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Readiness, Fixed · Humanity Working

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So today's quick fix is readiness.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start by defining it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh well, in a work context, we define it as the ability to consistently bring focused energy to your work.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the same as like well-being or wellness, maybe?
• 0:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Focused energy in that way?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny, it comes it that comes up quite a bit.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: We we talked about this a few episodes ago.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not exactly the same.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: So certainly it's true that that you know focusing on well-being or wellness um is um is important in a work context, right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the the more well people are uh the more likely they are to be able to bring their best selves to the workplace, which is why a lot of well-being and wellness initiatives have have happened inside inside organizations.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, as we discussed previously, there's also a challenge, there's a few challenges with it as well, because um the well what we found in our research is that both well-being and wellness has a capacity to pass certain people by as a contact, uh, as a concept.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And also in certain points in people's lives, it actually has the ability by focusing on it to I can't think of a better term, really, to kind of piss people off.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So let me explain what I what I mean by that.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um in the first case, the idea that it passes some people by, um, there are people for whom the idea of well-being, the idea of wellness, um, is something that that connects with them deeply at a kind of a visceral level, right?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and those people might be into, they they might follow certain people online who are kind of into well-being as a practice.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: They might they might perform certain activities that are commonly associated with well-being or wellness.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: So think of things like yoga, for example, or Pilates or meditation, things of that nature.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um they may believe in things like naturopathic medicine and look to um and and look to uh sort of forego uh undergo those practices, and maybe they think that traditional medicine is kind of is kind of broken and that they are looking for sort of more like a holistic approach.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Those people, and there's not the full set of people that are very interested in well-being and wellness um activities inside the workplace, but those people will naturally typically warm to well-being and wellness initiatives at uh work.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: But then there's a whole bunch, a whole other set of people who go to work every day and need to be effective in the workplace for whom that messaging does not resonate with them in uh in any way, shape, uh in any way, shape, or form.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels like something for us, it feels like something for other people.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: But those people still need to be able to bring uh their energy to the workplace.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second aspect of this as well is that we found increasingly in our research that for some people, when they enter a period of their life where they're not well, right, where they feel unwell for all kinds of different reasons.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: They could be physically unwell, they could be having some mental health issues, they could have a set of events that are happening to them in their lives.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they've had the death of a spouse, uh, the death of a spouse or a parent or they're going through a divorce or something along those lines, and they're really struggling in the workplace, then in many cases, um, messaging around well-being or wellness seems like it's not for them in that moment.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that isn't necessarily correct, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a it's almost like well-being and wellness has a bit of a branding problem.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and as a result, it's excluding a bunch of people that still need to bring the energy, that their focused energy to work.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really um that just in its own right is part uh is part of the challenge.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think there's also sort of other elements to it as well, whereby kind of well-being and wellness is sort of a is a subset of what it takes to bring focused energy to your work.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm I'm guessing there's all also going to be challenges um around well-being because it'll fluctuate, right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if you're if you're trying to always be as ready as you can be, the other side of that coin is knowing when you're not ready, which you would think would take self-reflection and wellness practice anyway.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting that you should talk about it in that in that sense, because um we found that for many of the people that we work with on readiness, um once you start to dive a little deeper, there's a whole bunch of contradictions when how in terms of how people uh how people think about this.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um probably the easiest way to think about this is that your well-being will fluctuate day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: It may improve due to you know you being really, really conscious about it, and or it may diminish because you've had an event that is is causing your well be your well-being to diminish.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so nobody is well all the time, and the fluctu and so there will be fluctuations in that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what you need to do is you need to understand, if you like, that that baseline of of well-being that you have, but always be as ready as you can be and know what and have enough to your point about self-awareness and self-reflection, understand what you can what you can bring to the table and live within that that amount of energy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that includes things, for example, like like not overdoing it when you're unwell.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it includes things like understanding that you need to dial things back again, but also understanding when you can dial things up a bit more.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It includes all of those types of practices.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's really um, yes, part of it about um undergoing the practices to make sure that your baseline energy of of uh level of energy is as as high as it can be, but also being really aware of what that energy level is and then living within that um as you go.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what's different about it in the in the world of work?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: What today you mean?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now yeah, it is different, actually.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the thing that is different is well, I suppose there's there's really kind of two things that are different, actually.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So one is that um if we think about it in those terms, right?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Bringing your focus energy to your work, um, it's harder to do where work can start at any time, work can happen at any time.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you need, and you don't even know the amount of energy that you're gonna need to bring to an uh to an activity ahead of time.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we often do this, but go back to you know, 50 years or so or something like that, and you knew that what you had to do is you had to show up, let's say, to a factory, show up, put a shift in, and then leave, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the nature of that shift, the nature of the energy that you needed to put in was the same, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: It would be the same on a Monday, on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday, on a third, and you knew how much it was.