Mindset Archives - Page 12 of 22 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Karl Staib
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear your take on gratitude. Maybe we can start off by hearing what are you most grateful for?

Karl Staib
Oh, that’s a great question. I’ve got so much. I wrote in my journal this morning and I’m grateful for my dog, I’ve got two wonderful boys, a really caring wife, and my brain. I think it’s important that I’ve been having a better relationship with my brain and the thoughts that go on behind the scenes as I get older.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, so maybe let’s start by hearing when it comes to gratitude, if we can contextualize this a little bit, I mean, it’s a great thing to have, sure. But, specifically, how does that help us become more awesome at our jobs?

Karl Staib
Okay. So, it’s a really good question because I think just the act of being more grateful helps rewire how our brain thinks. And so, there’s numerous studies, but Edward Deci did a study and it basically talks about the positive interactions that we have either help us become more productive or reduce our productivity.

So, if we have six positive interactions, the one negative, we’re 31% more productive. If it’s three to one, we flatline. If it’s less than that, we decrease in productivity. So, right there it just shows the willingness to tackle things and stay on top of things.

And so, another study by David DeSteno talks about what happens when you are giving reinforcement, encouragement throughout the day or on a project. You’re 30% more likely to stick with it. And so those little things, when you fall down, when you make a mistake, you’re more likely to get back up and try again and keep at it and then you can thrive at work versus like kind of packing it in and not trying your best.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so that’s intriguing. Let’s talk about that first study. So, six to one positive interactions, did you say? And how are you defining the interaction?

Karl Staib
So, I take a little creative license. So, it’s interactions with other people. So, if you’re grateful for people at work and you show them that, it boosts. So, there’s another study that basically talks about if we work together and I stop by your desk, and I say, “Hey, Pete, this was amazing. Like, you put this extra slide in here, this bar graph showed exactly what we’re trying to illustrate. Thank you so much. This is fantastic.” And then you walk away like, “Damn, I’m hot stuff.” That is equivalent to getting paid more money. That’s how our brains work. We think, “Oh, wow! I just did something well for somebody that I really wanted to help.”

And so, if you think, as a boss, or even a coworker, if you can give people compliments, I mean, honest, genuine compliments, you’re going to have them feel better, work harder, and want to be around you.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great stuff. Well, I’m wondering, we have sort of a limited amount of control over whether or not we’re going to get some of these positive encouraging interactions from others. How do you recommend we, I don’t know, get more and do it yourself to the extent that’s possible?

Karl Staib
Oh, yeah, yeah. So, it’s important we don’t rely on these external validations completely. It is a good scorecard, right? So, if you go on to work and you don’t care and you basically hide in the corner, and you’re not very helpful, you know you’re not going a good job, you know that you’re not worthy of gratitude so even if somebody came up to you and gave you some appreciation, you probably wouldn’t believe them because you’re just like, “Ah, I’m just going to hide in the corner. I’m going to try to avoid work.” But the thing is it’s about the mindset. 

So, one of the biggest issues that I have is meetings at work. I despised them. It was a waste of time. I would tell all these stories inside my head as I was walking into the meeting and I was setting myself up for failure. And I remember when I started on this gratitude practice journey, my father was passing and it’s kind of what’s spurred me to start up my gratitude journal again. And when I did, I realized kind of a little bit of a switch going off inside me.

I remember a conversation with my dad before he was in the hospital and before he passed. We talked about it’s what you make of it, right? That’s one of the pieces of advice that he always emphasized to me. And I was taking it to heart. And because I was so tuned into, “Okay, I need to work on my mindset.”

My dad was one of my best friends, one of my confidantes, and so I knew that I wasn’t going to have this anymore and I didn’t want to go into depression. I had issues with depression in my past, especially in my 20s and early 30s. So, when I did some research, I knew gratitude helps in so many ways.

And so, as I started kind of diving back in and writing these bits of gratitude, I realized I was not grateful for going into these meetings. And those meetings are always opportunities, those are some of the best opportunities just to connect with other people, to go in and learn different things, and it doesn’t have to be about the project. It could be, “You know what, today I’m going to just practice being calm and focusing on my breath in this meeting.” And maybe that’s a meeting you’re not as involved in, right? You’re maybe on the outskirts.

And then there’s others that you say, “I’m going in. I’m going to ask one really poignant question. One question that I think could help maybe create a small little moment of, ‘Oh, I never thought of it that way before.’” So, when we start planting in those seeds and start being grateful for the moment before us, it makes it so much likely that we’re excited and that we try our best in that meeting, and then we make sure that whatever comes out of it we’re getting something and we’re appreciating whatever it is that we get out of it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. So, in practice, what you’re doing inside your brain, at first, you might feel, “Oh, these meetings are stupid. They’re a waste of time. They drain my energy. They’re not any good.” And then you find a way to give meaning to them, like, “In this meeting, I’m going to do this, or I’m going to appreciate that, or I’m going to focus on my breathing or whatnots.” So, are there any kind of key questions you’re asking yourself? Because I imagine, when you’re in a bit of that funk, it’s kind of hard to just flip the switch. Is there any kind of transition questions you ask internally or things you do to make the jump?

Karl Staib
Oh, yeah. It’s a good way of framing. It is about questions, right? So, if I go in thinking, “Oh, how much is this meeting going to suck?” versus I go in thinking, “What can I learn from this meeting?” It’s very much like that fork in the road. You can go left, down that dark, scary, ghost-ridden pathway, or we can go to the right where the butterflies are flying around. But both ways are a path that we can take and this is where awareness comes in and you can say, “Wait a second. I notice myself asking, ‘How much is this going to suck?’ What if I ask myself a different question? What if I set myself up to see this in a different way?”

And you say, “What is one thing I can learn from this meeting? And after one hour, I’m going to write this down. I’m going to take a note and say, ‘I learned…’ whatever it is. I learned how to ask a better question. I learned how to pay attention to how somebody else talks and speaks.” And I’ve noticed like work is a lot more enjoyable when I’m engaged, when I’m creating that mindset that allows me to feel engaged.’”

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s interesting because you can say, if you’re watching closely to see what you can learn about how a person is presenting, you can learn things to do, like, “Ooh, that worked very well. I should do that.” And things not to do, like, “Oh, man, everyone was bored and paying no attention at this point. Note to self: Provide a slide headline that clearly articulates what is on that chart or something, for example.”

