Safe conversations for work and life

 Keywords

Resilience – Trauma – Mental Health – Fulfilment – Purpose – Self-awareness – Safe Conversations

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Bill Carson, a visionary leader in mental health, wellbeing, shares his personal experience of childhood trauma and how he overcame it through therapy and understanding brain chemistry. Bill emphasises the importance of taking care of our mental health by focusing on both psychological and physical well-being and also discusses the significance of finding a sense of purpose in life and serving others as part of building resilience. The conversation highlights the need for a holistic approach to mental health that includes addressing biological, psychological, social, and existential factors.

 Bill also discusses his experience as a volunteer crisis supporter and the fulfilment he receives from helping others. He emphasises the importance of not letting external factors overshadow one's own identity, relationships, and sense of connectedness and concept of finding purpose through the three levels of happiness: pleasure, passion, and purpose. He also touches on psychological safety in conversations at work and how it contributes to overall well-being.  

Main topics

• The importance of managing automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).

• The process of negating harm from a childhood incident.

• Cognitive repair and the importance of positive thinking.

• The importance of purpose and learning to learn.

• The importance of self-awareness and identifying suitable resources.

• How safe conversations can still be robust and professional.

• The importance of creating a safe and healthy culture for conversations

Timestamps

1: Introductions. 00:02 - 01:08

2: Impact of Childhood Trauma. Bill discusses the challenges of childhood trauma and how it can affect people's lives, often without their conscious memory of the original incident. He emphasises the importance of learning to manage and change perceptions of trauma. 01.08 - 04:23

3: Overcoming Childhood Trauma. Bill shares his personal experience of dealing with childhood trauma and how he discovered helpful approaches. 04:29 - 06:46

4: Finding Purpose. Bill explores the concept of finding purpose in life and how it relates to resilience. He highlights the importance of having a sense of belonging to a higher purpose and aligning personal actions with that purpose. 06:47 - 14:23

5: Discovering Personal Purpose. Bill discusses the process of uncovering one's purpose and offers an example of building a cathedral as a metaphor for finding purpose through meaningful work. 14:24 - 19:03

6: Psychological Safety and Safe Conversations. Russell raises the topic of psychological safety and safe conversations in the workplace and asks the guest, Bill, to share his insights. Bill explains the importance of creating a safe environment for open and honest conversations to support individual growth and performance. 19.04-25:03

7: Safe Conversations Skills for Managers. Bill introduces his book, "Safe Conversations for Work and Life," which focuses on developing safe conversation skills for managers to foster a culture of psychological safety in the workplace. He explains the process of helping team members become self-aware and identify suitable resources for support. 25.04 – 27.46

8: Emotional Fitness and Resilience. Russell briefly mentions a model of resilience and emotional fitness on Bill's website. They express interest in exploring this topic in more detail and provide information on how listeners can access the resources and contact Bill. 27:47 - 29:24

9: Conclusion: The host thanks Bill for the conversation and provides information on where listeners can find more about Bill's work and his book. 29:35 - 29:50

Action items

You can find out more about Bill at https://inspirelearning.au/skills-for-leaders-managers/

His book is Safe Conversations for Work and Life.

  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.   

Passion into purpose

Keywords

Resilience – Passion – Purpose – Female Entrepreneurs – Leadership – Values - Renewal

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Julie Perkins. After a 20-year career with Specsavers which included opening up the business in the Netherlands and Northern Europe, Julie decided to use the experience and learning she’d gained to support female entrepreneurs as grow their businesses in a more seamless way.

Julie has witnessed the ins and outs of a business founded in a spare room and launched onto the world stage, to surviving cancer, to writing books (The Wyse Way) and hosting her own podcast, She is now sought after for her advice and guidance for decluttering the minds of female entrepreneurs, and translating experience and researched theories into a language that helps her clients to see the path to growth, whilst ensuring it remains an exciting adventure.

Main topics

• Why we need to step back and stop ‘doing more and more’

• Why we need to ask ourselves the right questions

• Creating space between yourself and the purpose of the organisation

• The importance of constantly renewing yourself

• Fostering purpose led growth

 Timestamps

1.     Introductions. 00.00 – 04.51
2.    The greatest learning. 04.51 – 08.31
3.    Growth and success. 08.34 – 11.21
4.    Questions that give perspective. 11.21 – 17.33
5.    Learning through failure. 17.33 – 20.49
6.    Passion into purpose. 20.49 – 26.55
7.    Contact details and action points. 28.02 – 30.33

 Action items

Find out more about Julie at http://www.wyseminds.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.  

