Bolder leadership

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Keywords

Resilience - Leadership - Inner Guidance System - Human Connection - Ontology

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Colleen Slaughter, a Transformational Facilitator and Executive Coach, with over twenty years’ experience working with leaders to unlock their true potential. Colleen brings a global and deeper perspective to leadership development, helping leaders understand their worth at a profound level and creating a ripple effect of purpose and service throughout their organisations and lives.

In this podcast Colleen discusses the importance of human connection and the concept of an inner guidance system as well as exploring the complex theme of leadership, emphasising the significance of personal growth, self-awareness, and the need for innovation.

Main topics

  • The concept of an inner guidance system and how it can be disconnected

  • Why leadership is about mindset and involves self-discovery and personal growth

  • Personal growth and self-awareness in leadership

  • Innovation in leadership

  • Ontology and its importance in leadership

  • The significance of practice in developing neural pathways and building leadership skills

  • Resilience, experimentation, and adaptation in leadership

  • Why we need to learn through experience and shift approaches when necessary

  • The importance of accountability in personal choices

Action items

You can find out more about Colleen at www.boldermoves.com

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Reconnecting with life

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Keywords

Resilience – Love – Relationships – Connection - Expectation

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Steffi Seefeld, a global speaker and facilitator, discusses her work in helping people find love and reconnect with life. She explores the concept of love and how it can be chosen and cultivated as well as the importance of maintaining curiosity, presence, and appreciation in relationships. She emphasises the need for conscious effort to sustain a relationship or professional connection and the importance of hiring well and becoming the person one wants to attract in order to have fulfilling relationships or professional partnerships.

Steffi also talks about the importance of effective management and leadership in hiring decisions, the need for realistic expectations in relationships and the challenges of finding a perfect partner or team member. The conversation touches on the idea of having multiple deep relationships in different areas of life without diminishing their value and of polyamory as a concept that goes beyond romantic relationships and extends to other meaningful connections.

Main topics

  • Transmuting neurochemistry and creating mindful, choiceful practices

  • The importance of being attentive and not rushing through relationships or work

  • Why building teams requires measuring relationships in the real world and establishing boundaries

  • The importance of hiring well and finding partners with clarity and understanding of each other's boundaries and trajectories in life

  • Self-awareness and mental rehearsal in reinventing oneself

 Timestamps

1: Introduction and Guest Introduction.  00:03-00:24
2: Steffi's Background and Work. Steffi explains that she helps lovers and leaders overcome feelings of stuckness and lost connection in relationships, allowing them to fall in love with life again. 00:34-01:25
3: Unpacking the Work. Russell and Steffi discuss the concept further, exploring how our upbringing and conditioning influence our relationships and how we can consciously change our patterns. 01:30-04:23
4: Importance of Hiring Well and Finding Clarity in Relationships. Steffi draws parallels between joining an organisation and entering a relationship, emphasising the need for clarity, boundaries, and understanding one's trajectory. 08:04-09:19
5: Endurance and Commitment in Relationships. The conversation shifts to the importance of endurance and commitment as partners face challenges together, and how this cannot be fully known until the first difficult phase is encountered. 16:49-17:24
6: Reinventing Oneself and Reprogramming the Brain. Steffi discusses the work she does in helping individuals become the creators of their own lives by becoming self-aware, letting go of old habits, and using mental rehearsal and brainwave patterns to reprogram the mind. 20:05-24:01
7: Connecting with Steffi and Recommended Resources. : Steffi shares her website and LinkedIn profile for those interested in learning more about her work. She also recommends Dr. Joe Dispenza's book, "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself," as a resource on the science behind creating our own lives. 24:32-26:38
8: Closing Remarks. 26:38-27:24

 Action items

Find out more about Steffi at steffiseefeld.com

   You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.     

Turning tragedy into purpose

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Keywords

Resilience – Grief – Identity – Loss - Image – Changing the narrative – Labels – Vulnerability – Connection – Purpose – Rebirth Day

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled J R Martinez shares his journey from the battlefields of Iraq to ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’.  J R talks about how he joined the military and went to war at 19 but was injured after just one month, suffering 34% burns and inhaling so much smoke it was thought he might not survive. He was in a coma for 3 weeks and, when he came out of it the reality of the injuries and scars to his body left him thinking there was no way he could live in society. Eventually though he realised there were a lot of things that he could still do and he turned tragedy into purpose, sharing his story and expanding his career into acting, advocacy, non-profit work raising awareness for injured military personnel and writing his memoir.

