Military physician to telehealth entrepreneur

Laura Purdy MD is based in Nashville, originates from southern Kentucky and grew up in Indiana. She did her medical training and first seven years of medical practice in the US Army and when her contract ended she moved into the telemedicine or digital medicine sector. Laura is licensed in 50 states so has patients all across the country as well as four children under the age of nine so she really ‘gets’ things from a working mother’s perspective. She is also an entrepreneur and currently has two businesses in the Nashville area that she owns and runs as well as having been heavily involved in telehealth start-ups as a co-founder, senior advisor and executive.

Laura started her military career in Washington DC where she did her training at Walter Reed Military Hospital before moving to Fort Benning in southern Georgia. She also served at Fort Bragg in north Carolina and Fort Campbell in Kentucky which led her back to her roots. She also spent time in Hawaii, Seattle, Texas and Virginia.

As a physician in the army you can practice at clinics where you deal with children and veterans so it’s similar to working in general practice. Laura did this but also spent time as a unit physician and in a hospital in-patient role dealing almost exclusivity with soldiers or veterans. Here the most common problems were musculoskeletal but there were also heat, blast and war injuries as well as a tremendous amount of mental health and behavioural health disorders.

As well as PTSD and trauma, adjustment disorder, depression and anxiety were very common. Military personnel are constantly being moved around – they are relocated, separated from their friends and family as well as having to live up to high expectations of performance and physical challenges. Work requirements mean early starts, late nights, weekend working and uncertainty about taking time off. Even if you don't experience deployment, war or combat, the military is a very stressful and demanding lifestyle so its not surprising that adjustment disorder, depression and anxiety are prevalent. The family network can also be an asset or a liability as can the quality of the professional support system which can greatly impact the outcomes and trajectory of the people going through a stressful or challenging situation.

In business, mindset and change are often linked together. Some people feel that the military is far more capable of dealing with adjustment because the level of constant change is more natural and frequent.  This can create its own set of problems with constant frequent movement either creating higher adjustment disorder or helping your ability to deal with change.

Laura’s last job in the Army was as Chief Medical Officer of the Warrior Transition Battalion where she was dealing with soldiers who were no longer physically or mentally fit to serve. Over 50% of that population had some behavioural health condition. This may have been the reason for their discharge or it may be comorbid with something else. Whilst there are a lot of people out there who are exceeding, excelling and doing well with that operational tempo, Laura also spent a lot of time working with people who had trouble adjusting – they weren’t a good fit for the lifestyle.

After her seven-year residency Laura knew would not be staying in the military until the end of her contract. She was stationed apart from her husband for the first three years of their marriage and during that period she had a baby and was effectively a single parent for nine months. There had been an option for them to be together so at that point she decided the best thing for her was to leave as soon as her contract would allow. It took eight years for her contract to end and it took a few years to arrive at the point where she wasn't bitter, angry or passive aggressive. She had to get to the point where could make some mature decisions, that she was going to make the best of it and going to choose to get as much out of it as she could.

A lot of people who leave an occupation like the military or after achieving something like an Olympic medal often find it difficult to decide where to go next or what to do with their life. Laura started by deciding what she didn’t want to and then doing a backwards plan. This was how she arrived at telehealth, entrepreneurship and digital health – all were things she felt would be components of a lifestyle and career she could create that would keep her out of the things she didn’t want to do.

Laura feels she is really a businesswoman disguised as a doctor and as a soldier. Her father was a businessman and did his MBA when Laura was in high school. She was really interested in what he was doing as well as in his business so she spent a lot of time discussing it with him. When she graduated in 2008 she was uncertain of what she was going to do but her father told her she should go into healthcare. She had seen the sacrifices he had made to keep his business going so she followed his advice. She then spent considerable amounts of her time getting out of providing healthcare and into the administration and business of healthcare because that was what she really enjoyed.

In the army you have complex problems to solve with fixed or few resources and a short timeframe in which to do it and that's what Laura feels entrepreneurship is.  Innovation, creativity, rolling up your sleeves, self sacrifice and dedication are all values of entrepreneurship so Laura feels her army and entrepreneur careers are directly related.

Laura feels telehealth and digital health are the progression and future of healthcare. She sees healthcare as following the way the banking industry has evolved – we do almost everything remotely, rarely go to the bank and when we do its’ an inconvenience. If healthcare follows that trend, as technology is developed and adoption increases it will get to the point where the first thing we think about in getting care is how do we do it digitally and the last thing we think about, unless its an emergency and needs in-person care is actually going to see someone. Laura feels this will disempower institutions and health insurers and give access to care in new ways and bring cost reductions, increased efficiency and, in some ways, better care. With the progress, changes and innovation there will be a complete transformation in the entire way we do health care.

Every day Laura comes across circumstances where she finds herself reflecting back to people she knew, positions she had, decisions she needed to make, life lessons and values of the military and she feels her military experience has had a tremendous positive impact on everything she does.

You can find out more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-purdy-md/

 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.
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Moral injury. A new type of burnout?

Post-pandemic there have been huge changes in the workplace. This has resulted in a large number of resignations with burnout being thought of as one of the contributory factors. The classic signs of burnout - mental exhaustion, disengagement, negativity, cynicism and reduced productivity - are well established but now a new study from the University of Sheffield, Affinity Health and Softer highlights that moral injury and stress in the workplace can contribute to a new type of burnout.

The new study, which looked at the experiences of workers in a number of different industries including law, healthcare and HR, considers that moral injury can lead to a type of burnout that is more intense, more challenging to overcome and even lead to increasing the number of resignations.

Moral injury originates from research with the military and refers to the violation of deeply held beliefs. This might be as a witness of an event or as being a participant who has to obey orders in circumstances that were felt to be morally wrong, for example having to shell a school or hospital where civilians would be injured. There has also been work with health care workers and education providers. This cited external pressures and circumstances such as the pandemic or financial interventions as being morally injurious, leaving them unable to provide the service they were employed to give and powerless to intervene.

In other businesses moral injury can be linked to working in toxic environments where an employees values and beliefs are challenged.  This could be around bullying, sexism, racism, homophobia or another moral issue and may be directly experienced, witnessed or learned about such as a colleague’s transgression or betrayal, an unfair redundancy or disciplinary procedure, a failure to act on a whistleblowing complaint, or unfair use of managerial power. 