Karl Staib
Yes. Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s handy. good or bad, you can turn that into learning and that’s a great question, “What’s one thing I can learn?” What are some other key questions that help point your focus in helpful ways?

Karl Staib
One of the most important things that I like to do is, you know, I suffer from anxiety. My palms sweat, I get choked up if a bunch of people are looking at me, so what I do is I say, “How can I focus on my breath and relax through this whole meeting?” And just planting that seed, and then what happens is subconsciously your brain starts to notice, like, “Are you getting a little tense?”

And it’s always going to happen. I’m never going to get rid of my anxiety but I can notice it, appreciate it, and then work with it, and it becomes a friend that having this dance with during this meeting instead of, “Oh, my God. I’m anxious. I don’t know what to do. Like, I’m freaking out.” And, all of a sudden, somebody calls on me and I’m so stuck in my head I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do.

And by saying, “Okay, how can I relax throughout this meeting? And how can I notice when I get tense?” And, all of a sudden, you start to be more aware, and you can say, “Oh, take one deep breath right now.” And it’s done wonders for me. It’s really helped me with my anxiety in meetings.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, there’s a bit of a problem-solving focus there, so, “How can I notice? How can I relax?” And then you’re getting a chance to experiment and get better at something. That’s cool. Any other great questions?

Karl Staib
Oh, man. I think one of the most important things is how do you like to stay engaged. You might say, “Well, what’s the best way for me to take notes?” That simple phrase, right? Like, “What’s the best way for me to take notes?” will allow you to think, “Well, maybe I’ll try doing visual notes this time.”

Whatever it is, now you’re retaining more of that meeting and you’re more engaged as well. So, when you do need to ask the question, it’s easy to recall if someone does ask you a question, you’re on it because you’ve been in that mode of, “I know what’s going on. I know what the context is and I can really shine in this moment.”

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when it comes to gratitude, you define three different levels. Can you unpack this for us?

Karl Staib
Yeah. So, as I’ve been digging into gratitude and really understanding the research behind it, I realized most people just think of gratitude as an external thing. And so, I started unpacking it and I realized a lot of my studies through Buddhism, through Zen, Christianity, I realized it goes much deeper than that and it starts with surrounding gratitude.

Surrounding gratitude is the things around you: your computer, the glass of water, your cup of coffee. It’s very easy to say, “Oh, yeah, this is delicious cup of coffee and it helps boost my energy.” Now that is a very straightforward thing that most of us do kind of automatically and very subconsciously but it gets a little harder with the next one, and it’s sharing gratitude.

And sharing gratitude can create a bit of awkwardness inside a conversation with somebody else at work. If you walk up to them and tell them how good they are, they could feel embarrassed by that, they might not have the reaction that you planned that they did, and so it gets a little hairier and so we don’t do it as often as we should. We’re a little afraid to compliment somebody. Most of us are very bad at receiving compliments.

We struggle with celebration when it doesn’t fit into the norms of our culture, the small bits of celebration that we should be doing. I don’t know about you, but if I write a great email, sometimes they take a while, maybe an hour, hour and a half, like I do a little dance after that. And I’ve built that into my day to help me feel grateful for that moment, for that time that I spent to really make sure that message was conveyed that I hope it would.

And so, that is where it starts to get a little bit trickier because that’s where self-gratitude comes in, and that’s that third component. And we don’t treat ourselves usually very nice. I like to call it the inner bully. We beat ourselves up. We call ourselves names. We don’t think about all the hard work. I mean, let me ask you, Pete, just a year, two years ago, how far have you come since then?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy. Oh, it’s been a crazy two years. Two kids, home purchase and maintenance, podcast growth. Real far. It’s kind of exhausting.

Karl Staib
Yeah. And it’s hard, right? Like, I can feel your reluctance coming through. You’re just like, “I almost even don’t want to go there, right?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, there’s been a lot of improvement and growth and some cool ways and not as much sleep but I guess that’s what happens with kids in due time. My wife is a saint. She’s been doing less sleeping than I have. But, yeah, lots of improvement and I’m glad for it. I’m sure glad that we got those kids and podcast listeners and all the other blessings.

Karl Staib
And do you celebrate that? Do you celebrate yourself as a father, as a husband? Do you have any cadence around that?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, kind of. I think that I had a great podcast conversation with BJ Fogg talking about forming great habits. And he talked about celebration is really important to building those habits, and it could be as simple as saying, “I’m awesome.” And one of mine comes from Mortal Kombat II when you defeat your opponent while taking zero damage, it says, “Flawless victory.” So, that was a little affirmation celebration I got when I beat my brother in a video game as a youngster.

And so sometimes I will trot that out and occasionally I’ll just take the time to play some celebration music, like if we got a sale, like I might go play the song, “Whoomp There It Is.” This is like, “I’ve been waiting for that email. And there it is.” So, yeah, BJ said I was a natural celebrator. But not every day am I natural celebrator. It comes and goes.

Karl Staib
Yeah. And so, it’s one of those things, right? When you look at your life and you look at how far you’ve come, this is important. Hopefully, people who are listening right now really understand it’s great. Let’s say you’re at work, and you have to think about how we talk to ourselves internally. But let’s say, for example, you go up to somebody at work, and you say, “Man, you’re awesome.” Now, I kind of call that a level one gratitude, right? Like, it’s nice, it’s good to hear, but if it’s not specific, a lot of times you’d easily forget it. And this is what’s really important about gratitude and really help to rewire those neurons is to go a little bit deeper if possible when you have the time. And it’s why I suggest people keep a gratitude journal at the end of the day. So, usually what we remember is the most impactful part of our day and the things at the end of the day.

So, if you take some time and write three things you’re grateful for at the end of the day, you can do this at the end of the work day, this helps too because if you get into that routine. But the closer you can do it to bedtime the better because what happens is that’s the stuff that will solidify in your brain as you sleep. So, you’re tightening these neurons and making it easier to access the next day and the next day after that, which is really important because if you can be grateful before bed, you’re going to be more grateful throughout the day.

And so, as you’re more grateful throughout the day, it makes life more enjoyable and it helps lower your stress so you’re going to be healthier because of it. But what’s really important is your what and your why. What are you grateful for? And why? And so, this is where I think a lot of people get tripped up on their gratitude journal because they’re like, “What? Oh, I’m grateful for my cup of coffee. I’m grateful for my wife.” And it gets just to the surface. But, why? Why are you grateful for your wife? Can you give me, why are you grateful for your wife?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, she’s just so, so there’s so many things. I’d say, well, hey, we just talked about sleep. I’m grateful that she frequently sacrifices sleep in order to take care of nighttime wakeups from the kiddos, and it keeps me from feeling like a miserable zombie the following day because she’s handling that important responsibility. So, I guess that’d be one specific why.

