Energy Archives - Page 4 of 11 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Tal, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Tal Ben-Shahar
Thank you, Pete. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to chat with you. I’ve read two of your books long ago and so much good stuff to dig into. So, maybe could you open us up with a little bit of a background on how you became an expert teacher on happiness?

Tal Ben-Shahar
So, I became interested in happiness because of my own unhappiness. I was an undergraduate at Harvard studying computer science, of all things, and I found myself, in my second year, doing well academically and doing well in athletics, I played squash, doing quite well socially, and yet being very unhappy. And it didn’t make sense to me because, in terms of what I’d learnt until, and I checked all the boxes, I did everything that I thought I needed to do to be happy and yet I was very unhappy.

Now, I remember, this was a very cold Boston morning, there were many of those, getting up and going to my academic adviser and telling her that I’m switching majors, and she said, “What to?” And I said, “Well, I’m leaving computer science, moving over to philosophy and psychology.” And she said, “Why?”

And I said, “Because I have two questions. The first question is, ‘Why aren’t I happy?’ Second question, ‘How can I become happier?’” And it’s with these two questions that I then went on to get my undergraduate degree in philosophy and psychology, then studied education across the pond, in the other Cambridge. And then back to Harvard for my PhD, all the time asking, “How can I help myself, individuals, couples, families, organizations, and, ultimately, nations, increase levels of happiness?”

Actually, I did become happier as a result of my studies, then I went on to share what I’d learnt, and what I continue to learn, with others.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s great. I got a chuckle out of “About the Author” picture on the back of one of your books. You didn’t look super cheery, but you’re smiling a lot, so…

Tal Ben-Shahar
Well, I’m smiling a lot today, at the same time, I’m not always cheery. Happiness is not about a constant high. That’s a myth and illusion.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we’re going to dig with that, too. But I want to know, in your personal case, what did you discover was missing or, for you, what was like the discovery or the practice or the thing that made a big difference for you?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yeah. So, for me, the main thing was realizing that happiness doesn’t come from success. This is the model that most people have in their mind. They think that once you’re successful, once you achieve your goals, once you reach the summit, the peak that you’ve been aiming for, then you’ll be happy. That’s a misconception. That’s a misunderstanding of what a happy life is about. At best, success, arrival, achievement lead to a temporary high, nothing more.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I remember in your books you talked about often it’s a relief as opposed to happiness that we experience in those victories.

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yeah, exactly that. So, it’s a temporary relief. It’s what I describe as negative happiness. Why negative happiness? Because you need to go through a lot of pain and suffering and discontent. And when that goes away, you feel the relief, and you mistake that relief for happiness. You know, it’s a little bit like having a terrible headache, and then you take a pill and you feel better, and it’s such a relief, you’re happy, but it presupposes going through a lot of pain before.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, one key thing for you was the distinction associated with the relief and then the success, the achievement. Any other key discoveries that made the impact for you?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yes. So, another key discovery is about goals, in general. You know, there are essentially two dominant models when it comes to happiness. The first dominant model is it’s all about achievement, it’s all about getting there, arriving at that peak. That’s one model, it’s future-oriented. The other model is present-oriented. It’s all about being in the here and now, being present. And when you can be fully present, that’s when you can be fully happy.

And over the years, I shifted, as many people do, between the two models, and for a while I thought, “Okay, it’s all about finding a meaningful goal,” and then for a while I thought, “Okay, goals don’t do it for me or for anyone as far as I can see. Let me just focus on the present.” And in many ways, the future-oriented model is associated with the West. The present-focused model is associated with the East. And what I’ve realized, and what the research tells us, is that actually we have to synthesize the two models. The challenge, of course, is how to do that. How do you find the golden means, so to speak?

And the answer is that we need both, meaning we need to have a future goal. We are future-oriented creatures. We do need to have something that we strive, something meaningful, significant, in our life that we want to attain. We need that. At the same time, after we have that goal, then it’s time to let it go. Then it’s time to say, “Okay, I know where I’m going, I know my direction, I know where that peak is that I want to reach, and now I can just focus on the journey.”

And let me give you a personal example which, for me, is very timely. So, I have a book coming out on the 27th of April. That’s the date that my publisher gave. So, I have a very specific goal, a future goal. It’s a personally meaningful goal, which is of course important if we’re concerned with happiness. So, once I have that goal, I can let go of it. How do I let go of it? I say, “Okay, it’s in the future. Now, what I need to do is spend three, four hours every day writing in the present moment.” So, this morning, before this, I sat down for over three hours and I wrote.

When I wrote, I was in the present moment. I was focused on the here and now. I didn’t constantly think, “Oh, April 27th. Oh, I have to get to that mountaintop.” Not at all. That played its role as far as I’m concerned, and now I can let go and focus on the present moment, on the here and now, which helped me enter a state of being fully present or a state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as flow.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thank you. Well, so let’s zoom out a little bit beyond your own experience. So, you spend a lot of time with Harvard folks, an ambitious bunch. Can you share, our audiences also are ambitious, any recurring observations associated with happiness and ambition that you saw over and over again that How to be Awesome at Your Job listeners should know as well?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yeah. You know, very often, this is unfortunately quite common, we see very successful people, in fact, people whom we would describe as the most successful members of our society, we see them becoming depressed or addicted, whether it’s alcohol or drugs or even, in many cases, suicide. And the question is, “Why?” Why does a person who seemingly have it all opt for drugs, alcohol, or suicide? And here lies the answer. It’s because of the model, the false model, that they have internalized from a very young age.

So, let’s take an example. So, you have an individual whose dream it is to become a famous movie star, and he is unhappy as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult. However, through his unhappiness, he constantly and consistently tells himself, “That’s okay because when I make it, when I become a famous movie star, then I’ll be happy.” So, that belief sustains him.

And years go by, years where he’s unhappy, however, continues towards the goal. And then, eventually, he makes it and he becomes a success and, suddenly, he has more money than he knows what to do with, he can buy anything. And he buys himself the best and the fastest car and the most beautiful home in the most prestigious neighborhood, and he can have any partner, basically, that he wants, and he’s living the dream, and he’s finally happy. He has made it. And that lasts for a month, six months, maybe a year?

And then very soon after he makes it, he goes back to where he was before, psychologically speaking, emotionally, he’s once again unhappy. He’s once again, in fact, miserable. Only this time he doesn’t have the illusion to sustain him, telling him that, “When you make it, then you’ll be happy,” because he’s made it, he’s there. But he realizes there’s no there-there. And then he becomes despondent. Because, you see, the difference between sadness and depression is that depression is sadness without hope, and he no longer has hope now. He no longer has hope that reality can provide him with happiness. So, he looks for the answer outside of reality. What’s outside of reality? Well, alcohol or drugs or the ultimate exit from reality, which is suicide.

The belief that success or outcome or arrivals will make us happy, that’s an illusion and it’s a sinister illusion because it’s causing millions and millions of people around the world, ambitious people, well-intentioned people, to reach a dead end.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that is powerful and well-said. Thank you. That rings true and explains a lot of things all at once. I want to shift gears for just a smidge. So, the goal of happiness, in and of itself, is a great one. I want to make a connection. I’m thinking a little bit about some Shawn Achor work with The Happiness Advantage. Can you share the linkage between being happy and being awesome at your job?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Sure. So, there is a lot of research that shows that success doesn’t lead to happiness but there is also a lot of research that shows that happiness does lead to more success.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Tal Ben-Shahar
For example, if you increase levels of wellbeing, even by a little bit, I’m not talking radical transformation here, but if you increase levels of wellbeing by a little bit, creativity levels go up. We’re more likely to think outside the box. We’ll be more innovative. You increase levels of happiness even by a little bit, you become more engaged, more productive, whether you’re in school or in the workplace. Increased levels of happiness, and relationships improve significantly, or if you’re thinking about the workplace, teamwork improves.

In school, grades go up. In organizations, performance increases. Profits, revenues go up if you increase levels of wellbeing; retention rates go up. So, happiness is a good investment. It’s a good investment as an end in and of itself because it feels good to feel good, but it’s also a good investment in terms of other outcome measures, other KPIs, key performance indicators, that organizations, whether businesses or schools, are interested in.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so a double whammy, being happy feels good and increases performance. So, let’s dig in then, how does one learn to become happier? What are some do’s and don’ts, some practices to start and stop?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yeah. You know, Pete, the first thing that we need to keep in mind, remember, is what has been coined “the paradox of happiness.” So, what’s the paradox? So, on the one hand, as the studies have established, happiness is good for us, so most people want to be happy. Again, because it feels good, because of all the other benefits thereof.

