Mitch Wallis: Building Deeper Connections through REAL Conversations

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Drew Janetzki (00:05):
Today we're thrilled to have Mitch Wallace
with us, a globally renownedmental health advocate, speaker
and the founder of Heart On mySleeve.
Mitch is also the author of the2024 publication Real
Conversations Five Steps toConnecting Relationships a guide
that redefines how we buildmeaningful connections in our

(00:26):
personal and professional lives.

Mitch Wallis (00:30):
You know you have so much choice out there.
It's almost like impostersyndrome.
I'm like are you sure that youwant to continue working with me
and my team?
And they keep coming back tothis works because it's hyper
practical.
Back to this works because it'shyper practical.
You've taken something that isso complex and so emotionally
charged and put it intobite-sized, digestible

(00:51):
frameworks.
That truly does go and createresults.
We are seeing leaders walkaround the workplace and act
differently after this course.
We are seeing in our pulsesurveys, when we audit our
workforce, that they do feelmore psychologically safe.
Our peer support networks arethriving.

(01:11):
Our leadership teams have awhole new dynamic to them.
So I think it's the practicalnature of this IP that really is
the game changer.

It was a real privilege to listen to Mitch's
amazing insights, his wisdom, aswell as his ability to share
such complex topics through hisframework of real conversations.
So if you're looking to buildconnections, no matter where you
are in your career, yourpersonal life, real
conversations is a greatframework to start your journey.

(01:44):
Okay, mitch, thanks for joiningus today.
It's great to have you on ourpodcast.

Thanks, Drew, you're an absolute legend.
It's a pleasure being workingwith you up until this point, so
let's jump into how we can helpothers who listen, yeah
absolutely, Mitch.

let's start with some background in terms of your
journey as a mental healthadvocate, which has inspired
countless individuals worldwide.
Mitch, could you share yourpersonal experience that's led
to the founding of Heart On mySleeve?

Yeah, Drew, I'm someone that has had an
incredibly challenging internallife, despite a thriving
external and, in a lot of ways,a privileged external as well.
I've had the conditions to beset up for success beyond my
control or doing, and I stillremember the first moment I knew

(02:42):
I was different, at seven yearsold, when I was touching a
light switch hundreds of timesand in this particular situation
I was in my mom's car, blinkingin a certain pattern, saying
the word God out loud on repeat,and my mom looked at me and
said what are you doing?
And I said I don't know, but Ifeel like a bad person.
And that was the day she tookme to the doctor and I was

(03:04):
diagnosed with acute obsessivecompulsive disorder and anxiety.
And I didn't know what thatmeant.
I just remember walking outsidethe doctor's office and looking
up at her, my mom, and askingher you know why is my brain
broken?
And she started to cry and thatto me said from the outside

(03:24):
world, there's something demonicalmost inside you that you need
to shield from the world.
And so I got very, very, verygood at pretending.
I spent the next 20 years as ahigh-performing overachiever,
top 2% in the state in the HSEschool captain of my primary
school, youngest ever intern atMicrosoft, global product

(03:47):
manager by 25.
And all of this smiles andcharisma on the outside was
masking a completely insecureand broken boy on the inside.
And it took until breakingpoint for me to finally drop the
brave face.
And one person's YouTube videosaved my life of a guy wearing

(04:07):
his heart on his sleeve, otherthan my mother's love, which was
the life raft that kept meafloat long enough to see that
video.
Those two things togetherreally set me on this quest to
want to help others.
Never feel shame for goingthrough mental health issues,
because I think more than theillness itself or the situation
itself.
Whether you for going throughmental health issues, because I
think more than the illnessitself or the situation itself,

(04:28):
whether you're going throughfinancial stress all the way
through to bipolar, all thisstuff is manageable.
There are millions of peoplenavigating the same situation.
The degree to which it'sdifficult is the degree to which
you feel shame about it.
It's the internal dialogue andmonologue that happens that
makes it hard or not hard.
Now, I believe that when we seeother people go through the same