The study found that although people’s experience of moral stress was different in source, severity and length, many of the respondents felt that the impact on them was so great they had no option but to resign from their positions. This would appear to show that as well as the original problem, there was a lack of support from managers and colleagues that exacerbated the situation and led to feelings of disengagement and, in some cases, of being in a type of abusive relationship.

Many of the warning signs of moral injury are similar to the ones experienced with classic burnout but additionally there may be a sense of shame, embarrassment and hopelessness. The loss of deeply held values and beliefs may also result in feelings such as guilt, anger, grief, anxiety and disgust as well as disillusionment with figures of authority and organisations, social withdrawal and a loss of trust.

Moral injury is caused and experienced differently to burnout but the feelings experienced by someone in a morally injurious situation can contribute to the development of burnout. As moral injury impacts on an individuals trust and self-respect, the strategies and tools needed to mitigate it are different to those needed for burnout and organisations need to be careful not to conflate the two.

Aligning Psychological Safety, Burnout and Resilience

Psychological Safety is something that Dr Russell Thackeray has long been fascinated by. He is particularly interested in how it aligns with Burnout and Resilience. He feels that in order to build a psychologically safe culture we probably need to have psychologically safe people. But which comes first? This is where the challenge of resilience links together. The idea of resilience is that after making a mistake or error, resilient people are able to bounce back or forwards, to weather the storm, build capacity for change and understand themselves well enough to know where their own resilience may be compromised. They are able to make a mistake and come back from it.

Psychological Safety works on the idea that you can state the mistake so you don't actually make it or if you do, you can disclose it. So if you aren’t resilient are you able to be resilient in a non-psychologically safe culture? If you are resilient part of the way a making a psychologically safe culture is having the skills of resilience. The term burnout is used to describe a situation where people become exhausted and lose their capacity to care and to cope.  If you’re psychologically safe or talking about the correlation between overwork, a lack of care and burnout this may be an organisational indicator.

This is an increasingly important part of leadership and management. Dr Thackeray feels that part of the challenge is that leaders and managers have lost the subtlety to build a culture that is adult, robust and resilient, where people can still be accountable and responsible for the management of their own feelings. That in creating a psychologically safe culture, there is a risk of disempowering a manager to do what needs to be done.

In a psychologically safe culture leaders should be able to take feedback but Dr Thackeray feels that everybody needs to be able to take feedback. If anyone’s performance has gone off track there needs to be the type of culture where what needs to be said can be said. He thinks that having an adult culture is at the heart of psychological safety.  Having the ability to say I can be accountable, I cannot feel safe from time to time but also that sometimes I have to recognise my part in that process.

The question is how much baggage does a person bring into a psychologically safe environment? When we think about auditing people we need to have a baseline understanding of the level of anxiety that exists for people and also their level of independent safety. If you feel unsafe or feel anxious in your day to day life, your baseline of anxiety is going to be higher than other people so, when it comes to working in teams, having identity, purpose, fun and the ability to bounce ideas around, you are naturally going to be more anxious.

Does a leader therefore create a psychologically safe culture at the level of the most anxious person given that the most anxious person does not always divulge their anxiety? How do you create good practice? As well as great feedback that goes both ways, there needs to be a sense of camaraderie, of purpose and of meaning in the role that you’re doing. You have to have meetings where you say what needs to be said and you’re not shut down for putting forward an idea.

People can ask a very innocent question and someone can take offence or see a threat where there is none. There is a need to build intentionality in the culture, where people state that their intention is to build something but there may be times we it goes wrong but that shouldn’t mean we stop trying even if it isn’t always perfect. Dr Thackeray feels we have to test the culture and test the individual attitudes to anxiety before we start. We also need to have a sense of direction, a sense of meaning in the job and be able to speak out and share ideas without being laughed at.

When Dr Thackeray looks at the confluence of psychological safety, resilience and burnout, one of the key areas he considers is meeting’s. Often in meetings the happiest person is the one running it. People are there but they don't know why. It’s not relevant, it’s inefficient because it’s not the right medium. Meetings are where we can start to spot the issues. If people aren’t saying this meetings not for me, this meeting’s too long, do I need to be at that meeting they need to be more robust about the idea of return on investment and what they produce and where they invest their time. An adult culture allows anxious people to see the value in the time they are spending and making choices in where to spend that time.  So when a leader or manager asks where is the value of your contribution over the last week, that person can say this is the value of what I’ve achieved and this is where my value has diminished because of these effects.

There are always going to be meetings that need to be attended but there are numerous casual or careless meetings where people have just got into a routine. Meetings are where most people come together so if you cant challenge the team and speak out then there is an argument that you don't have psychological safety. If you don't have the confidence to talk to your manager directly, then that may be more of an issue between you and your manager. It might be down to your level of anxiety or their ability to lead you well. On a one-to-one level there is an equal responsibility to look at those things in both ways.

The question is how do we take leaders and managers to produce leadership, management and process that allows culture to be what we need it to be? 

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.

Why neurodiversity is good for your business

It is suggested that around one in seven of the UK population are neurodiverse, the term used to describe someone who thinks differently though conditions such as ADHD, autism, Asperger syndrome, dyslexia, dyspraxia or dyscalculia.  These “spectrum” conditions have a wide range of characteristics, but share some common features in the way people learn and process information. Increasingly , it has been shown that these characteristics can bring a variety of strengths to the workplace, such as problem solving, pattern identification and enhanced visual spatial thinking.

In the workplace neurodiverse people can use their unique qualities to excel in specific areas and provide new perspectives to old challenges. For example, people with autism tend to be logical and data-driven and do not fall into confirmation biases easily. People with dyslexia are often inventive and creative with around 20 per cent of the UK’s entrepreneurs being dyslexic, including Richard Branson, Lord Sugar and Jamie Oliver.

Whilst there are tasks and roles that neurodiverse people are well suited to, there are others that may not be right for them or environments that don't play to their strengths. Workplaces and work patterns are generally designed by neurotypical people and the ways of working that help neurodiverse people perform may be seen as out of place. Bright office lights or computer screens, noisy open-plan offices, and a lack of personal organisation could prove very difficult but are relatively easily adjusted. Strengths-based management that focuses on enabling people to do what they can do and love to do (whilst avoiding the things they can’t do) and aligns these abilities to what the organisation is trying to achieve, can also help get the best from neurodiverse employees.