On the other hand, there’s also research, and this is by Iris Moss and others, showing that people who value happiness, in other words, people who get up in the morning and say, “I want to be happy,” or, “Happiness is important for me,” they actually tend to be less happy, they actually tend to be lonelier. And loneliness is a very strong predictor of depression, so we have a problem here that, on the one hand, we were told and we know that happiness is good for us, we want it therefore. On the other hand, we also are told that if we value it and it’s important for us, then we’re going to be less happy.

So, how do you resolve this paradox? And is it self-deception? Do you tell yourself, “You know, I actually don’t want to be happier, wink-wink, I actually do”? That’s not the way to do it. What do we do then? How do we resolve this paradox? The way we resolve this paradox is that we pursue happiness indirectly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Tal Ben-Shahar
Let me explain this. Let me explain this starting with an analogy. Think of the following analogy. Sunlight. You’re looking at the sunlight. What happens? It hurts. It burns. Unpleasant. So, instead of looking directly at the sunlight, what you can do is break the sunlight down and look at it indirectly. So, how do you break it? You break it using a prism and then you look at the colors of the rainbow, and you can savor them and enjoy looking at the sunlight indirectly.

In the same way, pursuing happiness directly, that’s unhealthy, unhelpful. But what if you break down happiness and then pursue those elements that make up happiness? Then you’re pursuing happiness indirectly. Now, this insight was actually described by John Stuart Mill 160 years ago. Today, we have the research to back it up. So, we know that if we get up every day and say, “I want to become happier,” we’ll actually become less happy. However, if I pursue the elements that make up happiness, for example, a sense of meaning in my work or at home, or if I pursue relationships which are one of the elements of happiness, that’s pursuing happiness indirectly, and that resolves the paradox, and that can actually lead us to becoming happier.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then let’s talk about elements. Is there a collectively exhausted set of these elements? We got meaning, we got relationships. If there is a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, you know, lay it on us, what are the other colors?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Exactly. So, what are the colors of the metaphorical rainbow? My colleagues and I have been, obviously, working on this for a long time, and looking at positive psychology, however, also looking at general psychology as well as philosophy and theology and literature and neuroscience, we have created a model that brings together the different elements of happiness, the fundamentals, the basics, the primary colors, so to speak. And there are now three primary colors, there are five primary elements to happiness, and here they are.

The first element is spiritual wellbeing. Spiritual wellbeing, we could, of course, find it through religion. However, it doesn’t have to come through religion. It comes through a sense of meaning and purpose in life and through being present in the here and now. So, if I’m present to a blade of grass or to a person sitting in front of me, and truly present in the here and now, this potentially is a spiritual experience.

Then there is physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing is about nutrition, it’s about exercise, it’s about sleep or rest and recovery, in general, it’s about touch. We are also physical beings. Next is intellectual wellbeing. So, intellectual wellbeing is, for instance, about curiosity. You know, Pete, that people who ask many questions, who are constantly learning, they actually live longer. In other words, it strengthens our immune system. They’re also happier. So, learning and deeply engaging, whether it’s with a text or with a work of art or with nature, deeply learning also contributes to our intellectual wellbeing, into our overall happiness.

Then there is relational wellbeing. The number one predictor of happiness is quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. Relational wellbeing also has to do with the relationship we cultivate with ourselves, which is obviously important. And, finally, it’s emotional wellbeing. Emotional wellbeing refers to our ability to deal with painful emotions, which are an inevitable part of life, of every life, as well as our ability to cultivate pleasurable emotions, whether it’s joy, gratitude, love, and so on.

So, these five elements – spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional, that make up the acronym SPIRE – these are the five elements of a happy life. And when we pursue these elements, then what we’re doing is we’re indirectly pursuing happiness and contributing to our overall happiness, circumventing the paradox.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, this is excellent stuff. And I think, right then and there, that can trigger things for listeners right away in terms of, “Aha. Well, I’ve totally neglected maybe some spiritual practices,” or, “I’ve been eating out boxes recently instead of having salads, etc.” or, “Hey, instead of really channeling my curiosity into rich, engaged learning stuff, I’m just looking at headlines which aren’t really deeply satisfying,” intellectual needs there, and then relationally and emotionally. So, that’s a lineup.

I’m curious, when it comes to dealing with negative emotions and cultivating positive emotions, I imagine there are some not-so-healthy ways you could do trying to do that and some better approaches. What are the do’s and don’ts here?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yeah. So, this is very important. In many ways, I see the foundation of happiness. The foundation of happiness is, first of all, accepting unhappiness, or more specifically, when we encounter, when we experience painful emotions, what we need to do is embrace them, accept them. Now how do we embrace and accept painful emotions? Well, we can shed a tear. That’s one way of expressing painful emotions. We can talk about them, whether with a therapist, or coach, or our best friend, or partner. Or we can write about painful emotions.

There’s a lot of research, wonderful research by Penny Baker, Laura King, and others on the value of journaling. And when we write about our most difficult experiences, traumatic experiences, we are expressing them, we are giving them space rather than rejecting them, and then they do not overstay their welcome. There’s a beautiful poem by a Sufi poet, Rumi, from the 13th century, called “The Guest House.” And in “The Guest House,” Rumi talks about how we need to welcome all thoughts, all emotions, into our house just like we would welcome guests. Why? Because they are messages from the beyond.

Now, I don’t know whether or not they are messages from the beyond, but what I do know is that when we accept them and embrace them and welcome them, like we do guests, then they come in, we experience them, and then they leave. Whereas, if we reject them, the paradox once again here, is that they only intensify, grow stronger.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, so I’d like to zoom into in my own experience, some days I’ll have, well, I call the BLAHs, it’s an acronym, it’s that ordinary tasks, they aren’t that big of a deal, call it like email, or making dinner, or something, on some days they just feel a little extra BLAH, a little extra boring, a little extra lame, annoying, hard or hassle, and it’s not that hard or annoying or lame really to do any of these things, but some days they just feel like that, an extra dose. So, what is your recommendation in terms of best practices when we’re just having one of those days where there’s some extra BLAH associated with normal stuff? What should we do?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yes. So, there’s a lot of great research, much of it done in Carleton University in Canada, on procrastination. If you can believe it, there’s actually a procrastination lab. I don’t know whether they get any work done but it exists, and they actually do get a lot of work, a lot of great work done. And the most important research coming out of the procrastination lab, to my mind, is, well, they have coined the five-minute takeoff.

The five-minute takeoff is about starting whatever it is that you want to do even if you don’t feel like doing it. Why? You see, procrastinators, and, by the way, the majority of people would classify themselves as procrastinators, and would pay a high price for seeing themselves as procrastinators, meaning a high psychological price.

So, procrastinators have the mental schema, the model, that motivation must precede action. In other words, for me to act to do things, I have to feel really motivated. Some people take it even further extreme, and their argument is that, or they believe that, inspiration must precede action. This is a false model, and this is a model that leads, inevitably, to procrastination because, very often, as you point out, we have those BLAH days, very often we don’t feel like doing the work even if, overall, we like our work, or if it’s not too taxing and even pleasant overall. We all have those days when we just don’t feel like getting out of bed or working.

And if one has the mental model that motivation must precede action, well, then there’ll be no action because there’s no motivation. People who do not procrastinate, or procrastinate little, because we all do some of it, they have the model the other way around. They understand, they recognize, that action usually precedes motivation, that action needs to precede inspiration. In other words, even on days when they wake up and they don’t feel like working, “So what? We can still take action even if we’re not motivated,” and they start doing it. That’s the five-minute takeoff. And after five minutes, or it could be 10 or 20 minutes, motivation comes, energy comes, and then they continue to work. There is inertia that’s created by the action.

In other words, simply put, fake it till you make it, or fake it till you become it. That is the best advice. And this is advice that I heed and many people do, and that’s how you get work done. I study a lot about the lives of writers, of authors, because I can learn a lot from them. And, inevitably, what the prolific writers do is they have a set of rules when they write and how much they write. And it doesn’t matter if they’re inspired to write, or they feel like writing, or they’re really motivated to write. It doesn’t matter. They sit down and write. And if they have to fake it till they make it, or fake it till they become it, then so be it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And that five-minute guideline for the procrastinators, is there some magic to that number? Like, that’s kind of enough for the motivation to kick in pretty often or is it just sort of arbitrary?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Yes, and yes. So, it is pretty arbitrary. However, for most people, five minutes is enough, and if it’s not, then have another five minutes. There are days when a minute is enough, and there are other days when an hour is not enough, but it doesn’t matter. An hour is simply 12 five-minute sessions.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. Let’s talk a little bit about being in the pandemic, that has taken a toll on people’s happiness. Are there any particular threats or practices that are specifically relevant for this context?

Tal Ben-Shahar
I think most of the things that are recommended for regular times are good for difficult times only more so. For example, the rule of thumb in terms of the minimum amount of physical exercise that one should do is 30 minutes three times a week. The three times a week is a lot better than two times a week and it’s not much worse than four times a week.

