September 26, 2024 • 43 mins
In this episode, we are joined by Dane Jensen, author of "The Power of Pressure: Why Pressure Isn't the Problem, It's the Solution." Dane is a keynote speaker, a thought leader featured in the Harvard Business Review and the Wall Street Journal, and an educator at leading business schools in North America.
During our conversation, we delve into the world of meta-skills, the nature of pressure, and its impact on various pursuits, from the Olympics to the general workplace. Dane shares valuable insights on how pressure can be a tool for growth and performance rather than a hindrance.
We explore the concept of meta-skills, such as self-awareness, empathy, flexibility, creativity, learning capacity, and resilience, and discuss how these skills can help individuals adapt to the fast-paced changes in today's work environment. Dane emphasizes the importance of feedback, self-reflection, and developing a mindset that embraces continuous evolution.
Tune in to gain practical tips and strategies to harness pressure positively and enhance your performance at work.
Copyright © 2024 ADP, Inc. All rights reserved. This content may not be distributed, reproduced, modified, sold or used without the written permission of ADP. The information is provided "as is" without any expressed or implied warranty, is based on generally accepted HR practices and is advisory in nature. This content is provided with the understanding that neither the presenters nor the writers are rendering legal advice or other professional services. Employers are encouraged to consult with legal counsel for advice regarding their organization's compliance with applicable laws. This material is current as of the date of this episode (September 26, 2024).
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Insights at Work podcast. My name is Shauna G.
I'm delighted you've taken the time to stop by and have a listen.
I had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with Dane Jensen.
Who is Dane? Well, he's an author of the book, The Power of Pressure.
Why pressure isn't the problem, it's the solution.
He's a keynote speaker who has inspired audiences in 23 countries on five continents.
(00:33):
He's a thought leader who's been featured in the Harvard Business Review and
the Wall Street Journal.
And he's a top-rated educator at two of North America's leading business schools,
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Dane and I talked about meta skills, pressure, the Olympics,
(00:54):
the general world of work.
It was a great conversation, and I hope you glean a few insights from it.
For more information, visit www.fema.org.
Music.
Dane, welcome to Insights at Work. Thank you very much. It's great to be here, Shauna.
(01:15):
We're super excited to have you. And, you know, I know in the intro,
we talked a little bit about who you are, but I think it's probably best if we hear from you.
Maybe if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and
what you're passionate about at work.
I run a little company called Third Factor. And the way I sort of talk about
our mission at Third Factor, what we do is we're sort of like this big cross pollination hub.
(01:41):
And what I mean by that is we sort of sit at the intersection of a whole bunch
of disciplines where people have to really perform and lead under pressure.
We kind of try to figure out what can we all learn from each other.
And sort of cross pollinate the best ideas across domains.
And so I sometimes describe our businesses, we're kind of like,
I think it's Brita that has like the five level water filter.
(02:02):
And so we're sort of looking for what are the ideas that survive,
you know, hey, they don't just work in business, or they don't just work in
sport, or they don't just work in academia in theory, but they seem to sort of work everywhere.
You know, our founder, Peter, he would always talk about these,
it's kind of like the laws of physics, like, you know, gravity is very different
on Earth than it is on Mars, but it's still gravity.
(02:23):
And so I see kind of our job and by extension, my job is sort of to look for
what are those things that are kind of like the laws of physics when it comes
to leadership, when it comes to performance under pressure, when it comes to
collaborating in a team environment.
You know, I have the privilege of teaching at Queen's University in Canada as
an instructor and then down at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill as affiliate faculty,
(02:45):
do work at the sports system in Canada in Olympic and Paralympic sport and spend
most of my time with medium and large-sized organizations.
Sport obviously plays a large role in this type of thinking.
And I think perhaps they were early adopters when it comes to managing pressure
and working through pressure and performing under pressure.
(03:06):
So how does that translate into the workplace? I know that obviously,
day to day, we all experience different types of pressure, whether it's the
presentation that we're delivering to board of directors or just simply meeting
a deadline or being overwhelmed with projects on the go.
So how does some of that insight that has come from the physics of pressure
(03:29):
and using that in a sporting capacity translate back into the day-to-day workplace, if you will?
One of the things that I have really tried to avoid in my own work and also
in the work we do collectively at Third Factor is this overly simplistic model of,
hey, an Olympic athlete does this, so you should do this too.
(03:52):
I think I have a little bit of an allergic reaction sometimes to people coming
out of sport who have had success in sport,
standing up in front of a room of middle managers at a bank and going like,
hey, here's the routine that worked for me to achieve an Olympic medal.
Because I think sometimes it's a little bit unrealistic.
You know, the lives are just very different. You look at the life of an Olympic
(04:14):
athlete or an Olympic team. In general, there is one goal.
People put the Olympic rings on the ceiling above their bed.
It's the last thing they see before they go to sleep. It's the first thing they see when they wake up.
The role of the leader and the team that surrounds that athlete is to remove
any distractions to that goal, to keep people focused on what are the choices
that are going to move me towards this one goal.
(04:34):
They often are relatively young. They have support networks like parents.
And I'm always very careful to.
Acknowledge that the life of a corporate employee is not the same as the life of an Olympic athlete.
And at the same time, pressure is a fundamentally human experience.
There are very fundamental physiological changes that happen under pressure.
(04:59):
And it doesn't really matter to the body whether the pressure comes from performing
an Olympic final or racing towards a big presentation that you have to give
on Friday to your body, they are very similar experiences.
Your central nervous system responds in a similar way.
Your heart rate increases, your respiration rate increases, your body produces
more adrenaline, more cortisol, your pupils dilate.
(05:21):
There are all these fundamentally human things that happen.
And so I do think sport is an interesting R&D lab to try to understand what
are some of the things that we can learn in an environment where the pressure
is very acute and the outcomes are really easily measured,
which is one advantage that sport has over business, is you can tell whether something works.
You know, was I faster or slower? Did I jump higher or the same?
(05:42):
Did I win the game or did I lose the game? We often don't have that clarity
in the business world. The outcomes are not quite as sharp. So I think sport is a great lab.
And then to go back to that Brita filter example, it's, okay,
what are the things that survive impact with the reality of the business world?
And I think that's some of what we'll unpack over the course of this podcast. What are those things?
But I do think your question is bang on. There is something,
(06:05):
there are some things we can take. And there are other things that are maybe
a little bit unique to the world of sport.
100%. And I often think too, making these comparisons to say sport,
but also sometimes we focus our energy on speaking to someone who happens to
be leading a team or working in a corporate environment.
And we don't always dive into the details of how some of these skills or how
(06:29):
pressure can apply to those who aren't necessarily working in an office.
Because let's face it, that's a huge contingent of the working population is
not working inside of an office.
But the research and the practices and the leadership skills are often driven
for an office environment.
So I'm interested maybe when we dive into the discussion a little bit deeper
(06:51):
around how we can apply some of these skills and tools to folks who might not
be sitting inside of a boardroom. So, I mean, with that, we were talking about pressure.
So from a pressure perspective, I know that it's the same physiologically.
No matter what you're feeling in terms of the pressure being put on you.
(07:13):
How does that tie into the workplace when it comes to managing through that pressure?
How come some people are just inherently better at it? Are they actually better
at it or do they hide it better? What do you think? It's a great question.
Are they actually better or are they just better at hiding it?
That great quote, you know, the hero and the coward both feel the same,
(07:33):
you know, and it's a great question.
Do they do they handle it better or they just get it faking it?
And it makes me wonder, is there a difference between being good at it and faking
it, which is maybe a bit of a philosophical conversation?
Because I am a big believer that at the end of the day, you know,
when you're under pressure.
Whatever works, works. If you're faking it, but what you're doing is getting
(07:56):
you the result that you want, then that's just as good as being quote unquote good at it.
I do think for sure, there are those that are naturally, they just kind of have
ice in their veins and they're naturally really good under pressure.
And we can all get better at it.
Absolutely, you can get better at managing the pressure that you face.
And we do see this in sport, certainly over the the past 30 years,
(08:19):
you know, one of the metrics in Canada that we measure in elite sport is something
called the conversion rate.
And the conversion rate essentially says if you finish the top five in the world
the year before an Olympic or Paralympic Games, so at a World Cup or World Championship.
What percentage of those athletes convert that top five performance into a medal,
into a top three at the Olympics and Paralympics.
And when Own the Podium in Canada, which is a program focused on producing Olympic
(08:43):
and Paralympic medals, when it was first spun up about 25 years ago,
the conversion rate in Canada was at about 26%.
And Germany was converting in the 90s.
And the United States was converting at 104%. So you go, this is not about physical
skill, this is not about ability, you know, if you can compete with and win
against the best in the world the year before an Olympic and Paralympic Games,
(09:03):
but it's not happening at the Olympic, you know, this is about that ability
to do it when the pressure counts.
In sport, they talk about this as performance on demand.
One of the things that has come as a result of that research is a much deeper
focus on mental performance in sport in Canada.
So we are starting to embed mental performance consultants earlier in the athlete development pathway.
I think sport has taken a much more active role in shaping athletes' mental
(09:26):
preparation alongside their physical preparation.
Results are in the numbers. I mean, the conversion rate is in the high 70s at
this point. I think we might actually be approaching 80.
So I always love to go back to that
research because the athletes haven't changed. The DNA hasn't changed.
What's in there, quote unquote, hasn't changed. We've just taken a more.
Disciplined approach to training the mental skills alongside the physical skills.
(09:50):
And I think the same is true for the rest of us. You can become better at pressure.
You can become more effective at finding your center, staying even keeled, recovering.