Grief, loss and resilience

Keywords

Resilience – Grief – Loss - Purpose

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Marv Weidner about his experience with grief after losing his wife to cancer in 2017. After he lost his wife, Marty, Marv was unsure how to find the resilience and sense of purpose to begin living his life again. With the help of Carol, a counsellor for over 22 years who specialises in grief, Marv learned valuable lessons about facing grief head-on, embracing loss as an integral part of life, staying present in the midst of trauma, de-stressing in healthy ways, and reaffirming or discovering a new sense of purpose. 

Marv discusses the intense physical, emotional and spiritual impact of grief, as well as the importance of embracing it rather than pushing it away and also talks about rediscovering a sense of purpose after loss and how living with an open heart has become his new purpose. Marv also discusses his new book, "When the Rocks Sing," which serves as a guidebook and handbook for those who have experienced loss. The title of the book comes from an experience Marv had on a rocky beach in New Zealand where he was able to hear rocks chattering against each other due to having a calm mind and clear heart The book grew out of journaling during the grieving process and has been both cathartic and thought-provoking for him.

Main topics

• Rediscovering a sense of purpose after loss

• Understanding and characterising grief

• Why embracing loss and similar challenges is an integral part of life

Timestamps

1: Introduction to Resilience Unravelled with Dr. Russell Thackeray - (00:00-00:06)
2: Setting the scene with Marv Weidner - (00:27-01:31)
3: Understanding Grief and its Nature - (02:49-04:50)
4: Characterising Grief and Dealing with Loss - (05:04-07:37)
5: Rediscovering Your Sense of Purpose - (10:08-12:30)
6: Writing as a Tool for Coping with Grief - (13:43-15:51)
7: A Guidebook for Grief and Loss - (15:22-16:13)
8: The Title "When the Rocks Sing" and Its Significance - (16:25-17:08)
9: Engaging the Grief Process and Finding Peace - (17:51-19:12)
10: Conclusion with Marv Weidner - (19:33-19:34) 

Action items

Contact Marv Weidner through Facebook

Read his book When the Rocks Sing

 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.  

Reinventing your brand.

Rocky Buckley is an entrepreneur and a hybrid coach and consultant who primarily works with solopreneurs – experts, thought leaders, authors, speakers, coaches or consultants as well as people who are successful corporate executives or service providers looking to reinvent themselves into that space. Rocky helps them with their business models, personal brand and how they package themselves as a soloprenerurs and experts.

Rocky had another business for over twenty years where he was primarily working with very large publishing companies and their authors in a consulting role by helping to take ideas and intellectual property and packaging it into different products. He worked with the biggest publishing companies, produced over 3,000 projects and built a successful business but wasn't happy or fulfilled. He has always had a desire to help people, particularly those who were stuck, people who had very high potential, who always thought they could have been someone, had big dreams and ambitions but also had the talent to do it. It was a crossroads moment for him and he decided to reinvent himself and his business. He figured out that strategically the people he could help the most were entrepreneurial, aspirational people who had talent, personality, and leadership ability but were trapped in their business model. He wanted to teach them how to unlock that model and change their life and business.

The context Rocky uses for a solopreneur is as part of the social media age where they must be online and must have a personal brand. There is a celebrity element to it now. He was a solopreneur for many years and nobody knew who he was because he worked behind the scenes and did not have a public presence at all. When you put yourself out there today, the way you promote yourself, the way you get your message out and market your business is through online means. You need to figure out how to communicate what you do to the right audience, to message it properly, be able to engage people and show a different side of your personality. We are all living in a social age where having a public persona is no longer a choice. We are all forced into it and the question is how do we maximise ourselves and put that best version of ourselves out there.

