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Marie-Hélène Pelletier: Rethinking Burnout- The Bold Path to Resilience · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Marie-Hélène Pelletier.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to introduce her, and she's better known to her colleagues as MH.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Marie-hélène brings a signature mix of business and psychology to the table.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Holding both a PhD and an MBA, she translates psychology research into strategies.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Professionals, business leaders and their teams need to thrive.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Mh shares what psychologists know but other professionals and business leaders may not know about resilience, specifically, the intersection of successful work, performance and strong workplace mental health.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: She has over 20 years of experience as a practicing psychologist and as a senior leader in the corporate insurance governance and healthcare sectors.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: In 2024, she published her award-winning book the Resilience Plan A Strategic Approach to Optimizing your Work Performance and Mental Health.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Please join me in welcoming MH.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Hi Leigh, thank you for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about your book and everything resilience, but we're first going to start off with being bold, so would love to know what your definition of bold is.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Is I'm going to go?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: for bringing your most unique essence to what you choose to do.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I think if you do that, you're going to be bold.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: You will be doing it your own way, the Lee way for you, the MH way for me and for each person, and that, I think, is what puts us on the bold path.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so truly being yourself.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, knowing, yeah Knowing.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Knowing who you are, I mean right, yeah, knowing, deeply, knowing really.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Of course we have a sense of who we are, hopefully, yeah, but there are levels of how much we can be connected with who we are and how much we're willing to bring that to our choices, to what we do, to how we make.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I know that in life it somehow gets jumbled up along the way, you know you feel like you can't be your true self or your whole self, and it might be a relationship or a job, or it might just be.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: You don't feel like you're comfortable or you feel like shy or introverted.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Whatever it may be.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: There's lots of labels we put on it, right?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So I think being yourself.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: But you said something very, very important knowing who you are, which I think sometimes takes a little bit of time, and sometimes people get it early, sometimes people get later, or sometimes it might change over time, as it should as we evolve.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So I love that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You know you talked about your most unique essence.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So, based on your definition, what's a memorable, bold moment for you?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Well, here's one that I think is sometimes people like that story.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I like it too.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So what happened early in my career?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I'm originally from the East Coast, quebec, and I moved to British Columbia, so the West Coast, the other end, and at that time I was one year out of my registration as a psychologist in Quebec.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: At that time you became registered with a master's degree in British Columbia, like the rest of Canada, like the US.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: It was a doctoral level registration.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So I got here.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I did not have a doctoral degree.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Therefore I lost my title, I lost my ability to practice, the whole thing.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So I looked for a job in all kinds of areas pretty broad, because I needed to pay my bills.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: But one company I had spoken to, I had worked for them in Quebec.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: That's an employee and family assistance program, and so I went to meet them and they were very nice, thankful that I had worked for their teams in Quebec.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: But they said here you're not registered, so we can't work with you, goodbye.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I had met the president also, who also thanked me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Very nice and everything, but again goodbye.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And they had shared some of the things they were interested in.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So I went back to my dorm because I was living in the dorm at the UBC.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: At the university I decided to do a full literature search with recommendations on one of the things they had mentioned, wrote a report, went back to their office the week after, asked reception to see the president.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: He walks to the front a bit fast, a bit like what is she doing here?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Like why are you here again?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Right, we were clear and I said I don't need to talk to you.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Here's the envelope.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I gave him the report and I left just like that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I was out within a minute and two weeks later they had created a new role, full time, for me to do this kind of work and more.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So that would be that story.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Well, that's pretty bold.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: How old were you when you did that?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, early 20s, I don't know, 22.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so where do you think your boldness came from?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Do you think you've been bold all your life, or do you think it's been something that's been building?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Probably building, because there were definitely moments where, no, it didn't feel like there was any room, not that it was not there, but I had thought that sometimes it's just your own beliefs that get in that way, kind of thing.