I think it's very hard to never get pushed off balance under pressure,
but I think you can really strengthen the stabilizer muscles that sort of bring
you back to equilibrium.
Have you noticed or spotted as we kind of push towards more awareness of these
(10:14):
types of things, right? We're far more aware of mental health.
We're far more aware of being empathetic leaders and these types of skills.
Have you found that organizations are gravitating towards this?
And even so far as like installing pressure coaches inside of organizations, like, is that a thing?
(10:34):
Or do you think there's ways to go in that regard?
I think it has been very interesting to watch the evolution of how organizations
have thought about pressure in particular over the past five years,
sort of pre-pandemic, into the pandemic, coming out of the pandemic,
now sort of post-pandemic.
And this, I think, by the way, mirrors the conversation that has happened around pressure everywhere,
(10:58):
including very much in sport, which has followed a similar evolution over the
past five years, where I think as the pandemic hit, the stance that more organizations
were taking to pressure was the protect stance.
It was, you know, we really need to be supportive and empathetic.
We need to remove the pressure.
People have enough pressure in their lives, you know, at the bottom of Maslow's
(11:21):
hierarchy right now, literal survival and meeting their basic needs that we
need to remove the pressure and really focus on this as a discussion around
harm reduction and protection.
And I think that's really emphasized the very real downside of pressure.
There is a dark side to pressure, short-term disability, stress leave,
all of the things that accompany, you know, pressure over time.
(11:43):
I think what has happened coming out of the pandemic is that the stance of a
lot of the organizations I'm
in is sort of like, okay, we really supported people through this period.
We were empathetic. We let people work where they want, how they wanted.
We let university students graduate without, you know, necessarily writing their
exams on time or, you know, all of the stuff that was done to sort of accommodate
(12:05):
or remove pressure through the pandemic, I am seeing a real pivot back to accountability.
And, you know, it's time to start putting some of the, for lack of a better
word, putting some of the pressure back that we have to be accountable to the
results, that we have to deliver what we say we're going to deliver when we
say we're going to deliver it.
So I think the general discussion around pressure has been quite interesting
(12:26):
over the past five years.
And I think my own thinking on pressure reflects both of those perspectives.
You know, I think when we focus solely on protecting people from pressure,
when we see pressure as a negative and we focus entirely on harm reduction,
we rob people of the tremendous growth potential that lies under pressure.
Because you do not get human growth and development without pressure.
(12:47):
If you do something you haven't done before, you are going to experience pressure.
You know, there is pressure at the bottom of a learning curve.
There is pressure doing something new for the first time.
These are hugely growth producing experiences that necessitate pressure.
And when we try to bubble wrap people and protect them from pressure,
I think there are adverse consequences for human growth, for our sense of self-efficacy,
for our self-confidence.
(13:07):
And of course, if you are turning the screws and putting Putting people under
tremendous pressure without an acknowledgement of the dark side of pressure,
that's where burnout comes from.
That's where anxiety comes from. I see in the forward-looking organizations
is that we have to recognize that pressure is an essential input to high performance.
It is reasonable to have high expectations of the talented people that you hire.
(13:29):
And those high expectations and that pressure has to be counterbalanced by a
work environment that is characterized by the things that make pressure positive,
which are strong relationships Relationships rooted in trust and psychological
safety, a sense of caring, you know, a sense of fairness.
These are the things that mediate pressure and allow that energy to be channeled
productively as opposed to take us down the garden path to, you know,
(13:52):
to stress leave and the mental health impacts.
So, and it's funny, I've sort of, in my head, I've watched the car sort of drive
off the road in both directions.
The over, in my mind, emphasis on protection and protecting people,
I think does have its own downsides around performance.
And, you know, you look at what happened with all the layoffs coming out of COVID,
(14:12):
you know, I don't think there's a straight line there, but I think it was that
there was a lot of protect happening that maybe led us into a false sort of
sense of security that then when the pendulum had to swing back the other way
was more painful than it needed to be.
Yeah, I can definitely identify with that.
I know recently over the last several months when we attend conferences tied
(14:33):
to HR, tied to payroll, tied to the workforce in general, there's a lot of that
discussion around motivation,
around return to office, if that's a thing within a particular organization.
And also generational differences seem to be very prominent at this particular juncture.
I mean, I know they always are inside of a workplace. But I think that coming
(14:58):
of age, if you will, in an era where the pressure was slightly different,
has influenced how newer generations coming into the workforce perceive it.
And it also has influenced the...
Older generations, I'll say, quote unquote, and how they view the younger ones.
I know personally, I have Gen Zs on my team and they're amazing.
(15:20):
They're awesome. They're great. They work harder than anyone else. They are early to work.
They are producing amazing things. But then when I look out into the world,
I hear this narrative of, oh, Gen Z, they can't take the pressure.
And I know that doesn't hold true inside of my organization.
So I'm curious if you think that some of this is just tied to the organizational
(15:44):
environment they're in, the leader they have, obviously, some of it's individual
and right fit, right job, all those good things.
But how can we bridge that gap to help ease some of that transition for some
of these workers who have never actually really worked inside of this environment before?
It's a great question. I echo your thoughtful nuance around generational differences
(16:10):
in that I think there is a bit of a tendency sometimes to use generational differences.
To explain more than they are capable of explaining.
That we see these phenomena in the workforce and we go, oh, this must be a young
people thing. They don't want to work. They don't want to sacrifice.
They're not willing to put up with the pressure. I am. And again,
(16:34):
I, you know, I go back to the sort of two sides of pressure.
I think two things can be true at the same time, which is within a generation,
there is more variation than across the generations.
I think any given generation is going to have people that identify very strongly
with their careers and are willing to sacrifice other aspects of their lives
to get ahead in their work because it's a huge part of their identity and the
(16:56):
vision for themselves that they have in the future.
And I certainly know, you know, teaching in MBA programs at big universities,
there are a lot of 20 something, you know, year old people that are unbelievably ambitious,
that are willing to devote the majority of their waking time to work and to
getting ahead, which I guess would in theory be considered like more of a boomer
mentality if you were using, you know, the generational language.
(17:17):
But the flip side of that is that, you know, the research that I've read,
and I'm not a generational expert, but the research that I've read is that there
is a very real shift happening towards more of a prioritization of balance across work and life.
And that what I do at work is a part of a life well lived, but my identity is
not my job. My identity is not my work.
My identity is much bigger than that. The thing that I don't really know is,
(17:40):
is this a new thing or is this a generation that is bringing this to the forefront
and talking about the things that other generations wanted but thought were
not really realistic or feasible?
I'll often do a little exercise and I'm in a room full of usually relatively senior leaders.
Which is I'll ask them, you know, how many people have a picture of somebody
they love as the lock screen on their cell phone?
(18:02):
And I think inevitably, like 75%, especially if you include pets,
about 75% of the room, you know, will hold up their phone and,
you know, want to show me like this, my daughter is my granddaughter is my nephew.
And then I'll always ask, okay, now how many people have a screenshot of your
company's corporate values as your lock screen?
You know, obviously, nobody has a, you know, has a screenshot of their corporate
(18:23):
value. And the point I always make is that, you know, for the vast majority
of us, you know, the work that we do is in service of providing the best possible
life for the people on our lock screen.
Like most of us are living a lock screen life. Like one way or another,
we see what we are doing at work, meaningful as it might be and important to
us as it might be as a vehicle for providing the best possible life for the
(18:44):
people and things that we care about.
And I don't know that that has changed over the years.
I do think that the way that is expressed and the boundaries that people are
putting up to sort of protect that time and that part of their life that is
outside of work, I think that is happening.
And I don't know that I see it any differently than the continual evolution
(19:07):
of the contract that companies have with labor, with workers.
It's in the same way that physical safety has really evolved over the years
and now encompasses mental safety and mental health.
I think we're continuously evolving the relationship that we have as companies
and employers with the people who choose to work for us.
So it's a bit of a non-answer, honestly, but I do think there's a fair bit of
(19:29):
nuance there within the generations, but I do think there is something there
in the way that it gets expressed.
I agree 100%. And just recently had a discussion with a bunch of folks in HR
and payroll, and we were chatting about how the workplace purpose historically
that we have kind of gravitated towards as an organization,
right, we always need to have a mission and a vision and a purpose still holds,
(19:54):
but it needs to align to the purpose of the workers within your organization
more so than it ever has before.
So I think that is definitely part of it, which leads to more of that work-life
integration feeling and that work's part of your life. I think that's a great point.
I think if people cannot...
(20:14):
See the linkages between the company's purpose and stuff that really matters
to them personally, the things that give their life meaning,
it becomes very difficult to access the deeper reservoirs of motivation and commitment.
I think this is a, you know, there's an interesting intersection here between
sort of pressure and this sort of evolving landscape at work.
(20:36):
You know, one of the things that I think is a little bit different for this
generation that is, at this point is impacting all generations,
but I think, you know, that the younger folks are going to feel it more acutely
is the pressure of, you know, the skills that you have being replaced and outdated very quickly.
Like, I think part of the evolving contract between organizations and the people
who work for them used to be,
(20:57):
you know, you come in with a certain set of skills, we pay you for those skills
and, you know, you're going to be able to create a lot of value over time and
we're going to pay you back for that and we're going to be together for a long
time, and you're going to retire.
And I think, you know, the pace of replacement has ramped up so significantly in organizations.
The whole area of meta skills for me, that really got jumpstarted with a conversation
(21:20):
that I had with a friend of mine, used to be a work colleague of mine,
and now a friend who at the time was the GM for Uber in Canada.
And these were the early days when Uber had just sort of entered the Canadian
market and still very much a hyper scaling, fast growth business.