Main topics

  • Why resilience needs to be conditioned and exercised

  • How our early life conditions us for the difficulties we meet later

  • Grieving for the loss of an old life so you can accept the reality of a new one

  • Losing your sense of identity

  • The difference between being alive and living

  • How we can all have a ‘rebirth day’ when roles evolve and change

  • Choosing to jettison parts of your old identity

  • Creating a new image and changing the narrative

  • Negative words and embracing the labels given to us by other people

  • How society and culture conditions men to be tough and avoid talking about emotions

  • Why vulnerability needs to be expressed in different ways Seeing the individual, not the injury

  • How connecting as humans beings can change the narrative and the way you look at anyone else you come into contact with

 Action items

You can find out more about J R at https://jrmartinez.com/ or through his social media Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.     

Building relationships for success and impact

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Keywords

Resilience – Relationships – Connection - Success – Impact 

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Patricia Bathory, a psychotherapist and the founder of a thriving import/export business, talks about how our connections influence our achievements in both business and life. With master's degrees in business administration and counselling psychology, coupled with advanced training in psychoanalysis and family dynamics, Patricia has a blend of experience that gives her unique insight into the personal and professional problems that entrepreneurs and leaders face every day.

For the past eight years, she has also been researching and studying interpersonal dynamics, including how our relationships directly affect our ability to succeed in business and in life and she believes that by improving our relationship skills and strengthening our connections, we feed the wheel of good and position ourselves to make a lasting impact.

In this podcast Patricia discusses the importance of personal growth, cultural awareness, and understanding diverse perspectives in building better relationships. She also explores the potential of therapy to reimagine and re-engineer relationships, and the concept of a "Happy Ever After Contract" for outlining the terms of a relationship.

 Main topics

  • The significance of personal growth and self-improvement in building better relationships

  • The complexity of relationships and the value of diverse perspectives

  • How some relationships may seem dysfunctional but can work well for the individuals involved.

  • Why trying to impose our own perspective on others can lead to problems

  • The importance of cultural awareness and the ability to adapt to different situations

  • Bringing together different perspectives, experiences, and cultures to lead to a better understanding of ourselves and others

  • The importance of action in utilising these differences to improve relationships

  • The challenge of diverse generations and the importance of building a supportive "village" of connections

  • The need for a variety of relationships

  • Investing in relationships to combat the "loneliness epidemic

 Action items

 You can find out more about Patricia at https://reconnect.dev/ Her book is Connected: Building Relationships to Achieve Success and Make a Lasting Impact

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Integrating connections for well-being

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Keywords

Resilience – Writing – Memory Consolidation – Cogent Narrative – Self-reflection Identifying Emotions – Developing Connections – Mental Constructs and Patterns

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Dr Jacqueline Heller, MD shares her journey of writing a book following the grief from losing her mother. Jacqueline feels writing helped her consolidate memory and connect emotions to visual memory and in this podcast, she discusses the power of self-reflection through writing and emphasises the importance of identifying emotions for better judgment.

Main topics

  • The benefits of writing for memory consolidation and creating a cogent narrative.

  • How writing helps in self-reflection, identifying emotions, and developing connections to past experiences.

  • The importance of managing emotions to prevent outbursts.

  • How reflective writing helps in understanding automatic mental constructs and patterns.