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: But I think it built through experiences where I was encouraged, yes, to try different things, and I did take that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And I think the more you do these things, of course, the more it teaches you that, oh look, if you are bold or if you are doing the thing that you really feel like doing, it pays off.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: It turns out fantastic.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Or it's fun and it's not always successful, but you have to try it to off, it turns out fantastic.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Or it's fun and it's not always successful, but you have to try it to see.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: And that's what informed that.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it sounds like the belief in yourself also built over time, as it does with lots of people, including myself, and I think you gain that courage and that confidence and that I'm going to try it anyway.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: You know, what's the worst thing that could happen, like they read the report and they don't do anything, but what's the best thing that could happen?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: That's what happened, right, it went right, and I think a lot of the times we always we think about what could go wrong or the plan B, the worst case scenario, type of stuff.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So I love that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: That's your bold moment.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: What do you think the connection between our beliefs and resilience is?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And we're going to jump into your book connection between our beliefs and resiliences and we're going to jump into your book.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But you know, I do think there is for me, like in the bold framework, it's the B of the framework is believe, and it really is looking at our beliefs as really what we pivot off of and springboard off of into our actions.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And when you think about resilience and beliefs, what is their connection or overlap?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: There are probably many, but it connects very much with the very first step in increasing our overall resilience is thinking or believing that we can, and in fact should, invest in it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we go in that discussion on resilience in it.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we go in that discussion on resilience believing that it is a personality trait, that we are already like this.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: This is who we are, either because people have told us or we've seen ourselves be resilient in many ways.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So we build this belief that it's who we are and therefore, if it's a personality trait, I don't need to do anything about it.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I will always be like this, right, but it isn't.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It is not a personality trait, it is a state, so we can nourish it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: That means it's going to be at times a bit higher, times a bit lower in life, but if we consciously, deliberately invest in it, then, yes, we can increase that baseline, so to speak.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: So the belief that it's just who we are is a misconception, really that could unfortunately make us not take action.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And a more healthier, more research-based, realistic belief is that it's a state.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: It is influenced in part by some personality traits.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: That's true, we know this from research.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: But but even then it can still be influenced and, I would argue, if we're going to be bringing our best to our personal and professional lives, whether we are individual contributors, leaders, entrepreneurs we're going to have a lot of demands and we will be excited about many of them.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Some of them will be very positive and we want to have the resilience to go through.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Just like boldness can have, like you can have emotional boldness, you could have physical boldness, you could have mental boldness With resilience, is it in the same realm of like it has layers?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Because when I think of resilience as an entrepreneur, like it is a lot of mental and possibly emotional resilience, like the ups and downs, the goods, the bads there.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: For me, like my experience as an entrepreneur, the highs are really high, the lows are low, but the lows are shorter than I think.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You know some of my other experiences, like in the corporate world.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So I just wondered, when we slice resilience, does it have these different layers for us in our worlds?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it is, and I really love how you're describing this.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: You're describing all aspects of human experience our beliefs, our thoughts, our behaviors, our feelings and emotions.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: So all of this is involved, yes, is involved, yes, and very interesting what you're saying also about how, in your experience in your own business, um, you're gonna have more highs, more positives.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: The lowers will be shorter and then it's a in the corporate world and that connects very nicely with that sense of you probably have more control now and when we do have more control, that's increasing that even in the lower moments, we still have a sense of self-efficacy that believes that we can influence this much more than in a large corporate structure, where we can have some influence, maybe sometimes, but definitely not as much as when it's your own shop.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes resilience gets a bad rap, just like the word bold gets a bad rap.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I've heard or seen posts about we need to stop staying, we need to be resilient, and I think it's maybe because people don't understand the definition of it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: They think it's doing the same thing over and over, and falling down and getting back up and doing the same thing over and over, which I don't think that's the definition.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: So can you define resilience for us?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the definition.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: So can you define resilience?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: for us, yes, and I love that you brought that up as well, because often when we go into having a word or concept be, you know, getting a bad rap, for example, it's often because we're focusing on only one aspect of it and we're saying, well, if it's only that, that's not good, yeah, and that would be true.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So first, definition of resilience, and then we'll come back to this.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: There are many definitions.