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the only, that wasn't the variable.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: The only variable was, did you have that energy?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And today, the variable is no, the amount of energy you need to put in is potentially shifting.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you need to put it in is potentially shifting, and then what you're going to be doing of the uh at different times is shifting, as well as your underlying levels of energy that are uh that are changing as well.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you talk about this in terms of energy.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is there an energy in and energy out quotient also?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: There is, yeah, yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that really is the easiest way to think about it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we use it in terms of a we we call it like a brain battery to be kind of like the equivalent of the body battery.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: But but just think about it like that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: This idea that you're there's this brain battery that is being charged up, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And your practices and activities will determine how much it's getting charged up.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's elements of it that we've, you know, that we talk about, like obviously getting good sleep and making sure that you're moving and making sure that you're getting uh social activities.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have a model that we use called the RMS model, the rest um rest movement and socialization, because those are three of the most really important categories.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But there's other things as well.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's other things that will kind of like fill your cup more, as it were.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then that is the amount you've got to play with.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then, as we say, like depending on what you do, depends on how much that is that is getting diminished.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a great mental model for people to think of, like a battery being charged up and a battery being uh being deplinished.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh deplinished?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's not right.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that's depleted?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Depleted.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've got I've gone replenished and depleted, and I've turned them into one word, haven't I?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but anyway, depleted.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's the word.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, new words every every episode.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can deplet, yeah.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: That that feels like it should be a word, shouldn't it?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the real yin-yang of of energy coming in and out.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so is do you think mindset's part of that?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, we've actually given a lot of thought to that.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um we don't on the edges, kinda, but we but but but not really.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and this is actually a mistake that a lot of people make, which is like you have a you have a lack of energy that you're bringing to work.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea is that if you can just use your grit to use that that that term, or just use that ability to kind of like knuckle down, you'll be able to push through.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that can work in the short term, but of course, you pay a medium-term penalty for it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so, mindset in this scenario, mindset is not a doesn't kind of like change the laws of I'm gonna use the word term physics loosely here, but it changed, but it's not gonna change the laws of physics here, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you are repeatedly um like consuming more of this brain battery than you're pouring into it, you can only fake that for so long.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so by thinking about it just in terms of well, if I just think about my work differently, I'll be better, is not gonna, it's not gonna work in the medium term.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what uh certain startup founders might say or or certain cultures might try to make you think.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So give me one simple thing I can do that'll improve my readiness each day.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are there are a bunch, but um, let's think about something that is is really uh like universal and we know that works for pretty much every uh for everybody.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something I I do myself every day.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um made a big it's made a big difference to me.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one is just like getting outside um as close to every morning as you possibly can.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so super simple.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Try to find, even if it's you know, 10 minutes or 15 minutes, try to get some time outside relatively soon after you wake up.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ideally, the great thing is like a brisk morning walk.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but even if it's not that, if you're just sitting outside with your cup of coffee or your cup of tea or uh and and reading, that's fine too.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But critically, as you're out uh as you're doing that outside morning time, it's without devices.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So like a device-free zone.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I'm either walking or I've got a you know a physical newspaper and I'm reading it, uh I'm reading a physical newspaper, but I'm away from it uh away from a screen.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It makes a big difference, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've had thousands of people who've gone through our uh our programming at this point.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them pick up on that as a uh as a great practice to kind of get the energy level up a little bit.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do that for for two or three weeks, and you'll start to see that that brain battery just have a little bit more energy in it each morning and even helping you sleep better at the end of the day.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did I do a very mini version of that every morning when I let the dogs out.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I make a point to go out barefoot into the grass and just stand there and listen to the birds for a couple minutes and just take in the morning.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: No devices, no nothing, just uh feet in the grass and you know it's always cold and dewy and it's kind of wakes you up, connects you to the earth or whatever.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think they call it grounding.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, so it I don't know.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it works.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me feel better every morning, though.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's wonderful.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And because you do it every morning, um, the only downside is nobody is ever asking who let the dogs out.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Readiness done.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um we'll do another one of these next Tuesdays.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So send your ideas in.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Paul.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks, Matt.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matnium.
• 14:36
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• 14:40
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• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.