So, this would be the rule of thumb, this is how much I used to practice pre-pandemic, three times a week, 30 minutes each time. During the pandemic, because stress levels are generally, for most people, higher, I would recommend doing four or five times a week. This is what I am doing now. Similarly, with gratitude, if usually even once a week of doing the gratitude exercise contributes to happiness, during difficult times do it twice a week or seven days a week. Just do more of the basics. In other words, increase the dosage of the regular interventions, of the regular practices.

Mediation. That’s another very helpful practice. And, again, mediation can be sitting down and focusing on the air going in and out, or it can be doing yoga, or it can be mindfully listening to your favorite music. These are all forms of mindful meditation. So, if you usually don’t do it, well, that’s a good time to start now. Or if you do it five minutes a day, bring it up to 10 minutes a day. So, go back to basics is what I recommend and be vigilant about them.

I often ask my students, “When is the time that you’re least likely to exercise?” And, invariably, they say, “Oh, exams, because that’s when there’s just too much pressure. I don’t have time to go to the gym or go out for a run, and then have to shower after that. Too time consuming.” And my response to that is, “When you are stressed, exam period or pandemic, this is the time to exercise, even more important than during ‘normal times.’”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And I think about these practices, I’m curious, are there any particular practices to do at work, whether it’s mental or the means by which you approach a meeting or an email or the writing, kind of whatever maybe your deep focused work is? Any key ways that we can do work better with a happiness perspective?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Very much so. Very much so. So, let me begin with brief tips, some of which I’ve already mentioned, and then go into something which I think is so, so important, and I’ll elaborate. So, first of all, simply, at the end of each day, write down one thing that you made progress on. This simple practice was introduced, described by Teresa Amabile who’s a professor at Harvard Business School in her book The Progress Principle.

And she found that people who focus on the progress that they make at work, and it doesn’t have to be something major, it can be “I cleared my desk or my inbox,” or, “I had a good client meeting,” or whatever. People who do it regularly are not just more satisfied with the work, they’re also more productive as well as more creative in the workplace.

Then there is another very important element, and that is probably the number one reason that companies invite external speakers, or psychologists in particular, to speak is because of stress. Before there was the COVID-19 pandemic, there was the stress pandemic. Burnout is a very common phenomenon in the workplace today. There is, fortunately, something that we can do about it. You see, many people perceive stress as highly problematic. In fact, many people talk about stress as the silent killer, as the destroyer of innovation, creativity, joy in the workplace.

However, once my colleagues and I started to study stress, we realized actually that stress in and of itself is not a problem, but actually stress potentially is good for us. Think about the following analogy. So, let’s say you go to the gym and you’re lifting weights. What are you doing to your muscles when you lift weights? You’re stressing them. Now, is that a bad thing? Not at all. On the contrary, you go to the gym one day, two days later you go back to the gym, you lift more weights. Two days after that, you continue your routine. And over time, you actually become stronger, healthier, better off than you were before. Stress is not the problem.

The problem begins when you go to the gym and you lift weights, and then more weights, and then more weights, and the following day you do the same, more and more and more. That’s when the problems begin. That’s when you get injured. That’s when you get weaker rather than stronger. The problem, therefore, is not the stress. The problem rather is the lack of recovery. And that’s a problem in the gym physiologically, or in life, in the workplace, psychologically.

What we need to do, if we want to fulfill our potential at work, is find more times for recovery. Now, recovery can come in the form of a 15-minute break every 90 minutes or 2 hours, whether it’s a cup of coffee or chatting with colleagues or just hanging out or exercising. It can even be 30 seconds of closing our eyes and taking three deep breaths, five to six seconds in, five to six seconds out. That in and of itself can shift us from the fight or flight stress response or to what Herbert Benson, from Harvard Medical School, calls the “The Relaxation Response,” because the problem is not the stress. The problem is the absence of recovery.

Recovery is also getting good night’s sleep. There’s a lot of research on the benefits of sleep for productivity, creativity, of course, happiness, for physical health, mental health. Taking a day off is an important form of recovery. Vacation, of course, is an important form of recovery. And if we punctuate our crazy busy lives with periods of recovery, then we can make the most of our energy, and we can be at our best more of the time.

One more thing that is related to recovery. One of the reasons why we experience so much stress in our day-to-day work is because of multitasking. And multitasking is fine, we do it, it’s natural, it’s important at times. However, what we also need is to create, what I’ve come to call, islands of sanity throughout the day. Islands of sanity are times when we are single-tasking, when we’re only doing one thing, when we’re focusing on it, when we’re mindful. And it could be doing email, and it could be being in conversation with a colleague, and it could be writing the organizational strategy. It doesn’t matter. But single-tasking, islands of sanity amidst all the crazy, busy multitasking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Tal, there’s been so much good stuff here you’re sharing, and I know you’re sharing a whole lot more in your Happiness Studies Academy. What’s this program all about?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Well, the Happiness Studies Academy offers certificate programs in that respond to two questions. The first question is, “How can I become happier?” The second question is, “How can I help others become happier?” And, of course, through happiness, given the relationship between happiness and success, we also become more productive, creative, improve our relationships, and so on. So, the Happiness Studies Academy offers practical applied interventions that we can employ in our personal lives as well as our professional lives.

Pete Mockaitis
Super. And so that’s conducted online, are there classmates or groups or cohorts, or how does that go down?

Tal Ben-Shahar
So, it’s all online, and it’s on our website, which is HappinessStudies.Academy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Albert Camus, “In the midst of winter, I found within me an invisible summer.”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Tal Ben-Shahar
So, I think my favorite research is one that it’s a joint study that was conducted by the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School. And what they found was that the best way to increase our happiness levels is through giving, by contributing to others, by helping, by being kind and generous. And I love that because what it does is it takes the whole field of happiness studies to a place where it’s not just a solipsistic, individualistic pursuit but rather it’s a pursuit that contributes to our own wellbeing as well as to society. It’s a wholistic pursuit.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Tal Ben-Shahar
I’d have to say Mary Anne Evans, aka George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Tal Ben-Shahar
Realize, recognize, that becoming happier follows the same trajectory, the same routine as becoming better at any skill, which means we need to invest time and effort. It’s not enough to just know what leads to happiness. What we need to do is practice, implement, do the work.

Pete Mockaitis
Tal, this has been a treat. I wish much happiness in all your adventures.

Tal Ben-Shahar
Thank you very much, Pete. And thank you for doing the work that you’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Anne, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Anne Grady
Hey, Pete, thank you so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat once again. And I think you’ve got some very critical wisdom to share, talking resilience. Tell us, what are you doing to stay resilient these days?

Anne Grady
Oh, my gosh. Well, I have been tested. I think we have all been tested. And so, I’ve been putting into practice all these great strategies I teach. And, just like all of us, I’m human, so some days work better than others, and it’s just putting one foot in front of the other. Resilience is a practice, it’s a muscle, something you have to work at. It’s not one of those things you’re either resilient or not. So, I can’t wait to share with you some of the strategies I’ve been using and the things I talk about in my new book and ways that you can just kind of navigate this difficult time a little bit easier.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. And even when, at last, the pandemic is behind us, we’ll still need these for the next challenge. So, maybe you could open us up. So, your book is called Mind Over Moment. What’s behind that title?

Anne Grady
So, our life is this collection of moments, that’s really all it is, and we’re so caught up. We’re busy being busy, and I feel like the Girl Scouts are going to start handing out a busy badge at some point. We’ve just gotten really busy, and we’re reacting through life, and we kind of just instead of living a life that we intentionally want, or simply trying to survive the one that we have, and there are ways that we can change that, that we can get out of reactivity.

But it’s using this idea of mindfulness to be deliberate about where you’re investing your time, your energy, your attention from a mindset perspective, from a skillset perspective, and then being able to reset to really take back control of your life. Otherwise, each day just becomes the same day and we kind of just end up on this hamster wheel and land somewhere and draw bullseye around our self, and go, “Oh, well, I guess this is where I was supposed to be,” instead of really crafting the life that we want.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, boy, there’s so much to dig in there.

Anne Grady
Dig away.

Pete Mockaitis
And a great distinction in terms of enduring the life that we are in as opposed to really kind of designing and going after that. So, yeah, let’s talk about some mindset things. How would you orient us in terms of what is the optimal mindset to be resilient AF, as your T-shirt says, which keeps cracking me up?

Anne Grady
I have these made. We’re actually going to start selling these at some point.

But your mindset is, literally, the story you tell yourself. It’s the story you tell yourself about what’s going on in your life, it impacts how you see yourself, how you view the world. And so, I guess where I would start with mindset is understanding your brain. And without going too deep into neurology, our brain is this amazing three-pound cauliflower-like blob sitting on top of our shoulders but it’s actually working against us.