Aspects of good support and management are equally applicable to all employees - giving clear instructions, ensuring staff are not overloaded and providing a working environment that is free of distractions - but specific knowledge about neurodiversity should also be shared. Teams can then understand and accommodate co-workers and provide help where needed. Neurodiverse staff also won’t necessarily pick up on any ‘unwritten rules’ of your company, so HR departments and line managers should be aware of each member of the team’s strengths and weakness to alleviate any workplace issues.

Provided ways of minimising any areas of weakness can be put in place, there are great benefits for employers having employees who think differently. Creativity, lateral thinking, bringing a different perspective, the development of highly specialised skills and the consistency in tasks once mastered are all skills that allow companies to be more innovative, spot solutions others may have missed and make better decisions as a result. Ultimately though, neurodiversity in the workplace is about helping everyone thrive and seeing everyone as talent no matter how their brain works.

From ladder to leader

Ryan Larson has been a fire fighter for 21 years for the city of Phoenix. When he left high school he didn’t really know what to do with his life so he joined the fire explorer programme. He now feels that not only did it introduce him to the fire service, it also helped to mold him into being a good citizen and human being. Ryan had had some issues when he was growing up. His upbringing had been pretty tough and he wasn’t the best kid .He got involved in street fights but the fire explorer programme helped him to develop into a good leader and a good advocate and voice for his clients in his second career, the financial service sector,

In the emergency services sector people often talk about the physical requirements, the structure, the sense of clarity and knowing what you have to do and your role. But you also have to use your brain. Being a firefighter isn’t just about running into a burning building, it’s about knowing your environment, knowing the structure and what you’re going into. You’re trained to use all your senses  - if you go up to a door and its really hot your senses tell you not to go through it so you have to change tactics. It develops you into someone who is able to use their skills to see the dangers. You’re planning, plotting, analysing and doing major risk management in your head as you walk through a building.

There are other skills the fire service provides in terms of being a leader. Getting out into the community and speaking about fire safety needs good communication skills. When Ryan started out as a young firefighter he didn't have these skills. He had struggled at school and the fire service helped him to articulate his words in both his professional and personal life.

As a firefighter you see a lot. On average there are 10- 15 calls per shift. You can be up all night, suffer from sleep deprivation and then when you come home you have to take care of your family and maybe juggle another career. There is the mental aspect of ‘how do I cope with things’. You can’t just tuck everything under the bed. When you see a lot of traumatic things over the years you can become a little desensitized but you need to talk to people because if you don't lower the wall you put up and show your true feeling that's where the mental struggle is going to happen. You need to talk to people. You see a lot of stuff and you need to share it. If you don't share it you lock it away and then you become a little bitter or angry. As a firefighter you see the worst of people sometimes as well as the best.

Nowadays there is a big push about sharing your feelings but this works differently for men. They talk about things in a different way – when Ryan is talking to his workmates they sometimes use dark humour to get them through sensitive issues. Making fun of things becomes a coping mechanism. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect them, it hurts to see people in their worst moments but you have to have some sort of dialogue. Many conversations take place at the table and are very intimate but they don't go outside the walls. You need to bring some light heartedness to the profession because it’s such a stressful profession especially in these days where a lot of things are going on in the world.

Many firefighters have a second income because being a firefighter does not pay enough.  They make a modest income but there a stability in the fire department with a guaranteed income coming in every two weeks and a pension that be accessed after twenty years service. Even so a lot of firefighters have side hustles because ultimately they are hard workers and just want to supplement living expenses and their lifestyle with more money.

It makes sense to transition into second career whilst you are still involved in your first career – it’s sensible to be getting started earlier rather than later. Ryan took the decision to move into the financial services area – moving from one of the most respected careers to one of the most disliked. Ryan realises there is a shadow over the financial world, that some salespeople are looking out for their best interest rather than their clients. Ryan had always looked after his own investments so his plan was always to exit the fire service and move into the financial sector. Initially he had conversations with his co-workers about his own investments and they became interested and started to ask him to look at their finances so he always had a lot of people watching him. He wasn't your typical salesman who comes in and sells you a mutual fund and then walks out the door and collects the fees. Had an obligation to accumulate their wealth so they could achieve their goals.

Ryan’s started writing his book in 2020 during the pandemic. He wanted to share his story of being resilient and the steps he took to achieve his goals. He hadn’t been a good student but that didn’t limit him from achieving all his goals.

You can find out more about Ryan at http://www.laddertoleaderbook.com where you also find his book Ladder to Leader: My Journey from Failure to Fire to Financial Freedom

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.

Embracing the 4-day working week?

In 1926 Henry Ford became one of the most high profile employers to reduce the working week from six days to five. As well as the benefits this brought to his employees, his business actually benefited as productivity rose as his employee’s leisure time increased. Since then, the five-day working week has generally become the norm but now the question being asked is whether a further decrease in hours would not only lead to improvements in productivity, but also to employees mental and physical health.

The 4-day Week Global initiative is a coordinated, 6-month trial of a 4-day working week.  It’s currently running in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK where there are 3,000 workers in 70 companies each having an extra full day off each week whilst still being paid 100% of their salary.

Supporters of the idea highlight the benefits that a reduced working week might bring. Staff who work less may be healthier and less stressed so there could be a noticeable reduction in burnout, depression and anxiety as well as countering the negative impacts of remote working. Reduced hours would improve employees work life balance with more options for flexible working and increased time for family responsibilities and commitments, socialising, exercise, continuing education and volunteering, all leading to an improvement in both mental and physical health. 

Advocates also argue that employers have a lot to gain from a shorter working week. Employees who are better rested and generally happier tend to be more focused, and motivated. This in turn could boost productivity and engagement and reduce the number of absences caused by illnesses, stress, and mental health conditions. Moving to a four-day working week could also make companies more appealing places to work and help in recruiting and retaining the best talent.

Despite these benefits, many businesses are hesitant. Even if predictions that reduced hours would increase productivity are true, its quite possible that changing work patterns would prove difficult and expensive to particularly in industries such as hospitality, retail and health implement where choices would need to be made in terms of staffing and opening hours. Although a reduction in hours might seem a good option for people unable to work from home, perhaps the question should be whether more time off or an increase in salary would be most beneficial?