And, you know, we sat down and had a conversation and he said to me,
he said, the job I was hired for 12 months ago has been 80% automated.
(21:43):
And so he said that my job is 80% different than it was 12 months ago,
because Uber head office that they're continuing to just automate as much as they possibly can.
And so he was just talking me through, you know, for me to continue to stay
in this job and add value, I have to completely reinvent my job description basically every year.
And that's when I started thinking a little bit more deeply about this idea
(22:06):
of, well, that's a bit of a new type of pressure, right?
That's not performance pressure. That's pressure to evolve.
That's pressure to adapt. That's pressure to reinvent.
And I do think that's a little bit exhausting to have that, you know,
in front of you, you're starting out a 45 year career.
I think it's one thing to kind of go, okay, I'm going to slowly work my way
up this one learning curve and I'm going to become the best at my craft.
(22:26):
And by the time I retire, I'm going to be the best darn actuary that this company's ever had.
And it's another thing to kind of go, Oh, my gosh, you know,
the skills I have now, I'm going to just master them, and then they're going
to get automated, and I'm going to be at the bottom of a learning curve again.
And like, I think it's a much more daunting journey that may also sort of play
into the, you know, the changing relationships that people have with pressure
and with the companies they work for.
That's an excellent point. I mean, the reality is that we've seen technology
(22:50):
evolve at an ever increasing pace, and we've adapted to that.
But our skill set from a meta skills standpoint hasn't really had to change
all that much. It's like you could learn the new skill and be present and using that technology.
But with some of the new technologies coming to light, I don't necessarily know
(23:11):
that that's going to hold, right?
Like what are those meta skills that are going to enable us to embrace no matter what the technology is?
I saw recently someone said something around AI is not going to take the job of an accountant.
It's going to take the job of an accountant who doesn't learn to use AI,
which I thought was a great little quote.
But yeah, I'm interested to know how do we or what are the skills specifically
(23:35):
that we look at when we're talking about adapting to this fast pace of change
and staying relevant and in our own careers inside of our organization? Yeah.
So I started or I would start, I guess, by dividing skills from meta skills.
And, you know, for me, this is not just semantics. Other people might go,
well, you're splitting a hair here.
(23:56):
But skills to me are the things that help us execute a role.
Meta skills are the things that underpin our ability to let go of old skills
and acquire new skills. So, you know, meta skills are the meta capabilities
that allow us to evolve, to embrace new skills, to learn new disciplines.
And I think if you look at most roles, the skills that are required to stay in role.
(24:19):
Are changing relatively rapidly. And my go-to example for this is always the
role of a pharmacist, just because I happen to do a bunch of consulting work
in pharmacy about 10 or 15 years ago.
And the job of a pharmacist for 700 plus years, up until about 2005, was two skills.
It was chemistry to compound the medication and math to count the pills and work the cash register.
(24:43):
And then in about 2007 in Ontario, which is where I'm based,
the government that pays for all the drugs basically said, we don't need to
pay people six figures to count pills.
Like we have robots that can do that. Like literally they're called dispensing robots.
You put them in the back of your pharmacy. They'll, they'll count the pills.
We want you guys to get out from behind the counter.
We want you to talk to patients. We want you to become part of healthcare service
(25:05):
delivery to do medicine consultations and diabetic consultations and celiac
consultations and give immunizations and look at all this stuff that requires
you to be good at customer service or or even sales, like educating customers,
talking about new stuff.
And so almost overnight, the job of a pharmacist went from being about chemistry
and math to being about having customer service or even sales skills,
and then having the process savvy to run an automated dispensing process.
(25:28):
And you were talking about people who went to school for chemistry degrees.
Many of whom are hard introverts. And they're going like, I like the counter.
Like, that's why I took this job. I don't want to get out there and sell to
people like that's that's not what I'm interested in doing.
And so I think there's there's two parts to this story.
One is like, Like if I'm going to be a pharmacist, I got to pick up on what
are the skills that are going to be important in this job 10 years from now.
(25:50):
Used to be chemistry. Now it's sales. 10 years from now, is it mental health counseling?
Is it nanotech? Like what are the hard skills? If I'm going to guess those right,
I kind of need a bit of a crystal ball because the truth is we don't really know.
Like we can make educated guesses on what AI will and won't be able to do five
years from now, but they're bets.
Like we might be right. We might be wrong. So I got to place my bets on what
(26:10):
do I think, but I don't think you can anchor a career to skills anymore,
precisely because we don't really know.
What's going to happen five years, what the tech, the stuff that you can anchor
your career to where the crystal ball is optional.
It's the meta skills stuff. It's the stuff that allows us to let go of old skills
and embrace new skills because we know that evolution is going to be part of the journey.
And those skills for me, there's, there's, we can unpack them in a lot more
(26:34):
detail, but there's really six.
It's having the self, the self-awareness and empathy to see yourself clearly.
That's the first two self-awareness and empathy.
It's the flexibility, the creativity, and the learning capacity to act on that
awareness and learn new skills.
And then it's to have the resilience to stay the course and make it up the painful
journey of multiple learning curves.
So for me, you know, self-awareness, empathy, flexibility, creativity,
(26:56):
learning capacity, resilience, those six meta skills are kind of crystal ball optional.
You don't need to be able to predict the future to know that those six things are going to help you.
It's taking advantage of that ability to flex, right? To flex and move with the wind, if you will.
It reminds me, I I recently was chatting with some folks around complex systems,
(27:17):
and I won't go down that rabbit hole because it's a pretty big one that could
probably be talked about for days by people who are more qualified to do so than me in that regard.
But one of the things that came from that talk is that really we're operating
in a whole bunch of complex systems all interacting with each other.
And the reality is the only thing that we can be sure of inside of these types
(27:38):
of systems is that there's unintended consequences and they're unpredictable.
So because of that, we were chatting a lot around uncertainty and how looking
forward, there really is a sense of uncertainty in the market,
not similar to what you were just sort of chatting about.
Era of uncertainty, like what are some things that folks can hang on to,
(28:00):
to maybe build some of these skills?
Like, is there, you know, I'm pretty sure there's not a checkbox to make you resilient,
but what are perhaps a few different viewpoints or exercises or even resources
that folks can dive into to try and help themselves evolve in that way?
Well, and I think your lead in point is bang on. You know, I think it is the
(28:21):
uncertainty that creates pressure for people. Well, there's a really fascinating
study that was conducted out of the University College London,
where they hooked people up to biofeedback gear.
So stuff that measures the physical symptoms of stress, like heart rate,
breathing rate, sweat, that kind of thing.
And then they would have these people, once hooked up, they would do this little
(28:42):
task on a computer screen where they were flipping over virtual rocks.
And if there was a snake under the virtual rock, they would get an electric
shock on the back of their hand. And what they quickly sort of figured out,
the people doing this, is that some rocks always had snakes under them.
There were certain rocks that you could tell visually always had a snake.
Others, you could tell, never had snakes.
(29:02):
But then there was this third type of rock that...
There was about a 50% chance there was a snake under there. And when they looked
at the physical markers of stress, what they saw quite clearly was that people
got significantly more stressed when they had a 50% chance of getting an electric
shock than a 100% chance of getting an electric shock.
And I, you know, cognitively, this doesn't make any sense. Like,
why would you not take the fork in the road where you have a,
(29:24):
you know, 50% chance of not getting a shock?
People want to know, like, am I going to get the shock or am I not going to get the shock?
It's the uncertainty that really creates the pressure. And so I think you're
right, this middle ground of what we don't know really,
you know, what this thing is going to, you know, what AI is going to be able
to do five years from now, or what's going to happen to the global trade market,
or who's going to win the election, or who's, you know, all of this sort of
uncertainty that's going on right now, I think holds people in this permanent state of activation.
(29:48):
And I do think that that is where the sort of six meta skills that I talked
about that that's, ideally, in my mind, that's how you build a little bit of
certainty, is you're building the certainty that regardless of what future comes to pass,
I have the capacity to be adaptable to it.
I have the capacity to learn what I'm going to need to learn in order to adapt in that future.
And I think if you look at all, you're right, there's no simple sort of like,
(30:11):
hey, you're now resilient.
This is like some sort of BuzzFeed list that's like three ways to,
you know, activate your resilience.
But I do think, you know, one of the things that I always want people to believe.
Because it's true, is that these are all muscles that can be strengthened.
I do think people tend to have more of a fixed mindset around stuff like like
flexibility and creativity, which are the meta skills than they do around technical skills.
(30:35):
Like people go, yeah, I guess I could learn Excel, you know,
somebody, or I could become better at design or PowerPoint, but I'm just not a flexible person.
Like, you know, I've been told since kindergarten, I'm not flexible.
All of these are trainable skills back to your point on, can you get better
at pressure? You can get better at evolving.
You can become more self-aware. You can become more empathetic.
You can become more flexible, more creative.
You just have to focus on it. It won't get better without effort,
(30:59):
but with effort, it can improve.
So simple example, one of the six meta skills is learning capacity.
There is a huge body of research out there on how do you become a faster and better learner?
There is 40 years of research into deliberate practice. There is a wonderful
free online course called Learning How to Learn.
And Learning How to Learn, if you are interested in accelerating your learning
(31:20):
capacity, it is a great place to start. It's free. I took it. It was very helpful.
It gives you practical ways that you can get better at learning and quicker
at learning. The same is true of creativity.
If you go to the website for IDEO, which is the world's largest design and innovation
consultancy, they have a ton of free resources on how to become more creative.
There are drills that you can do around creativity.
(31:41):
And one of the first steps, by the way, on creativity is you got to get out
of that mental trap of I'm not creative.