The market is very crowded now especially after Covid when a lot of people realised that what they were doing offline could be taken away from them very quickly. A lot of people pivoted and now there are so many more people coming online and there is still a lot of the world not even online yet. If you look at a phone where you can only have so much information on a feed, the structure makes it highly competitive. We can only look at so many things in a day or have so many messages coming to us. The more people there are on the feed it becomes more difficult to stand out.  Rocky’s aim is to help people figure out how to be the best version of themselves so they do stand out. In a period of rapid change that is only getting faster, the business models and strategies that are successful now might be obsolete in six months. Having to change and reinvent yourself is a skill and knowing how to do that and do it well over and over again is really a core skill of the 21st century.

Many of the people Rocky works with already have their own business but they sometimes get stuck. Typically, the people who start businesses have had a job that they become very good at and then decide to go out on their own as their own boss. They have the idea that they want to be their own boss, to work and build something for themselves that will create more free time and a better life. Often though if they are good are what they do and become successful they are swamped with work, busy all the time and stuck in the day-to-day of their business. They can’t work on their business because they’re working in their business.

People get out of this by making structural shifts in their business, and choosing a different market that is more lucrative. Things such as changing the way you deliver your product or service so instead of working one on one or change to a group setting or a digital product that gives you more leverage or going wider to use promotion and marketing to get your message out further than you did before. Most people starting out are dependent on referrals so you’re looking for the business to come to you. Breaking out of that and using the leverage of marketing allows the business to grow.

Differentiating yourself in a packed marketplace is a systematic and strategic process. People understand they need to get out there and create content but then find it doesn’t get a lot of engagement so they get frustrated. The mathematical aspect is that you have to put out a lot more content than you think but there is also the question of what makes a piece of content or persona engaging. It requires an in-depth, inward looking process to figure out what it is about me that makes me different. What is that sense of purpose I have that makes me more animated and bring s out my charisma? What are other people in the market saying or doing? How do they sound and what assumptions are they making about the people they are talking to and how can I cut against that?

You need to become strategic about the strengths you have and the things that other people tell you you’re really good at. What are the things you’re interested in that would make you more colourful, interesting and fascinating to people? It requires a step-by-step strategic process to develop and create that best version of yourself. It’s a creative process and most people never think or do anything about it and that is the critical step for everyone.

Entrepreneurs need resilience and one key element in building this is to tap into your sense of purpose which is what drives you and creates resilience. When you emotionally tap into the thing that drives you and you stay connected to it, it will drive you forward and also animate the way you appear as the natural passion, enthusiasm and desire to help people is what draws other people to you. Staying tapped into purpose from a resilience and personal charisma standpoint is the essential centre of this world. If you drift from purpose its really hard to succeed.

Once you tap into purpose and start to understand it a deeper level it becomes a life, business and personal vision with identity and belief shifts that stream from purpose. If you remove purpose from life you’re looking at a very grey world with no joy or change.

You can find out more about Rocky at rockybuckley.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.

Lean in and learn. Finding the purpose to change.

David Richman is an author, public speaker, philanthropist and endurance athlete whose mission is to form more meaningful human connections through storytelling. He wrote Cycle of Lives, which shares the interconnected stories of people overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their emotional journeys with cancer.

David was on a quest to try to find out from real life experiences what are some of the difficulties people are encountering, how they navigate those conversations and what we can learn from them and bring to our own lives. He found that when many people try to navigate the emotional facets of the journey, they are not well equipped to have hard conversations or have deep authentic connections with people even their closet loved ones.

When David was at a super low point in life in his mid to late 30’s. He was overweight, a smoker, miserable, stressed and in an abusive marriage with an alcoholic wife.  He was also the father of four-year old twins. It was a destructive lifestyle going nowhere when he got the news about his sister ‘s terminal cancer diagnosis. He realised he had chance to change his life and live for the better but his is sister didn’t.

It wasn’t that easy to make changes. It was tough especially as he set out to find answers without little context – you can hear something fifty times but its not until you hear it the fifty-first that you get it. David heard his inside and outside voice as well as other people telling him that he needed to stop trying to find people to fix and to create problems to get out making changes. He knew he had no self-awareness or self care but he was aware of who he was and didn't like it. He saw himself for the first time and then he saw himself in reflection to his sister and their potential journeys. He had choices but she didn’t.