Karl Staib
Yeah, so that specific why help deepen that experience for yourself. It helped put that into your subconscious a little bit deeper than, “I’m grateful for my wife,” or, “Hey, she’s awesome.” And that’s the stuff that’s then easier to recall. So, one of the best ways to get ahead at work, and this is a little hack, is being grateful for other people.

And so, try not to focus on yourself. The idea is just focus on other people and why you’re grateful for them, and try to express this gratitude in front of other people. And when you do this, remember it’s important to be genuine here because people can tell when you’re not. But if I work with you, Pete, and I say in a meeting with my boss or our boss, maybe you’re not there, but I say, “Man, Pete’s been awesome. Like, as soon as I ask for help, he turned around this email, or this design, or whatever it is, in just a few hours, and it was so good.”

Now, what the boss will remember is you complimenting that person, but they’ll also equate you with that compliment. And so, you’re sticking in their brain double because you’re giving somebody else a compliment and they’re equating you with that compliment. So, you’re creating win-win on both sides, which is one of the best things you can do in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I guess I’m surprised to learn that they’re equating me with that compliment. Is there some research behind this? Or what’s the story?

Karl Staib
Yeah. So, what happens in the brain is as that person hears that compliment, they’re hearing it from you. Now, it’s basically kind of the mirror neurons that are going on, right? Like, if we see somebody else behaving nicely, opening a door for somebody. We’ve all seen those commercials where you’re nice to somebody and then they pass it on, and they hold the door for somebody, and then somebody else picks up the tab at a Starbucks for the person behind them. It’s very similar to that. It’s seeing, like, you are being grateful for somebody else, and that person sees that, and says, “Wow, they must also live that way too, or be that way too.” And that’s why it works so well.

And it’s true though. Like, if you notice, and this is a positivity thing, but you wake up, you’re in a good mood, you just got a pep in your step, and you go through the day, and you’re just like, “Man, life is good.” You hit some traffic but it’s okay. You just got a good groove going on today versus the day where you got up on the wrong side of bed. You hit that same traffic and then you end up getting angry and mad and everything is wrong, and you go on to work, and everything just goes to hell. It’s the same traffic. Everything. But it’s your mindset going into it that was different.

And so, that’s why it’s so important to work on those things. And that’s what happens when you take that time to be grateful, you become more patient, you relax a little bit, you don’t try to force things as much because what ends up happening is you’re pausing to slow down the moment. If I have to think of something I’m grateful for, I can’t worry about anything else, I can’t do anything else, I can’t think another thought. Once a thought is in there, that’s that thought, right? There’s no double-thinking thoughts at the same time. You can’t think negative and positive.

And so what ends up happening is you are setting yourself up to create a more positive mindset and to be more resilient. And that’s the stuff when you get knocked down at work and somebody says something mean to you, or somebody talks behind your back, you can allow it to wreck your day or you can say, “You know what,” and I know, Pete, this is hard, but being grateful for that person. Being grateful for the opportunity to be just a little bit more empathetic towards that person.

I always give the traffic example because I struggle whenever I hit traffic, my blood boils but I’m working on not allowing it to do that to me. You’re in traffic. And you can choose, like, “Okay, I’m going to stay mad and I’m going to be pissed off, and I’m going to yell at everybody.” Or, I can say, “I’m grateful for this moment because I can look out my window and see the trees. I’m grateful for this moment because I can turn on my favorite song.” And that pause allows you then to stop and not be so reactionary.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. I dig that, that pause and the why piece because I kind of wanted to get some more details associated with if you identify, “Hey, I’m grateful for this,” you write it down. It seems like sometimes you really feel it, and sometimes you don’t. And Hal Elrod discussed this when we were chatting in our interview that sometimes the gratitude is just sort of an intellectual thing, “It is good that I am in a car and it has proper climate controls.” You know, like, “That is a fact,” as opposed to, “Wow, this is just so warm and cozy and perfect.” I don’t know.

You talked about the why and as opposed just the what. Do you have any other pro tips on how we can really get there so that we are feeling the gratitude as opposed to just simply identifying, “Yes, this is something worthy of gratitude”?

Karl Staib
Yeah, that’s a great point, right? Because if we force it, it doesn’t have the impact that it could, right? Like, we can’t force love. You can’t make yourself be happy. But it’s not about, in this case, being specifically happy about the traffic and that you can’t get to where you want to go. It’s about being grateful for what you can be grateful for.

So, what’s important is to put everything into perspective, right?

We have to look at things and we’ve got to say, “Okay, is this really that bad? Like, I’m stuck in traffic. Maybe I’m late getting home to my family.” But if you’re saying, “This is miserable. I’m never doing this again. I’m not going to do this driving anymore,” that’s not a bad thing. Anger is not bad. We should feel angry. We should feel all our feelings. And maybe that spurs us to make a change in our lives. Like, that’s something to be grateful for, and that’s kind of the point of this, is it’s not about being happy. It’s about working on your mindset because there’s always a way to find some small thing you’re grateful for.

You just got to slow down a little bit and allow yourself to focus on the super small things that you can control and you can enjoy, and that’s the stuff that’s going to really help you focus your mindset in the direction.

Pete Mockaitis
And you also have a term called way power. What is that and how do we use it?

Karl Staib
Okay. So, you’ve probably heard of the study where you go through the grocery store and you have to deal with picking out, “Which bread do I want? What type of strawberries do I want?” And the more you make these decisions the more your willpower depletes. When your willpower depletes, you go to the checkout lane, you see the Snickers, you pick up the Snickers because you’re exhausted, you’ve made all of these decisions throughout the day, and you put that Snickers down on the conveyor belt, and you walk out with your Snickers bar, and you start eating it even before you get into the car, right, because you’ve had enough. Your brain can’t take anymore decisions.

Now that is how a lot of us do any type of good habit-building. We say, “I’m going to work out today. This is the day that I’ll wake up early.” And then the alarm goes off, and you don’t wake up early, and you hit the snooze alarm, and then you push off working out to the next day. Now way power is really important because it’s the wind behind your sails. It’s not, “Oh, I’m doing this and I have to do this.” It’s, “I want to do this.” It’s the why behind it.