And so, if we are left to our own devices, if we just let our brain operate as it is, we’re really focused on looking for everything that’s wrong instead of figuring out what’s right. We have a negativity bias. And this served us well as we’ve evolved as a species because our brain’s job is not to make us happy or keep us content. Our brain’s only job is to keep us safe. And in order to do that, it is really keen on the negative around us because the positive stuff is not going to kill us. So, your brain just easily kind of lets go of all these positive moments that you have in your life, and it really hones in on the negative experiences.

And so, we have to offset Mother Nature. And the thing that’s happening right now is that our brain views uncertainty as a threat. Our brain doesn’t like an outcome it doesn’t know. It actually would rather have an outcome it hates than one it doesn’t know. And so, because of this negativity bias, we keep going to worst-case scenarios, and we tell ourselves these stories in our head. And that actually shapes our neuro chemistries.

So, when we say things, even if they’re true, like, “I’m so stressed. I’m so tired. This is crazy. This is nuts. What are we going to do? This is horrible,” your brain actually responds to protect you, and it starts pumping you with cortisol and adrenaline and noradrenaline and norepinephrine. And all those chemicals are there to help you fight, freeze, or run away but they’re not doing anything to help you live purposefully or to help you find peace. We got to protect our peace. It’s one of those things where…My son is severely mentally ill and autistic. We’ve talked before and I think I told you about he tried to kill me when he was three years old with a pair of scissors.

And by four, he was on his first anti-psychotic. By seven, he was hospitalized and had his first in-patient psychiatry. When he was 10, he was hospitalized again, and I got diagnosed with a tumor in my salivary gland that left me with facial paralysis, and that resulted in a scratched cornea which required eye surgery before I started six weeks or radiation, but not before I fell down a flight of stairs, breaking my foot in four places. So, I didn’t learn this stuff, I mean, I say I didn’t learn it in a textbook. I had to live it first and then I wanted to understand how it worked. And I learned that there were things that I was doing along the way that were supporting my resilience but there were things that were sabotaging it.

And if you are focused on deliberately cultivating the right thoughts, the right belief systems, the right mindset, you change your entire life. Our thoughts are not facts. We take them as facts but they’re not.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s dig in. So, we got this negativity bias going on, and you’ve figured out how to overcome that with a host of challenges. Again, wow! So, glad you’re here and well.

Anne Grady
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
So, how do we go about overcoming, reprogramming, dealing with that?

Anne Grady
Well, it starts with the story you’re telling yourself, right? So, I found myself, people would say, “How are you?” And I’d be like, “Oh, my God, I’m so busy. I don’t have time. I’m overwhelmed. I’m stressed.” And while those things may have been true, my neurochemistry was flooding me with all of these neurochemicals to help protect me but it actually was increasing inflammation and making it difficult to sleep, and impacting my mood and my ability to make decisions and solve problems.

And so, you really start by being deliberate about the story you tell yourself, which is, stuff is not ideal but there are still good things happening if you look for them, and that’s really the key. People who are resilient, who practice resilience, proactively cultivate positive emotions, they use their brain to search for the good to help offset the bad. And that doesn’t mean that you ignore the bad stuff.

“Pretend that everything is peachy keen?” And that’s not what I’m advocating. In fact, while it seems counterintuitive, you actually have to feel the yucky stuff. When we try to push it away or get rid of those uncomfortable emotions, and we suppress them or numb them, we actually increase the intensity and the duration of them. So, it’s not to say that you should ignore the uncomfortable negative emotions, but you have to proactively search for the positive ones.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, well, let’s hear those two parts then in terms of, okay, so pushing away, ignoring, suppressing, repressing the unpleasant stuff is the wrong move. What is the right response for, you know, “I’m anxious,” “I’m angry,” “I’m depressed,” “This thing ticked me off”?

Anne Grady
Yeah. Well, it’s to acknowledge it and give yourself grace. We’re human. And I think we’ve grown up in this. The last decade has been this positive psychology cyclone, and what we don’t realize is we’re not supposed to be happy all the time. Those moments happen in little blips but our brain has developed a negativity bias for a reason. It’s meant to protect us from everything that’s going on. And so, if we’re going to overcome it, well, first of all, we can’t overcome it. It just is what it is.

And so, when you’re feeling anxious, it’s going, “Crap! I feel anxious right now,” and identifying where you feel it, “So, my stomach feels tight. My shoulders feel tense. My palms are sweaty. My heart is racing.” What that does, simply by naming it and identifying where you feel it, it’s called tracking, it actually resets your nervous system and gets you out of the sympathetic fight or flight, and back into the parasympathetic rest and digest.

So, simply acknowledging the emotion, and, “Yeah, I feel crappy right now. And this is what I’m experiencing and it’s okay to feel that way,” because feelings are fleeting. It will shift and change, but when we fight it or try to numb it with unhealthy vices, we just serve to aggravate it and bring it to the forefront even more.

It’s like me telling you, like, “Don’t think of pizza or chocolate cake when you’re going on a diet.” We pay attention to what’s top of mind. It’s called selective attention. It’s like if I said, “Think of an animal but whatever you think of, don’t think of pink elephants.” Well, that’s what you’re going to think of. So, we have to start acknowledging the stuff that doesn’t feel so great, but then you have to be deliberate about what you’re searching for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then we talk about the unpleasant emotions and how to work with that. And so then, to be conscientious about what you’re searching for, how do we amp up to find more and, I guess, linger or dwell more into the pleasant experiences?

Anne Grady
You know, I used to think this was so touchy, fluffy, feely. When I thought of resilience, I thought of like finding your Zen, and eating tofu, and sitting in a full lotus, and drinking green tea. And it seemed very fruppy and fluffy demand ‘til I dug into the research. Over 11,000 studies have proven that gratitude is the most direct path to wellbeing and happiness. And I know when I was going through my facial paralysis and stuff with my son, my natural inclination was, “What do I have to be grateful for right now?”

But there are always things to be grateful for. And the simple act of looking, you don’t even have to find anything, the simple act of looking releases serotonin and dopamine, the feel-good neurochemicals and antidepressants. The simple act of looking for something to be grateful for decreases the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. And because we tend to scan the environment and find what we look for, whether it’s looking for, like yesterday, I had a crappy day. It was one of those days where every light turned red, things were not going well, and I have a sign on my bathroom mirror that says, “What do you want to find today? What do you want to see today?” I mean, it’s not like a fancy sign. It’s written in blue Sharpie marker. But I wanted to find reasons to be grateful.

And so, I drove to the grocery store, and a car was leaving one of the spots right up front as I was going away. And what most of us do is we just go, “Okay, that’s cool.” But in order to rewire our brain, there’s something called experience-dependent neuroplasticity. And, basically, what it means is the more you think and behave a certain way, the easier it is to think and behave that way. So, the more often you’re anxious and cranky, the easier it is to stay there.

And so, if you think of like a computer, you download a program but you have to install it. And so, having the experience is downloading it, but to install it, you have to actually sit in it. It’s called savoring. And it means you have to step outside of the experience and observe it and appreciate it for 15 to 20 seconds, and you can literally rewire the neural structure and function of your brain when you get in the habit of doing that.

And so, what ends up happening, like, when was the last time you laid in bed at night and you’re ruminating about your day, and you’re thinking about the good things that happened? We default to the negative. You get a performance review. You’re told you do nine things exceptionally well. You have one opportunity for growth, and you’re lying in bed at night marinating and stewing in that conversation. You’re not thinking of the nine things you did exceptionally well. You’re stewing over that one negative thing.

And so, it’s not to say you ignore that. Is there truth in it? Can you learn from it? Is there something you can do something productively with that feedback? But then it’s sitting in those nine things that we typically dismiss and rush past, or that compliment that you get that you just brush off instead of really sitting in that and feeling it physically because that is what changes your brain.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so let’s talk about how that zooming right into it, doing some savoring. So, you mentioned savoring the last time. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, so let’s dig in some more. So, you get that great parking spot, and instead of just saying, “Oh, that’s cool,” walk us through the depths of savoring in depth. What’s happening in your brain? How are you savoring that well?

Anne Grady
So, what I did when I pulled into the parking spot is I just took three deep breaths, and most of us don’t breathe correctly. I can get into breathing more a little bit later as we talk about other things. But I took three really deep diaphragmatic breaths. And what that does is it allows enough oxygen to get into your brain and it resets your nervous system. And I just took a second and said, “I’m really excited I found this cool spot up front. It’s rock star parking. This is going to be a good trip to the store. I’m going to find other good stuff.”

And it was so funny because I did. I went to the store looking for good experiences. And a grocery store at 5:00 p.m., even in a global pandemic, is crazy. It’s like full-contact sport, right? But I was standing in one of the aisles and I could not find the spice I was looking for, and there was a mom and a daughter walking by, and I’m like, “Hey, can I borrow you guys for a second?” And they looked at me like I was a crazy person, which I probably am. But I said, “My eyes, I’ve been staring at this spice aisle for five minutes and I can’t find what I’m looking for. I’ll give you a bonus point, if you can find this.”