Timestamps

1. Introduction. Introduction to the podcast and guest, Dr Jacqueline Heller, MD. 00.02 - 00:27.

2.The Power of Writing. The benefits of writing for memory consolidation and creating a coherent narrative. How writing became a cathartic and connecting process for Jacqueline. Writing as a tool for consolidating memory and connecting emotions to visual memory. 00.27 – 03.15

3. Reflective Communities and Parenting. Jacqueline's background in attachment theory and Reflective Communities. Bringing reflective parenting programs to schools. How Jacqueline's book is resonating with people and helping them 03.16 – 05.07

4. Self-Reflection and Introspection. Exploring the concept of introspecting and identifying emotions. The importance of identifying and understanding emotions for self-reflection. Connecting emotions and past experiences through writing. 05.08 – 08.28

5. The Process of Writing. The circular nature of self-examination and creating new connections through writing. Writing as a tool for developing new insights and connections over time. Managing emotions through writing and promoting higher cortical functions. 08.29 – 12.25

6. Personal Reflection and Journaling. Jacqueline's personal experience with mental journaling and reflection. The pressure to journal and the various forms of self-reflection beyond writing. 12.26 – 15.34

7. Writing Process and Book Creation. The organic process of writing Jacqueline's book. The importance of a well-being narrative and stability in one's self-story. Target audience and potential benefits of reading the book. 15.35 – 19.38

8. Book Overview. Jacqueline gives an overview of the book's content, including triggers, psychological principles, consciousness, and parenting. Chapters on defence mechanisms, cognitive distortions, and neuroscience of attachment. Example chapter "Dana's invisible trigger" and writing style. 19.39 – 25.37

9. Conclusion. Closing remarks and information on where to find Jacqueline's book and website. 25.38

Action items

   You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Breaking free from addiction and crime

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Keywords

Resilience – Addiction – Transformation – Trauma – Positive Change - Connection

 In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Don Cummins, a transformational coach, speaker, and author, discusses his journey of overcoming addiction, rebuilding his life, and finding success in a professional career after serving a 20-year prison sentence for bank robbery.

Don shares his experiences of overcoming addiction and rebuilding his life and discusses how trauma and a desire to fit in led him down a destructive path of drug use and criminal behaviour. He emphasises the importance of self-acceptance, support, insight, and of recognising when you reach the bottom in making positive change and highlights the need to address underlying issues rather than solely focusing on addictive behaviours.

Main topics

  • Why hitting rock bottom can be the turning point in making positive change.

  • Why you need support, insight, and self-awareness to make progress.

  • The challenges of re-entering society and finding a job after prison

  • Why it’s difficult to relate trauma experiences with others who haven't been through it.

  • Finding understanding and connection with people who have shared similar struggles.

  • Finding true purpose and meaning

Timestamps

1: Introduction and Background - Overview of the podcast episode and introduction of the guest, Don Cummins. Don briefly shares his background and what he does as a coach - 00:05-01:41

2: From Trauma to Prison - Don discusses the traumatic experiences he went through as a youth and how it led him into a cycle of addiction and involvement with the criminal justice system. He shares that this ultimately resulted in him serving a 20-year prison sentence for bank robbery - 01:41-02:03

3: Rebuilding a Life - Don talks about his journey of recovery and the challenges he faced in rebuilding his life after being at the lowest point. He emphasises the importance of support, gaining insight, and discovering one's true purpose and meaning - 02:03-03:10

4: Unpacking the Downfall - Don Cummins reflects on the factors that contributed to his downfall, acknowledging that it is a complex process to unpack. He mentions the struggle of staying clean and employable, and the emotional challenges he faced - 03:10-05:02

5: Gaining Resilience - Discussion on the importance of support, gaining insight, and developing resilience to overcome difficult circumstances. Don shares his perspective on hitting rock bottom and how it can be a turning point for positive change - 05:22-07:05

6: Rebuilding Relationships - Don talks about his experience in rebuilding relationships and finding understanding and connection with others who have shared similar struggles. He shares how counselling and communication skills helped in improving his relationship with his partner - 07:28-09:25

7: Sharing the Journey Through Writing - Don discusses his motivation to write a memoir, "The Prison Within: A Memoir of Breaking Free," to share his story and help others who may be going through similar challenges. He talks about the impact of his book and his upcoming book, "Awaken, Connect, Transform: The Universal Path to Happiness and Success.” - 09:25-14:23

8: The Universal Path to Happiness and Success - Don explains the concept of the universal path to happiness and success, emphasizing the importance of connection and recognizing our interconnectedness. He invites listeners to explore his work and learn more about his books - 14:23-21:41

9: Conclusion and Call to Action - Final thoughts on the power of resilience and the potential for personal growth and transformation - 21:41-24:10

Action items

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

 

Balance or Fluidity? Integrating our professional and work lives.

