker 1: all these things will take. And so I find if
Speaker 1: I can contain it, which making a list absolutely does.
Speaker 1: It contains things to being on a physical or digital
Speaker 1: sheet of paper, and then I can add rough timings
Speaker 1: and that will generally give me a sense of reassurance
Speaker 1: to go, Okay, I can get through everything that I
Speaker 1: need to get through and hit all my deadlines. What
Speaker 1: I've started to do as a bit of a ritual
Speaker 1: is at the beginning of each month, I will think
Speaker 1: about what are my top priorities for this month, generally
Speaker 1: like what are those big bits of deep work that
Speaker 1: I really need to get done, And I will make
Speaker 1: a list, put timings against each one, and I will
Speaker 1: continually come back to that list throughout the month. And
Speaker 1: I've found that that makes the massive difference. Next question
Speaker 1: is from Vadotus. I hope I've pronounced that correctly. So
Speaker 1: the question is meditation effects on work life balance? What
Speaker 1: does that do? And is having a nap in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day good for managing.
Speaker 2: Stress at work?
Speaker 1: Okay, So look, I have never really been able to
Speaker 1: get into meditation. I've tried it many times. Although my
Speaker 1: good friends Sarah Grinberg and Lisa Leong, who've both been
Speaker 1: on this show, still I'm only convincing me to, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe make it a bit of a habit or think
Speaker 1: about it differently. What I have done, though, for most
Speaker 1: of my life is I've used hypnosis. So I grew
Speaker 1: up with a mum who is still a clinical psychologist,
Speaker 1: and she specializes in hypnosis. She uh trains fellow medical
Speaker 1: professionals in using hypnosis, And so for me, hypnosis was
Speaker 1: never something that I just thought about as what they
Speaker 1: do on the Scooby Doo and they you know, wave
Speaker 1: the medallion in front of people to send them to
Speaker 1: sleep and turn them into chickens. Hypnosis was actually a
Speaker 1: tool that I, you know, you heard about my mum
Speaker 1: using all the time, and I experienced from quite an
Speaker 1: early age as well. And the way I think about hypnosis,
Speaker 1: where you're essentially getting someone into a state that feels
Speaker 1: like a kind of dream like state, I guess certainly
Speaker 1: a very relaxed state, not dissimilar to meditation. During hypnosis,
Speaker 1: the person doing the hypnosis will be making suggestions in
Speaker 1: terms of the purpose of the hypnosis. Often in my
Speaker 1: mum's practice, she works a lot with oncology patients, so
Speaker 1: often the hypnosis is to help with pain management. But
Speaker 1: for me, I've used it for all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: particularly high stress situations like if I've got a high
Speaker 1: stakes presentation that I'm making.
Speaker 2: For example, I will.
Speaker 1: Often use hypnosis to just calm my nerves and give
Speaker 1: suggestions to my mind that I will be in a
Speaker 1: peak performance mode. So I think about hypnosis like meditation
Speaker 1: on steroids, so that I guess has been my form
Speaker 1: of meditation. I do also find jogging pretty good for
Speaker 1: getting me into a meditative state. Now, in terms of naps,
Speaker 1: if you are someone that does not struggle to get
Speaker 1: to sleep at night and stay asleep, so if you
Speaker 1: don't have insomnia, naps, well, there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: great stuff about naps. Typically, what most sleep researchers would
Speaker 1: recommend is don't nap for more than twenty minutes. So
Speaker 1: if I'm having a nap, I generally don't nap, but
Speaker 1: occasionally I do. And I generally don't nap because I
Speaker 1: have struggled with insomnia. Is I will set an alarm
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes from when I lie down in bed,
Speaker 1: and I know that it will probably take me a
Speaker 1: few minutes to get to sleep. So at the thirty
Speaker 1: minute mark, I know that I haven't gone into a
Speaker 1: deep sleep. I'm not going to have that groggy feeling,
Speaker 1: and that is the best kind of nap to have. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on to the next question. So from anonymous, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm currently participating in your Thrive Protocol program and loving it.