The guys who founded IDEO, David and Tom Kelly, they wrote a book called Creative
Confidence. And one of the things they talk about is they go,
you know, there is this vast swath of adults who believe that they're not creative.
And the reason they think they're not creative is they can't draw.
And they go like, I'm not, I can't draw. And their point is like,
(32:03):
this has nothing to do with whether you are creative or not.
Like whether you can draw a horse doesn't give you any proxy for your creativity.
But we build these sort of limiting mindsets around this stuff that sort of
prevent us from, you know, investing time and effort in the skills.
So I think all of them, it's about establishing, okay, is the thing that is
going to supercharge my ability to adapt?
Is it my ability to be more self-aware and empathetic, that is to see myself more clearly?
(32:27):
Is it my ability to act on, maybe I'm aware already that my skills are out of
date, but I just can't act on it?
Well, that's flexibility, creativity, learning capacity. capacity or am I both
aware I'm starting to act on it, but the journey is just so hard and I'm fine.
It's, you know, I feel like the technology is beyond me or I just can't quite get it.
That's where the resilient stuff comes in because that's that ability when you
get shoved off balance to kind of get back on the horse a little bit and,
(32:49):
and, and continue to be able to, to kind of stay centered and push through.
I find that fascinating, especially the example of, you know,
I can't draw, so I'm not creative.
The reality is as someone who tends to veer a little bit more curtsy,
I guess one could say, I can see people falling into that. But then when you
look at the flip side of it.
(33:10):
Problem solving is probably the most creative thing that you can do as a human being, right?
Like that's how we actually solve problems is through creativity.
And I'm not sure that folks always recognize that. So that's always interesting
to me at the same point when people say that they're not creative.
Well, and one thing that has like, really crystallized this for me is one of
(33:35):
the most brilliant people that I've had the privilege of working with,
a woman named Peggy Baumgartner, who's our chief learning officer at Third Factor.
She's been with us for 26 years.
And for years, she said, I'm not creative.
And this is underpinned by her belief that she is not good at designing slides.
Like, I'm just not that creative person that can... Meanwhile,
(33:55):
she is the most creative person in our entire company.
She designs these unbelievable learning experiences.
She is hyper creative at how to use a room full of 30 people in 60 minutes to,
you know, engineer a breakthrough and get people to a place where they're open
to being coached. And that is higher order creativity in my mind to be able
to do that kind of design work.
(34:16):
And, you know, at the same token, it's kind of like I, the fonts, you know, on the slide.
So I do think we create these sort of anchors sometimes that prevent us from
fully embracing our strengths.
100%. And I think too, one thing that's really interesting with all of these
meta skills is really tied into confidence, right?
There's a lot of folks who say, well, to your point, I'm not very flexible.
(34:41):
I'm not very creative. I just don't operate that way.
And I think, as you mentioned, self-awareness is the key to that and trying
to understand how you can identify that in yourself.
Is there anything that you can think of that would be a good option for folks
to try and start to generate some of that self-awareness? Should they write it down?
(35:04):
Should they perhaps think about things that make them feel good at work or where
they feel like they've stretched their resilience muscles?
Any suggestions? Yeah. I mean, so self-awareness, there's a reason I kind of
talk about self-awareness first, because I mean, it really is the foundation.
You know, if I'm going to evolve.
(35:24):
If I'm going to, you know, let go of these old skills and embrace,
it starts with building the self-awareness and self-responsibility to evolve.
You know, adult human beings don't change because somebody tells them they need to change.
They change because at the end of the day, they build the awareness and the
self-responsibility that change is necessary.
So I think cultivating self-awareness is a critical, if not the critical part of the journey.
(35:49):
I mean, I think there's a a couple of ways that you can, you can sort of build
your self-awareness muscle.
So certainly journaling has been shown to be correlated quite highly with my
ability to be reflective and self-aware to sort of sit down at the end of the
day and kind of go, okay, what went really well for me today?
What are the places I showed up? Well, that I drew on my strengths.
(36:09):
What are the things that maybe didn't go the way that I expected them? What's that about?
What do I think that says about, you know, some of the things I could work on
or improve at or, or get a little little bit better at.
So certainly that ability to just sit and make time for reflection.
The second thing that obviously helps close our blind spots is feedback.
I think it's almost impossible to close a blind spot without some outside observer
(36:34):
giving you some accurate or third-party information on yourself.
And I think this is one of the places where our work in sport and business is
there's just a vast has them in the amount of feedback, you know,
between the world of sport and the world of business, you know,
in sports feedback is like water.
I mean, it's just, it's constant. It's constantly flowing.
(36:56):
You sit in and watch a basketball practice and the feedback is unceasing and real time.
And there's no sort of like, did well next time, like where we got to save up
the good in the, it's like, it's just common as you know, something good happens.
Hey, great job getting back on defense.
Whoa, you need to get your elbow up more on that shot. Oh, you know,
(37:16):
push him to his left. You know, he's right-handed. Oh, no. Oh, that was fantastic.
The way that you got down into your defensive stance, see something to correct,
correct it, see something to reinforce, reinforce it.
It's not saving it up for this sort of quarterly, you know, performance review or something similar.
And so I do think if we want to develop a really accurate picture of ourselves
to improve our self-awareness, we have to be able to cultivate people in our
(37:39):
lives that give us honest and accurate feedback on ourselves and that we believe
is coming from a place of caring.
You know, we're not looking to recruit more critics into our life.
That's not something that's particularly good from either a pressure or develop.
But the more people that we can get who care about our development and are willing
to give us accurate information on where we're doing really well and where we
(38:01):
need to improve, the better.
And I think that, you know, the thing that we can be doing to get more feedback
is set the people up for success that we are asking for feedback.
One of the things that I think we do that sometimes sabotages this is, well, one of two things.
One is we only ask for feedback after the fact, after the performance.
(38:22):
It's kind of like, you know, okay, how did you, how did you think my questions were in there?
It's like, I don't, most people are thinking about themselves,
you know, when they're sitting in a presentation, you know, and then,
then they're racking their brain. They're going like, yeah, I think that,
I think they were pretty good.
Like, yeah, you did, you're fine, you know? And so I think you have to sort
of set people up for success.
You know, you have to kind of say something along the lines of something that
(38:45):
I'm really working on right now is my ability to actively listen before I give suggestions or advice.
Coming out of this meeting, I'd love to get some feedback from you on how I'm
doing maintaining that balance between curiosity and inquiry versus advocacy and advising.
Okay, now the person's primed, right? They're going to actually be looking for
that and they're going to be able to give me accurate information on the back end of how it went.
(39:08):
And the second thing I would say is sometimes when we ask for feedback,
we do it in a way that invites validation as opposed to accurate information.
So if you ask most people, like, how do you think that went?
They're going to say, great, right? Yeah, good.
Most people do not want to take a question that's obviously intended to,
(39:30):
or does that make sense to you?
That's the other question. And I fall, I am the guiltiest person and I'll stop
talking about it. Does that make sense to you?
What's the answer I get? Yeah, 98% of the time people are going to go,
yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Instead, we got to ask the kind of questions that are going to get us the information
we need to improve, right? What's one thing that I could have done that would
(39:51):
have made that even better?
Ask questions that give people the opportunity to give us the feedback that
we need to improve as opposed to sort of invite validation of where we're at currently.
It's a great distinction. And to be honest, I don't know that I've ever thought
of it in that way. So that's a great insight.
And so when you say it's so obvious, yet so not when we're in our day-to-day
(40:15):
interactions, trying to garner feedback from colleagues. And it's uncomfortable.
Sometimes you just want validation. And I do think that's where then,
that's sort of like the true self-awareness is sometimes when I finish talking
and I go, does that make sense to you?
What I'm actually saying is
(40:35):
you agree, right? Because I just want this person to go and do something.
I got to have the self-awareness to go, okay, am I genuinely genuinely curious here?
And am I looking for information? Because then maybe I want to use a different
question, right? Which is instead of does that make sense to you?
What am I missing? What's something that I'm missing here?
(40:57):
You know, I'm going to get a different answer, but I got to want that answer.
Because if I start to get what I'm missing, and I get defensive,
well, the next time I asked that question, I'm going to get silence,
right? You're not missing anything. Like all makes sense to me.
So yeah, you got to be very careful with your with your response as well. A hundred percent.
And I know that we're coming up on time. The time has actually really flown
(41:18):
by. We've been chatting for almost an hour. Wild.
But I just wanted to thank you, first of all, for joining us,
but also offer up if there's anything else that you'd like to add to the discussion
or if you think maybe we missed something along the way that you'd like to leave
our listeners with, as they say.
You know, I don't think I don't think there's anything we've we missed,
(41:39):
but maybe I just sort of reinforce a couple of a couple of things in my mind
that I think are the big lessons I've learned in my work.
Work first is we talked early on about
the double-edged sword of pressure i think that
trying to eliminate the pressure from our lives actually redoubles
the impact of pressure and when we see pressure as
(42:00):
this negative nasty thing that's just kind of like death and taxes it's like
this tax that i have to pay for being alive and i resent it and i try to push
it away i think barrier into the old carl jung what we what we resist persists
kind of thing right like it actually gets worse when we try to push it away.
I think we have to understand that pressure is energy. It is emotional energy.
(42:22):
It's physical energy. It's cognitive energy.
And we got to be able to work with it. We got to be able to go,
okay, this is a sign that I am doing something that's important to me,
that's hard, that's new.
What am I going to do with this energy? What am I going to do with the energy
under this pressure that's productive?
And I think one of the more productive things you can do is you can channel
it into evolution, into moving to a newer version of yourself or the next version of yourself.