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We’re all aware of the importance of having a good work life balance but is it really the best way of ensuring our wellbeing?  Is work/life fluidity the key to a better blend of our work and personal lives?

Nowadays, we’re all encouraged to have a good work-life balance to ensure our mental and physical wellbeing. Whilst this looks different for everyone, it generally means finding a balance between the demands of our work and personal life to ensure a greater sense of well-being. By having a clear and firm boundary between our work and personal lives and by seeing them as completely separate entities we can devote our attention to them at any given time. In reality though, our work and personal lives are linked in many ways and trying to separate them can be difficult and often counterproductive.

A different way of bringing our work and personal lives together is through work/life fluidity. Instead of having hard boundaries between our work and personal lives, it acknowledges the connection between the two and finds ways to make their different aspects complement and enhance each other. Instead of putting our work and lives into different compartments, we embrace the way they overlap and interconnect and recognise that our needs and responsibilities change constantly. This means we can adapt to the changing nature of our world and allow our work and personal lives to support one another.

That’s not to say though that work life fluidity is a better option than "work-life balance”. Whilst some people may prefer a more traditional work structure with clear boundaries, others may thrive in a more fluid and flexible environment. The key is to find a balance through open communication that meets the needs of both the individual and the organisation. One that ensures work expectations are met, but also promotes overall well-being and aligns the individual's personal and professional goals with their specific circumstances.

Leveraging personal connections. It’s an age thing?

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Nepotism can take many forms but, however it appears, it’s seen as unethical, leading to a lack of fairness and objectivity in decision-making processes and of creating a negative perception of an organisation that results in reduced trust and respect among employees and stakeholders. Now, a recent survey of 2,000 working age UK adults carried out by ethical hiring experts Applied has looked at the role ‘nepotism’ plays in hiring and how the workforce feels about leveraging personal connections to get ahead. 

The research found that 42% of those surveyed had gained a job or job offer after a referral from a personal connection, that men were 33% more likely to have benefitted and that  younger workers, 68% of Gen Z and 60% of Millennials benefitted compared to 25% of over-55s. 24% of the Gen Z workers were unemployed beforehand with 49% entering into entry or junior roles, 27% into middle-management positions and 14% into a senior management role. This would suggest that personal connections play a critical role in helping younger workers with little to no work experience get a foothold on the employment ladder.

There is also a age difference in how people felt about taking advantage of a personal connection to advance their career, 77% of workers across all age groups said that they would but Gen Z respondents were most likely to feel morally conflicted about it with 60% of 18-24 year olds saying they disagreed with leveraging personal connections to land jobs “on principle” or as a matter of ‘fairness’ compared to 41% of over-55s. However, older workers who disagreed with “nepotism” were more likely to stick to their principles. Of the 60% of Gen Z respondents who disagreed with nepotism on principle, 75% said they would take advantage of it anyway. By comparison, 41% of over-55s who thought nepotism was unfair, just 33% said they’d go ahead.

The findings also suggested that some people are worried that nepotism might change how they are perceived by friends and colleagues. This seems to be a bigger issue for older workers with 51% of over-55’s surveyed saying they’d feel comfortable telling friends or colleagues they’d landed a job through a personal connection, compared to 68% of 18-24 year olds, suggesting that younger workers are more prepared to embrace who they know rather than what they know.

In today’s workplace nepotism is a concern for people of all ages and, as the workforce becomes increasingly diverse and globalised, it's important for organisations to prioritise fairness and inclusivity in order to attract and retain top talent from all backgrounds. One-way organisations can address the issue of nepotism is by implementing clear policies and guidelines around hiring, promotion, and other personnel issues so decisions are made based on merit and qualifications, rather than personal connections or biases.

Another approach is to focus on creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture, which can help reduce the influence of personal connections and create opportunities for people from all backgrounds to succeed based on their skills and abilities. This may involve initiatives such as unconscious bias training, mentorship and sponsorship programs, and diversity and inclusion task forces or committees.

Ultimately, it's important for organisations and individuals to recognise the negative consequences of nepotism and strive to create a culture of fairness and equal opportunity, based on merit and qualifications, rather than personal connections.