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: One that is most often used in the academic literature and I'm using as well in my work, is our ability to go through adversity and come out even Okay.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: So an adversity could be acute.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: A specific moment that is more challenging Could also be chronic, like we're dealing with harder economic times, we're still dealing with post-pandemic, we're dealing with incoming AI even more in our professional and personal lives.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: These are more.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: They may have acute moments, but they are also, like, always there, and often we've got a combination the acute and the chronic at the same time.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: But it's important to see it, because sometimes those chronic things that everyone's dealing with, we almost disregard them and say, well, everyone's dealing with them, so it doesn't count.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: But yes, it does.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It's still a demand and we want to recognize this Now in terms of the overall bad rap for resilience, which I think is now coming back to a more middle place.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: But I think we have a potentially negative reaction if we are thinking a few things.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Number one if we're thinking, like you said, that it's only about persistence, grit, putting your head down and keeping going, no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: If we're going to go through adversity, come out even stronger.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: It could mean at times that we will stop doing something we had planned to do.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: We will let it go.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: It's just not the right thing right now.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: As it turns out right, sometimes that's the decision.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So, no, it is not about just putting your head down at any cost.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: What I would argue, and what I'm talking about in my book, is being strategic and evolving that strategy.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So sometimes it will change.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Number two, as we're thinking about our own resilience, our individual resilience, which is most of the focus of this book, and there is still a chapter about team resilience in the book, but our resilience is within a system.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So our individual resilience is influenced in part by, yes, us as individuals, people around us, our team, people that are in our lives.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: It's influenced by the larger context.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: If we are in a large organization that's influenced by that culture as well.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: It's influenced by the country we're in this moment in time.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: It's a huge system.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So what this means is, if we're looking to build our resilience, say individually here which I would argue we have some control over this, we have some power here and we want to use it, even when the context around us is challenging.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: So we want to use that influence and as we use it, we want to keep an eye on what the context around us is.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: The idea is not that, oh, if you do all the things, you'll be able to sustain any environment, even an extremely toxic one.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: What it means is you're going to build your resilience, which will give you as much strength and clarity to think about.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Is this right for me?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Can I influence it enough?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the indicators.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: In a way, it gives you the dashboard of like, wow, this isn't something I need to be resilient through.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: This is something I can stop doing or find a different path or find an alternative to what this is.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So, when you said that, I connected to that from a burnout perspective, which is something I experienced in 2020.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: What does resilience have to do with burnout and what does burnout have to do with resilience?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Because I think I didn't pay attention to the dashboard.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I felt I needed to work harder and do more of the same thing, which we know what the definition of that is to prove or to be tougher or to not fail.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Like I had that mental thing going on, which I know it's personal.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And resilience is personal because you talk about having a custom resilience plan Like it's yours.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: It's you know your plan is different than my plan, but let's just start with burnout.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think the connectors are between those two?
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Was I doing resilience wrong?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: You were doing resilience, the way so many women leaders, entrepreneurs, massively high performing individual contributors, remarkable people not just women, but definitely including women and you were, yes, putting your head down, keeping going, trying to do all the things to just carry on.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: The other piece that sometimes goes into that story we tell ourselves in that moment is I've invested all of these years to get to where I am right now the organization, it's not my problem, they need to fix this or whatever.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to stick it out, I'm staying here, kind of thing.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And so there is this notion that makes us stay and that belief that we can influence this to the degree where we could actually sustain this potentially unhealthy context for us in that moment.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So many people do this, and so now, okay, let's keep that here for a moment.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The definition of burnout from the World Health Organization includes three main aspects.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: One is we're exhausted.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Second is we're cynical, so we can't change any of this anymore.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And then eventually, it impacts our work performance, which is often when we actually have to be off work for a period of time because we're not healthy enough to be at work.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: If we forced ourselves to stay, we would put our brand really at risk, and or our health.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Mine was health Like, yeah, I came out of a meeting and my eye had burst, so like it was like staring me in the face, like from the stress blood pressure of that meeting and it was like I handled it fine but obviously my body was selling me a different thing and I was just like I can't, I can't do this anymore.