The feedback from the initiative at the halfway point of the project has been mixed, with some companies taking part finding it difficult to implement and benefit from a different operational model. Other response has been positive though so with three months to go its becoming increasingly obvious that whilst shortening the working week isn’t a silver bullet for increasing engagement, productivity and improved employees physical and mental health, in some businesses it may well help.

Linking values and identity

Sam LaCrosse lived in Cleveland, Ohio for the first eighteen years of his life before attending university at Ohio State for the next four years. He then took an entry-level job in Boston before moving to Austin Texas in summer 2021.  Since then Sam has written a book called Value Economics. The study of Identity.

The motivation for writing his book came in the summer of 2019 when he was doing an internship. He was talking to his mother about believes and what to put your energy into. At the time there were a lot of different things going on culturally but they started talking specifically about Sam’s generation, Gen Z. His mother said that she didn't feel they believed in anything. Sam thought this sounded a little harsh so he decided to look a little more deeply into what was going on in the world. His conclusion was that there was some merit in what she was saying - he wasn’t sure if she was correct or not but he thought the idea was worth exploring.

Sam thought about his time growing up and, more specifically, the household he grew up in. Both his parents were there and his grandparents lived very close by so it was a tight knit family unit. The one constant was the ethos of values and growing up Sam know they were important but he didn't really know what they really were. Later he started asking what are values and from this the relationship between value and sacrifice. He came to the conclusion that the more you value something the more you will sacrifice to get that something. The less you value something, the less you will sacrifice to get that something.

When Sam was at university he had to take a mandatory economics class. One day in class they were talking about supply and demand and he decided that he would use the model of supply and demand to navigate and map out the value of sacrifice to relationships. Sam’s definition of value is that it is something scarce, rare or hard to find. There has to be a finite resource element to it – there is only so much of something to go around. He links value in an economic sense rather than in the psychological sense of beliefs and values. He does feel though that he is talking about both belief systems and values as the central thing you hold close as a person. He wanted to have a rationale when explaining it to people and he gravitated towards economics for explanation because he saw a clear line between the two things.

Sam feels that a value is something that you hold close to yourself and that it can depend on your culture, family or place you grew up, how people value different things. If you want to look at it from an economic stance, these values are generalised in the market place. You can go and purchase or gravitate towards something in the market place but you have to find values that you find work for you. This can be based on experiences - how you like interacting with the world or other people, discipline, self-awareness or how much you care about these things. You have to take the values that most closely match up with those requirements and use them as the anchoring point of who you are as a person. The sacrifice comes in because these things are so important to you that you have to sacrifice so you can live them and let them work for you.

Many people are fascinated by the idea of identity and it’s become an abstracted question to answer in a lot of different ways. Recently, its been seen as the subject of group identity and classifying yourself with a group of people - black, white, male, female gay, straight. Sam feels there is merit to having that side of identity, the genetic and biological characteristics of a person, but that sense of looking at people is limited. Identity should be composed at the individual level and formed of individual values. The implementation of your values is what truly forms an individual’s personal identity in the most total sense that you can capture in a person.

Sam’s proposition is that you have to figure out what you value and then make choices based on actually living those values by getting rid of the things you don't value and living a life around the things you’ve decided are important to you. Self-help is warranted in some cases but if you don't know who you are and don’t know what you find important then what good is any help going to do you if you go in the wrong direction - if you help yourself for the wrong reasons its not helping at all.

Sam feels you can’t help yourself until you know who you are and knowing your values helps to understand who you are and your identity. We all make a series of choices at certain points in our lives and these choices can change – things we may decide when we are in our 20’s will be different to those at 40 and Sam thinks we need to test our values over time. They are things that are really important and self-identification really matters and should we should live our lives around them but need to be capable of change.

 You can find out more about Sam at LinkedIn, read his blogs on dontreadthisblog.com or listen to his podcast Don't Listen to This Podcast. His book is Value Economics: The Study of Identity.

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. 

The friends we need

They may challenge us, confuse us, and sometimes make us feel we’d be better off without them but our friends are as important to our wellbeing as eating the right foods and exercising!

The great thing about friends is that there are no rules on the amount of friends we can have or the way we interact with them. Obviously friendships can get complicated sometimes and don’t always run smoothly, but the beauty is that they are relationships that are constantly evolving. For example, in this age of Facebook, the word “friend” has changed from when I was growing up. Then, we’d never refer to someone we’d just encountered as a “friend” but nowadays many of us have “friends” we’ve never actually met. In a way though this redefinition of the word friend has highlighted a fact about friendship that has always been true- they are always changing!

At different points in our lives we bring people in and it’s from learning from these people  that we put together the basic components of all our future relationships - we learn how to interact with people and understand the process of meeting new acquaintances and finding out what makes them tick. They help push us out of our comfort zones whilst providing a safe emotional space for us to be totally ourselves.

We all need the ‘Best Friend’ relationship, the one with the person who knows you inside out, but not all of our relationships have to meet this standard. It doesn’t mean they are not friendships, it just means that different people in our lives speak to different aspects of ourselves. Each relationship is unique with it’s own character and has very different profiles. Here are just five of the different ‘friend’ relationships .

1. The Best Friend - The one person who you know will always be there for you. You’ve gone through so many experiences together and know all of each other’s secrets so that you feel as close as family. You go through the bad as well as the good together, but it’s all worth it because these experiences just make your relationship stronger.

2.  The Confident - This is the person that you go to when you have a lot on your mind and you need someone to listen. They lend an open ear without passing judgement or feeling the need to interject, and leave their own opinions aside when all you need is to pour your heart and soul out.

3. The Joker - Funny and witty this person will have us laughing until we cry. When we’re a bit down, they can make us feel better and we always feel happier when we’ve seen them! They are generally full of energy and we can laugh with for hours on subjects that only the two of us understand.

4. The Intellectual - Intellectual friends are inspiring, smart and challenge us to do better every day. They encourage us to be more successful and can help us through any problem, be it educational, professional or personal. They assist in building up our confidence and by looking at their achievements and success, we aspire to become like them.

5. The Artist - Whether it’s choosing a classical music CD or going to an exhibition, this friend is the keeps you up-to-date on all things cultural. They also see the world through different eyes so will push you out of your comfort zone and encourage you to explore your creativity.