(42:49):
And that is that ability to kind of go, hey, the way I future-proof myself,
the way I become irreplaceable in a world of constant change is I become really good at evolving.
I build the self-awareness and empathy to know myself and see my own limitations.
I build the creativity, flexibility, and learning capacity to act on that information
and learn new skills and move up learning curves.
(43:11):
And I cultivate the resilience for the journey, right, which takes us right back to pressure.
So I think like, that's kind of for me. And it's, believe me,
as I say that out loud, like, it's not easy at all.
But that to me is where we can kind of productively channel the energy from
pressure is into into developing those metaskills.
Amazing. Well, Dane, it's been awesome chatting with you. And thank you for taking the time.
(43:37):
Music.
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Insights at Work podcast. My name is Shauna G.
I'm delighted you've taken the time to stop by and have a listen.
I had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with Dane Jensen.
Who is Dane? Well, he's an author of the book, The Power of Pressure.
Why pressure isn't the problem, it's the solution.
He's a keynote speaker who has inspired audiences in 23 countries on five continents.
(00:33):
He's a thought leader who's been featured in the Harvard Business Review and
the Wall Street Journal.
And he's a top-rated educator at two of North America's leading business schools,
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Dane and I talked about meta skills, pressure, the Olympics,
(00:54):
the general world of work.
It was a great conversation, and I hope you glean a few insights from it.
For more information, visit www.fema.org.
Music.
Dane, welcome to Insights at Work. Thank you very much. It's great to be here, Shauna.
(01:15):
We're super excited to have you. And, you know, I know in the intro,
we talked a little bit about who you are, but I think it's probably best if we hear from you.
Maybe if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and
what you're passionate about at work.
I run a little company called Third Factor. And the way I sort of talk about
our mission at Third Factor, what we do is we're sort of like this big cross pollination hub.
(01:41):
And what I mean by that is we sort of sit at the intersection of a whole bunch
of disciplines where people have to really perform and lead under pressure.
We kind of try to figure out what can we all learn from each other.
And sort of cross pollinate the best ideas across domains.
And so I sometimes describe our businesses, we're kind of like,
I think it's Brita that has like the five level water filter.
(02:02):
And so we're sort of looking for what are the ideas that survive,
you know, hey, they don't just work in business, or they don't just work in
sport, or they don't just work in academia in theory, but they seem to sort of work everywhere.
You know, our founder, Peter, he would always talk about these,
it's kind of like the laws of physics, like, you know, gravity is very different
on Earth than it is on Mars, but it's still gravity.
(02:23):
And so I see kind of our job and by extension, my job is sort of to look for
what are those things that are kind of like the laws of physics when it comes
to leadership, when it comes to performance under pressure, when it comes to
collaborating in a team environment.
You know, I have the privilege of teaching at Queen's University in Canada as
an instructor and then down at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill as affiliate faculty,
(02:45):
do work at the sports system in Canada in Olympic and Paralympic sport and spend
most of my time with medium and large-sized organizations.
Sport obviously plays a large role in this type of thinking.
And I think perhaps they were early adopters when it comes to managing pressure
and working through pressure and performing under pressure.
(03:06):
So how does that translate into the workplace? I know that obviously,
day to day, we all experience different types of pressure, whether it's the
presentation that we're delivering to board of directors or just simply meeting
a deadline or being overwhelmed with projects on the go.
So how does some of that insight that has come from the physics of pressure
(03:29):
and using that in a sporting capacity translate back into the day-to-day workplace, if you will?
One of the things that I have really tried to avoid in my own work and also
in the work we do collectively at Third Factor is this overly simplistic model of,
hey, an Olympic athlete does this, so you should do this too.
(03:52):
I think I have a little bit of an allergic reaction sometimes to people coming
out of sport who have had success in sport,
standing up in front of a room of middle managers at a bank and going like,
hey, here's the routine that worked for me to achieve an Olympic medal.
Because I think sometimes it's a little bit unrealistic.
You know, the lives are just very different. You look at the life of an Olympic
(04:14):
athlete or an Olympic team. In general, there is one goal.
People put the Olympic rings on the ceiling above their bed.
It's the last thing they see before they go to sleep. It's the first thing they see when they wake up.
The role of the leader and the team that surrounds that athlete is to remove
any distractions to that goal, to keep people focused on what are the choices
that are going to move me towards this one goal.
(04:34):
They often are relatively young. They have support networks like parents.
And I'm always very careful to.
Acknowledge that the life of a corporate employee is not the same as the life of an Olympic athlete.
And at the same time, pressure is a fundamentally human experience.
There are very fundamental physiological changes that happen under pressure.
(04:59):
And it doesn't really matter to the body whether the pressure comes from performing
an Olympic final or racing towards a big presentation that you have to give
on Friday to your body, they are very similar experiences.
Your central nervous system responds in a similar way.
Your heart rate increases, your respiration rate increases, your body produces
more adrenaline, more cortisol, your pupils dilate.
(05:21):
There are all these fundamentally human things that happen.
And so I do think sport is an interesting R&D lab to try to understand what
are some of the things that we can learn in an environment where the pressure
is very acute and the outcomes are really easily measured,
which is one advantage that sport has over business, is you can tell whether something works.
You know, was I faster or slower? Did I jump higher or the same?
(05:42):
Did I win the game or did I lose the game? We often don't have that clarity
in the business world. The outcomes are not quite as sharp. So I think sport is a great lab.
And then to go back to that Brita filter example, it's, okay,
what are the things that survive impact with the reality of the business world?
And I think that's some of what we'll unpack over the course of this podcast. What are those things?
But I do think your question is bang on. There is something,
(06:05):
there are some things we can take. And there are other things that are maybe
a little bit unique to the world of sport.
100%. And I often think too, making these comparisons to say sport,
but also sometimes we focus our energy on speaking to someone who happens to
be leading a team or working in a corporate environment.
And we don't always dive into the details of how some of these skills or how
(06:29):
pressure can apply to those who aren't necessarily working in an office.
Because let's face it, that's a huge contingent of the working population is
not working inside of an office.
But the research and the practices and the leadership skills are often driven
for an office environment.
So I'm interested maybe when we dive into the discussion a little bit deeper
(06:51):
around how we can apply some of these skills and tools to folks who might not
be sitting inside of a boardroom. So, I mean, with that, we were talking about pressure.
So from a pressure perspective, I know that it's the same physiologically.
No matter what you're feeling in terms of the pressure being put on you.
(07:13):
How does that tie into the workplace when it comes to managing through that pressure?
How come some people are just inherently better at it? Are they actually better
at it or do they hide it better? What do you think? It's a great question.
Are they actually better or are they just better at hiding it?
That great quote, you know, the hero and the coward both feel the same,
(07:33):
you know, and it's a great question.
Do they do they handle it better or they just get it faking it?
And it makes me wonder, is there a difference between being good at it and faking
it, which is maybe a bit of a philosophical conversation?
Because I am a big believer that at the end of the day, you know,
when you're under pressure.
Whatever works, works. If you're faking it, but what you're doing is getting
(07:56):
you the result that you want, then that's just as good as being quote unquote good at it.
I do think for sure, there are those that are naturally, they just kind of have
ice in their veins and they're naturally really good under pressure.
And we can all get better at it.
Absolutely, you can get better at managing the pressure that you face.
And we do see this in sport, certainly over the the past 30 years,
(08:19):
you know, one of the metrics in Canada that we measure in elite sport is something
called the conversion rate.
And the conversion rate essentially says if you finish the top five in the world
the year before an Olympic or Paralympic Games, so at a World Cup or World Championship.
What percentage of those athletes convert that top five performance into a medal,
into a top three at the Olympics and Paralympics.
And when Own the Podium in Canada, which is a program focused on producing Olympic
(08:43):
and Paralympic medals, when it was first spun up about 25 years ago,
the conversion rate in Canada was at about 26%.
And Germany was converting in the 90s.
And the United States was converting at 104%. So you go, this is not about physical
skill, this is not about ability, you know, if you can compete with and win
against the best in the world the year before an Olympic and Paralympic Games,
(09:03):
but it's not happening at the Olympic, you know, this is about that ability
to do it when the pressure counts.
In sport, they talk about this as performance on demand.
One of the things that has come as a result of that research is a much deeper
focus on mental performance in sport in Canada.
So we are starting to embed mental performance consultants earlier in the athlete development pathway.
I think sport has taken a much more active role in shaping athletes' mental
(09:26):
preparation alongside their physical preparation.
Results are in the numbers. I mean, the conversion rate is in the high 70s at
this point. I think we might actually be approaching 80.
So I always love to go back to that
research because the athletes haven't changed. The DNA hasn't changed.
What's in there, quote unquote, hasn't changed. We've just taken a more.
Disciplined approach to training the mental skills alongside the physical skills.
(09:50):
And I think the same is true for the rest of us. You can become better at pressure.
You can become more effective at finding your center, staying even keeled, recovering.
I think it's very hard to never get pushed off balance under pressure,
but I think you can really strengthen the stabilizer muscles that sort of bring
you back to equilibrium.
Have you noticed or spotted as we kind of push towards more awareness of these
(10:14):
types of things, right? We're far more aware of mental health.
We're far more aware of being empathetic leaders and these types of skills.
Have you found that organizations are gravitating towards this?
And even so far as like installing pressure coaches inside of organizations, like, is that a thing?
(10:34):
Or do you think there's ways to go in that regard?
I think it has been very interesting to watch the evolution of how organizations
have thought about pressure in particular over the past five years,
sort of pre-pandemic, into the pandemic, coming out of the pandemic,
now sort of post-pandemic.