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: That's kind of.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And then it was extreme, which I it doesn't need to be like.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's my story.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I want people to realize is like I ignored signs along the way.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I put pressure on myself Right and so like I I had all of those signs but I ignored them and I don't know if that's typical to burnout.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: is you just ignore it?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, we do.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: We ignore.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: We didn't learn to listen to them.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: We also I mean there's an adaptive aspect If, as you've built your career, you stopped every time something was difficult, challenging that you'd never gotten to where you are.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So there were moments where doing this worked, yeah, but here's the thing the context was different.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: That was earlier in our lives, earlier in our career.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: We were at a different stage in adult development, where we were also facing different demands on both the personal and the professional side.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So it's as if we're using our plan of action here based on old data, right, and the context is different, so it doesn't work anymore.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: The other aspect of burnout is that a very important way to think about this is that it's not just in the individual, not just in the workplace, it's in the relationship between the two, and that's an important aspect, because this means that, yes, as individuals we have influence in all this, but it's limited.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: There is a point at which, if this environment stays this way, it may still even if here you've done 100% of the things, it may still not be the right fit.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Percent of the things it may still not be the right fit.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And we need to shift our beliefs, our thinking around this that there will be times where we need to make different decisions, be bold in some aspects and calling this shot ourselves.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: It may work for other people.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work for me, I need to go.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly yeah, I think I just had to choose me is what I say.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Like, and that was bold moment, because it felt selfish in a way even though my family didn't think that that was my own internal talk Because I just felt like I had failed and like I was being selfish.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: But no one else felt like that and I'm pretty hard on myself so, as you can probably hear.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: So like it just was something that I'm getting better at, but it was.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It was like my first.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: What I feel like.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: If someone asked me what are my bold decisions, that would definitely be it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: One of the things that you talk about is the strategic resilience double helix.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So in the book, and I want to talk through that because it has pieces and parts that I think lay the foundation for understanding how to create and how to understand your own custom resilience plan yes, Well, and I really like that image, so I'm glad we're talking about it.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I came across.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: You know, when you write a book, you look for different ways to communicate your ideas and the whole thing, and I was looking at visuals and at some point I was looking at that double helix.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So what we're looking at when we look at, say, a DNA, right, there's the two sides that follow each other like two sides of a ladder.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And then you've got rungs, four rungs in the middle.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And then I started exploring this.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, look at this.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: It's as if each side of that ladder one is our professional life, the other one is our personal life they really are together.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Emotions don't have lanes.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, we keep some level of boundary, of course, between personal and professional, but in terms of the demands we're facing, it's all within us.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so two sides.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: And then the rungs represents the various aspects that, if we focus on these, we're going to be focused on what we need and what makes sense given our context about our resilience, so our values, our sources of supply of energy, our sources of demands, our overall context, and with this we can build a plan.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: But the funny thing too is that that helix is also something that, in nature, plants and trees will form themselves into this to be more resilient for the elements.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So I thought, okay, that really works nicely.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: So that's how it made its way in the book.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the rungs are your supply, your demands, your values and your context.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: So what does our supply mean?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, both supply and demand very important, because one of the things that often I worked with individuals in my executive coaching practice people would say things like MH, I don't know what my problem is.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I've done much harder things before and now I'm trying to deal with this situation and somehow can't get myself to think and figure it out and move through kind of thing, and we would talk about various aspects.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I would ask them a question and one of the things that so many people most people, seriously were doing is they were number one, assuming that they're just resilient as a person, which is already a thing, but then also underestimating how much supply of energy they have in their life.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: They have in their life.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: So I would ask them okay, so, how was your sleep?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's good.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know, seven to eight hours.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: They would give me the right answer.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Then I'd say okay, so last night, what time did you go to bed?