Whatever point we’re in in our life, our friendships are important. They are the people who trust us, like us, understand us, and strengthen us, even when we can’t do any of those things for ourselves.

Empowering your health journey

Estelle Giraud is a PhD scientist in population genetics who has become a commercial operator, founder and leader in biotech and frontier medicine @Illumina. Estelle has had to navigate the change and challenges that come with this journey and is both excited and scared by the rise of big data in healthcare and wellness. She is also passionate about creating a better healthcare system from the ground up, especially for individuals. She believes people don’t neatly fit in single boxes and that some of the most interesting insights about people and the world come from the unplanned intersections and she brings her authenticity and openness to the tough conversations about the hard problems we face.

Estelle believes we have the fundamental right to have agency over own bodies and our own health and that this can’t be layered in political, religious or any other way of thinking – it’s your own body, your own health journey and, as humans, we have the right over that along with the privacy that goes with it.

Trellis Health has the belief that health is rapidly changing. What we think about health data is rapidly changing – genetics, wearable’s, where people live and what people eat all impact on our health. At the same time we don’t have a good infrastructure for health data particularly in the US as there is no national infrastructure and people have their health data in dozens of different systems. This means that from a patient perspective there is little value in that health information. It doesn't serve you and allow you to manage and own your health. There are a lot of things you can talk about - AI and data driven medicine for example - but at the end of the day we need good health data on people and that data needs to impact on, and serve them.

Estelle’s company has been creating a platform, a health data hub, which starts with pregnancy. There are a couple of very specific reasons for starting at this point. At a high level pregnancy is a really unique time point in a person’s life where a lot of deep and broad measurements happen. It is the first interaction with the healthcare system and there is a lot of space for improving that user experience as well as the health outcomes – how do we decrease maternal and infant mortality at this intense time in a really data driven way.

The idea is that you own your own health data, cleanse that data and show it to the people who need to know so they can provide the healthcare you need for yourself on a global scale. People are more mobile these days and there are different systems in different countries. You can’t just assume people are going to be born, live and die in one system if we are going to have a mobile lifestyle it makes sense for all of our health information to come with us as we move through life. For example when you are on holiday and something happens to you. You can’t speak and your wishes or allergies are missed.  The mission of Trellis is to empower people to see and connect with their health and those two things are difficult to do. Health is an abstract thing. We don't think about it until we are sick and that's when it will help to have that data at your fingertips. It allows people to connect with it so we can own our health journey.

Estelle comes at this from a patient and a data science perspective. Health is not just about going to the doctor, having some blood tests and going home.  Its about mental health, diet, stress, sleep and community. All of these things impact our health and we’ve gone through the period where people would have one doctor who had seen their family for generations and had information about the whole family in their head. Today’s medical systems have been fractured into specialties and fragmented out – an app for mental health, seeing a specialist for something else - all different people and systems. People are slowly starting to realise that health needs to bring that all together and that to talk about truly managing your health it needs to be holistic.

There are a lot of inaccuracies in health data generally and this is difficult to fix without a level of transparency. With transparency people can see the data and start to have the conversation that something isn’t right so lets try to correct it. To realise precision medicine, we need vast amounts of clean, accurate data – if its full of errors we can’t develop the algorithms to do that. This is of course some of the most powerful data you can have on a person and is even more valuable than financial data which is why the privacy and ethics of this space is so important.

Trellis work automatically though API’s. The US has massive problems with health data and has built exchange networks that operate within the hospitals. This means that when users sign up to the platform they don't need to call every single doctor they've had. They authorise Trellis and then they can collect and build a longitudinal health record for them automatically. The revenue model is that of a consumer paid subscription. They don't take money from insurance companies which simplifies and strips away lots of ulterior incentives. They work with a lot of younger Millennial and Gen Z women who have the idea that if it’s free you are the product. This comes from platforms such as Facebook that monetise people. Trellis makes it really clear that you pay a subscription fee and that's how they make money. It’s your data and they don’t sell it to anybody. They don't make money any other way - it’s all about you and the value you get from your health data.

Organisational resilience comes from this consumer model because it gives independence in the market place. It sounds simple but simple is always best, particularly in healthcare. If you get from where you start profitability, the more organisational resilience you’ll have.

Genetics is the use of simple rules that are written in how we inherit things from our parents and how we pass things down to our kids. When you look at population levels there are mathematical relationships between different people based on their genetics. Its also relevant for how we think about disease, and human health and predispositions. If you put the data across populations you can answer really interesting questions about human health. Things like longevity, bullying and mental health are the sort of things you see in a correlation between life chances and wealth, Some aspects of life are hard coded in a very specific way in our genetics but other things are far more complex and depend on environmental signals throughout our life – where you grow up, levels of pollution, how you eat. All of these things throughout your life will impact your genetics. You can derive algorithms for understanding all of that by looking at the data. Everything about us to some extent or another has a genetic component.

You can find out more about Estelle and Trellis Healthcare at LinkedIn or https://www.jointrellishealth.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. 

Why businesses need resilience

Recent research by MHR International shows the challenges mid-size UK and Irish companies are facing in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. Over 500 senior leaders from businesses employing between 500 and 5000 people were interviewed to find their views on the importance of resilience in dealing with change and challenges. The major threats they saw were the expectations surrounding their businesses growth as they compete against multinationals and of staying ahead of agile start-ups.

Recessions and financial crisis are of course not strangers to long-established companies but the pandemic brought unforeseen and previously unknown challenges. Now, businesses face another set of problems including the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine. 

Many businesses came though the pandemic and will now deal with these new challenges because they are resilient and have the ability not only to deal with change but also to use the experience as a catalyst for further development.

So, in the short term, a resilient business will get through challenging periods but then in the longer term they will start to see a positive impact on productivity and work quality as well as improved employee engagement, performance and an inclusive and secure work culture.

There is no doubt there will be tough times ahead but a resilient business will not just survive, it will thrive.

Unlock your core creativity

Dr Ronald Alexander is a pioneer in the field of holistic health, psychology and behavioural medicine since 1976 and was of the original founders of the very first holistic health and medicine at the Cedar Sinai medical office towers in 1978. He has been teaching and writing books on mindfulness, positive psychology and creativity since 1976.