You have kids, you’ve got young kids, and your wife is waking up early, and I’m guessing she’s looking at this as an opportunity to bond with her kids. I don’t know your wife. I don’t know you when you wake up at 4:00 a.m. or whatever it is to feed the kids. But if you can say, “You know, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to bond with my kid.” That right there is setting yourself up to have a better experience than, “Argh, man, it’s 4:00 a.m. I’m too tired for this.”

Those thoughts are going to deplete you, and then you’re like, “No, I got to just get up and do it. Pete, get up. Do it.” But if you say, “Okay, what are my options? Stay here, let the baby cry, or stay here and let my wife do it? You know what, I’m going to take this as an opportunity to bond with my kid.” And that is way power. That’s you finding that small bit of appreciation, of gratitude towards doing that thing and allowing that to guide you versus you forcing yourself to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, Karl, tell me, anything else you want to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Karl Staib
I think it’s really important when people focus on working on their mindset, is to bring some awareness and watching those thoughts. And you don’t have to meditate. But the idea is you have to notice these things that are happening, right? If you’re stuck in traffic and you feel the anger coming on, you can ride that wave and just let it go, or you can pause and you can slow down and allow yourself to take a moment and relax and not let that anger overwhelm you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now can you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Karl Staib
So, I’m a big fan of the show so I have two, “Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” And that’s Zig Ziglar. That’s a great quote.

Okay, number two. “My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up he would ask us what we failed at this week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome. Failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.” And I think that’s so important. Failure is not who we are. It’s not defining us. What defines is what happens after.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study?

Karl Staib
There’s a study where optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. And this comes through their ability to bounce back. And so, that’s what I want people to try to practice.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Karl Staib
Can I give two?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Karl Staib
Emotional Success by David DeSteno. There’s a ton of research in gratitude in there. And then Siddhartha by Herman Hess because he was very influential of me, really digging into my mindset.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Karl Staib
My gratitude journal, I keep it on my phone so I have it always on me. And it sounds silly but whenever I have a tough meeting or whatever, I just pull up my phone and I write one thing I’m grateful for, and it usually kind of shifts my focus. Man, it’s helped me so much.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Karl Staib
Walking. I love walking. It’s usually when I come up with a lot of my ideas. Helps me process. We are meant to move as a species, all animals are. And if we sit or lay down too long, our anxiety takes over. So, it helps me keep my anxiety at bay too.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a key thing that you share that seems to connect with folks such that they quote it back to you?

Karl Staib
Hmm, yeah, the three levels of gratitude. A lot of people say, “Yeah, I know gratitude is important. I know I should be thinking about it more, being more appreciative of my life, but I never heard it in that way.”

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

Karl Staib
Yeah, I challenge them to keep a gratitude journal for 30 days. I do gratitude challenges. It’s how most people have found me. November, January, March, May and September, September just wrapped up. November, the next one starts. And so, I suggest, if they want, they can go to BringGratitude.com/thanks, like thanks for listening, and they can get some freebies, the five tools to be 31% more productive, they get information on how to join the challenge.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Karl, thanks so much. I’m grateful for you and wish you all the best as you keep on going here.

Karl Staib
Thank you so much. This is great. And I love the questions and how you dug in and you really forced me to do deeper than I was anticipating in going.

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

Anne Grady
Hey, Pete, thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. Well, I’m glad to have you and we’re talking about resilience and gratitude and more. And I want to kick it off by hearing a story from you about a time when you found some resilience and how you found it.

Anne Grady
Well, you know, resilience is one of those things you don’t find until you realize you need it. And, in my case, my journey started with my son Evan. So, Evan is now 16 years old but when I was pregnant, I knew something wasn’t right. He would like kick me so hard I would just fall to the ground. And my doctor joked he was going to be a soccer player. He cried all day and all night.

And when he was 18 months old, my husband left, and so I was a single mom, I had just started a consulting career, could not figure out what was wrong, and just things continued to escalate. And when he was about three years old, I know this is unbelievable, but he tried to kill me with a pair of scissors, and he was on his first antipsychotic by the time he was four.

By seven, he was in-patient at his first psychiatric hospitalization in Dallas. By 10, he was hospitalized again. And at that point, I got diagnosed with a tumor in my salivary gland that resulted in the right side of my face being completely paralyzed which, two days later, scratched my cornea, and was told by my doctor that my face probably wouldn’t recover, and I needed to have a gold weight implanted into my upper eyelid and a stitch put into my bottom eyelid, and I needed to do that before I started six weeks of radiation.

So, the weekend before my eye surgery, my husband and I went to Vegas. He had recovered from a motorcycle accident and we went to Vegas, and I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my foot in four places, and then he fell off a ladder, breaking his arm ribs and hip. And so, it’s just kind of been a constant state of needed resilience.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and that is quite a lot.

Anne Grady
And my face came back, by the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, with stories. Yes, people wonder how they ended. And so, that’s a lot. Wow! And, tell me, how did you find the resilience, the power, the courage, the gratitude, the something to keep on going such that you’ve been able to get to a good place?

Anne Grady
You know, it’s fascinating. My background, I have a master’s degree in Organizational Communication and, similar to you, I spent 20 years in the organizational development space, so training and professional development, communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, productivity, lots of soft skill type training.

And then, after everything that happened, I got contacted by a couple of different TEDx organizations wanting me to speak for them and the topic of resilience was really what they were curious about. They had heard my videos and seen me on YouTube or read articles, and so they wanted to hear about my story.

And I had never told the story before in terms of resilience. I had told it in terms of I was having opportunities daily to practice what I was teaching because of my situation with my son. And once I started digging into the resilience research in 2014, I realized that there were some things that I was doing naturally do build resilience without even realizing I was doing them, and there were things that I was not doing that were really hindering my ability to build those habits and skills.

And so, I started pouring over the neuroscience. I’ve studied the brain since Evan was born trying to understand how to help him and have learned a lot along the way, but then I really got and sort of geeking out on all of the neuroscience behind resilience. It’s incredibly powerful and it’s one of those things that most people think you have to wait until you need it to develop the skills, and it’s exactly the opposite. These are skills and behaviors and habits that you can proactively cultivate so that you have them when you need them.

Pete Mockaitis
And what are some of the most potent practices there when it comes to building those in advance?