Speaker 1: And FYI, that is a program that we run at
Speaker 1: Inventium to help drive well being, resilience and productivity. So
Speaker 1: if that is a thing in your organizations, do reach out,
Speaker 1: get in touch. So what is on my mind this
Speaker 1: week is creating healthy boundaries and being able to politely
Speaker 1: put pish back on requests, demands, expectations by people who
Speaker 1: can be very persistent and won't take no for an answer.
Speaker 2: So that is the gist of the question. That's a
Speaker 2: little bit more there.
Speaker 1: But what I would recommend here is a strategy that
Speaker 1: I've heard from a few people. One of those people
Speaker 1: was Nicky Sparshot, who she is at Unilever. She used
Speaker 1: to head up Unilever Australia. I believe she's now in
Speaker 1: a global role. She has a strategy that she told
Speaker 1: me about called yes but and I love this strategy.
Speaker 1: So when we get some sort of a request for
Speaker 1: our time, I mean, for me, I'm quite good at
Speaker 1: saying no, but I understand that sometimes this is not
Speaker 1: a thing that you can do, particularly when you're in
Speaker 1: the system of a large organization. So yes but involves
Speaker 1: saying yes but putting some constraints around your answer. So
Speaker 1: let me give you an example, because I did actually
Speaker 1: use this strategy a few weeks ago with a client
Speaker 1: of ours, in Ventium, who asked me if I would
Speaker 1: do I think the request was for like a forty
Speaker 1: five minute presentation or like fireside chat Q and A
Speaker 1: with a large group of their employees. But they didn't
Speaker 1: have a budget, and normally I charged money for that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But I wanted to help them. We've
Speaker 1: been doing work with them, and you know, we plan
Speaker 1: to continue that relationship.
Speaker 2: So I said yes.
Speaker 1: But so I said yes, I can absolutely do a
Speaker 1: Q and A, but it can only be fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to do that just as a gesture
Speaker 1: of goodwill for our relationship, and my client was really
Speaker 1: happy I was able to deliver a lot of value
Speaker 1: in that fifteen minutes, but I still set a clear boundary.
Speaker 1: So yes, but is an excellent tool. Let's see our
Speaker 1: next question here. How do you navigate making organizational change
Speaker 1: remaining committed to continuous improvement when you're relying on busy
Speaker 1: colleagues making time for the collaboration. Mm, well, I I'm
Speaker 1: not the best person at doing this.
Speaker 2: Generally, I will just push forward with.
Speaker 1: The change that I want to make and actually forget
Speaker 1: to take people along for the journey, which is something
Speaker 1: I am trying to work on.
Speaker 2: What though, I have found it's been quite a good tool.
Speaker 1: Bit old fashioned, but doing a good old racy r
Speaker 1: AC I So if you haven't come across racy, racy
Speaker 1: is really great for setting roles clearly at the start
Speaker 1: of a project. RACY stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.
Speaker 1: There are a few different models like this, but I
Speaker 1: like the racing. So these four roles are the things
Speaker 1: that you think about at the start of the project.
Speaker 1: So who is responsible, who is actually responsible for doing
Speaker 1: the work? Who is ultimately accountable? Like if the project fails,
Speaker 1: who is the person that is actually going to be
Speaker 1: accountable for what happens. Who is consulted along the journey,
Speaker 1: like who do we collaborate with a little bit, and
Speaker 1: who is simply informed? And this is a really key
Speaker 1: distinction because often we can confuse informed for consulted and
Speaker 1: informed are just people that we just need to communicate with,
Speaker 1: keep them updated along the journey of the project. So
Speaker 1: if we can define this upfront, we can we can
Speaker 1: circumvent a lot of unnecessary collaboration. If you like, next question,
Speaker 1: how do you set up a nurturing environment for those
Speaker 1: on your team with neurodiverse brains so that they can
Speaker 1: be set up for success in the workplace?