And so, they were like, “Ooh, a bonus point.” Well, I’m giving them nothing, right? But they both found what I was looking for in a split second, and then we all had a really good laugh. And that single moment could be easily dismissed but, instead, as I was walking down the rest of the aisle, I thought, “That felt really good, you know. They had a laugh. I had a laugh. I found what I was looking for. It didn’t cost us any money. They weren’t annoyed by it. It was a good interaction.” And I actually left the store feeling better than when I got there.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And people could be starved for those interactions in a pandemic in terms of like, well, one, they might’ve just fled from you, “Aah, too close. Danger. Toxin.”

Anne Grady
“Ahh, crazy.” I had a mask on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, good. Good. So, there’s that. They could be particularly starved for that experience there.

Anne Grady
But it’s funny you mentioned that, and I’m sorry to interrupt you. But it’s funny you mentioned that because I teach resilience. And so, I was doing a session today for a group of leaders at a high-tech company, and I shared that experience. And one of the guys said, “You know, it’s interesting you say that because yesterday I was at the grocery store, and the exact same thing happened. I couldn’t find something, and this woman was standing there, and I asked her to help me, and she found it.” And this is the gentleman talking, he said, “And I told her, ‘You’re awesome,’ and she started to cry. And she said, ‘That’s the first time anyone has told me I’m awesome all year long. You just made my day.’” And I do think we’re starved.

And I don’t have any data to support this but I think the mask thing is a big deal because we’re missing out on so much human connection, and social distance, really, is physical distance. We still need social connection but we’re starved for positive moments right now. And the single most momentary increase in positive emotions comes from doing something nice for someone else. And if somebody else witnesses that, they’re more likely to do something nice for someone else.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s very beautiful to think about, I don’t know, that ripple effect and the good vibes to put forth in the world there. So, finding the gratitude, expressing the gratitude, and that’s big in terms of for the parking space, then how you ended up discovering more cool moments along the way there. So, those are sort of the mindset part. Talk to us about the skillset. What are the top skills that folks need to adopt to become more resilient, and how do we get them?

Anne Grady
Well, I think of the mindset as the toolbox, it’s the foundation but you’ve got to fill it, and so the skills are your tools. And what we just talked about is a big one. Proactively cultivating positive emotions, whether it’s humor, a smile, one that involves the muscles around your eyes actually calms your nervous system, cools your heart, slows respiration. True genuine laughter increases pain tolerance, lowers blood pressure, stimulates dopamine and serotonin production, even makes you appear more attractive. So, anything that you can do to proactively cultivate good emotions.

So, for example, I have watched every Netflix standup comedian that I could find. Like, I think I have exhausted them all and I’m watching them all again. And it’s because your brain doesn’t know the difference between…like, they’ve done studies with Botox where they forced a smile and your brain doesn’t know the difference between a real smile or a forced smile. It just recognizes the facial movement, and so that literally shifts your brain. When you experience laughter, it is not only good for your brain, it’s physiologically good for your body. So, that’s a huge one.

Self-care. This morning, I was teaching a session, and I said, “Think of the dirtiest word you can imagine. Like, think of the dirtiest word you can imagine.” And then I asked, “How many of you thought of self-care?” We think of it as this selfish luxury but it’s really a skill. Self-care is nothing more than a skill, and it doesn’t have to be taking-a-spa day. It can be sipping that first cup of coffee and just really appreciating it. It can be lighting a candle while you do your taxes. It can be stepping outside and just taking a five-minute walk or snuggling your pets.

Social connection is another one. And so, many of us have heard of this chemical called oxytocin. It’s the bonding agent so I guess you could call it. It’s called the cuddle hormone and it’s, basically, what bonds parents and children, mother and child as soon as the child is born, but it’s actually a stress hormone. And so, when we are feeling stressed, our body produces oxytocin because it’s craving connection. We are tribal by nature. We’re social creatures. We survive together better than we do individually.

And in a time when we have been so focused on socially distancing ourselves, with that has come social disconnection, and it’s huge. Loneliness kills more people every year than smoking, obesity, and high-blood pressure. And you can be in a room full of people and still be lonely, right? So, you could be in the middle of Times Square, back when it used to be filled up, and be lonely. So, social connection is huge. Self-care, gratitude, positive emotions, all of those seem like they’re so easy that, I mean, they’re so simple that it’s easy to dismiss them. And you don’t have to tackle all of them at once.

So, for example, look, I’m not Ms. Rose-Colored Glasses. My husband will tell you I’m the most pessimistic motivational speaker he’s ever met. Like, I am not out high-fiving sunbeams, there are not doves released when I walk into a room. I was diagnosed with clinical depression at 19. So, my natural optimism bias is very, very low. I have to really work hard at it. For some people, it comes more naturally. For me, I have to really, really work hard at it.

And exercise, for me, is not something I look forward to, it’s not something I necessarily enjoy, but it rivals anti-depressants. And, no judgement, I’m on everything but roller skates. But exercise, literally, changes the structure and function of your brain. It repairs neurons damaged by stress. It increases the density of grey matter, and that’s the part of your brain that’s responsible for attention and emotional regulation.

So, if you’ve noticed, since this pandemic started, that you’ve had a harder time focusing, or you’re more irritable, or easily agitated, there are specific things like sleep and exercise. And yoga is great because it combines meditation, breathing, and exercise. There are things you can do to repair your brain, but sometimes we just default to what’s easiest. And it’s easier to binge on Tiger King for six hours than it is to focus on taking a walk.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a nice lineup there. And so then, all these are skills, in so far as it’s not a matter of them coming naturally or exerting some effort, you’re working on them and they become more natural over time, and so, excellent. And then how about the reset part of things?

Anne Grady
So, the reset is kind of two-fold. One, it is resetting your priorities, so resetting your priorities and your perspective. I think what’s been most fascinating, as I’ve been working with a lot of my corporate clients is that working from home is no longer working from home. It’s living at work, and we are constantly connected. And because people know we’re not anywhere else, when we don’t respond for a couple of hours, it creates a sense of urgency.

And your eulogy and your resume shouldn’t be the same document. As someone who is very goal-oriented, achievement-driven, I own my own business, I’ve had to really work hard at remembering that it’s not just about prioritizing your schedule. It’s about scheduling your priorities. If you were to track your time for a week, is it reflective of what you say is most important to you? Or, are you just getting carried away being busy?

So, I told you swimming, for me, is my exercise. It’s my self-care. And I swim in a pool, and there’s this line painted on the bottom of the pool so I go straight. But if you’ve ever tried to swim in an ocean, then you know swimming in a straight line is like impossible. You’re carried away by the tide. You’re carried away by the current. So, you’re taught, if you’re an open-water swimmer, aim for an immovable object, like a buoy, or a dock, or a lighthouse.

And so, this idea of your lighthouse. What is your lighthouse? Because I feel like life is kind of like the ocean. There are times when the seas are calm and it’s beautiful, and the birds are chirping, and the sun is shining. And then there are times that we’re in right now, like a global pandemic, and it’s a torrential storm, and we’re getting sucked under. And if, when we rise back up to take a breath, we don’t have something to look toward, we just kind of swim aimlessly.

So, one of the things to reset is really get clear on what your most important priorities are, and is that reflected in your calendar. The other thing is, “What are you swimming toward?” And you can have big lighthouses. Like, my biggest lighthouse is mental health advocacy but I have little lighthouses like pizza night. So, I’m doing sober October, I have a lighthouse on November 1st, I get to enjoy a cocktail. Part of the challenge, I think, with the pandemic is that we don’t have a lot to look forward to because we don’t know what’s going to happen.

Like, my husband and I, for the longest time, our lighthouse has been getting an RV. And I’m not a camper, I’m a glamper, so we wanted to get a travel trailer. And we’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, and waiting till the kids graduate, and waiting till the right time, and we finally said, “You know what, there’s never going to be a time when every duck is in a row, when everything is in alignment.” We just did it. We bought a travel trailer. And, my God, it’s been so fun just to start having these little lighthouse adventures along the way. So, that’s that part of it.

The other part is resetting your nervous system because we can, like consciously, physically get out of fight or flight and that cortisol-induced stress state, and we can, literally, put ourselves back into a relaxed place where we’re able to reengage the logical part of our brain and think creatively. It’s a skill but it’s doable.

Pete Mockaitis
Woo, so much good stuff here. Well, Anne, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Anne Grady
Well, I think, for me, the resetting your nervous system is something that we take for granted that we can do. And I just love that there are a few techniques you can use. One of them is breathing. And it sounds so simple, right? But most of you are probably thinking, “Okay, Anne, I can breathe. Like, I’m sitting here. What’s the magic with this?” But we breathe shallowly.