And this, I think, by the way, mirrors the conversation that has happened around pressure everywhere,
(10:58):
including very much in sport, which has followed a similar evolution over the
past five years, where I think as the pandemic hit, the stance that more organizations
were taking to pressure was the protect stance.
It was, you know, we really need to be supportive and empathetic.
We need to remove the pressure.
People have enough pressure in their lives, you know, at the bottom of Maslow's
(11:21):
hierarchy right now, literal survival and meeting their basic needs that we
need to remove the pressure and really focus on this as a discussion around
harm reduction and protection.
And I think that's really emphasized the very real downside of pressure.
There is a dark side to pressure, short-term disability, stress leave,
all of the things that accompany, you know, pressure over time.
(11:43):
I think what has happened coming out of the pandemic is that the stance of a
lot of the organizations I'm
in is sort of like, okay, we really supported people through this period.
We were empathetic. We let people work where they want, how they wanted.
We let university students graduate without, you know, necessarily writing their
exams on time or, you know, all of the stuff that was done to sort of accommodate
(12:05):
or remove pressure through the pandemic, I am seeing a real pivot back to accountability.
And, you know, it's time to start putting some of the, for lack of a better
word, putting some of the pressure back that we have to be accountable to the
results, that we have to deliver what we say we're going to deliver when we
say we're going to deliver it.
So I think the general discussion around pressure has been quite interesting
(12:26):
over the past five years.
And I think my own thinking on pressure reflects both of those perspectives.
You know, I think when we focus solely on protecting people from pressure,
when we see pressure as a negative and we focus entirely on harm reduction,
we rob people of the tremendous growth potential that lies under pressure.
Because you do not get human growth and development without pressure.
(12:47):
If you do something you haven't done before, you are going to experience pressure.
You know, there is pressure at the bottom of a learning curve.
There is pressure doing something new for the first time.
These are hugely growth producing experiences that necessitate pressure.
And when we try to bubble wrap people and protect them from pressure,
I think there are adverse consequences for human growth, for our sense of self-efficacy,
for our self-confidence.
(13:07):
And of course, if you are turning the screws and putting Putting people under
tremendous pressure without an acknowledgement of the dark side of pressure,
that's where burnout comes from.
That's where anxiety comes from. I see in the forward-looking organizations
is that we have to recognize that pressure is an essential input to high performance.
It is reasonable to have high expectations of the talented people that you hire.
(13:29):
And those high expectations and that pressure has to be counterbalanced by a
work environment that is characterized by the things that make pressure positive,
which are strong relationships Relationships rooted in trust and psychological
safety, a sense of caring, you know, a sense of fairness.
These are the things that mediate pressure and allow that energy to be channeled
productively as opposed to take us down the garden path to, you know,
(13:52):
to stress leave and the mental health impacts.
So, and it's funny, I've sort of, in my head, I've watched the car sort of drive
off the road in both directions.
The over, in my mind, emphasis on protection and protecting people,
I think does have its own downsides around performance.
And, you know, you look at what happened with all the layoffs coming out of COVID,
(14:12):
you know, I don't think there's a straight line there, but I think it was that
there was a lot of protect happening that maybe led us into a false sort of
sense of security that then when the pendulum had to swing back the other way
was more painful than it needed to be.
Yeah, I can definitely identify with that.
I know recently over the last several months when we attend conferences tied
(14:33):
to HR, tied to payroll, tied to the workforce in general, there's a lot of that
discussion around motivation,
around return to office, if that's a thing within a particular organization.
And also generational differences seem to be very prominent at this particular juncture.
I mean, I know they always are inside of a workplace. But I think that coming
(14:58):
of age, if you will, in an era where the pressure was slightly different,
has influenced how newer generations coming into the workforce perceive it.
And it also has influenced the...
Older generations, I'll say, quote unquote, and how they view the younger ones.
I know personally, I have Gen Zs on my team and they're amazing.
(15:20):
They're awesome. They're great. They work harder than anyone else. They are early to work.
They are producing amazing things. But then when I look out into the world,
I hear this narrative of, oh, Gen Z, they can't take the pressure.
And I know that doesn't hold true inside of my organization.
So I'm curious if you think that some of this is just tied to the organizational
(15:44):
environment they're in, the leader they have, obviously, some of it's individual
and right fit, right job, all those good things.
But how can we bridge that gap to help ease some of that transition for some
of these workers who have never actually really worked inside of this environment before?
It's a great question. I echo your thoughtful nuance around generational differences
(16:10):
in that I think there is a bit of a tendency sometimes to use generational differences.
To explain more than they are capable of explaining.
That we see these phenomena in the workforce and we go, oh, this must be a young
people thing. They don't want to work. They don't want to sacrifice.
They're not willing to put up with the pressure. I am. And again,
(16:34):
I, you know, I go back to the sort of two sides of pressure.
I think two things can be true at the same time, which is within a generation,
there is more variation than across the generations.
I think any given generation is going to have people that identify very strongly
with their careers and are willing to sacrifice other aspects of their lives
to get ahead in their work because it's a huge part of their identity and the
(16:56):
vision for themselves that they have in the future.
And I certainly know, you know, teaching in MBA programs at big universities,
there are a lot of 20 something, you know, year old people that are unbelievably ambitious,
that are willing to devote the majority of their waking time to work and to
getting ahead, which I guess would in theory be considered like more of a boomer
mentality if you were using, you know, the generational language.
(17:17):
But the flip side of that is that, you know, the research that I've read,
and I'm not a generational expert, but the research that I've read is that there
is a very real shift happening towards more of a prioritization of balance across work and life.
And that what I do at work is a part of a life well lived, but my identity is
not my job. My identity is not my work.
My identity is much bigger than that. The thing that I don't really know is,
(17:40):
is this a new thing or is this a generation that is bringing this to the forefront
and talking about the things that other generations wanted but thought were
not really realistic or feasible?
I'll often do a little exercise and I'm in a room full of usually relatively senior leaders.
Which is I'll ask them, you know, how many people have a picture of somebody
they love as the lock screen on their cell phone?
(18:02):
And I think inevitably, like 75%, especially if you include pets,
about 75% of the room, you know, will hold up their phone and,
you know, want to show me like this, my daughter is my granddaughter is my nephew.
And then I'll always ask, okay, now how many people have a screenshot of your
company's corporate values as your lock screen?
You know, obviously, nobody has a, you know, has a screenshot of their corporate
(18:23):
value. And the point I always make is that, you know, for the vast majority
of us, you know, the work that we do is in service of providing the best possible
life for the people on our lock screen.
Like most of us are living a lock screen life. Like one way or another,
we see what we are doing at work, meaningful as it might be and important to
us as it might be as a vehicle for providing the best possible life for the
(18:44):
people and things that we care about.
And I don't know that that has changed over the years.
I do think that the way that is expressed and the boundaries that people are
putting up to sort of protect that time and that part of their life that is
outside of work, I think that is happening.
And I don't know that I see it any differently than the continual evolution
(19:07):
of the contract that companies have with labor, with workers.
It's in the same way that physical safety has really evolved over the years
and now encompasses mental safety and mental health.
I think we're continuously evolving the relationship that we have as companies
and employers with the people who choose to work for us.
So it's a bit of a non-answer, honestly, but I do think there's a fair bit of
(19:29):
nuance there within the generations, but I do think there is something there
in the way that it gets expressed.
I agree 100%. And just recently had a discussion with a bunch of folks in HR
and payroll, and we were chatting about how the workplace purpose historically
that we have kind of gravitated towards as an organization,
right, we always need to have a mission and a vision and a purpose still holds,
(19:54):
but it needs to align to the purpose of the workers within your organization
more so than it ever has before.
So I think that is definitely part of it, which leads to more of that work-life
integration feeling and that work's part of your life. I think that's a great point.
I think if people cannot...
(20:14):
See the linkages between the company's purpose and stuff that really matters
to them personally, the things that give their life meaning,
it becomes very difficult to access the deeper reservoirs of motivation and commitment.
I think this is a, you know, there's an interesting intersection here between
sort of pressure and this sort of evolving landscape at work.
(20:36):
You know, one of the things that I think is a little bit different for this
generation that is, at this point is impacting all generations,
but I think, you know, that the younger folks are going to feel it more acutely
is the pressure of, you know, the skills that you have being replaced and outdated very quickly.
Like, I think part of the evolving contract between organizations and the people
who work for them used to be,
(20:57):
you know, you come in with a certain set of skills, we pay you for those skills
and, you know, you're going to be able to create a lot of value over time and
we're going to pay you back for that and we're going to be together for a long
time, and you're going to retire.
And I think, you know, the pace of replacement has ramped up so significantly in organizations.
The whole area of meta skills for me, that really got jumpstarted with a conversation
(21:20):
that I had with a friend of mine, used to be a work colleague of mine,
and now a friend who at the time was the GM for Uber in Canada.
And these were the early days when Uber had just sort of entered the Canadian
market and still very much a hyper scaling, fast growth business.
And, you know, we sat down and had a conversation and he said to me,
he said, the job I was hired for 12 months ago has been 80% automated.
(21:43):
And so he said that my job is 80% different than it was 12 months ago,
because Uber head office that they're continuing to just automate as much as they possibly can.
And so he was just talking me through, you know, for me to continue to stay
in this job and add value, I have to completely reinvent my job description basically every year.
And that's when I started thinking a little bit more deeply about this idea
(22:06):
of, well, that's a bit of a new type of pressure, right?
That's not performance pressure. That's pressure to evolve.
That's pressure to adapt. That's pressure to reinvent.
And I do think that's a little bit exhausting to have that, you know,
in front of you, you're starting out a 45 year career.