Anne Grady
Well, things that sound like common sense but are not common practice. Self-care is huge, and people kept telling me to take care of myself, and I thought, “Well, okay, I’m raising…” I got remarried when Evan was nine years old, and I was like, “Okay, so I’ll go ahead and take a spa day while I’m raising two children and running a full-time business. I don’t have time for that.”

And what I learned is that, one, self-care doesn’t have to be a spa day. There are lots of different tools that you can use, but it’s also not selfish. It’s a requirement for resilience. My mom is a flight attendant and she started when she was 51. She was a court reporter for 30 years. And when she was 51, she became a flight attendant. She turned 70 this June and she’s still doing it.

And I’m not supposed to tell which airline so we’ll just call it Southwest. But she basically does these great announcements, and the one for the oxygen mask is my favorite. And she says, “In case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, please place your mask on and then assist your child. And if you’re traveling with more than one child, please pick your favorite or the one with the most potential.” But there’s a reason they tell you to put your mask on first.

It’s nice to think, “Well, I’ll sleep when I’m dead and I don’t have time to take care of me. I’ve got to take care of everybody else.” But life has a way of stopping you. Gratitude, mindfulness, humor, social connection, making meaning out of challenging events, values, goals. These are all different tools that you can use to build resilience. And you don’t need to use every single one all the time but it’s nice to have an arsenal or a toolkit that you can pull from.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then if you’re not taking the spa day but you are doing self-care, what are the things you found that made a world of difference when you did them?

Anne Grady
So, I was diagnosed with depression when I was 19 years old, and every doctor, every therapist, everyone I talked to had said, “Anne, you really have to exercise.” And I thought, “Yeah, that’s the last thing I want to do. I’m not an athletic person, I don’t want to exercise.” And my grandmother said, “Annie, if enough people tell you you’re tired, maybe it’s time to lay down.”

She also used to say, “If you act like an ass, don’t be surprised if people try to ride you.” But that was my grandmother. But enough people told me to do it, and I was so desperate at one point, I was really having a hard time. It was after Evan’s first hospitalization, and I was really struggling, and then my husband was in a motorcycle accident, and I just felt lost.

And we moved into a neighborhood that had a junior Olympics-sized pool. And so, swimming was always something that I didn’t hate. It was the only exercise I didn’t hate. And so, I started swimming four days a week, and I noticed such a drastic improvement in my mood. Medications didn’t change. The exercise was the only thing that had changed.

And so, I dug into the research. You know, I’m an academic at heart and I realized it’s not just like lose weight, be healthy. It’s literally changed your brain. So, that was one of the things that just blew my mind. I was saying all the time, “I don’t have time to exercise.” But I always had time to watch Law & Order. I like SBU because I like my crime, especially heinous. But, really, that made a huge difference.

Sleep. It’s a non-negotiable for me now because I don’t do well when I have less than 7, 8 hours of sleep. And so, I don’t care what I have to do to make that happen. I very rarely go without it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Excellent. So, exercise and sleep, indeed, common sense but often not common practice, and it makes a world of difference not just in terms of weight. But tell us a little bit about the rewiring of the brain.

Anne Grady
Well, let me first just really quickly back up and say, self-care could be something as easy as not eating lunch at your desk. It could be as simple as strategically stopping during your day and taking three really deep breaths. It could be giving yourself the same grace and compassion you would give your best friend. It could be not should-ing on yourself, “We should. I should’ve done this. I should do this. I should be here. I should be that.” And we should on ourselves all day long. Self-care is going, “You know what, I have permission to be human and, no, I’m enough.”
So, it doesn’t have to be the same types of things that we – sleep, exercise, diet, all those things are important for sure. But it doesn’t have to be those. It can be taking 10 minutes to sit and snuggle your dogs and drink coffee before looking at social media. So, it’s really subtle things that you can do that end up making a very big difference.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when you sort of zoom in to the professional work life, many of the slights and offenses and challenges we encounter, not nearly as difficult as many of the things that you tackled but, nonetheless, we can feel threatened, attacked, stressed out, freaking out about things. Can you explain to us a little bit, like, where does that come from and what should we do about it?

Anne Grady
So, our brain is this phenomenal organ, right? It’s gone through three levels of evolution. The first one being just basically a snake brain, your reptilian brain. It’s heart rate, breathing, respiration, fight or flight. It’s the most primitive part of your brain. The next evolution is tucked in the middle of your brain, it’s called your limbic system, and it’s got the hippocampus and hypothalamus and amygdala, and so it’s got a bunch of different components, but it’s kind of the emotional cockpit. It’s where all of your emotions are generated. It’s where your habits and your memories are stored.

And then the newest evolution is the neocortex. It surrounds the outer part of the brain but, specifically, the prefrontal cortex right behind your forehead. And that’s the part of the brain that differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We’re the only species who can think about the way that we think. It’s where creativity and innovation come from. It’s where higher-level thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, cause and effect, attention management, emotional regulation, all the hard stuff comes from there.

And so, there’s, one, it’s understanding that our brain will take anything we repeatedly think, say, or do and convert it into a cognitive shortcut which is a habit so it doesn’t have to work as hard. It’s like going through the express lane. It’s just easier. And so, if you, for example, if you’re listening right now, cross your arms, right, for your listeners, cross your arms. Now, cross them in the opposite direction. You probably noticed that the second time was more awkward, and it’s because those two things happen from different parts of your brain.

The first time you crossed your arms, it came from your limbic system. You’ve done it a million times, when you’re cold, when you’re angry, whatever. The second time, it came from your prefrontal cortex. You had to work at it a little bit more. And if you were to do that all day, every day, or for extended periods of time, and you were to practice that, eventually that would become a habit.

Over 45% of everything we do every day is a habit. And our brain depends on these cognitive shortcuts to make our life manageable but it doesn’t know which habits are helping us or which habits are hurting us. It just takes however we’re repeatedly thinking or behaving and converts it. So, that’s one, is recognizing which habits.

Are you anxious because you have an anxiety disorder or are you anxious because it’s a habit? Are you worrying because there’s like something legitimately challenging that you don’t know how to navigate or are you worrying because it’s a habit, right? So, our life becomes this state of habits and we just kind of live on autopilot if we’re not careful.

The second challenge with the brain is that we have something called the negativity bias. And it’s a primitive built-in protection mechanism so that if you were being chased by predators, your brain encoded that message very powerfully to keep you protected, and you were way more able to notice the saber-toothed tiger charging at you than you are the pretty flower that’s standing next to you as you’re walking down that path.