When he was a teenager he lived in Boston and often spent much of his spare time at the weekends at the Harvard book store reading about philosophy and Zen Buddhism. In the evenings he would go to different music venues initially to listen to folk music but then to the bands that made up the ‘British invasion’ including The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who and Jethro Tull. He also started playing in a group at high school and became fascinated by the creative process in both his own group and through sitting, listening to and being mesmerized by high profile bands.

When artists describe their creative process, they inevitably talk about being in an open mind state where the download of core creativity can happen. Musicians such as The Band’s Robbie Robertson’s description that “Creativity comes from the womb of emptiness” to James Taylor’s observation about “waiting to hear it” and having “to be in a place where you can receive the song” reveal that creativity isn’t a rational, calculated activity. It’s about allowing oneself to become receptive. 

Whether its creating from scratch, interpreting music and adapting music, Ronald feels the processes are similar or are derivations of each other. There is a similarity between all creative processes in music and other forms of art in that the thread is in innovation, invention and a development of a particular musical or artistic theme. Then there is core creativity and that's something that is very unique and special. For example Paul McCartney wrote the song ‘Yesterday’ after dreaming it. When he woke up and wrote it down and played in on the piano. For a month or so he took the song round London asking people if they had heard it before realising it was his and that it had come from a creative unconscious.

Pure originality is core creativity and arises whether its Mozart or Beethoven. When they are composing they actually hear simultaneously the various parts of the symphony and its as if it’s coming from some sort of mystical other. If we want to de-mythify the thing Ronald calls the mystical other, we could say it comes from ones pure core collective unconscious. From all cultures, all histories all times, for example the Greeks organised and articulated creativity through the metifor of the nine goddesses, the sense of the muse.

Most of the creatives Ronald has interviewed, whether they have a formal meditation or prayer practice or something more informal such as sitting outside of their studio on their front deck have a cup of coffee or tea, smoke a cigarette and look at the sky, what they are really doing is creating their own meditative state to access or tap into their creativity. Mindfulness meditation takes us out of overthinking and into the mind state of receptivity. The stillness and focus involved in meditation alters our brainwaves, and therefore, our mind state. Distraction-free time leads us to an open mind. Both core creativity and intuitive wisdom and knowledge can be accessed in an open mind state — not because we have an open mind, or are trying to be open minded, but because we’re in a state of pure receptivity after giving ourselves over to emptiness.

You can find out more at www.CoreCreativity.com or at https://ronaldalexander.com Dr Alexander is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change (2008), and the new book, Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self.

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.

Is the workplace a gratitude free zone?

To get the best from employees, it’s well established that they need to feel valued. The drive for wanting to do well primarily comes from a feeling of being acknowledged and appreciated so why do some businesses seem to think that saying thank you isn’t necessary?

Gratitude can be a great motivator! It can also contribute to the kind of workplace that has fewer sick days, lower levels of work stress, improved work relationships, and greater job satisfaction and self-esteem. Studies also show that employees who receive gratitude are more likely take on things that aren’t necessarily part of their job, helping to contribute to a culture of positivity and an environment where employees are happy to go above and beyond.

Positive habits and a culture of gratitude has to start at the top - just a quick thank you from the boss can go long way! Everyone wants to have a positive experience at work and to feel appreciated and recognised and a thank you is a no cost way of showing your appreciation.

We live in a culture where problems are regularly highlighted but the positives ignored. Leaders and managers who don’t thank their employees won’t get the best from them. A lack of gratitude leaves employees feeling unsatisfied, unappreciated and demotivated, all of which have a significant impact on employee happiness, engagement and productivity.

Meditation for gratitude and forgiveness.

Lori Saitz is the CEO of Zen Rabbit and host of the podcast “FINE is a 4-Letter Word.” She’s an award-winning writer, speaker, and broadcaster, and a nationally recognized expert in using gratitude and meditation to manifest goals faster. Lori has over twenty-five years experience in marketing and is now teaching the concept of gratitude and meditation. Her mission is to teach the world to become grounded no matter what is going on around them. This means taking a pause to respond to situations instead of jumping straight away by reacting as though your hair is on fire - which seems to be the way the world works right now.

There is an overwhelm of information being thrown at us on a daily basis. The amount of information we are exposed to every day is the equivalent of what our grandparents were exposed to over their entire lifetime. We have not evolved to the point where we can process all this efficiently and discern what’s true, what not true, what do I need to pay attention to or what can I ignore.

In a busy world where there is a lot going on around us we are often told that we need to spend a lot of time meditating each day. Lori doesn't agree with this. There is no one right way to meditate there are many. It’s about finding the thing that works for you. It doesn't have to take a lot of time. You could spend just ten minutes and she sees this more as an investment of time because meditation helps you be more focused and productive so fifteen minutes meditating is actually buying yourself time.

Research and science shows that meditation actually enhances creativity so you can come at a problem with several different angles and be more creative about solving it. It decreases anxiety and in a more relaxed state you are open to getting more insights and having more breakthroughs. The other thing that meditation can do is enhance emotional intelligence which makes you more empathetic, less likely to act impulsively and get frustrated in an emotionally charged situation and make interactions easier.

Gratitude is another powerful way to reprogramme your brain because you are strengthening your neural pathways. When you are practicing gratitude they get stronger. The more your can find gratitude for what’s happening in your world the stronger the neural pathways will become. The brain chemistry actually changes. Feelgood chemicals like dopamine increase and cortisol the stress hormone reduces so you can get a reduction in physical pain and an increase in the effectiveness of your immune system.

On a practical everyday basis, we live in a world that loves complaining and criticising When you want to become more grateful recognise when you are complaining or criticising and add on this phrase – but I’m grateful for it. The more you do that, the more proactive you get into doing that the more you will catch yourself and naturally start seeing more things to be grateful for. Sometimes it’s had to find the greater good about a situation until you are a little more removed from it but you can still find some element of gratitude in it.

Forgiveness is releasing gratitude within yourself. Again can you find gratitude in a situation where someone has wronged you?  By allowing forgiveness nothing changes for the other person but everything changes within you. Forgiveness doesn’t absolve the other person from their guilt rather its actually forgiving yourself. You have to be able to learn the lesson – if you can find gratitude for that situation then again you’re giving yourself that piece of mind and sense of calm.