(04:52):
experience as us throughstorytelling which is what
inspired Heart on my Sleeve, orthrough real conversations, like
what I had with my mom, whichis what inspired my book and my
book, and, and this, thisworkshop that we run in
corporates and since with thePPA.
Um, it's really that what sitsat the essence of of both of

(05:13):
those things is is humanitygoing through a shared humanity
where we're connected to selfand other, really relieves us of
a lot of the pain that life cancan bring with it, and so, you
know, it inspired me to share astory of my own where I drew a
heart on my arm which launchedthis global movement, which is
now the charity heart on mysleeve that I was lucky enough

(05:33):
to found and form the bedrock ofthe IP that has now gone to
four continents and thousands ofpeople through real
conversations.

Yeah, wow, Wow, .
So many things to unpack.
From what I've just heard rightthere, I mean that must have
been so hard in terms of justtrying to put on that masking,
as you said, in terms of fromthat age.
And I heard you said, I heardyou said mum, I thought my brain

(06:03):
, why is my brain broken?
And just, was that mirroringthat you or that masking it did?

How agonizing was that Very, and I think that that
agony is shared and understoodby a lot of the people listening
to this podcast right now.
You know, to some, we all maskand I think the degree to which
it's a problem is how much maskwe wear and how often.
Right, because it's healthy tohave a protection mechanism to
not reveal your true self toeveryone all the time, depending

(06:39):
on the context and safety inwhich you're around.
You might meet a stranger forthe first time and be like I
don't know you, I'm going to puton a bit of a character, cool.
But when you're doing that toyour nearest and dearest at all
times, or worse yet, you'repretending to yourself, you're
wearing a mask to your ownawareness because you don't want

(06:59):
to admit what's wrong, that'swhen we have a Houston problem,
and I believe that life is acost-benefit analysis At least
that's how the brain algorithmis working at all times.
So something in the brain, ifyou have a big pretending game

(07:21):
going on, is saying that it'sless painful to live as a fraud
than to sit in the discomfort ofthe truth.
That I'm not okay, and what I'mhere to say is that that
rationale is absolutely flawed.
I'm telling you, as someonethat was an expert, spent
decades doing, that the truthwill set you free.
In fact, the four words thathave saved my life and that I

(07:44):
devote my career to now is gotoward the pain.
Go toward the pain if you wantto heal your nervous system.
The answers that you seek areon the other side of what you
avoid the most, and in theworkplace setting with real
conversations, the sameprinciple applies.
Go toward the pain in theconversation.
If there's an awkward part, ifthere's a part that you're
scared to address or ask someoneor check in about, that's the

(08:07):
part that needs our attention,our presence and our care the
most.

Yeah, yeah, well said, easy to say but to
implement.
And that's the we'll go into, Iguess, the next part of our
conversation your book.
Congratulations first of all onyour book, real Conversation.
Yeah, fantastic read.
I love it.
You can really feel theauthenticity coming through.

(08:31):
So congratulations.
It's five steps to connectedrelationships.
It's been praised for itspractical approach, building
deeper connections.
What inspired you to write itand what are its core principles
, mitch?

Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks, Drew.
So what inspired me to write itwas probably two things.
One was the life-savingconnection I had with my mother
and all the things that she did,right as someone that had me at
23, had no idea what she wasdoing parenting-wise, let alone
psychologically.
She was the furthest thing andstill is the furthest thing from

(09:07):
a therapist, but there wassomething about her style that
worked so well for someone thatwas experiencing not just a
little bit of mental illness,but severe and complex mental
illness.
So you know, a lot of this bookis a forensic audit that now,
with a master's degree inclinical psychology myself, I've
gone back and tried to figureout what separates her from

(09:30):
people who might not be ashelpful.
The second reason why I wrotethis is from a workplace
standpoint.
I've had managers in the pastwhere they've made my experience
of mental health issues so muchworse than they needed to be,
and we spend so much time atwork.
It can be a breeding ground forsomeone to get better, but if

(09:52):
all work does is not make youfeel worse, then that's a
massive win.
In fact, it's a legalresponsibility to not cause or
aggravate psychological injury.
So I've had the privilege ofworking with some of the
brightest minds at Fortune 500companies around the world
C-level executives, boardmembers and I've trained
thousands of people, so off theback of the workshops and really