Someone then said something to him that didn’t make the transformation any easier but it did make the realisation that he had a lot of work to do easier. He was at a low point in his life, complaining about being tired, angry and having to watch his sister die. A friend told him that he’d been listening to him complaining for years and that he should look in the mirror and fix himself, that he needed to realise he was the problem not everyone else. It didn't make it easy but it opened his eyes about what he had to do and that he had to do it fast. The fact he needed to do it fast helped. He felt he didn’t have that much time and he wanted to live on purpose, to see himself for who he really was, to free his mind and forgive himself for his bad choices, the wasted time and the problems he had created. He wanted to lean in and learn. 

He didn't know what a sense of purpose was but he wanted to figure it out. He knew he was a good dad and a hard worker but what gave him purpose was to be present, to be in each moment, to spend time, make a choice that you want and are aware of and be open minded so you can live on purpose. You need to free your mind and let it go. This is your day one now so what can I lean in and learn?  David started with athletics – if he started by becoming healthy where would that lead him? What it led David to do was athletics, triathlons, ironman, 100-mile runs and a 5000-mile bike run. It has given him a lot of focus and purpose and helped solve problems that have crossed over into other areas of life.

In his book, Winning in the Middle of the Pack, he discusses how to get more out of ourselves than we ever imagined. Many people spend too much time thinking about winning or leading or being the best. Sometimes its enough to be yourself and be in the middle of the pack and make the best of yourself rather than being the best of the best or the best against anyone else. There are a lot of people who grow up looking for approval, thinking that other people see them in a different way or do they do things to please people because they think that’s who they need to be. When you think of people at the top such as Roger Federer they don't really care about what anybody thinks they care about what they think. They aren’t driven by outward approval they are driven by what they want to achieve. 

If you’re in the middle of the pack nobody is watching or cares because they are more focused on their own stuff. The only thing that matters is that you care and that you’re doing the best that you can do and that you make good choices – the only one who cares is the one you look at in the mirror.  

David is now leading very moving and transformative Expressive Writing Workshops geared towards people affected by all manner of trauma. He combines traditional expressive writing techniques with elements of both narrative and creative writing so that the participants will be well equipped to continue their expressive writing practices well beyond the workshops. Mental health is such an important topic and David brings his passion, skills, and unique approach to help people connect with their emotions in a whole new way and begin a healing journey.

You can find out more about David at https://david-richman.com/

In his book Winning in the Middle of the Pack, David discusses how to get more out of ourselves than ever imagined and in Cycle of Lives, he shares the interconnected stories of people overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their emotional journeys with cancer.

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. 

Look for the opportunity

Carrington Smith trained as a lawyer and practiced law for seven years before becoming an executive search consultant. She now owns her own executive search business so has to interview different executives to see if they fit the criteria for opportunities she is recruiting for. Part of this is finding out if they would be a good fit culturally and the way she does this is through character and values. Her favourite question is that ‘we all have moments that define us, can you tell me about an event that has shaped you and how it did’. During the pandemic she decided to write a book to provide the answer to her question.

One of the things Carrington really looks for is resilience. She finds that people who haven’t had a defining moment haven’t had any hardships in life so are not able to deal with a ‘hurricane’ whereas to someone who had life experiences and developed emotional resilience it might just be a ‘rainy day’. Executives need to react and change quickly and be able to flex their resilience muscle.

In the US there a are number of laws and regulations regarding what you can ask people in an interview situation. Carrington uses that particular question because it’s very open ended. People respond with many different answers but being willing to be open and vulnerable can tell a lot about them. Some say getting married or the birth of child but this doesn't give much about character, values or resilience. You need to dig deeper – some moments can be almost everyday but also very transformative.

Carrington came from a very religious family where there was emotional, spiritual and physical abuse. When she got to college she was raped and the family response was to tell her not to talk about it. Now people ask how do she find anything good in being raped. How did she bounce back from it and not be defined by it. She knew she didn't want to be defined by it. When we tell ourselves about not being defined by something it’s generally not talking about it. The traumas that happen and that we don't want to be defined by we don't talk about and we don't deal with them. They then become what Carrington refers to as ‘the monster under the bed’. They end up controlling us because we haven’t dealt with them. We have to face these things head on. Feel the emotion then go back to what happened to us and incorporate it as part of our life experience. That is how we grow.