You can find out more about Lori at https://zenrabbit.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.

Above and beyond? The trend of quiet quitting

In the midst of everything that's going on around the world, one thing that has been trending consistently over the last few weeks is ‘quiet quitting.’ But is this really anything new? There have always been employees who check out because they are exhausted, bored, stuck or fed up with the amount of work they’re asked to do. So has the huge change in the way people view their lives and work and consequent revaluation of priorities and work/life balance that was driven by the pandemic simply provided a new label for disengaged employees?

Previously of course dissatisfaction with your job was something just people close to you knew about but now it’s out there on social media that the employee experience just isn’t what it should be. Of course there are some people who feel their work/life balance is a problem and are close to burning out but there will be others who are simply sitting it out because a new job might come with more problems than their existing one.  

Having an employee who although physically present at work is so disengaged that they just do the bare minimum to keep their job can cause huge damage to a team and to the wider business. Improving the employee experience is therefore essential - getting feedback, ensuring realistic workloads and boundaries, open and honest relationships, stress management policies and structured career paths with achievable goals will all help to manage expectations and contribute to a positive work culture where employees feel engaged, valued and don't quit – quietly or not.

The Bullied Brain - Losing the mind bully

Dr Jennifer Fraser wrote her book The Bullied Brain primarily for people who have been bullied or abused. The focus is on the maltreatment of children by adults and how a lot of adults use this type of behaviour without knowing how harmful it is. Jennifer thinks we are at a tipping point as a society because have outdated beliefs where we think we need to toughen kids up but this is backfiring. She has looked at science surrounding this and it is clear that children don't learn, perform well or have healthy brains if they are treated in this way.

Jennifer looked at bullying thorough the lenses of law, education and psychology but found the most interesting information though neuroscience. Most of us grow up without any mention of our brain unless we have a trauma of some kind. We don’t teach children about their brain or learn about it as adults. We go to our doctor for many different things but they never assess our brain for health. Jennifer was personally invested as he son had been abused by two teachers and been threatened and humiliated as well as suffering physical abuse and homophobic slurs. She started to read about neuroscience to find out what this kind of abuse does to the brain of a teenage boy. She now feels that all kids need to know about this as well as their teachers, coaches and parents.

In bullying situations the neurochemistry works against the brain by allowing it to deselect things that are healthy. If a brain is constantly under threat or feels fear and anxiety of being bullied or abused, it constantly ramps up its stress response system. It should be able to shut down naturally - it's a fight, flight or freeze response - but if you are consequently activating it you are doing considerable damage to your brain architecture. This damage can’t be seen without a brain scan and Jennifer feels we should be listening to the people that are looking at the damage and also measuring people’s cortisol, the hormone that causes the problem. When cortisol, pumps though your brain because you are being abused you can start to identify with the aggressor and lose selfhood to survive. The brain uses this as a coping mechanism but what also happens is that cortisol is eroding your blood and damaging all kinds of other cells.

As well as the fight, flight, freeze mechanisms, increasing with trauma patients there is an additional category that is referred to as flop. People who are abused use this final approach of flopping and accept abuse. This can then create a brain/body link so dealing/coping with these things has to be more holistic rather than just resetting a chemical balance. We have to learn how to realign our mind, brain and body. All three need to be in alignment or they work at cross-purposes and you start to get behaviours such as eating disorders or suicidal idealities.

Bullycide happens when you are trying to kill the bully but the bully has become morphed into who you are and is held in your mind, body and brain. You end up eliminating yourself through your passion, desire and suffering to get rid of the thing you have internalised. The abuser becomes a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character. They are really good at being a pillar of the community, are charismatic and intelligent but change behind closed doors. Many have a borderline personality disorder and many get like this by being abused. You have to find a way to halt the cycle. It’s not easy to fix your brain but it can be done. You can get better and return a damaged brain into a high functioning again with organic health.

Jennifer developed a mind bully herself. When she was writing the book she tried to why unpack why she behaved the way she did. She had dissociated with the person she was as a teenager who was physically, emotionally and sexually abused by three teachers. She had put this away in a box and not integrated it so it started to operate as a mind bully. She was a high achiever in the academic world but when she came home behind closed doors she bullied herself through cutting and eating disorders. She was hurting her own body because she had no idea she had to take teenage girl and her trauma and work through it. She was as seeing psychiatrists and psychologists and never told them anything about it.

Jennifer could have gone out as a teacher and done what had happened to her to her students. Her personality type, introverted, academic and full of self-expectation meant instead she turned it against herself. That is the mind bully. Many people are holding themselves back from happiness, health and fulfilling their potential because of their mind bully. It takes work on separate it out. You need to become aware its not you, that its something you created that helps you avoid looking at the trauma. If it’s your own problem and the mind bully is your own issue you don't have to take a hard look at what happened to you. You don't have to be the victim, to be vulnerable, to feel what it was like to be a teenager and be treated that way. It’s easier to keep the mind bully beating you up because you don't have to be a victim again. If you find the courage, a good mental health practioner, and a safe network and space to do it, you can go back into the arena again and choose to replace the mind bully.

There seems to be more mental health issues nowadays but this may be because we are more aware rather than there being more. If you've been bullied you are likely to bully yourself, to bully someone else or fix yourself. This explains the growth in bullying and trauma – it is replicating through society. Bullies are victims as well though.  Most help is for the victim but the emphasis should be split. Children have strong brain plasticity. A child showing bullying behaviours should be a red flag that they need help. Society needs to intervene they get the help they need. The conversation needs to shift from a moral issue to a medical one.

It can be a parent that abuses you or a teacher, coach, family member or friend. When Jenifer was bullied the therapists were looking at her family but never asked about teachers or coaches. Children spend more time with these people than they do with their family. One of the key powers bullies use is favoritism. This type of power dynamics can be found in sport. A coach will treat one child properly and at the same time someone else they destroy. This often happens to the most talented athlete in the group – if the coach can ‘destroy’ the best then the rest will fall in.