(10:17):
flexing this IP to see howstrong it is and how much
behavior change it can drive.
And with companies likeMicrosoft, kpmg, american
Express, lend Lease, nbn Allensthese huge logos adopting real
conversations as their primarytraining provider over

(10:38):
institutions like a mentalhealth first aid if you look at
it purely from a wellbeing lens.
But if you look at it from aleadership development lens,
that's even more competitive.
Around how many programs are onoffer to create the leaders of
the future, but these people areputting their highest paid,
most important executivesthrough real conversation at
scale.

(10:58):
That to me, was like well, Iwant to get this message out to
as many people who don't work inthose firms as possible so that
at least the everyday personcan access the core principles.
Which leads me to the secondpart of your question.
What are the core principles?
It's kind of all based aroundone core tenant, which is that
not all conversations arehelpful.

(11:19):
I think we have this assumptionthat the answer to when you're
with someone who's in emotionalpain, all the way from I'm
having a bad day through to Idon't want to be alive anymore.
Everyone has the same goal theywant to be helpful, and so we
instinctually apply the sametool to that conversation as we

(11:42):
would any other, which is what Icall a transactional
conversation.
Right, and we've been taught ourentire lives to get really good
at transactional conversationsin school, at work.
It's how quickly you can solveproblems, how quickly someone
can present to you an issue andyou can throw back a solution.
In fact, I would imagine thatwe're almost rewarded,

(12:05):
incentivized, compensated andpromoted directly in line with
how transactional we can be, howIQ heavy we can be.
But that's not.
Expecting that that one toolwill solve every problem we
encounter in life is expectingthat we could build a skyscraper
with only a hammer.
You need different instrumentsdepending on the thing that

(12:27):
you're working with.
Now, when it comes to emotionalissues, we need a new type of
tool and technology that will behelpful, and this is the
technology of real conversations, which is that the moment that
you're in relationship tosomeone who's experiencing an
emotional problem, not apractical one like where's the
bathroom, what's the forecast onthe PNL?

(12:48):
How do I get my computer on,when someone says to you, my
dad's just died, I'm feelinganxious, I have no self-worth.
Our metrics and ourinterventions must change, and
helpfulness is no longer howwell can I fix the problem, but
flipped entirely to how well canI understand this person?
Because, as counterintuitive asit feels, what gets people

(13:10):
better emotionally is care, notadvice, because people can solve
their own problems andsituations.
Practically what they can't dois eradicate their own shame,
eradicate their own lonelinessand dissolve the lack of love
they feel as a result ofencountering that emotional
issue.
So listening becomes theprimary intervention.

(13:31):
Instead of speaking at someone,and instead of going and trying
to drag someone out of the mud,away from the pain, we're going
toward the pain and sharing itwith them.

Yeah, and I mean unpacking that further makes
complete sense.
But in terms of just, I guessthere's that balance of do as a
manager or as an educationalleader?
Do we, you said, lean into thepain?
It's a matter of the questionin the back of people's mind.

(14:04):
Listening is how much do I leanin Mitch, like I'm a manager,
do I just give the EPAC card toa person which becomes
transactional?
But you're not intending to dothat.
But the system around you, ifthis is making sense, forces the
manager to, or the principal touse the systems to support

(14:28):
well-being, when that's not the.
And we're not saying I'm notsaying epac is um, and we're
both not saying epac is not abad thing to go to like a
service support system at all.
Here we're not saying that inthis conversation.
We're saying that is a tool,support mechanism that can
support a person who is havingsome mental issues.

(14:51):
So I guess in terms ofnavigating that that's so
complex.