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Or 11, what time do you wake up?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Five, okay, wait, this is six hours.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: No, you're not getting seven to eight hours.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Stop giving yourself the right answer and look at the reality of what life looks like.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And then we would cover other areas.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, how about exercise?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, try to make it to the gym at least three times a week.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, past two weeks, how does that look like?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And then they would say things like well, actually in the past month it's been so busy and all that I, you know, haven't gone to the gym.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, so it doesn't go on the list either?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it's getting realistic about what parts of your life actually bring you energy.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And often people realize it's not been prioritized by them and therefore it's not there.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: What they're doing is on the other side.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: They're on the demand side.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you talk about that with your coaching clients and in your speaking engagements you do.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: On resilience, what's the first step?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Once you realize my priorities, I'm not using my energy for them.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: My supply and my demand for my job is far exceeding what I have and I've given up my priorities.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Basically, whether it's your health or your movement or your relationships, whatever it may be, those are the things that I think suffer probably quicker when you're oversupplying your professional world and sometimes it feels like you don't have a choice right.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: What's a step for us to take if we want to start to get it righted and back in the right level of supply and demand?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I know and it probably is something you want to work even the other elements that we were talking about together.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: So you notice that your supply is fairly low and you're mostly in the other elements that we were talking about together.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: So you notice that your supply is fairly low and you're mostly in the demand column.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: The first thing, even before we look at changing anything, is, I would say outline in your demands column all the demands you're facing.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Start with the work demands, add the personal demands.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Make sure you're listing also the positive demands, because sometimes high performing individuals will identify, skip over those Right.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: They'll identify two or three top challenging demands they don't like at work and they think this is it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: You know, oh, I've got this conflict with this person.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: We're trying to get this thing to market and it's not going the way we want and that's sort of it.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: And then we'll start talking about okay, but what else is going on at work?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, we've got this person needing to take time off to take care of their parents.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So we need to actually backfill.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I will be backfilling, actually, this person, at least in part.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Or we just got this new massive client that we've been working on for two years.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: It's doubling my business.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: So what do we do with this?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Two years it's doubling my business, so what do we do with this?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It's positive, you want it, but it's a demand.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: And then they'll forget to list the demands they have on the personal side.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: They're best friends, leaving an important relationship.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You're their main support.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a demand.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: You want to be there, you will be there, and it's a demand.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And maybe you've committed to two new boards that you're going to join, and one of them just started and it's a very challenging board of director.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And then there's another thing.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: So some of these things you've wanted, they're positive choices right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I think people I know when I talk about being bold, I talk about it's a choice.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And I think also where you're using your energy, which you're describing really well, it's a choice.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was wonderful things in there, but some of those things take a lot of time or they're unexpected in their time that you didn't have on your you know year long calendar, like a relationship or an illness or taking care of someone or someone moving, or I just think of different things that could happen and you have to pivot and make sure that you have your energy going in the right place and space.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: So I think sometimes people don't realize some of these are choices, choices we have to make or choices that we choose to make right and we can have agility within these choices.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You know, at the time when you said, oh yeah, that's great, I can fit that in, or I have space for this, that's wonderful.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Then sometimes what happens?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Often it looks like you, suddenly, all at the same time personal and professional will have more unexpected, larger demands all at the same time, right.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Then we take them on and try to carry on, and that's when, having a moment to revisit what's on my plate right now and maybe there are ways to tweak this.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So, for example, that friend that is going through a relationship transition, you're her main support.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: That's wonderful, you want to be there.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe part of your support is making sure we get other people around her as well, not just you, right?