And it was built as a protection mechanism but, unfortunately, as we’ve evolved, the brain continues to constantly search for threats, so it overestimates threats, it underestimates opportunities, it magnifies the negative, it’s like Velcro, and it diminishes the positive, it’s like Teflon. And so, we can change the way our brain is wired through, Rick Hanson calls it, experiential-dependent neuroplasticity. And it’s basically a fancy term for saying every time you have a positive experience or an experience that you want to encode as deeply as a negative message, you have to ruminate on it just like you would the negative one.

We replay the negative stuff over and over and over in our mind, but if somebody gives us a compliment, we’re like, “Oh, thanks. It’s nothing,” rather than sitting in that and truly like feeling the gratitude in that. Or, you know, when you have, I call them delicious moments. So, a delicious moment, and we all read these fairy tales growing up, or read them to our kids, and they all end with, “And they lived happily ever after,” and then you get a divorce, or you lose a job, or you have a sick child, or something happens and you feel like, “Well, great. I have completely failed at this whole thing called adulting” without realizing that there’s no constant state of happy. It happens in micro moments. It happens in blips.

And most of us are so busy focused on finding that constant state of it that we miss those. I call them delicious moments. It’s the first sip of coffee in the morning. It’s a really great hug. It’s a delicious meal. It’s a belly laugh where you can’t stop. It’s a great podcast interview. It’s just a moment that you want to savor. And I write them down and I either take a picture or put it on a cocktail napkin, or write it on a sticky note. I put those all over my office on these huge corkboards. Because every time you find something that makes you feel that moment, you get what’s called the dopamine squirt. And I know it sounds dirty.

But every time you have that moment, like, for example, yesterday I spoke in Fort Worth, and I was speaking for about 3,000 teachers and educators. And at the end of the speech, I got an amazing standing ovation, and that was just such a delicious moment for me. I felt like I really made an impact and I felt like I really belonged. I was right where I was supposed to be. So, I took out my phone, took a quick picture of the audience, printed it, it goes on my board.

And sitting in that, and going, “All right. How did that feel?” Well, I felt pride and I felt like I was legitimately making a difference and contributing. And I felt like I was paying back all of the teachers who’ve helped us along the way. “And where did I feel that?” Well, I felt it in my stomach and I got goosebumps. And I felt it by the hair on the back of my neck.

And simply sitting in that for 20 seconds is enough to embed that into the neural network as powerfully as the negative events that happen and the negative self-doubt and self-talk. But we have to be deliberate about offsetting so much of the negative with bringing in a more focused approach at searching for the positive, and then you start training your brain to find the positive in different situations. So, the more you do it, the more you find it.

The more time you spend feeling grateful and sitting in that and why and, “How can I communicate that and how can I make somebody stay better because of it?” Those are all things that if you sit in them for even 20, 30 seconds, you start to re-circuit your brain. And they say, “What fires together, wires together.” The more time you spend in these activities that are going to build resilience, the more likely you are to start your brain down an entirely different path than was intended or where it would go on its own.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that really is fascinating when you talk about the negativity bias and how we’ll just naturally ruminate on the bad stuff, and then not so much naturally ruminate on the good stuff. And so, to really take that time. And I think the turn of a phrase delicious moment is great because, you know, delicious it’s visceral and we know what that feels like with regard to, “This bite of prime rib on this camping trip was exceptional and it’s a wow!”

Anne Grady
Pete, I want to camp with you because when I go camping, we are not eating prime rib.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, they had this like acorn, like smoker, delicious. I was very impressive what these guys were doing, I was like, “I can wrap the potatoes and boil, guys, as my contribution.”

Anne Grady
I can add salt.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, it was, yes, so that moment is there. And then I think it’s true in terms of, I don’t know, you’ve made a sale, you get the email saying, “Yes, Pete, here’s the order.” And it’s like, “Great!” And then you were like firing off the email reply with like, “Okay. Well, I’ll get back to you on this date with these things,” as opposed to, “No, no, no, the right answer is to just appreciate and relish that for 20 to 30 seconds is all it takes, not say, ‘I’m off for the rest of the day.’”

And so, that really makes a lot of sense to me. And I like how you’re very proactive in terms of, “I’m going to think about those prompts. Like, where did I feel it? How did I feel it? How am I going to capture it? Is it to sort of you write it down or you take a photo?” And so, that’s good in there.

And so, well, now I’m thinking about in a work scenario, I think like a little thing can happen and then it just gets you ruminating, going over it repeatedly. Let’s just say, okay, hey, you got busy and you weren’t quite doing something someone else in another department had asked you for, maybe once or twice, it wasn’t one of your priorities.

Then that someone has the audacity to email you again and CC your boss. And then you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this jerk. Well, I’m going to get to it soon enough, you know. You really could’ve called me if it was that urgent and I would’ve handled it. And now my boss thinks I’m some sort of a yogle who doesn’t ever look at his emails, or whatever.” So, your brain can just kind of spin and in a small thing. So, how do you recommend when you catch yourself in the non-delicious moment? How do you get out of there and start the rewiring?

Anne Grady
So, your brain doesn’t know the difference between a saber-toothed tiger or a snarky email. Your brain interprets perceived threats and real threats exactly the same way. And what basically happens is in your limbic system, in your reptilian brain, your amygdala basically creates cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, norepinephrine, all of these neurochemicals that are draining 20% of the blood from your brain and your heart, and placing them into your limbs so that you can fight, freeze, or run away. And even though this is a very primitive neurological response, it has not changed.

And so, when you are, one, is to know what triggers you and to be aware physiologically, psychologically what has triggered you. The next step of this is, because when that happens, you’ve been emotionally hijacked. You flip your lid, your ability to think logically flies out the window, and our emotional brain, that limbic system works 80,000 times faster than the prefrontal cortex, than the logical system. So, one, it’s recognizing that you’ve been hijacked. Do your palms sweat? Do your shoulders tighten? Do you get nauseous? Like, what has happened that lets you know that you have been triggered?

Like, for some people, it’s visceral, “I feel like I was punched in the gut.” For other people, “It’s like my neck just tightens and my hands sweat.” Whatever it is for you, it’s recognizing it’s happening is the first step.

The second is letting yourself feel whatever emotion is generated as a result. Most of us don’t like to be in uncomfortable emotional states. And so, we try to just either not feel anything or we try to fake it and flip it, and that doesn’t work. Your emotions are a neurobiological process. You cannot control them. It’s like you put your hand on a hot stove, you’ll bring your hand back very quickly without having time to think, “Ooh, that’s hot. Maybe I shouldn’t touch it.” Your brain does the exact same thing.