Can we pick up on that, because it's actually the
number one issue I see inworkplaces and now doing a lot
of work with principals throughour relationship.
It's also a massivemisconception I see with this
audience too, and that is let mecome up a level before I answer
that Humans are instinctuallywired to think in black and

(15:19):
white.
Why?
Because the brain lovescertainty, it's obsessed with
certainty.
Why?
Because the brain lovescertainty, it's obsessed with
certainty?
Because when things are certain, we feel in control, and that
is an absolutely fundamentalthing to feel sane, right.
The brain wants to.
The brain is a risk mitigationdevice.
Its biggest fear is losingcontrol, not being able to

(15:39):
forecast risk effectively.
So as a result of that, it'snatural for us to want to say
that's good, that's bad, that'sblack, that's white, that's up,
that's down.
So, as an educator, I'm suremany people can relate to this
when you're trying to teach astudent something, 99.9% of the

(15:59):
time life isn't black and white,it's gray, and the answer is
often somewhere in the middle.
Even if it's 1% off the edge ofthe margin, it's still not on
the margin, and so you canrelate that to your own thinking
.
If it's hard for students tothink that way.
It's going to be hard for youto think that way, and that is
that.
Well, I was taught and told thatwhen someone brings me an

(16:20):
emotional issue, I should guidethem to a professional.
Yes, but it's not that blackand white.
You don't want to becomesomeone's psychologist, but the
biggest mistake you can make istelling them to go straight to a
psychologist.
The middle is where you want tobe, which is that person is not
looking to you to wave a magicwand, be a magician and make

(16:44):
them all better, or tooverextend your boundaries and
do cognitive behavioral therapywith them.
If you haven't gone touniversity to do that, what
they're wanting you to do is seethem as a human before you,
treat them as a process, andthat we all have the capacity
and capability to do.
Now, often that requires someteaching around the art form of

(17:07):
how do you find that middleground, how do you sit in that
space with someone of thathumanity without taking on their
problems entirely or completelydismissing them?
But that's why we do thiscourse right.

Yeah, yeah and absolutely, and that is the why,
and we'll go into that niche aswell further in our
conversation.
So, in terms of going into thewhy, why do you think real
conversations are especiallyimportant for educational

(17:39):
leaders and how do theseprinciples help them navigate
the complexities, as we'vediscussed briefly, and how do
these principles help themnavigate the complexities, as
we've discussed briefly, ofmanaging staff students?

And the broader school community.
Yeah, okay, cool.
So I'm going to unpack this ina bunch of layers, but I'm going
to say plain and simplyteachers are, as you know, one
of the most important people inour society because they are
responsible for raising the nextgeneration of our planet.
Teachers probably spend moretime with children, ie the
future of our world, than theirown parents do, particularly

(18:15):
during certain age brackets andcertain times of the year Highly
, highly, highly influential tosomeone's development of self
nervous system, futureregulation, etc.
Teachers in australia,according to research, are five
times more likely than thegeneral population to experience
stress, anxiety and depression.

(18:36):
What we're seeing here is a lowprobability that we can raise
mentally healthy children if wedon't have mentally healthy
adults in their ecosystem.
That's where this all stemsfrom, right.
So, as a principal, also knownas a leader of teachers who are

(18:57):
raising the future of children,principals must be able to
create psychologically safeenvironments for their staff,
not just for the sake of theirstaff, but for the sake of
everyone who loves the childthat depends on this school
system to raise and treat themwell.
All principals, all teachers, Iwould imagine, get into this

(19:20):
game for the same reason.
They have massive hearts, highEQ, get into this game for the
same reason.
They have massive hearts, highEQ, and to some extent this is
probably a stretch, but I readthis yesterday in a quite timely
, serendipitous post onlinebefore this interview today.
I think some teachers get intothe profession to give people

(19:43):
children a role model that theydidn't have, so that they can
rewrite their own story in abetter and more healthy way.
So all that is really goodstuff.
The issue is that when thesystem becomes so intense which
it does through under-resourcingintense, which it does through

(20:07):
under-resourcing through lifehappening, through the rise of
mental illness good intentionsgo out the window and we go back
to default, which is fix, fix,fix.
And that's when the rubbermeets the road and tension comes
in, and principals as wellmight think well, my job is to
run the operations of the school, when, in fact, just like any
leader of a workplace, yournumber one goal is to build