The motivation for Carrington’s book came from the pandemic. When it hit she realised her very ordinariness made her story compelling. We all experienced universal trauma but the way she responded to it was different.  She saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime – a historic moment that we might never have again to stop, evaluate and change course. She felt she was equipped to handle it so wrote her book by knitting her stories together as a road map and as a gift to share how she had experienced different traumas and got though them.

An example is her second divorce. The death of her marriage meant she got a whole new life. She went from she had lost to what she had gained – the opportunity to reshape her life. Carrington takes focus from what’s lost to what’s gained. Mindset is a muscle so the more you use it the stronger it gets. Now whenever something bad happens she looks for the opportunity. She now recovers faster having been through several traumatic experiences. That's not to minimise the feelings but to focus on there being something good on the other side. Having a sense of purpose gives meaning to the challenge you are experiencing.

Many senior executives have feet of clay. They don't have character but have been over promoted, have a good network set and strong political acumen.  Carrington feels there used to be two separate personas  - the personal and professional. The pandemic changed this with zoom calls providing a window into people’s lives so the two personas came together.  She also thinks the pandemic showed peoples authenticity and vulnerability so a lack of vulnerability and authenticity in executives are red flags. Some people are never going to share their emotions but are able to show empathy and meet people where they are and this willingness to acknowledge things will impact workplaces positively.

You can find out more about Carrington at www.carrington-smith.com where you can download the first chapter of her latest book Blooming free.

You can purchase the book at Blooming: Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life

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.

Growing a business to give back. Critical lessons in love and leadership.

Revanti “Rani” Puranik is co-owner, EVP and Incoming CEO of Houston-based Worldwide Oilfield Machine (WOM). Over 15 years ago, she joined WOM, an oil and gas equipment manufacturing firm, and has since implemented the framework for communication standardisation operations and business development. As a result of these frameworks, the company grew to more than $350 million in annual revenue. Rani has been named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Women in Energy 2022” by Oil and Gas Investor and Hart Energy.

Rani grew up in Houston, Texas for the first nineteen years of her life. For the next nineteen she lived in Pune, India were she founded and ran a dance company for leadership and empowerment. In 2007 she moved back to Houston where she joined WOM and in 2014 she graduated with a MBNA in Finance from Rice University. In 2016 she became the global Global CFO at WOM before becoming the incoming CEO. A different part of her life is that she is the Chair for her family foundation. The Puranik Foundation operates a residential school in Pune India for under-resourced children with 250 children currently living on campus. Three generations of Rani’s family are involved with the foundation, her mother who set it up, Rani who is very active in multiple programmes across the globe and Rani’s eldest daughter who is the managing director for all of the US based foundation projects. Rani also has a third hat, with her first book due to be published in November 2022.

The oil industry is still heavily male dominated so Rani has needed to be resilient.  She feels that there have been a number of women ahead of her who paved the way and allowed her to be stronger in the business. She also believes that the industry goes beyond gender and is more about merit. If we show up as human beings, are dedicated, committed, understand our skills and talent, are open minded and able to collaborate with a variety of people it goes beyond what your gender is. When people start to look at you in a meritocracy you are taken forward and that is what has helped her to stand her ground.

There a lot of women in senior positions who feel they are more talented than their male colleagues because they've had to fight twice as hard to get where they want to be. Rani would give these voices credit because they have had to fight a little harder, been stronger, showed up a bit more, been more resilient and had to give the benefit of the doubt. It has happened in the oil industry but it is easing up a little bit and Rani has seen a change with a push towards hard work and merit.

Rani’s family has always had an ‘earn and return’ philosophy. WOM was started by father and he was always focused on business growth but her mother is more about what can we give back to society. Rani can understand the views of both parents and the way she sees is that we are not immortal. With that in mind she is building and growing the business to really give back. The goal for the next five years is to be a $1 bn company but in tandem with that is the life goal – the company wants to positively impact one billion lives around the world. This is more than a company philosophy, its the culture and fabric of who they are as a company and team.

By wrapping meaning into the working day people can see that they are there to achieve not only a financial goal but that they also have a goal of purpose. When things get tough you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Their customers are not just clients who pay - they are every life they can touch. This can be the lives of people working in the company though employee programmes and benefits or the career ladder but also by impacting positively and making life better for the end customer. What keeps the company going is innovation and efficiency. If they can bring the overall coast down that gets handed over to the customer so their expenses come down and the end user eventually gains the benefit.