And so, where you do have control of this emotional management process is the thought that is generated as a result of that emotion. So, if you imagine step one is the trigger, “Bob sent me a second email, copied my boss, really pissed me off.” That emotion is anger and hurt and a little bit of fear and embarrassment. You can’t change that. The thought process is, “Bob’s a jerk. He tried to intentionally embarrass me,” which leads you to a response, most likely defensive, closed off, agitated, which ultimately has a negative outcome.

You don’t have control over the trigger, you don’t have control over the emotion, but you do have control over the way you interpret that situation. So, rather than being like, “Bob’s a jerk,” it’s, “Gosh, I wonder if Bob has got something going on personally and he didn’t mean to do this. He just copied my boss because he’s under the gun on a lot of different competing priorities. Or maybe this is the third time I’ve missed the deadline, and Bob is just getting short with me, and he’s kind of tired of it.” It’s how do I interpret that differently so it shifts my behavior?

And this is not easy at all especially in an organizational setting when someone throws you under the bus, or when you’ve missed a deadline, or you didn’t meet a deliverable. Like, whatever it is, it’s really paying attention to how your brain hijacks you and then doing some things to get un-hijacked. For example, three deep breaths from your abdomen reset your entire nervous system and gets your prefrontal cortex back online. So, when you are frustrated or angry, or you read the email, Arianna Huffington calls it email apnea when you read an email and stop breathing, which I think we’ve all done. Three really deep breaths from your abdomen will get you back online.

Counting backward from 10 or 20 will get you back online because you’re having to go to the prefrontal cortex to access higher-order thinking. Talking to yourself in third person, strangely enough, has been found to put you back online. So, like, “Hey, Anne, you got this. You’ll figure it out,” unless your name is not Anne and then you should replace your name. But there are some things that you can do to get un-hijacked. You just have to know it’s happening first.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, yes. And so then, I’m with you. So, you’re there, you have the trigger, you had emotional response, and then I like that notion of sort of feeling it and identifying it in terms of, “All right. It’s made me angry. It made me feel like I don’t have my act together when I absolutely have my act together.” And so, there we are in terms of the breaths or the counting backwards and reclaiming the control there in the prefrontal cortex.

Anne Grady
But more often than not, here’s what happens. More often than not it’s, “Uh-oh, they think I don’t have my stuff together. Now I’m insecure. Do I not have my stuff together? How do people think of me? How am I perceived by others? Does my boss now think that I’m not staying on top of things? Am I going to lose my job? What’s going to happen? Am I going to be embarrassed?”

We start down this path of these negative loops, and it’s very normal. But if you don’t catch yourself and stop it, and re-route your attention, which is why mindfulness is so incredibly powerful for your brain, then you say stuck in that habit loop, and it becomes a cognitive shortcut, and you just start thinking that way.

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s talk about mindfulness in terms of, specifically, the practices that make the difference, and then what difference does it make.

Anne Grady
Sure. I used to think mindfulness was the dumbest thing in the world. Exercise and mindfulness, for me, really, the dumbest, like, “I’m not doing either of these things. I don’t care how helpful they are.” But the research doesn’t lie. You find enough research supporting it.

Mindfulness, we spend 47% of our time thinking about something other than what we’re doing right now. Like, if your listeners are driving, they’ve thought about different signs they’ve seen. If your listeners are sitting at their desk, they’re probably checking an email or two, or looking at their phone, or checking their Facebook feed at the same time.

We have this very difficult time controlling our attention. And mindfulness is simply brain training to help you be in control of what you pay attention to. So, anytime that you are feeling overwhelmed, it’s recognizing that and sitting in that, going, “Okay, what is this I’m feeling? Let myself feel it,” and then move on. It could be meditating. And this, I felt like I was playing whackable with my thoughts. Everybody told me how Zen-like this was supposed to be and it wasn’t for me.

And so, I really start digging in and realized it’s not supposed to be. Even Buddhist monks, they call it your monkey brain. Your monkey brain is going in all kinds of different directions. And every time you catch your monkey running around, and you bring it back and focus on your breath, you’re training your brain to focus on where you want it to be focused not where it actually goes.

Like, I meditate to sleep every single night. And what this does is it expands the grey matter in your brain, so does exercise, yoga does it, sleep does it. And the grey matter of your brain is the part of your brain that’s responsible for emotional regulation and attention management, and it’s the part of your brain damaged by stress.

So, mindfulness is it’s not touchy fluffy feely. It can be. You can find all kinds of, like, oh, say Om and drink tea and sit here in full lotus. But, for me, it’s simply paying attention to where you are when you’re there. If you’re sitting around the couch at night with your family, are you all watching TV and on your phones? If you’re eating dinner, are you paying attention to how the food tastes and feels? Because if you do that, you’re sitting in the moment.

When you’re sitting in traffic, instead of being angry, taking a few deep breaths, and, “All right. This is good. I have time to process my day. I can get through that so that when I get home, I can choose the mood I want to be in.” It can happen anywhere, anytime. It’s just a matter of bringing yourself back to right now. And it is not peaceful, and it is not priming. It is not this belief that we have of the perfect yogi. It’s really just being deliberate about where you want to bring your attention.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, you mentioned some ways to practice that in everyday life. And if you are hunkering down for meditation, how do you approach that?

Anne Grady
Well, one, the magical number is nine minutes. If you can meditate consistently for nine minutes a day, you will change your brain. And so, I had no idea how to do it, so I downloaded an app. There’s Calm, Buddhify, Happify, Headspace, there’s a bunch of different apps.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, don’t forget Simple Habits, sponsor.

Anne Grady
Simple Habits.

Pete Mockaitis
Hey, thanks, guys.

Anne Grady
Thanks, guys, yeah. Oh, I love them. I think I’ve done an interview for them as well. They’re great. So, it’s really whether it’s using an app, or whether it’s going on YouTube and getting a guided meditation, I suggest learning how first being guided by that. And sometimes your brain is so un-still, it’s so busy, that it’s really helpful to have a voice outside of you guide that. So, there’s power in doing it together if there’s a meditation place that you can go to. Personally, I prefer to be alone. It’s just really not rocket science. It is so hard but so easy. And it is really just focusing on your breath. Period.