Speaker 2: Good question?
Speaker 1: So you know what they say, if you've met one
Speaker 1: person with ADHD, you've met one person with ADHD. I
Speaker 1: think this is so important. Trying to group neurodiverse brains
Speaker 1: into the one bucket is a big mistake. So the
Speaker 1: best thing that you can do is just ask them,
Speaker 1: ask them, like what do you need? But other than
Speaker 1: asking them, I would say, one easy thing to start
Speaker 1: thinking about, well not necessarily easy, but one thing to
Speaker 1: start thinking about is the sensory environment. So a lot
Speaker 1: of neurodiverse brains are quite sensitive to things like loud noises,
Speaker 1: bright lights, lots of chit chat and interruptions.
Speaker 2: The brains just don't like that.
Speaker 1: So think about what is the physical environment that you
Speaker 1: have set up for your teammates at work, particularly where
Speaker 1: it's in your control, Like what is the lighting light?
Speaker 2: Can people adjust the lighting?
Speaker 1: You know, bright lights, generally speaking, are not great for
Speaker 1: neurodiverse brains.
Speaker 2: Lots of noise not great. Can you set up quiet zones.
Speaker 1: Or quiet pods where people with differently fired brains can
Speaker 1: go to get away from the noise. They are certainly
Speaker 1: some good things to start thinking about initially.
Speaker 2: Also, we have a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of different tools that we use to help to help
Speaker 1: with collaboration and just getting the most out of all
Speaker 1: sorts of brains. So one of those tools that we
Speaker 1: teach to a lot of our clients at Inventium is
Speaker 1: a tool called shifting. So shifting involves in any kind
Speaker 1: of a meeting where you're asking for people's thoughts or inputs,
Speaker 1: which is hopefully any kind of a meeting because ideally
Speaker 1: you're not using meetings just for information sharing. Is getting
Speaker 1: people to think about the question.
Speaker 2: Or the problem on their own.
Speaker 1: First, give them five to ten minutes and then shift
Speaker 1: back as a group, taken in turns to share your
Speaker 1: thoughts and then build on each other's thoughts, and then
Speaker 1: you can repeat and repeat and repeat for however many
Speaker 1: times that you want. That's a tool called shifting that
Speaker 1: we find is very good because typically how most meetings
Speaker 1: and brainstorms are run is that they're set up to
Speaker 1: really favor people that are highly extroverted and great at
Speaker 1: thinking on the spot, which is really the minority of us.
Speaker 1: So a good way to take into account all our
Speaker 1: different brains is to give people time to think on
Speaker 1: their own and then take it in turns to share
Speaker 1: as a group. We will be back soon with strategies
Speaker 1: that I personally used to help recover from burnout. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a very specific question, and this comes off
Speaker 1: the back of one of the newsletters that I recently shared,
Speaker 1: which I think was titled my three non negotiables for
Speaker 1: health Habits or something like that. If you don't sign up,
Speaker 1: if you don't get my newsletter, there is a link
Speaker 1: in the show notes. So I did talk about how
Speaker 1: one of my non negotiables is having twenty to thirty grams,
Speaker 1: not that I'm actually using scales to measure things, although
Speaker 1: I have done in the past, but you know, I
Speaker 1: can eyeball things and know how much protein I'm having.
Speaker 2: So I do that with every meal.
Speaker 1: Because that is a huge, huge benefit and has a
Speaker 1: huge impact on blood gluecose levels, which you want to
Speaker 1: try and have as stable as possible throughout the day
Speaker 1: for your energy levels. So the question is from Kelly
Speaker 1: regarding your protein powered meals. If cereal is off the
Speaker 1: table at breakfast, what is on the table?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Okay.
Speaker 1: So I typically have the same breakfast every single day.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of trying to reduce decisions wherever possible,
Speaker 1: and deciding what to have for breakfast every day is
Speaker 1: a decision that I try to remove from my life.