So, if you put one hand on your chest, and one hand on your stomach, and you just breathe normally, there’s a high likelihood that your chest is moving more than your stomach. Like, take a second and do it for you. What’s moving more, your chest or your stomach?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I kind of knew what you were going to go for so I’ve taken a few.

Anne Grady
Darn it, Pete. You’re messing this up for me. No, when we’re stressed, we take shallow breaths. So, if you’re an elite athlete, or an opera singer, of which I am neither, you’re trained in a technique called diaphragmatic breathing. And it’s kind of counter to what you would think. When you inhale, you imagine that there’s a balloon in your stomach, and you fill it with air. So, on the inhale, you create this giant Buddha belly. The exhale is actually the part of the breath that puts you into the parasympathetic nervous system, the part that calms your brain. So, the exhale should be a little bit longer. So, you view the inhale as filling up your belly with air, but the exhale, imagine there’s a weight on the end of it that just kind of takes your exhale even lower.

And so, three deep diaphragmatic breaths resets your nervous system. A deeply relaxed person takes seven breaths a minute. And so, people talk about meditation and, again, for me, it was like playing Whack-A-Mole with my thoughts. I would sit there and try to breathe, and go, “Oh, crap, I forgot to call my mom,” or, “Oh, what am I going to make for dinner?” until I learned it’s working. So, meditation is focusing on your breath, but the goal is not peace or Zen. The goal is catching your mind wandering and bringing it back to your breath. You’re training your brain to direct your attention where you want it to go so that you’re less likely to hit the panic button. You’re learning to observe your thoughts and your emotions without getting carried away by them.

So, breathing is something that is super understated. It’s very, very important. And even three of those deep breaths. I started wearing my daughter’s Apple Watch because it has a reminder to breathe, and just take some time out once an hour to take a few deep breaths. It’s really, really powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Lovely. Well, now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Anne Grady
My first was from my grandmother, it’s actually a Yiddish proverb, and she always used to say, “Annie, if enough people tell you you’re tired, it’s time to lay down,” like, if enough people are giving you the same advice. But my favorite was when she used to say, “Annie, if you act like an ass, don’t be surprised if people try to ride you.” That’s probably my all-time favorite quote.

But I guess the second closest to that would be Ray Wylie Hubbard. He’s a Texas singer-songwriter, and he’s got a lyric in one of his songs, and he says, “And the days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, well, I have really good days.” And so, what I have found is that when we’re unhappy, it’s usually because our expectations are out of alignment with reality. And you can’t always control what’s in reality but you can control your expectations.

So, the more time you spend being grateful and the less time you spend being resentful, or disappointed, the easier it is to find the good stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Anne Grady
So, one that I just came across that I really liked was this study done by the University of London. So, they took these participants and divided them into two groups, and they basically said to one group, “It’s a computer program, and every time you click on a rock, and a snake is under it, you’re going to get a mild electrical shock.” They tell the other group, “You’re going to get a mild electrical shock but it’s not every time the snake is under the rock. It’s just going to be intermittent.”

And what was phenomenal is that the group that knew that they were going to get shocked every time there was a snake under the rock had less anxiety than the people who knew it would be intermittent because our brain is so against uncertainty. It hates it. So, it constantly goes to the default worst-case scenario. There are so many studies.

Another one that I find fascinating, and Kelly McGonigal writes about this in her book The Upside of Stress, and she’s got a great TED Talk called “Make Stress Your Friend.” And they tracked 30,000 Americans over the course of eight years, and they start by asking them these two questions. The first is, “What level of stress have you had in the past 12 months? Low, medium, or high?” And the second question is, “Do you think stress is bad for you?” So, they asked 30,000 people these questions, they tracked them over eight years, they used death records and mortality rates as a way to track progress.

And they find that for people who had high levels of stress in the previous 12 months, there’s a 43% increased risk of dying prematurely, but it was only for the people who thought stress was bad for them. The people who thought stress is just nothing more than just your body’s physiological response. “Increased heartbeat? Well, that’s just your brain needing more oxygen. Tension in your shoulders or your stomach? That’s just your body putting on armor to protect you from what’s ahead.”

The people who did not believe stress was bad for them, but had high levels of stress, had a zero percent increased risk of dying prematurely. It was the lowest rate of anyone in the study. So, they basically found, they looked at these cardiac monitors, and they hooked people up to them, and they find that for people who are experiencing high levels of stress and think it’s bad for them, their arteries constrict, so they tighten up, they limit blood flow to the heart and to the brain. But people who have stress and believe it’s just your body, which is you stress, is just activation of your sympathetic nervous system, nothing more, nothing less, they had zero constriction. They had the same cardiac profile as people who experienced joy and courage.

And then they took it a step further. They looked at housekeeping staff at hotels, and they asked these housekeepers, “Do you exercise?” So, they take a group of housekeepers that don’t exercise, and they divide them into two groups. One group, they don’t tell them anything. The other group, they say, “Did you know that every time you change a sheet, you burn this many calories? Every time you clean a window, you burn this many calories. Every time you flip a mattress, you burn this many calories. Every time you vacuum…”

So, the people that they didn’t say anything to, the housekeepers that just kept business as normal, didn’t lose any weight. The people who were told that what they were doing as part of their job was exercise, even though they changed no other habits, lost weight. Like, our belief system is so powerful that it drives our neurochemistry. And the beauty of this is that beliefs can be changed.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. That’s great. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Anne Grady
Well, you can always go to AnneGradyGroup.com. Anne with an E. You can certainly text the word “strength” to the number 22454, I’m sure you’ll probably post that on your show notes, but it’s 22454, text the word “strength” and you can get some free resources, a resilience self-assessment, a self-care sheet, a poem that I wrote a couple years ago that could not be more fitting than it is right now. But we also have a weekly resilience reset tip, tool, or strategy that kind of help you just reset.

And so, you can go to my website to sign up for that. You can also learn more about my books on the website. And, like I said, a portion of all my book proceeds go to the National Alliance on Mental Illness here in Central Texas. I live in Austin.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Anne Grady
So, we think that we separate work and life, like, “I want this balance.” And I would say that there’s no balance. Right now, it is about taking care of you so that you can be the best version of yourself to perform well at work, and you cannot do that if you’re not well. So, it would be a self-care challenge. Every day, schedule 10 minutes on your calendar to do something kind for yourself. It could be just doodling on a piece of paper or drawing. It could be snuggling your pet or your kids. It could be doing a puzzle. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it brings you joy.

And most of us are constantly thinking about, “How do I alleviate stress?” And I would challenge you to reframe it. Instead of, “How do I stop stress?” it’s, “How do I find joy? What are some things I can do throughout my day? What can I insert throughout my day to create joy?” because that is what will change your brain and build your resilience muscle. And it is just that, it’s a muscle.

Pete Mockaitis
Anne, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck in all of your moments.

Anne Grady
Thank you. Yeah, life is made up of moments. It’s just a collection, and so we got to make those moments count.

Pete Mockaitis
Adam, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Adam Markel
Pete, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into resilience. And maybe, could you start us off with an inspiring story of someone who is able to build up resilience?

Adam Markel
Wow, that’s such a great way to begin. I think of my dad, he’s the first person who just comes to mind, he’s been a writer for most of his adult life. And, like many writers or creative people, couldn’t make a living at it and, ultimately, did other things to earn a living. He was actually a parks department supervisor and a preschool teacher, and loved that work, and was basically side hustling at night doing his writing. And over the last 50 years or so that I can sort of consciously remember my dad writing and staying up late at night doing so much editing, he’s rewriting, as has been said, he just was the model of perseverance. He just was constantly preparing himself for the next level of his development as a creative writer, as a fiction writer, and plays and novels and poetry, and all those kinds of things.

And he must’ve gotten, I mean, I’ve never actually counted or asked him, how many rejections along the way he’s gotten but it’s got to be in the thousands, I would suppose. And it’s just never daunted him. He has been the model, for me, since very, very early on in my life of what perseverance looks like, what tenacity looks like.

And resilience, in many ways, is about that. It’s not something that it’s in your DNA. It’s definitely something that you can learn. It can be taught to others. But, yeah, my dad has been that guy for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’d love to get an understanding then when it comes to resilience, just sort of what’s the impact in terms of being awesome at your job, and career of being resilient versus not so resilient?

Adam Markel
Well, it’s the difference between being around to figure out what works versus not. There’s no way to win a race if you don’t finish. And whether it’s in sports, or it’s in a career context, or entrepreneurial context, we really have to be around long enough to learn what doesn’t work. In fact, one of the things that we often will work with teams and individuals on is how you create clarity out of the things that have been your greatest challenges, how do you create clarity out of your biggest mistakes.