The company is also very clear on its impact on the environment. They do provide equipment to drill for oil and gas but use technology to minimise the disposal, the materials used and the overall harm to the environment. In operations they consider the people out on the fields to make their life safer, better and easier as well as produce at a more economical rate. Their philosophy is about people.

The nature of business is to innovate and many businesses in the sector are getting into more renewable alternative energy. At WOM they consider themselves to be a vertically integrated manufacturing company with their core competences being in bending and molding steel with very specialised coating processes. They are primarily an engineering and manufacturing company who can cater for any heavy industry requirements out in the field, for example rail, defence or shipbuilding, so that is the type of expansion they are looking at in addition to renewables.

Being the founder and CEO of a dance company in India and now CEO of a multinational, Rani has realised there are 4 stages to leadership.  Stage 1 is listening, Stage 2 is acting as the bridge, Stage 3 is providing inspiration and Stage 4 is letting go, which Rani feels is the best part of leadership. Employees have gone through the different stages and now have the inspiration, confidence, and know how to lead.

The idea of legacy is important to Rani. This hit her when she lost her brother in 2018. He was 8 years younger than her and his sudden passing made her realise that we are not immortal.  She feels that if she can make conscious and mindful decisions today she will have the potential to make the next life better and her efforts will pass on from one life to the next. To Rani the effort and intension of making a life better are a legacy. This can be linked to her creation of meaning. When things get tough there is a sense of purpose and legacy in both the organisation and the foundation.

People often see large companies with huge resources and wealth but whether it’s in good times or bad, Rani feels we are all just stewards. She has always been spiritually inclined and has looked for a larger purpose and meaning in life. This isn’t just because she is part of a big family business but because she feels very responsible and that has made her look for that meaning. There are always situations when we have to dig in our heels, stay determined and keep going but there are also times when we have to surrender and say I’m not in control here. Not everything goes our way and that's when it clicks and you realise you are just a steward, a bridge to connect one generation to the next. If you give your best then everything else will come together and when you give with a good heart in some shape or form it does come back.

Rani’s book Seven Letters to My Daughters (Morgan James Publishing, Fall 2022), pulls together different threads and strands of her life. The motivation to write it came from her girls who said she should write her story so her message can become her legacy. She dug into the science of ourselves and found that conceptually we regenerate ourselves every seven years so as human beings we are new people every seven years. She wrote a letter for every 7 years and each contains a critical lesson of love and how to lead. What is it to be a leader How do you lead? What does legacy mean and how do you build that? They are things she believes has made her successful, satisfied and peaceful in this day and age.

For more information, please visit https://ranipuranik6.wpengine.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.

Choice, growth and resilience

Amy Eliza Wong has been a leadership coach for ten years and partners with leaders and teams on growth, transformation and flow with a particular interest in communication, which she feels is the entry point for all things transformation. Before she became a leadership coach, she worked at Sun Microsystems for ten years having studied mathematics at Berkeley. After having her first child she gained a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, a subject she found fascinating, and this combined with her Maths background provided the perfect balance for coaching.

Psychology is the study of mental processes in human behaviour but Transactional Psychology is not limited to mental processes. It looks at the systems view of the human condition, factoring in things like consciousness in the womb, consciousness as a whole and also pulls in ancient wisdom traditions so becomes a much larger study of Psychology. 

Amy looks at resilience in terms of growth. We are interfacing with the stuff of life and every moment is contributing to our growth. Perspectives and beliefs are growing whether we like it or not. Growth and resilience go hand in hand. We can think about our growth in two ways - by accident or on purpose. If we want to be resilient we need to take life by the horns and maximise our wellbeing by embracing both. Most people focus on growth on purpose because that's what’s wanted – its the things we planned for, were hoping for and were willing to get uncomfortable for but it's the growth by accident that we need to look at. This is usually related to shame, disappointment or embarrassment - the stuff of failures, mistakes and setbacks - but where we have tools to harness both categories that's when we live on purpose.

Amy uses purpose as an adverb - on purpose meaning that it is intentional and we are fully harnessing choice with full intension and awareness. When we can choose to be on purpose we choose to harness our choice and respond rather than react to life.  Doing things with a sense of purpose knowing where you are growing and doing it purposefully.