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: So, number one, it's healthier for this person.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: She has even more.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Number two see, now it's still something you want to do, it's close to you, it's wonderful.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: And you've now made some choices and you've created some boundaries, just healthy, almost like a boundary generosity.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: You're still giving and you're putting some boundaries around it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And so you see how, before we could get to what's the next action, we need to really look at both sides, because sometimes the next action is not to try to get in more supply.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: It's to tweak down the demands, Right, okay.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: And often we get to this point thinking all I need is to increase the supply.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't do that Like I'm just thinking it was like no, that's usually not the logical thing for me.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: It's like I need to do more of something versus tweak back the demand or supply from a different person or a different route, like you said for the friend, have another friend help out or have someone else be able to tag, team the conversations and support, instead of like it has to all be me Right and is that normal, or is that?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Do I need like professional help for thinking that I have to solve it?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Because one of my false, negative beliefs about myself is that I have this mantle of responsibility, of like I'm responsible for everything, you know, making sure things don't go wrong, making sure things go right, making sure nothing falls down, making sure you feel good.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: You feel good.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I've, you know, filled your cup, you know, and sometimes I end up with a very, very empty cup and so, like I've worked on that and continue to do that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But sometimes the automatic thought is I need to give more versus I need to figure out how to tweak the demand.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Any hints on that for us in our worlds that we live in today?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I know, well said, so well described, and I can guarantee you so many of your audience members can relate to that out there, I'm guessing.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously, and that would include me.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing Sometimes our beliefs just need to evolve.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: That belief that you're responsible for things, that you need to make sure all the things are done completely and everywhere, probably served you really well at earlier points in times.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: That's, in part, what made you deliver more than anybody else, that made you achieve some levels of performance, perhaps get promotions, whatever and so we want to honor this and celebrate.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: That's wonderful, yes, great, and that's often traits of high-performing individuals.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: For exactly these reasons, wonderful.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And it often gets to a point where, if we keep this belief in a context where we have more, larger demands, it's going to get impossible.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: We are human here, and so all that needs to happen is evolution of that belief.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, I want to, in general, look at how we can make things as best as possible, fully done in all this, and I also want to be creative about how we do this so that I can stay involved in the number of things that I value, that are important for me.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: So I see it as an evolution of beliefs, of beliefs, so we're not beating ourselves up for having thought this or for still thinking this.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it was great, it was helpful the way it was.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It has been serving me very well, and now, in my new context, I just need to tweak it a bit.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: That's all.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes we lose patience with ourselves to like figure things out.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And so you know those last two rungs, which are your values and your context.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: How do those help form up, in conjunction with supply and demand, your full resilience plan?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, how do they come into?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the equation.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They're so important.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: And you know, the way I got there really to this model is I basically paired together what we know from psychology research on resilience with the tools we use in business when we do strategic thinking.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: And you see that parallel where if we're in business here and we're wanting to launch a new product, have a new big project, we don't just go ahead and do this, wanting to launch a new product, have a new big project, we don't just go ahead and do this.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: We will have the idea and then we'll look at okay, what are our values as an organization?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: What kind of forces are in the market right now?
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Who may be interested in buying this?
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: How much are they willing to pay for it, the whole thing.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: So we want to do the same here for our strategic resilience plan.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Start from our values as an, an individual, because that's what defines us.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: It actually brings us back to the beginning of today's conversation about being bold and being clear on what our values are, because then we'll be able to align our choices and our plan with what works really for us.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So that's where the values come in the context which I'm using, the equivalent of a SWOT analysis.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So so looking at our strengths, areas of challenges internally and externally.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Here to see our reality.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Because if someone wants to increase their resilience by going to the gym five times a week and their context is that there is no gym close to where they are, their schedule is 12 hour days, right now, this is not going to get on the plan.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: What may get on the plan is none of this, for right now, it may be a two-minute meditation once a week to start, because there isn't any more minutes than this.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: But you see, because we've looked at your values, we've looked at your sources of supply, we've looked at your context, we then move to a plan that is realistically doable.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Will you evolve it over time?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe build to the amount of time?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, but initially we need to start somewhere and it needs to be realistic, right?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: When you think about your personal resilience plan or your custom resilience plan, is it something you revisit and come back to, or is it something like I'm one and done and I don't need to go back?
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: to it?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Great question.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Same as in business you know, you do your strategy and you start implementing and then you check in right, you measure, you see how it's going.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: You evolve it over time because things will change over time.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Same thing here, and I've seen this I had someone who came to a book design related workshop and she happened to be in the same workshop a few months later and came to me all excited, beaming at the end because she had realized the plan she had done three months prior had been implemented successfully and she was ready for the next iteration of her plan which she had built.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: So yes, it evolves.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so are there things that people think about resilience, like, for example, in my book I have like the five myths of being bold.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Like there's a myth that being bold is being thoughtless and just you just leap without thinking.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It's very thoughtful, actually, it's very pragmatic.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: There's a myth that you're too old to be bold.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: That's untrue and any your goals and your aspirations and your dreams don't expire.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: You know, for example.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Those are just two examples.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's some myths about resilience that need to be dispelled?