And the premise of that, to just sort of cut to the juicy bits, is that when you know what doesn’t work, we find that you know what does work. When you know what you don’t want, you know very clearly what you do want.

So, my belief is that there’s no sort of shortcut to success in anything. There’s no shortcut to success in the arts, or in any kind of important endeavor in your life whether it’s being a parent, being a great spouse, being a great friend, being a great leader in business, being a great employee or a great manager, or a great salesperson. It’s a hard-fought, hard-won success when it comes, and you can’t get to the point where you actually experience what that is without having put the time in, without having been able to endure quite a bit of pain along the way, suffering along the way, and many hills and valleys.

We’re experiencing a pretty prolific change time right now, a change that most people did not predict or anticipate, and that often is the case about change. We have to be able to ride those waves of life. And, ultimately, when we are able to do that, we learn things, we gain clarity, we gain tremendous insight, understanding, sometimes great wisdom. And that enables us to not only learn how to do better at our jobs, but it enables us to mentor and lead other people. And that is the most valuable skill there is, that any of us can attain or aspire to.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And I’m intrigued, when you mentioned that you can’t finish a race or win a race that you don’t finish, what is not finishing a race look like in practice for professionals?

Adam Markel
Burnout in a word.

Pete Mockaitis
You just say, “I’m done. No more working. Can’t.”

Adam Markel
Well, you know, so many people are a product of a culture of burnout. They don’t call it a burnout culture in any company.

Pete Mockaitis
“We have a burnout culture. Come join us.”

Adam Markel
That’s it, “Come join us,” right? “We got a burnout culture.” Well, I guess from back in the ‘70s or ‘80s, a burnout culture would’ve meant something different then maybe that would’ve attracted people. But the cost of exhaustion is massive. It’s so many multibillions of dollars that companies are expending needlessly because their workforce are exhausted. So, the health and safety costs, the turnover costs, the toxicity, meaning workplaces that are not performing at the level that they could, they’re not engaged at the level that they’re capable, their capacity is nearly what it could be, kind of people.

If you can imagine if you had a hundred employees and only 60 of them showed up to work at any given time, how successful could the business be? Or let’s say the average of the capacity of that group of a hundred is 60%. I mean, 60% on a test would be not a great grade, and it’s certainly not something that a company is consciously looking to create, but unconsciously, by default, they exhaust their workforce. And then, ultimately, wonder why they don’t have an engaged and productive team, and why they’re missing their KPIs, and things just aren’t as good as they think they could be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, 60%, intriguing. Can you share some of the underlying science behind that figure and how it’s derived?

Adam Markel
Well, when we work with teams and we work with organizations and test them for their resilience, on average, it comes up between 60% and 65%. We used sort of a MEPS process where, MEPS being mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. So, in those four quadrants, we look at how they’re performing, and what it is that they are doing on a habitual basis, and what are the things that they’re actually doing on a habitual basis are producing more resilience or producing the opposite.

So, ultimately, when the data is analyzed across a very wide group, so our datasets are quite diverse, but it’s thousands and thousands of people, somewhere between 60% and 65% is average. And so, again, when you think of a workforce that’s performing at that level, or if only six out of ten, or seven out of ten of your employees were showing up, you just couldn’t perform well.

It’s an interesting thing for me that I sort of back into that conversation when I’m doing a virtual keynote or I’m leading a group in a workshop, I’ll start by telling a story from my days as a lifeguard. I was 19 years old, and I worked at a place called Jones Beach.

And it’s the Atlantic Ocean, and the rip currents are very, very strong. And there was a day in July where I heard a sound that we didn’t hear very often at the beach. Lifeguards communicate by whistles. So, one whistle meant you were looking to get somebody’s attention, two whistles was a signal that we were making a rescue, that one of your lifeguard colleagues was in a water probably making a rescue or just about to go in. And three whistles meant that someone was actually missing.

And it was on this day in July that I heard three whistles, and I ran down to the main stand where the captain of our field was shouting orders to our crew, saying that they had lost somebody in the surf, and we need to all get down there immediately to start a search and rescue, which we did. We ran down there.

And when we got to the spot that we thought that missing swimmer was, we started a search pattern that we had practiced previously. And, briefly, what that involved was we dived down into the water, 10 feet or so deep, and this is the Atlantic Ocean in the summer, it’s very cold even two, three feet below the surface, and 10 feet it’s quite dark and quite cold.

And so, we dived down and then we would swim into the current with our arms stretched out in front of us, hoping that we would actually touch someone. And it’s kind of a horrifying thought but that’s the search process, is to just try to get this person who might be under the water, and get them in time to be able to revive them.

We did that process, again and again and again and again. We did that for more than an hour. Needless to say, we’re all kind of blue and shivering, and then we heard the whistles again, which was a signal for us to get out and the search was over.

And I just remember being pretty devastated. It was an awful, awful feeling in that moment that we hadn’t found this person. And we ran back to our beach, and the captain of our lifeguard crew led us in a moment of silence. And when we opened our eyes, he looked at each of us, and he said some things that I will never forget. He said, “No one goes down on our watch at this beach. No one goes down in our water,” was what he said. And he said, “You either make the save…” the expectation was that you either make the save or you die trying, which is a very, very intense thing to say.

And he said to us, “We’re going to have to get back up in the stand now. This has happened and we got to get back up in the stand now, and we’re going to have to get back up in the stand again tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on, so we need to learn something. We need to learn from what just happened, and we have to do better, and we have to make sure that we have each other’s backs more than anything. We’ve got to have each other’s backs, because if we don’t, there’s just no way that we could be successful. And refer back to what I said at the beginning. No one is going to go down on our watch ever again.”

And so, that was the intensity of that talking to, and that mantra became something that we, as a lifeguard crew, adapted. And so, this was really my first model of what resilience look like, and it’s been something that had a huge impact on me.

And, as a footnote to that, for those seven summers that I worked at that beach, we never lost anybody again. We had an impeccable record. But we could be impeccable because, as a crew, as a lifeguard crew, we developed resilience.

And we didn’t call it that at the time, but looking back, that’s exactly what we developed, and we’re able to then not perform at 60% like we were talking earlier. We performed at a 100% or near to it as a group, meaning collectively. We had bad days. People had bad days. People weren’t always at their best but we were encouraged by our superiors to be at our best. And given some ways in which to do that, and the record spoke for itself.

Pete Mockaitis
Great. Thank you. And to dig more into this 60%, so what’s the numerator and what’s the denominator there?

Adam Markel
Well, again, it’s the collection of datapoints from four different areas. So, we typically will start people off with an assessment. So, for example, it’s 16 questions. It takes about three minutes, but you answer four questions that are in the quadrant that has to do with your mental habits. You answer four questions about your emotional habits, the way you see the world and what you do and how you respond to things. And then the same thing for your physical habits, like the amount of sleep that you get, the amount of time that you spend on your technology or off technology, things of that sort. And then four questions that are based in the spiritual realm, which is not actually spirituality or religion certainly. It’s actually alignment with values.

So, a good example of that would be you’re a family-oriented person. You want to spend time with your family, your kids, or your friends, or others, and you work all the time. So, even though your values would be to spend time with those people, you are acting in a contrary way. And so, that sits in that category of spiritual because it’s, in essence, a conflict within you, or within a person, at the level of their values.

Pete Mockaitis
So, then what does 100% represent?

Adam Markel
One hundred percent would represent someone who was answering those questions and then the follow-up on each of those different quadrants in a way that signified that they were recovering. Ultimately, resilience is about recoveries, the opposite of exhaustion. So, similar to how an athlete gets ready for, let’s say, an Olympic event or professional sports, they don’t run themselves rugged and expect that they’ll perform well.

Olympic athletes, they make the Olympics, with the goal being that they win the gold medal. And the margin for error is so thin that they’ve got to take the best care, they’ve to be in the best condition they can be and mentally and emotionally, physically certainly. And, again, at a level that we’ll call spiritual, so that they can, on the day in question, just perform at their absolute level best.

Versus, again, in most corporate culture, what they reward is kind of the night owl. They reward the billable hours. They reward your willingness to work on the weekends instead of being at your kid’s soccer game. They reward all kinds of things that don’t, ultimately, produce the highest long-term performance and longevity in their valuable resources, their human resources.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so I’d love to hear, so it’s all about recovery. What are the top things we can do for recovery? And are there particularly leveraged practices within each of those four domains? Like, I guess I’m thinking, what gives me maximum recovery per minute I’m investing in each of these?

Adam Markel
I think it’s more about what will work for an individual. There’s no one activity that I would say is going to work for everybody.

Typically, we’ll lead people through a process to create a recovery map. And, again, using those four quadrants, we ask them to both think about the things that are possible for them. We brainstorm and mastermind about the myriad ways that you can create recovery in those four areas.