Amy’s book is called Living on Purpose which is based on her own personal stories about growth and transformation and conversations she has had with a diverse set of individuals. She uses these powerful stories with social neuroscience to present a roadmap of the five choices of perceptional shifts that we can choose to make in order to stop self sabotage and loose the self imposed limitations we have. These are born in our belief system and it’s the interpretations we make that end up muting the quality of our own life.

People want to achieve something. The thing could be to make more money, to own their business, become a CEO etc., but Amy feels that we only think we want the thing we want. What we actually want is the feeling we think we would have as a result of achieving that thing. We are trained to use the thing as a proxy – we became attached to the thing and the strategy of realising it. This is largely due to educational system and how we develop as humans. In school we do what we were told. To get good grades, to make our parents happy and get into a good college and university, then to get a good job, make lots of money and then we’ll be happy. We put all our trust into following this strategy because it’s what I’m supposed to do to be happy. It never works though because we never really check if that's what’s going to get me to what I really want to feel. The choice is to feel it out rather than figure it out.

The chief source of failure is choosing what you want in the moment rather than what really want. This captures the slipperiness of choice because we can say we want to be healthy but at the same time we really want a bag of potato chips and to watch the game. We have to look at what we truly want and be honest with ourselves. What is the choice that aligns with what we truly want rather than what we want in the moment. We are not set up to have deferred gratification and are constantly investing in cognitive processing and energy to achieve that. Aligning our chemistry with our purpose is important. Quick wins are important. Self care, getting enough sleep and eating well are all important because if we are if not in an optimal state it is even harder to find the band width and reserves to make the choice that truly serves us.

Her new book is Living on Purpose: Five Deliberate Choices to Realize Fulfillment and Joy (BrainTrust Ink, May 24, 2022).

Learn more at alwaysonpurpose.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.

Conflict of identity? Remember the mission.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Conflict of identity? Remember the mission.

 In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to James Boardman a former Royal Marine Commando Sniper and Physical Trainer who served for eight years including some time in Afghanistan as part of a 6-man sniper team. He left the Royal Marines in 2011 to pursue a family life but struggled to come to terms with being back in a normal life, away from the military. Conflicting identities caused James to turn to drink and within three years he was divorced, on the verge of loosing his house, and struggling to find a path. Minutes away from attempting suicide James managed to pull himself away from this environment long enough to see a new path. In 2013 he started his first business, a fitness Bootcamp which he grew to a £100k a year business in its first year. In 2017, he started The Man Coach with the sole purpose of helping men become Elite Operators in life.

In this podcast, James talks about how he helps men to rebuild their lives and have a better state of mind through the way they live their lives emotionally, physically and mentally. He calls this an Elite Operating Mindset, an alter ego by which we set our standards to build the character, values and principles needed to perform in life for the four pillars of health, relationships, personal development and business. James originally started working with his clients on their fitness and nutrition but many seemed to fall off the programme. He started to consider why this was happening and realised that the chaos of life – responsibility, conflicting identity, direction – was what was stopping them.  He decided to change his tactics and concentrated on the key root of the problem, the level of control, consistency and clarity of where men were going.

James was in the Royal Marines for eight years and everything he talks about comes from his experiences. The mindset and processes he has are from what he has gone through and what he has used to get where he is today. He really loved being in the Marines but he left because he wanted to be a full-time Dad and role-model. He thought going back to normal life would be easy but he struggled with a conflict of identity. When he left the Marines he was a Sargent who was respected, was part of something, had purpose and mission and knew where he was heading.  When he left, everything from the last eight years was lost. He became a teacher at a college and there was a huge difference between teaching motivated recruits and 16-19 year old students. He didn't really settle in and considered rejoining the Marines but that fell through and within three years of leaving he was divorced, seeing his kids for half a week and suffering financial difficulties.  Things came to a head and one night he thought about ending his life. Instead he went out for a run for three hours and spent the time reflecting on his life. When he came back he had decided he wanted to turn things around.