Improving Connection - Humanising the Remote Experience

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Dr Amy Mednik is a psychiatrist working in her own private practice in New York. She grew up in New Jersey and went to college at MIT in Boston where she studied, and became fascinated by the brain and cognitive science. She then attended medical school and and fell into psychiatry halfway through the clinical rotation. She received her medical degree with Distinction in Research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a Bachelor of Science in Brain & Cognitive Sciences from MIT.

As a psychiatrist she mainly focused on medication versus psychotherapy. This developed into psychopharmacology, giving medication and seeing what symptoms can be quieted down so people can become their best self.  She wanted more to offer her patients so she then got involved with TMS which uses magnets to create electrical fields to intervene on the brain. She had just got up and running with in-person office based treatments when Covid struck and she had to shut down her office.

In 2020 she started working online with her patients, students etc. A colleague then invited her to write a book about an idea she’d had about the remote experience - what is wrong with the remote experience, why it makes us feel exhausted, why we have trouble focusing and why do we feel what we feel socially. They spent a year writing and living it and it was finished in 2022.

Brain science used to be very much about ‘this is where that happens’ and ‘that happens in that one part of the brain’. Things were learnt because when someone had a stroke and they couldn’t recognise faces that must be where faces are stored in the brain. Now we’re learning it’s not that simple and it’s really very network based. There is not one thing, there is a lot of communication between different areas and feedback loops that's great because networks are something that can be intervened on so that that network gets healthier and can be improved.

Amy is very interested in the use of psychopharmacology for anxiety and depression but with each of these things there are medicines that work well for people. When its done correctly negative symptoms are turned off and when you talk to the people you’ve prescribed for they can tell you what they experience and describe what the feeling in their head is really like. When the prescription is adapted, they can then describe the change and what that feels like.

There is a range or spectrum for drugs that also depends on the disorder. Anxiety and trauma really straddle the chemical responses to medicine versus environmental situational responses to therapy. With both of these you have symptoms that you can take and turn everything off so patients don't feel anything. If you are precise though there are a wide range of doses and sometimes a little does a lot so we just quiet the noise, we turn the volume down on the anxiety or trauma that's talking and not serving you. People begin to feel they have more access to themselves, their minds and to their creativity because the fight or fight response that should not be going is turned down. They can then engage better in therapy and in life and do more things. With trauma though its not always safe to go into those parts of your brain, your brain wont always let you into those parts before you build the scaffolding with a little bit of medicine, do the work, break the things down build them back up and then you might not even need the medicine.

Amy feels the maximum between sessions is six months but on average she sees patients every three months. If you are taking medicine and it’s helping you to feel better that's great but if it’s making you feel worse then it’s worth review. These things have side effects but it is not one or another – if your life has changed and you've done well in therapy and things are different to when you started the medicine its also worth reviewing. There is no right answer. Some people stay on them for live because they really help them to be their best self.

Amy’s new book about the virtual experience is Humanizing the Remote Experience through Leadership and Coaching: Strategies for Better Virtual Connections This looks at how we can foster wellness, raise engagement, and strengthen connections in professional contexts as our interactions become increasingly remote. Amy feels that as humans, we’re simply not wired for flat, two-dimensional virtual settings, that we’re built to connect in the real world. When this need isn’t met, we inevitably become stressed, struggle to focus, work harder, and burn out.

There are a lot of ways we can improve the remote experiences, but we need to learn the signs that our needs aren’t being met in our virtual interactions, for example why Zoom calls are physically exhausting, why what we intend to say gets lost and distorted in virtual settings and why being part of a remote team can increase stress.

To understand what is missing from these remote interactions, we need to understand how we use space, sensory cues and group dynamics and the challenges people face when their innate need for human connection is unmet.  Amy and her co-author Dr Diane Lennard used research and case studies, to outline the paradox that the digital technology we use to connect with others can leave us feeling less connected.

Amy’s book is Humanizing the Remote Experience through Leadership and Coaching: Strategies for Better Virtual Connections and you can learn more at www.HTRE-Book.com or you can find out more about Amy at dramymednik.com

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.