So, for example, taking 20 minutes to put your legs up a wall. You lie down on your back, and you scooch up to the wall, and just let your legs rest on the wall for 20 minutes, and you cover your eyes. In 20 minutes in that position with your eyes closed, and something usually covering to just sort of create a blackout environment for you, and you can turn on a meditation, you can turn on the Calm app, which I’m not pitching the Calm app but I just love it, it’s so easy to do. And you set a timer for 20 minutes because it’s not the kind of a nap where you, let’s say, got an hour or two hours or whatever it is to sleep in the middle of the day, but that 20 minutes of closed eyes, feet up the wall, produces the equivalent of like, for many people, the equivalent of four hours of sleep, and the blood flow becomes better. Your blood is going towards your heart. You’re taking pressure off of your legs, off of your knees, even off of your hips.

And so, you can emerge from 20 minutes in that position more energized and more capable of being at your best. Whereas, many people, they get to the sort of the middle of the day, I mean, it hits people at different times, but they get to a place where they need a nap or they can’t one or they won’t take one because they don’t have a process for that, or permission even. Again, in those cultures of exhaustion, you don’t really get permission to do something like that.

And, ultimately, long term, when you become exhausted, when that person is exhausted, when they become burned out, what do they do? They perform less well. They are impacting others, kind of infecting others with maybe negativity and negative attitude. So, all those things are just easily impacted for the better by small changes.

That’s the thing that we’ll often tell folks is that a drastic change isn’t what’s required. In fact, it’s just creating small changes so that the recovery map that we ask them to do is to sort of pick one thing, one thing that you could do in each of these areas. So, on the mental side, that might be that they just still their minds and call it meditation. I’m not a great meditator but I believe in stillness, and I like to just sit quietly for periods. I’m a person that appreciates prayer, so I’ll sometimes sit for five or 10 minutes and read something and quietly pray or just be still. And the benefits to my clarity, to the level of my attention, even to just the energy that I have, after I emerge from 10 minutes of just some stillness, is really profound. So, that might be something that sits on the mental side.

On the emotional side, there are a lot of people that are not dealing with their emotions very well from early on in their lives, from situations and often traumas that occurred during childhood, so for somebody else, on the emotional side, it might be how it is that they let go of things. And a practice of being able to consciously let go of things that are bothering you, or forgiving things that you are still holding onto, hanging onto, whether they’re things from 10 minutes ago or from 10 or 20 years ago. So, again, it may be that someone is going to commit to that kind of practice, that each day, their new habit will be to check in with their emotions, to just sit with them even, not try to change them, not try to figure things out, not try to reconcile what they’re feeling, but just feel how they feel. That’s a simple practice.

On the physical side, it could be that they’re not getting enough sleep, it could be they’re not drinking enough water, it could be that what they’re eating is really not the best things that they could be putting gin their body, it could be simply taking a 20-minute walk, really 20 to 30 minutes as we’ve come to understand it. We used to think it was 20, now it’s more like 30 minutes. Brisk walk. Not running, not kind of breaking a sweat even, but just a brisk walk for 30 minutes during the day.

And the benefits to people with hypertension, people that have anxiety, and I think a lot of us have some low levels of anxiety that kind of, almost all the time, cortisol is kind of coursing through our bodies often these days, and some people even greater levels of anxiety or even depression. And so, walking for 30 minutes a day has massive impact on their ability to handle stressful situations and, in fact, puts their body in a state of alertness but not in a state of fight or flight or freeze. And, again, that’s a small, small change that they can make that creates a significant positive impact on their ability to stay focused, to be able to work more productively.

I, personally, like The Pomodoro Technique. So, 30 to 35 minutes, and then you take a very concerted disciplined break for five or 10 minutes. And every 30 or 35 minutes, you work with this intensity, and then you take a break, and often switch your focus to something else. So, you don’t try to multitask, like 35 minutes and you’re checking email and you’re answering phone calls and you’re writing some sort of paper or something, and that’s what you’re doing in the course of 35, or 40, or 50 minutes, something like that, which is what a lot of people do.

No. Instead, you pick one of those things and you work at it with extreme focus for that same 35-minute period, and then you take a complete break. You can close your eyes, you can take a walk, you go have a conversation with a colleague about something entirely unrelated to that, or even unrelated to work. And then when you come back, you reengage either in that same thing because maybe you haven’t finished it, or, as often the case, it’s advisable to just switch focus to something else, and you go through your day using these little sprints, these Pomodoro sprints, or as we used to say at the beach, we would be up an hour and down an hour.

And on the last side, the spiritual side, again, it may well be that the new habit would be being home for dinner. That was my thing when I was a lawyer. I was a workaholic like a lot of people, and I would get really productive. In about 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, 4:00 or 4:30, I would hit my stride, and it was usually like about 10 minutes after I would tell my wife on a phone call that I’d be home for dinner. So, that was the recurring habit. And, of course, I don’t have to tell you, I hit my stride at 4:30, I wasn’t home for dinner, I wasn’t seeing the kids at dinner. And some nights, I didn’t even make it home to kiss them goodnight or read them a bedtime story, which was devastating to me.

I remember about a year ago, I delivered a TED Talk where I talk more specifically about an anxiety attack that I had that was masking itself as a heart attack and ended up in the emergency room because these things were just troubling me so much. I was exhausted and I was also doing work that it was not my calling to do, and it was not something that I had in my heart in, and so I was falling out on that spiritual side of things. It was a misalignment for me, and I was really feeling it.

So, the essence of this is making small changes. And when you put those altogether, you create a recovery map, what you find is that people can perform longer, better, in ways that just makes sense for them. So, that’s back to that whole idea of you can’t win the race if you don’t finish it. Ultimately, in a business, you want people, you want a team of people that can go the distance but not because you’re driving them to perform while they’re tired, perform when they haven’t eaten, and when they haven’t slept, and when their kids have important things, when there are other important things in their life that they want to participate in, because that just is counter. It’s absolutely the opposite of what will draw the best performance for the longest period of time, and most of them are people.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’d love to hear, emotionally, how does one let go of something?

Adam Markel
It’s an interesting question, Pete, because I’ve shared this with people for a number of years that it’s a little bit like, just to give you a physical example, if you’ve got something that you can grab at your desk like a pen, just hold onto a pen right now. And there’s always a funny question about whether the pen is holding you or you’re holding the pen, right? So, I’ll ask you that question, Pete. Are you holding the pen or is the pen holding you?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m holding the pen.

Adam Markel
Right. So, imagine that pen is something like anger at a parent for abuse or for neglect or for some other thing. A lot of people have issues related to money, and let’s say there’s just an anger about that. It’s similar to the pen. The situation in question is not holding onto the person. It’s the person that’s holding onto that situation, holding onto that anger. I’m not dismissing the fact, and I purposely used something extreme because we hold on to lots of little things, lots of insignificant things.

So, to me, on the emotional side, it’s a combination of two things. It’s the…and, by the way, Pete, just go ahead and let go of that pen now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Adam Markel
Just release it, open your hand, let it fall out. I just did the same thing. It’s so easy to just let go of something. That’s all letting go is, the conscious decision to just release it, the way you just released that pen. And there’s a second piece which it’s not the thing that everybody is ready for but it is the magic key, as a mentor of mine has taught me over the years, forgiveness is the magic key. Forgiveness is not about a person or the situation in question that might’ve caused anybody a particular harm. It’s about you. The forgiveness is for the person who’s been hurt. And that’s why it’s magic.

There are some old study years and years ago about people and their anger, and how they were able to capture the chemical reaction in a person from just a few seconds of anger. And that chemical that they were able to extract was then injected into laboratory rats. And just a few seconds of that chemical was enough to kill a rat.

So, that’s what’s in us, that’s what’s in each of us when we are holding onto, feeling anger. It’s just this awful chemical reaction that is certainly not helping us to be anything that we really consciously seek to be.

So, there’s a book that I absolutely love. I recommend it. It’s called The Presence Process, Michael Brown wrote it. Great, great book in regard to how you process emotional things and, ultimately, you’re able to integrate them. I love Michael’s philosophy on it because he doesn’t believe that you need to be sort of healed of anything, nobody is really broken.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Great. Well, that’s your favorite book. Why don’t we keep rolling with your favorite things? Could we hear a favorite quote as well?

Adam Markel
I love the quote from Yogananda that said, “Environment is stronger than will.” If you want to create a high-performance workforce doing great work in the world, you got to create the environment to match that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And how about a favorite challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Adam Markel
A favorite challenge. Well, I mean, the challenge, to me, we’ve given you this assessment, this resilience leader assessment that people can take. That’s a challenge. Take three minutes, 16 questions, and see how you score. See whether or not you’re actually at a level that’s acceptable to you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Adam, thanks so much for taking this time, and good luck in all of your adventures.

Adam Markel
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been a pleasure.