Male identity can be a real problem. Many men get their sense of identity through their work. James feels you should replace identity with purpose, to ‘remember the mission' and have an emotional connection to an outcome. He feels motivation is an emotion like happiness or sadness that comes and goes and is not substantial enough to drive change. We need to decide what is our mission in life and create a ten-year vision within the four pillars of health, relationships, personal development and business. James also thinks we should work towards a 1% a day improvement so instead of acting emotionally and making changes for a few weeks and then stopping, we should try to reach long term control, clarity and consistency –1% a day over a year gives you a 365% improvement! Along the way there would be big wins and changes but resilience is also built so we have control of a situation and can deal with having one bad day.  The next day we just realign with the mission, we Learn- Grow – Repeat.

James had to rethink his purpose. He became involved in a dispute with the College he was working for and started doing some part-time work as a Personal Trainer. The dispute went through a grievance procedure but the relationship was unworkable so he left with a settlement. He saw it as an opportunity to change so although he knew nothing about working for himself he set up his own Bootcamp business. Six months into his journey he remembered what had happened before and saw how far he had come and how much further he could go in six years. He realised that he had allowed himself to let go of his life as a Royal Marine and that he had taken what he needed from that and become stronger, was happy with who he was and that he had moved on with his life.

James feels that people try to become best version of other people rather than themselves. It is easy to be influenced by social media and celebrity and take traits from each. When you have clarity you understand what success is to you and what is enough. The more you fail, the more you understand yourself and become more secure in who you are. What comes out of failure can be better.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about James here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available. Our full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with James at The Man Coach  where you can access a free five day challenge and James’s Daily Rise to Thrive Facebook Show, his It's a State of Mind Podcast and The Man Coach YT Channel

Jame’s book It's a State of Mind Book is available at Amazon.

Out of pain comes purpose. Equus Coaching, reinvention and changing course at 60

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Out of pain comes purpose. Equus Coaching, reinvention and changing course at 60

In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Nancy J. McKay who is based in Colorado. Nancy is the Founder of Amazing Outlook Coaching and believes that you can't be courageous without first being vulnerable.

Nancy has been through some challenging and life changing events and became acutely aware that life is short, and there was no time to lose to follow her dreams. She completely changed course at the age of 60 and became a Certified Mind-Body-Eating Coach in 2018, a Certified Wayfinder Life Coach in 2019 and a Certified Equus Coach in 2020. She now uses her experience, training, and passion to help women explore and eliminate what is holding them back, challenge old beliefs and patterns and replace them with tools and strategies that empower them change their lives.

Nancy herself struggled with alcohol for many years. Her Father was an alcoholic and killed himself in 2007. Nancy also tried to commit suicide and this wake-up call led to her finally getting sober when she was 52. She was then diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was 58 and the experience of going through chemo helped to change her perspective on life – she didn't get sober and survive to be miserable! She had a good job but was very unhappy so started on a programme of personal development. She enrolled in a coaching programme and from there started her own coaching business.

Nancy feels that ‘Out of pain comes purpose’. Many people don't want to feel pain but if we are willing to look at it, we can grow from our pain. Nancy thinks that she wouldn’t be working as a coach if she hadn’t had cancer. Her life looked good from the outside but she was dying inside. She had to do something else because her life was about more than recovering from alcohol and cancer.

Nancy’s cancer diagnosis came after she had been alcohol free for six years so she feels it was not so devastating because she had learnt from the journey getting sober She also considers it was worth the journey to be where she is now – she doesn’t look on her cancer as a battle rather accepting it as part of her. She feels it was her greatest gift because it made her wake up and made her realise she wasn’t connecting and was living under a veil that was between her and life. Nancy thinks its not circumstances that make life make good or bad but how we think about the circumstances that make us happy or sad.  

One of the techniques Nancy is qualified in is Equus Coaching which uses horses as co-facilitators. All the work is on the ground and the horses act as a mirror, responding to the energy we put out. Horses are aware if we are not being authentic but if we are aware of our truth they will interact. Nancy used this herself and once she realised how powerful the release and transformations could be, decided she wanted to learn the process herself so she could share it.

Although it's a very specilised coaching style there is really nothing that stands in the way. Even if people are scared of horses they can benefit just being close to them. Nancy finds people are generally more concerned about what they will learn about themselves. The link to the horse releases something – you just need to be open, willing and curious 

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Nancy here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available.

Our full blog archive is also available.

You can contact Nancy at nancy@amazingoutlookcoaching.com or visit her website:

www.amazingoutlookcoaching.com