I think it's one thing to kind of go, okay, I'm going to slowly work my way
up this one learning curve and I'm going to become the best at my craft.
(22:26):
And by the time I retire, I'm going to be the best darn actuary that this company's ever had.
And it's another thing to kind of go, Oh, my gosh, you know,
the skills I have now, I'm going to just master them, and then they're going
to get automated, and I'm going to be at the bottom of a learning curve again.
And like, I think it's a much more daunting journey that may also sort of play
into the, you know, the changing relationships that people have with pressure
and with the companies they work for.
That's an excellent point. I mean, the reality is that we've seen technology
(22:50):
evolve at an ever increasing pace, and we've adapted to that.
But our skill set from a meta skills standpoint hasn't really had to change
all that much. It's like you could learn the new skill and be present and using that technology.
But with some of the new technologies coming to light, I don't necessarily know
(23:11):
that that's going to hold, right?
Like what are those meta skills that are going to enable us to embrace no matter what the technology is?
I saw recently someone said something around AI is not going to take the job of an accountant.
It's going to take the job of an accountant who doesn't learn to use AI,
which I thought was a great little quote.
But yeah, I'm interested to know how do we or what are the skills specifically
(23:35):
that we look at when we're talking about adapting to this fast pace of change
and staying relevant and in our own careers inside of our organization? Yeah.
So I started or I would start, I guess, by dividing skills from meta skills.
And, you know, for me, this is not just semantics. Other people might go,
well, you're splitting a hair here.
(23:56):
But skills to me are the things that help us execute a role.
Meta skills are the things that underpin our ability to let go of old skills
and acquire new skills. So, you know, meta skills are the meta capabilities
that allow us to evolve, to embrace new skills, to learn new disciplines.
And I think if you look at most roles, the skills that are required to stay in role.
(24:19):
Are changing relatively rapidly. And my go-to example for this is always the
role of a pharmacist, just because I happen to do a bunch of consulting work
in pharmacy about 10 or 15 years ago.
And the job of a pharmacist for 700 plus years, up until about 2005, was two skills.
It was chemistry to compound the medication and math to count the pills and work the cash register.
(24:43):
And then in about 2007 in Ontario, which is where I'm based,
the government that pays for all the drugs basically said, we don't need to
pay people six figures to count pills.
Like we have robots that can do that. Like literally they're called dispensing robots.
You put them in the back of your pharmacy. They'll, they'll count the pills.
We want you guys to get out from behind the counter.
We want you to talk to patients. We want you to become part of healthcare service
(25:05):
delivery to do medicine consultations and diabetic consultations and celiac
consultations and give immunizations and look at all this stuff that requires
you to be good at customer service or or even sales, like educating customers,
talking about new stuff.
And so almost overnight, the job of a pharmacist went from being about chemistry
and math to being about having customer service or even sales skills,
and then having the process savvy to run an automated dispensing process.
(25:28):
And you were talking about people who went to school for chemistry degrees.
Many of whom are hard introverts. And they're going like, I like the counter.
Like, that's why I took this job. I don't want to get out there and sell to
people like that's that's not what I'm interested in doing.
And so I think there's there's two parts to this story.
One is like, Like if I'm going to be a pharmacist, I got to pick up on what
are the skills that are going to be important in this job 10 years from now.
(25:50):
Used to be chemistry. Now it's sales. 10 years from now, is it mental health counseling?
Is it nanotech? Like what are the hard skills? If I'm going to guess those right,
I kind of need a bit of a crystal ball because the truth is we don't really know.
Like we can make educated guesses on what AI will and won't be able to do five
years from now, but they're bets.
Like we might be right. We might be wrong. So I got to place my bets on what
(26:10):
do I think, but I don't think you can anchor a career to skills anymore,
precisely because we don't really know.
What's going to happen five years, what the tech, the stuff that you can anchor
your career to where the crystal ball is optional.
It's the meta skills stuff. It's the stuff that allows us to let go of old skills
and embrace new skills because we know that evolution is going to be part of the journey.
And those skills for me, there's, there's, we can unpack them in a lot more
(26:34):
detail, but there's really six.
It's having the self, the self-awareness and empathy to see yourself clearly.
That's the first two self-awareness and empathy.
It's the flexibility, the creativity, and the learning capacity to act on that
awareness and learn new skills.
And then it's to have the resilience to stay the course and make it up the painful
journey of multiple learning curves.
So for me, you know, self-awareness, empathy, flexibility, creativity,
(26:56):
learning capacity, resilience, those six meta skills are kind of crystal ball optional.
You don't need to be able to predict the future to know that those six things are going to help you.
It's taking advantage of that ability to flex, right? To flex and move with the wind, if you will.
It reminds me, I I recently was chatting with some folks around complex systems,
(27:17):
and I won't go down that rabbit hole because it's a pretty big one that could
probably be talked about for days by people who are more qualified to do so than me in that regard.
But one of the things that came from that talk is that really we're operating
in a whole bunch of complex systems all interacting with each other.
And the reality is the only thing that we can be sure of inside of these types
(27:38):
of systems is that there's unintended consequences and they're unpredictable.
So because of that, we were chatting a lot around uncertainty and how looking
forward, there really is a sense of uncertainty in the market,
not similar to what you were just sort of chatting about.
Era of uncertainty, like what are some things that folks can hang on to,
(28:00):
to maybe build some of these skills?
Like, is there, you know, I'm pretty sure there's not a checkbox to make you resilient,
but what are perhaps a few different viewpoints or exercises or even resources
that folks can dive into to try and help themselves evolve in that way?
Well, and I think your lead in point is bang on. You know, I think it is the
(28:21):
uncertainty that creates pressure for people. Well, there's a really fascinating
study that was conducted out of the University College London,
where they hooked people up to biofeedback gear.
So stuff that measures the physical symptoms of stress, like heart rate,
breathing rate, sweat, that kind of thing.
And then they would have these people, once hooked up, they would do this little
(28:42):
task on a computer screen where they were flipping over virtual rocks.
And if there was a snake under the virtual rock, they would get an electric
shock on the back of their hand. And what they quickly sort of figured out,
the people doing this, is that some rocks always had snakes under them.
There were certain rocks that you could tell visually always had a snake.
Others, you could tell, never had snakes.
(29:02):
But then there was this third type of rock that...
There was about a 50% chance there was a snake under there. And when they looked
at the physical markers of stress, what they saw quite clearly was that people
got significantly more stressed when they had a 50% chance of getting an electric
shock than a 100% chance of getting an electric shock.
And I, you know, cognitively, this doesn't make any sense. Like,
why would you not take the fork in the road where you have a,
(29:24):
you know, 50% chance of not getting a shock?
People want to know, like, am I going to get the shock or am I not going to get the shock?
It's the uncertainty that really creates the pressure. And so I think you're
right, this middle ground of what we don't know really,
you know, what this thing is going to, you know, what AI is going to be able
to do five years from now, or what's going to happen to the global trade market,
or who's going to win the election, or who's, you know, all of this sort of
uncertainty that's going on right now, I think holds people in this permanent state of activation.
(29:48):
And I do think that that is where the sort of six meta skills that I talked
about that that's, ideally, in my mind, that's how you build a little bit of
certainty, is you're building the certainty that regardless of what future comes to pass,
I have the capacity to be adaptable to it.
I have the capacity to learn what I'm going to need to learn in order to adapt in that future.
And I think if you look at all, you're right, there's no simple sort of like,
(30:11):
hey, you're now resilient.
This is like some sort of BuzzFeed list that's like three ways to,
you know, activate your resilience.
But I do think, you know, one of the things that I always want people to believe.
Because it's true, is that these are all muscles that can be strengthened.
I do think people tend to have more of a fixed mindset around stuff like like
flexibility and creativity, which are the meta skills than they do around technical skills.
(30:35):
Like people go, yeah, I guess I could learn Excel, you know,
somebody, or I could become better at design or PowerPoint, but I'm just not a flexible person.
Like, you know, I've been told since kindergarten, I'm not flexible.
All of these are trainable skills back to your point on, can you get better
at pressure? You can get better at evolving.
You can become more self-aware. You can become more empathetic.
You can become more flexible, more creative.
You just have to focus on it. It won't get better without effort,
(30:59):
but with effort, it can improve.
So simple example, one of the six meta skills is learning capacity.
There is a huge body of research out there on how do you become a faster and better learner?
There is 40 years of research into deliberate practice. There is a wonderful
free online course called Learning How to Learn.
And Learning How to Learn, if you are interested in accelerating your learning
(31:20):
capacity, it is a great place to start. It's free. I took it. It was very helpful.
It gives you practical ways that you can get better at learning and quicker
at learning. The same is true of creativity.
If you go to the website for IDEO, which is the world's largest design and innovation
consultancy, they have a ton of free resources on how to become more creative.
There are drills that you can do around creativity.
(31:41):
And one of the first steps, by the way, on creativity is you got to get out
of that mental trap of I'm not creative.
The guys who founded IDEO, David and Tom Kelly, they wrote a book called Creative
Confidence. And one of the things they talk about is they go,
you know, there is this vast swath of adults who believe that they're not creative.
And the reason they think they're not creative is they can't draw.
And they go like, I'm not, I can't draw. And their point is like,
(32:03):
this has nothing to do with whether you are creative or not.
Like whether you can draw a horse doesn't give you any proxy for your creativity.
But we build these sort of limiting mindsets around this stuff that sort of
prevent us from, you know, investing time and effort in the skills.
So I think all of them, it's about establishing, okay, is the thing that is
going to supercharge my ability to adapt?
Is it my ability to be more self-aware and empathetic, that is to see myself more clearly?