Speaker 1: So what I have is I get one and you
Speaker 1: might have seen these at your local supermarket. Is it's
Speaker 1: like a big carton of pure egg whites. It's typically
Speaker 1: in the freezer section, and I defrost overnight and I
Speaker 1: make myself an egg white omelet with spinach and tomato.
Speaker 1: I make sure I use a good amount of olive
Speaker 1: oil so I'm getting a good amount of healthy fats
Speaker 1: as well, and if I'm not full after that I
Speaker 1: will also have some yogurts, so thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: making sure I've also got some fermented food good for
Speaker 1: your gut, and also again just thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: a different source of protein and fats. So that is
Speaker 1: my typical breakfast that I have almost every single day. Okay,
Speaker 1: the next question is from Elise. When you're feeling overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: what do you do?
Speaker 2: How do you help yourself?
Speaker 1: Oh? Man, I have played around with a lot of
Speaker 1: different strategies because I feel like I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four and even parts of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three feeling quite overwhelmed about certain things. So the strategies
Speaker 1: that have worked best for me. Firstly, cyclic sighing. If
Speaker 1: you don't know what I'm talking about, Cyclic sighing is
Speaker 1: a great breathing strategy to immediately calm your nervous system.
Speaker 1: It involves taking a breath in I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can hear that through the microphone, and then when
Speaker 1: you feel like you've taken a really big breath in,
Speaker 1: taking another quick breath in to really fill your lungs,
Speaker 1: and then sighing out, so gradually sighing out through your
Speaker 1: mouth and if you repeat that for five minutes. I
Speaker 1: mean I would even do it just for one minute
Speaker 1: and I would find a difference. But repeating that for
Speaker 1: five minutes has been shown to really reduce that state
Speaker 1: of arousal and calm us down. So I reckon I
Speaker 1: was doing that probably most days of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Another strategy that I find very helpful at Inventium we
Speaker 1: call it scar sc is to firstly spot the stressor
Speaker 1: s Spot the stressor, so identify what is the thing
Speaker 1: that is making me stressed? Then see check your control,
Speaker 1: So how much control do I have about this stressor
Speaker 1: is it something that I have direct control over? Is
Speaker 1: it something that I can influence or is it something
Speaker 1: that I have no control over?
Speaker 2: And then a is accept or act.
Speaker 1: So I will act if I have direct control or
Speaker 1: some influence over and if I have no control over it,
Speaker 1: which sadly is most of the stresses in our life,
Speaker 1: I will try to accept it and not try to
Speaker 1: change it. I use that a lot when I'm identifying stresses.
Speaker 1: The final thing that I found very effective is making
Speaker 1: a state change. So if for example, I'm at my
Speaker 1: desk and I'm feeling stressed, a state change might be
Speaker 1: going for a walk around the block, or it might
Speaker 1: be you know, more extreme, like water has very calming effects,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'll just I'll jump in the shower. I
Speaker 1: remember when I was on holidays last year and I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to be staying at a place that
Speaker 1: had a pool. I was having a really stressful day.
Speaker 1: I was meant to be on holidays, but I had
Speaker 1: been hit with a couple of work emergencies. It got
Speaker 1: me into quite a state of stress, which I was
Speaker 1: trying to work through apply scar to SCA. But then
Speaker 1: I just thought, I'm just going to go for a swim,
Speaker 1: and I went for like a ten minute swim in
Speaker 1: the pool, and by the time I was done in
Speaker 1: the pool, my state how I was feeling had completely
Speaker 1: changed and I was no longer feeling overwhelmed. So that
Speaker 1: they are a few techniques on what I do. I
Speaker 1: do also find actually hypnosis that I talked about earlier
Speaker 1: is very very effective. Next question a bit of a
Speaker 1: random one. After I heard you on the mid podcast.
Speaker 1: I want to know which app you found a knee on?