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, and I would say those that are most common in people I work with, and you probably.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: So the first one is the one we've already mentioned about thinking that it's a personality trait.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: It's in you and there's nothing you need to do about it.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: That's possibly the biggest one.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Another trait it's in you and there's nothing you need to do about it.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: That's possibly the biggest one.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Another one is to think okay, maybe it is a state, but I can call that shot.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: I can decide that I will be resilient when I need it, as if it was a decision.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: You cannot just turn it on and off.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: No, or another myth is to think that it's a feeling and it's just going to be whatever it is, like there's nothing I can do about it, it will be, I'll cross the river when I get there.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: You can absolutely prepare for that river in advance.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: So they these are would be the ones like you, think it's just a feeling, or thinking it's just a decision you can make.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: It's true about so many things we do.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: We think what's different about this?
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: You need to build it, and then the personality one are the top three.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So once someone gets what it means to be resilient and creates the plan, what do you think the outcomes of the generally are like?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: What's the outcome of figuring out your resilience plan?
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Is something more aligned?
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Do you feel some people use the word balance?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Do you feel your supply and demand You're intentionally noticing it, like I'm just making these up, but I think that when I think about, like, if my plan was, you know, aligned, that's something I would say.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: But what do you think it looks like and feels like when your plan is working and in place, so that people realize maybe oh yeah, it actually is working.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Or maybe they're like, oh, that's a sign of maybe I need to go back and revisit something.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, I've heard so many of those comments.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: So people will say things like I feel like I'm in control.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: So some people will feel it that way.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Not that you can control everything, right, yeah, you put that always in air quotes.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Right, you're leading your life.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Some people will express it this way.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Others will say they feel more grounded.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So it's not like their schedule is wagging them and they just run after everything every day.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, they have a sense of I am leading this and I'm feeling grounded through it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Seriously.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Others just feel excited.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: It's as if they reconnect with the love for what they do through this, because they were able to get back into their own shoes, lead this thing in a way that makes sense.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Connect with their values, which we know from research on happiness, will actually increase that sense of happiness.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So some people will actually feel it this way.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: It's like the excitement of what got them into this whole thing that they're doing is back and they've worked for this, so it can be that way.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, excellent.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So excitement, control, feeling that you're more, you know your act, the tail isn't wagging the dog, so to speak.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: When it comes to your schedule, you have again probably going back to the word control or alignment with what you want to do and how you see your life playing out.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: So those are some signals that you're on the right path with your resilience.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So if someone was just starting out, besides getting your book which I recommend in episode notes everyone pick up this book what would your advice be to someone who's on the first steps to figuring out their resilience plan?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'll go with what most people have told me has done.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: The first step for them is to do one of the worksheets in the book.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: You don't even need to have the book to do this.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: You just create a table, one page, two columns supply on one side, demands on the other side and you list the things and you go realistic.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Don't allow yourself to just look good, this is a list just for you.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Get real, just like in your business or in the work you do.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: You'd probably never say you know what?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Show me the financial statements only if there's a crisis.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Otherwise I don't need to see the numbers.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: No, you want to see the numbers.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: You want to pick up the early trends.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: You want to really get you know, have clarity, visibility on what's going on.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Give yourself that visibility.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: For many people, that first step is what allows them to step back for a moment.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: It doesn't take long we're talking 10 minutes to have some kind of good visibility.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: You can do it in a plane, you can do it waiting at Starbucks, you know, and that sometimes will unclick.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: It just gives you that first step of maybe I need to make some shifts.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: If you're going to do a second one, I would say list your values, because between the values and this it's going to start giving you pointers to potentially what your next step is Got it Okay.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a simple start, I think, for people to take and it doesn't take hours and hours or an appointment.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: You can do it in the pickup line if you want.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: So you know, just two columns supply and demand, and then the second one would be listing your values, which I think everyone probably needs to do.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: That you know, whether it's, you know, in the middle of the year or the end of the year, just more than once a year.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: It's kind of making sure you're still aligned, your actions are aligned with your values, because sometimes things happen and we get off track.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: So I love those two simple things that we can do.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: All the information about MH, her speaking, her book and her executive coaching are below in the episode notes.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you being bold today and being on the lounge and you, leigh.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.