You start by taking a few really deep breaths and just kind of get centered. Many programs will tell you to do a body stand. You can either feel like you start at the tip of your head, and then you feel relaxation down your forehead and your eyes, and you relax your nose and your mouth. And the way I view it as this warm blue light that’s surrounding me and I just watch it go through my head and neck and shoulders and sternum and stomach and all the way down to my toes. And that’s one way to stay present because you’re focused on your body.

And then you sit in silence and just focus on your breath. And your mind is going to go everywhere, “What are we going to have for dinner? Why does my leg itch? I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning? Crap, I didn’t send the email to so and so.” That’s normal. That’s what it’s supposed to do but you train yourself to go back to your breath, which is training your brain, training your attention management skills.

Pete Mockaitis
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
No, I think the only other thing I would say is gratitude is really super, super powerful and it’s really, really easy. Right now, you can practice this by sending someone a text message, thanking them for something specific, whether it’s they helped you on a project, or they covered for you, or they helped you jump your car when the battery died.

It doesn’t matter what it is. You can take out your phone and just send somebody a text message and, literally, change your brain and theirs at the same time. It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out thing. Simply send a one message a day to somebody in your life will change the way your brain looks at the world. So, it’s simple but it requires persistence.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Anne Grady
One of my favorite quotes is by Ray Wylie Hubbard. He’s a singer-songwriter from Texas, and he has a lyric that says, “The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, well, those are good days.” And I just love that. it’s a simple reminder when our expectations don’t match reality, that’s when we’re angry, frustrated, and disappointed. And if you can control your expectations, you can control your mood.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that really resonates in terms of it seems like I most often get angry, frustrated, and irritated when I’m in a rush, like I have an expectation of time that is not being delivered upon.

Anne Grady
Me, too. Me, too.

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

Anne Grady
The one that just came to mind right now is, when you said that it’s a study that was done with monkeys. They put these monkeys in a cage. And I am not an animal research advocate but in this particular study, what they did is they put a ladder in the cage with the monkeys, they dangled bananas from the top of the cage. Every time the monkey went up the ladder to get the banana, they sprayed the monkey with water.
Ultimately, they ended up replacing all of the monkeys that were originally part of the group and no monkey would go up the ladder even though none of the original monkeys were there. And it just demonstrates how our corporate culture just feeds on itself, our habits feed on themselves. We don’t even question why we’re doing what we’re doing. We just do it.

And really breaking away from that takes courage, which is my other favorite quote. It’s from Mary Anne Radmacher, and she says, “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’” And sometimes it just takes us stopping and going, “Am I living my life on purpose or am I just reacting my way through it?”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Anne Grady
Oh, my gosh, there’s so many of those too. I think my favorite one growing up was “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I don’t know if you remember that book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

Anne Grady
But, like, Little Dan or Big Dan and Little Ann, I absolutely love that book. Now, I really am geeking out over Brene Brown as I’m sure everybody is. I love Rick Hanson’s work around resilience. He has a great book called “Hardwiring Happiness.” Let’s see, what else am I reading right now? I’m looking at my bookshelf. Oh, Rachel Hollis has a couple of really great books.

And something interesting I’m reading, “The Upside of Stress” by Kelly McGonigal. She has a great TED Talk as well. She basically aggregated all this research, and one study, in particular, found it’s not the stress that’s killing us, it’s the way we perceive it, and I found that just incredibly fascinating and powerful. So, those are just a few that I’m reading now. And then I’ve always got a James Patterson murder-mystery novel because everybody has got to have some brain candy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And how about a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Anne Grady
I’m sorry, say again.

Pete Mockaitis
A favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job.

Anne Grady
So, the biggest tool that I use is planning my day. I take time before I ever turn on my computer to think through what my day is going to look like. Or if I do have to turn on my computer to look at the calendar, I resist the urge to go check email and start working out of my inbox. And then I recap my day at the end, “What did I accomplish? What can I feel proud of? What did I not get done? When do I have time to do that?” So, for me, that’s important.

The other is a concept by Shawn Achor and I also love his work “The Happiness Advantage.” He’s got a new book out as well. It’s basically creating a mental moat around your day. The first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes of your day are when you have the least cognitive energy, so your brain is most likely to stay in whatever state you put it first thing in the morning. And most of us turn on the news and look at social media and check our email within the first 30 minutes of being awake. And we basically just relinquish control of our entire day.

So, one of the biggest tools that I use is I sit and have my morning coffee. If I’m at home, I snuggle with my pups. If I’m on the road, I wake up a couple of minutes early to sit in the hotel room and really just be, without reading anything, without looking at the world around us, and I start being deliberate about what I let enter into my brain. The other thing is surround yourself with the right people. If you’re around constantly negative people, either you’re the common denominator or you have to find a way to get around different people.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and gets quoted back to you often?

Anne Grady
“You find what you look for.” If you look for all the reasons life is unfair and it’s tough and it’s an uphill battle, you will find them in spades. Like, I have a sign on my bathroom mirror that says, it’s written in Sharpie, it says, “What do you want to find today? Good. Go look for it.” Right? You find what you look for. And so, make sure you’re looking for things on purpose rather than just what your brain naturally will find.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Anne Grady
Well, there’s a couple things you can do. One, if you text the word strength to 555-888 you will get a resilient self-assessment along with a self-care sheet and a poem I wrote while sitting in a Philadelphia airport for nine hours with a couple of vodka sodas. It’s actually quite good. And you’ll also get a monthly resilience inoculation. You’ll get a tip tool or strategy regularly. You can join us on social. We have a gratitude challenge right now with our company.

The week of Thanksgiving, we will give $250 to a charity of your choice or a gift card to the place of your choice. And, basically, all you have to do is find us on social media, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, it’s all AnneGradyGroup and tell us what you’re grateful for, and we have a giant gratitude jar we’ll be drawing that from. Or you can go to AnneGradyGroup.com and Anne with an E. Check us out there. Lots of free resources and tools as well.

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

Anne Grady
Yeah, I would say spend the rest of this week, Thursday and Friday, or whenever you air this, spend the rest of that week really deliberately looking for five things every day that you would consider a delicious moment.

Well, I would say you can do this by putting five pennies in your righthand pocket, and every time you find one, you move a penny over to your left-hand pocket, and you don’t leave the office at the end of the day until you’ve transferred your pennies.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Anne, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you all the luck in the world and many delicious moments.

Anne Grady
Well, thank you. I wish you the same. And I hope you have a fantastic day. I appreciate you and your audience and I hope you guys really find lots of delicious moments.