Jennifer doesn’t talk about being fixed, cured or learning to be better. Rather she talks about people who unlearn and rewire. Unlearning is incredibly hard because you are unconscious of what you have learned. Each person has a default neuro-network – if you burn your hand on the stove the brain never forgets this. It learns this and keeps you safe in the future but as you don’t want to feel anxiety every time you pass the stove, you have to talk to your brain. Jennifer uses her variation of mindfulness to do this - you close your eyes do your deep breathing and start talking to your brain. There are nuances and emotional concepts that are more complex and a richness and diversity of life. It’s not just kick-starting the same old neuro-networks – we have to rethink it.

You can find out more about Jennifer at https://www.bulliedbrain.com/ Her first book, Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom explores what happens when the bully is a teacher or coach whilst her new book, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health delves into how bullying affects the brain and how the brain can heal.

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.

Afraid of change?

Generally, when leaders want to introduce radical change to their organisation, it’s to respond to new threats or opportunities. Large numbers of business transformations still fail though and, although many reasons can be put forward for these failures, one of the major ones is simply a fear of change.

The possibility of change can create a huge amount of uncertainty for the people who are going to be affected. They are taking a leap into the unknown with no certainty that the grass will be greener on the other side. They aren’t sure they will still have a job or that their existing skills will still be needed. This can make people anxious and even question the entire purpose of the organisation.

The reality is that most people find it easier and safer to stay exactly where they are and intentionally or unintentionally resist change. Leaders therefore need to ensure there is transparency and that the change is communicated widely, frequently and to as many people as possible. If conditions of safety and trust are created and the resources needed to cope with any uncertainty provided, employees will feel supported, the fear of change minimised and the change itself embraced by more people.

No matter how extensive the consultation and communication strategy is there will always be some level of uncertainty but developing a relationship of trust can provide employees with the resources to help them cope during times of uncertainty.

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.

Feedback – why leaders need it

The ability to give and receive feedback is an important part of the leadership role. Today’s fast-changing and challenging workplace with its competitive labour market means its not only important that employees use it to get help in their development, but also that their leaders get the feedback they need to continue to grow in their role.  Some large organisations such as Amazon and Google are even using regular anonymised employee feedback surveys to ask employees for feedback on their managers’ style and performance!

Many employees though are often reluctant to criticise their leaders because they fear repercussions but if leaders are not aware of issues within the organisation it can damage employee engagement and productivity.

The idea that somehow leaders aren’t meeting employee expectations can be damaging to the ego and at times will be even be unwarranted but its essential that criticism isn’t taken as being personal. Input from colleagues can help in building a constructive plan to move forward and identify any weaknesses that can be improved

Feedback is a skill that needs to be developed. If leaders are open to it and act on it, feedback can help to create a healthy work environment with increased transparency, improved productivity and engagement and better results through the adaptation of new knowledge and skills. It can also help managers improve and grow as much as their employees.

Turn towards your dreams

Machiel Klerk is a licensed therapist and expert on dreams. He is founder of the Jung Platform, an online space offering psychological and spiritual perspectives to live a life of meaning in which you are connected to soul and is also the author of Dream Guidance, Hay House/June 2022).

Machiel became interested in dreams in his early 20’s. He was stuck in life, didn't know where to go and had not dealt with the grief of losing his father at a young age. He became fascinated by the works of Jung, which opened the door to the world of dreams. He realised how dreams could help people connect with their lives, with purpose, with the worldview about life and death and all the other fundamental aspects of existence.

Machiel saw that his dreams reflected his own internal dynamics and displayed aspects of himself that he wasn’t aware of. He saw unhelpful behaviours being played out by dream characters and would then ask where in his life was it from. Once he admitted to doing the same things, he could then correct the more destructive behaviours but he also saw that dreams could be used to point out direction and the way to go.

If you go back to the last dream or a very intense dream you have had, you will remember that you were in an environment – you were somewhere where you were having an experience. A dream is a world you find yourself in during your sleep. Your mind is still awake in the dream but you are not very aware so you forget about it and don't even know you are in the dream world. When you know that a dream is a world that you find yourself in you can have and practice experiences. Most research shows that this state of consciousness stays with us the moment we wake up so we continue to live in this world with the dream world co-existing.

You might want to be able to join in the your own experience of the dream to make sense of it. Once you are there it is possible to learn the reality of how the dream is constructed, how your own mind creates part of the dream and your emotions, expectations and intent. You can also ask for experiences or to be shown something important. This gives us an enriched sense of experiences and makes us elastic and better able to carry out the broad range of emotions feelings and experiences in this world and be more resilient and effective with a more enriched balance of the experiences of life.

It is possible to interpret dreams but there are huge limitations to this. Usually interpretations come from the idea that the dream is a letter that needs to be deciphered whereas it’s actually an inner world or environment. If you ask a question such as ‘I’m in a maze and I cant get out’ almost inevitably this is an experience you are having in your day-to-day life. Your dream repeats this and if you can start to slow it down, start to feel in your body what it feels like to be stuck, not to know how to get out, you can start training yourself to feel that you have to hurry up to get out of this. By slowing down and feeling it, you may be able to sustain the tension of not knowing so maybe something else can come up as well. There is a self-organising mechanism inside of us that offers very creative solutions for the troubles we find.

Nightmares are almost like dreams with the eyes open.  The dream life and this world seem to intersect. Dreams often deal with fear and almost always there is too much or too little fear in the individuals life. Research after World War 2 was done with veterans who started to write down and acknowledge their dreams about what had already happened. The positive impact was that by paying some attention to what’s was going on inside of them instead of running away they turned to towards it.

Some people have recurring dreams that they get stuck on. Something in our habitual consciousness or ego hasn't been picked up on. The dream is trying to communicate a different style of living that's more conducive but we continue to run towards the thing we are doing that's not effective. If you engage with the dream then the dream will start rearranging itself and providing ways to deal with it. Write it down, engage with it or talk to dream character so habitual cracks open and the energy in the dream will provide a different state of consciousness that is a better adaption to life.  Turning towards your dream and engaging with it is the key. By pushing it away it’s making the dream reoccur. Dreams are providing information to interpret something from the past or to prepare for something in the future.

Dreams are often seen as goals and can sometimes be the catalyst to great innovation. Some breakthroughs in science, music and other art forms come from spontaneous, helpful dreams. People can proactively consult with their dream as if it's a counselor or a helpful friend in their dream who who responds to heartfelt, genuine questions about their life. It's a way we can engage with the world of dreams.

 You can find more about Machiel at http://www.jungplatform.com or http://www.machielklerk.com

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