Speaker 1: Who Neo is my fiance and the mid podcast is
Speaker 1: by Mum and Me. I will put a link to
Speaker 1: that in the show notes. It is a different kind
Speaker 1: of interview that I gave where I talk about finding
Speaker 1: love after getting divorced, which happened five and a half
Speaker 1: years ago. Now, so how I met Neo. The app
Speaker 1: that I found Neo on was on Hinge.
Speaker 2: There you go. That was over three years ago.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what state Hinge is in now,
Speaker 1: but certainly at the time it was worked out well
Speaker 1: for me and Neo. Okay, I'm interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about professional jealousy and the impact is can have on
Speaker 1: career growth and progression in organizations and how to deal
Speaker 1: with this. Oh ah, that's such a meaty question, and
Speaker 1: you know what, I reckon. I might take that to
Speaker 1: a future Ask Me Anything episode because I have so
Speaker 1: much to say about that. I've thought so much about it,
Speaker 1: you know, very quickly. I do try to think about
Speaker 1: my own sort of my own goals and sense of
Speaker 1: achievement for myself as just thinking about personal bests and
Speaker 1: what can I do, because ultimately that there's always going
Speaker 1: to be people that we can do upwards. Comparisons too,
Speaker 1: in terms of social comparison theory, so people who are
Speaker 1: doing better than us and we can also make downward
Speaker 1: comparisons people that are doing worse than us. We're always
Speaker 1: going to have both in our life no matter where
Speaker 1: we are. I do find that quite helpful to remember.
Speaker 1: Funnily enough, it was a concept that I researched in
Speaker 1: my honors thesis in psychology many many years ago.
Speaker 2: But I reckon I'll get.
Speaker 1: More into that in a future episode. But also I
Speaker 1: do recommend checking out the interview that I did with
Speaker 1: Sarah Greenberg that came out a week or two ago.
Speaker 1: We do talk about some topics around that final question.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: Learning more about you recovering from burnout and what tools
Speaker 1: you put into place to maintain this, especial considering your
Speaker 1: role as a business leader with a stressful schedule ongoing.
Speaker 1: I'm finding this challenging in my own life, so would
Speaker 1: love to hear from someone who has been through it
Speaker 1: and continued to balance both a high performing role and
Speaker 1: a healthy, balanced life. Okay, great question, and again I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna get into more content around this and
Speaker 1: more strategies around this as the year progresses. But in short,
Speaker 1: I made some small changes, like some of the things
Speaker 1: that we've spoken about ay that I've spoken about cyclic siging,
Speaker 1: applying scar state changes, They've all been things that have
Speaker 1: worked incredibly well. I lean very heavily on my amazing
Speaker 1: support networks, my partner NEO, my close friends, some of
Speaker 1: whom are in HR and offer particularly wise advice, you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to all sorts of sort of people
Speaker 1: and culture and other kinds of you know, challenges that
Speaker 1: I think pies a lot of leaders lives. My family
Speaker 1: are great, and also I've got some amazing peers who
Speaker 1: are also founder CEOs. So I leant heavily into support networks.
Speaker 1: And then I also asked myself this question a lot.
Speaker 1: What part did I play in creating the circumstances that
Speaker 1: contributed to my burnout? You know, who did I attract
Speaker 1: into my life? Like, how was I complicit in that?
Speaker 1: What business decisions did I make? So I do think
Speaker 1: a lot about what do I need to own because
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy when you're burnt out to
Speaker 1: place the blame externally. So I will be expanding on
Speaker 1: those answers in future episodes. But that is it for
Speaker 1: today's Ask Me Anything episode. I hope you found it
Speaker 1: useful and if you have more questions that you would
Speaker 1: like me to answer, Please drop me an email or
Speaker 1: you can find me on the socials. I love getting
Speaker 1: listener questions, so please send them through and I hope
Speaker 1: that you've taken at least one gem out of today's episode.
Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
Speaker 1: the warrangery people, part of the Cool And Nation. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to Martin Nimma for doing the sound mix.