(32:27):
Is it my ability to act on, maybe I'm aware already that my skills are out of
date, but I just can't act on it?
Well, that's flexibility, creativity, learning capacity. capacity or am I both
aware I'm starting to act on it, but the journey is just so hard and I'm fine.
It's, you know, I feel like the technology is beyond me or I just can't quite get it.
That's where the resilient stuff comes in because that's that ability when you
get shoved off balance to kind of get back on the horse a little bit and,
(32:49):
and, and continue to be able to, to kind of stay centered and push through.
I find that fascinating, especially the example of, you know,
I can't draw, so I'm not creative.
The reality is as someone who tends to veer a little bit more curtsy,
I guess one could say, I can see people falling into that. But then when you
look at the flip side of it.
(33:10):
Problem solving is probably the most creative thing that you can do as a human being, right?
Like that's how we actually solve problems is through creativity.
And I'm not sure that folks always recognize that. So that's always interesting
to me at the same point when people say that they're not creative.
Well, and one thing that has like, really crystallized this for me is one of
(33:35):
the most brilliant people that I've had the privilege of working with,
a woman named Peggy Baumgartner, who's our chief learning officer at Third Factor.
She's been with us for 26 years.
And for years, she said, I'm not creative.
And this is underpinned by her belief that she is not good at designing slides.
Like, I'm just not that creative person that can... Meanwhile,
(33:55):
she is the most creative person in our entire company.
She designs these unbelievable learning experiences.
She is hyper creative at how to use a room full of 30 people in 60 minutes to,
you know, engineer a breakthrough and get people to a place where they're open
to being coached. And that is higher order creativity in my mind to be able
to do that kind of design work.
(34:16):
And, you know, at the same token, it's kind of like I, the fonts, you know, on the slide.
So I do think we create these sort of anchors sometimes that prevent us from
fully embracing our strengths.
100%. And I think too, one thing that's really interesting with all of these
meta skills is really tied into confidence, right?
There's a lot of folks who say, well, to your point, I'm not very flexible.
(34:41):
I'm not very creative. I just don't operate that way.
And I think, as you mentioned, self-awareness is the key to that and trying
to understand how you can identify that in yourself.
Is there anything that you can think of that would be a good option for folks
to try and start to generate some of that self-awareness? Should they write it down?
(35:04):
Should they perhaps think about things that make them feel good at work or where
they feel like they've stretched their resilience muscles?
Any suggestions? Yeah. I mean, so self-awareness, there's a reason I kind of
talk about self-awareness first, because I mean, it really is the foundation.
You know, if I'm going to evolve.
(35:24):
If I'm going to, you know, let go of these old skills and embrace,
it starts with building the self-awareness and self-responsibility to evolve.
You know, adult human beings don't change because somebody tells them they need to change.
They change because at the end of the day, they build the awareness and the
self-responsibility that change is necessary.
So I think cultivating self-awareness is a critical, if not the critical part of the journey.
(35:49):
I mean, I think there's a a couple of ways that you can, you can sort of build
your self-awareness muscle.
So certainly journaling has been shown to be correlated quite highly with my
ability to be reflective and self-aware to sort of sit down at the end of the
day and kind of go, okay, what went really well for me today?
What are the places I showed up? Well, that I drew on my strengths.
(36:09):
What are the things that maybe didn't go the way that I expected them? What's that about?
What do I think that says about, you know, some of the things I could work on
or improve at or, or get a little little bit better at.
So certainly that ability to just sit and make time for reflection.
The second thing that obviously helps close our blind spots is feedback.
I think it's almost impossible to close a blind spot without some outside observer
(36:34):
giving you some accurate or third-party information on yourself.
And I think this is one of the places where our work in sport and business is
there's just a vast has them in the amount of feedback, you know,
between the world of sport and the world of business, you know,
in sports feedback is like water.
I mean, it's just, it's constant. It's constantly flowing.
(36:56):
You sit in and watch a basketball practice and the feedback is unceasing and real time.
And there's no sort of like, did well next time, like where we got to save up
the good in the, it's like, it's just common as you know, something good happens.
Hey, great job getting back on defense.
Whoa, you need to get your elbow up more on that shot. Oh, you know,
(37:16):
push him to his left. You know, he's right-handed. Oh, no. Oh, that was fantastic.
The way that you got down into your defensive stance, see something to correct,
correct it, see something to reinforce, reinforce it.
It's not saving it up for this sort of quarterly, you know, performance review or something similar.
And so I do think if we want to develop a really accurate picture of ourselves
to improve our self-awareness, we have to be able to cultivate people in our
(37:39):
lives that give us honest and accurate feedback on ourselves and that we believe
is coming from a place of caring.
You know, we're not looking to recruit more critics into our life.
That's not something that's particularly good from either a pressure or develop.
But the more people that we can get who care about our development and are willing
to give us accurate information on where we're doing really well and where we
(38:01):
need to improve, the better.
And I think that, you know, the thing that we can be doing to get more feedback
is set the people up for success that we are asking for feedback.
One of the things that I think we do that sometimes sabotages this is, well, one of two things.
One is we only ask for feedback after the fact, after the performance.
(38:22):
It's kind of like, you know, okay, how did you, how did you think my questions were in there?
It's like, I don't, most people are thinking about themselves,
you know, when they're sitting in a presentation, you know, and then,
then they're racking their brain. They're going like, yeah, I think that,
I think they were pretty good.
Like, yeah, you did, you're fine, you know? And so I think you have to sort
of set people up for success.
You know, you have to kind of say something along the lines of something that
(38:45):
I'm really working on right now is my ability to actively listen before I give suggestions or advice.
Coming out of this meeting, I'd love to get some feedback from you on how I'm
doing maintaining that balance between curiosity and inquiry versus advocacy and advising.
Okay, now the person's primed, right? They're going to actually be looking for
that and they're going to be able to give me accurate information on the back end of how it went.
(39:08):
And the second thing I would say is sometimes when we ask for feedback,
we do it in a way that invites validation as opposed to accurate information.
So if you ask most people, like, how do you think that went?
They're going to say, great, right? Yeah, good.
Most people do not want to take a question that's obviously intended to,
(39:30):
or does that make sense to you?
That's the other question. And I fall, I am the guiltiest person and I'll stop
talking about it. Does that make sense to you?
What's the answer I get? Yeah, 98% of the time people are going to go,
yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Instead, we got to ask the kind of questions that are going to get us the information
we need to improve, right? What's one thing that I could have done that would
(39:51):
have made that even better?
Ask questions that give people the opportunity to give us the feedback that
we need to improve as opposed to sort of invite validation of where we're at currently.
It's a great distinction. And to be honest, I don't know that I've ever thought
of it in that way. So that's a great insight.
And so when you say it's so obvious, yet so not when we're in our day-to-day
(40:15):
interactions, trying to garner feedback from colleagues. And it's uncomfortable.
Sometimes you just want validation. And I do think that's where then,
that's sort of like the true self-awareness is sometimes when I finish talking
and I go, does that make sense to you?
What I'm actually saying is
(40:35):
you agree, right? Because I just want this person to go and do something.
I got to have the self-awareness to go, okay, am I genuinely genuinely curious here?
And am I looking for information? Because then maybe I want to use a different
question, right? Which is instead of does that make sense to you?
What am I missing? What's something that I'm missing here?
(40:57):
You know, I'm going to get a different answer, but I got to want that answer.
Because if I start to get what I'm missing, and I get defensive,
well, the next time I asked that question, I'm going to get silence,
right? You're not missing anything. Like all makes sense to me.
So yeah, you got to be very careful with your with your response as well. A hundred percent.
And I know that we're coming up on time. The time has actually really flown
(41:18):
by. We've been chatting for almost an hour. Wild.
But I just wanted to thank you, first of all, for joining us,
but also offer up if there's anything else that you'd like to add to the discussion
or if you think maybe we missed something along the way that you'd like to leave
our listeners with, as they say.
You know, I don't think I don't think there's anything we've we missed,
(41:39):
but maybe I just sort of reinforce a couple of a couple of things in my mind
that I think are the big lessons I've learned in my work.
Work first is we talked early on about
the double-edged sword of pressure i think that
trying to eliminate the pressure from our lives actually redoubles
the impact of pressure and when we see pressure as
(42:00):
this negative nasty thing that's just kind of like death and taxes it's like
this tax that i have to pay for being alive and i resent it and i try to push
it away i think barrier into the old carl jung what we what we resist persists
kind of thing right like it actually gets worse when we try to push it away.
I think we have to understand that pressure is energy. It is emotional energy.
(42:22):
It's physical energy. It's cognitive energy.
And we got to be able to work with it. We got to be able to go,
okay, this is a sign that I am doing something that's important to me,
that's hard, that's new.
What am I going to do with this energy? What am I going to do with the energy
under this pressure that's productive?
And I think one of the more productive things you can do is you can channel
it into evolution, into moving to a newer version of yourself or the next version of yourself.
(42:49):
And that is that ability to kind of go, hey, the way I future-proof myself,
the way I become irreplaceable in a world of constant change is I become really good at evolving.
I build the self-awareness and empathy to know myself and see my own limitations.
I build the creativity, flexibility, and learning capacity to act on that information
and learn new skills and move up learning curves.
(43:11):
And I cultivate the resilience for the journey, right, which takes us right back to pressure.
So I think like, that's kind of for me. And it's, believe me,
as I say that out loud, like, it's not easy at all.
But that to me is where we can kind of productively channel the energy from
pressure is into into developing those metaskills.
Amazing. Well, Dane, it's been awesome chatting with you. And thank you for taking the time.
(43:37):
Music.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com