(20:30):
healthy relationships with yourstaff, to protect them and
empower them to do good work,something you cannot do if
you're not connecting well.
Final point on this is I spendmost of my time when going into
corporate workplaces trying toget people to be more
open-hearted to extendthemselves more deeply in

(20:52):
relationship with their staff.
When I work with principalcohorts, I have the opposite
problem, but still an equalproblem, which is knowing how to
have boundaries.
Boundaries are the heartbeat ofrelationships right.
And connection isn't just thisdrug where you can administer as

(21:13):
much as you want andexponentially everything gets
better on an infinite curve.
Eventually, connection, justlike anything.
All medicine becomes poison,depending on dosage.
You can overconnect to thedetriment of self and other, to
the extent that the whole systemcollapses because you don't
know how to say no.
You don't know how to dancethat dance.
You end up building resentmentagainst your teachers instead of

(21:36):
just implementing some healthylimits on how involved you can
get in the supportive process,which is both beneficial to you
and them.
So really, when I'm workingwith principals or educators,
it's helping them find thatsustainability line versus how
to lean in at all.

Yeah, which makes it so complex?
Yeah, but doable, and we'veproven that my colleagues
listening in there is hopebecause you know that saying I
heard you said talking aboutjust it's the principal's
responsibility.

(22:15):
That's a huge responsibility tothink of as a principal, saying
what it's my responsibility asa principal to oversee um mental
health.
Or are we am hearing that right?
Or is it still the onus on theteacher, obviously, the student
and the parent to own theirmental health as well?

Let's reword that because I think that'll scare a
lot of people to be like I'm notresponsible for someone's
depression and that's true,right, because there's so many
parallels to the corporate space.
I always say to people,managers in that world, no one's
ever going to leave a job andsay you didn't cure my
depression, right.
So if we bring that into theprincipal scenario, you don't

(23:08):
need to handhold someone througha mental health issue or a
difficult life situation.
You need to have the skills tonot make them or you worse in
the process, first and foremost.
And you have a legal, economicand ethical responsibility to
create a psychologically safeworkplace.

(23:30):
And at the middle ofpsychological safety is healthy,
trustworthy relationships.
That's the lens I want peopleto look at this through.

Yeah, and we'll unpack that further throughout
our discussion on the how and,obviously, going through forward
in terms of how they can dothat through the Real
Conversations course.
Let's talk about your ownschool experiences, mitch, and
were there any teachers oreducators that significantly
influenced your journey and youcould able to share any

(24:04):
particular memories of a schoolprincipal or or principals that
stood out and shaped your, yourperspective on educational
leadership?

Yeah, it's interesting, drew.
I think so much of my childhoodwas scattered with such
traumatic mental illness at atime where this stuff wasn't
talked about that I've almostdissociated somewhat from that,
which is a shame because therewere so many happy memories
there too, but it's kind ofclouded with this confusion of

(24:36):
identity and this constantfeeling within myself of, you
know, that pit in my stomach ofanxiety and the cloud of
depression that at an age whereI had no idea that that's what
that was.
But there were many happymemories, I think.
You know.
When I think about my primaryschool, where I was school
captain, what I remember is, youknow, of a weekend back then

(24:58):
you could ride your mountainbikes through the school oval
and there were bike jumps nearbyand I remember that time as
being a chapter of explorationof you know so many.
So much was exciting duringthat time and you know, some
teachers were great atincentivizing that curiosity

(25:19):
that is peaking in you at thatage and harnessing that for the
good and looking at everystudent as an individual versus
just a peanut butter approach tointerrelating with students at
that age.
I think where things were mostformative for me was in high
school.
I went to an all boys Catholicschool and there was one teacher

(25:42):
in particular, mr McDonald, whoI developed such a strong
friendship with.
I was also the first seed inour squash team and the captain
of our squash team and hehappened to be the squash coach,
but he was very senior at theschool and was a year
coordinator and, moreimportantly, when my mental

(26:02):
illness really started toflourish and I couldn't hold
that in, he was someone that Iwould go to in moments to talk
about it and he was such a safeplace.
And as we talk about in thecurriculum, it's not what he
said, it's the energy that hebrought to these conversations.
Now that's the subtlety that alot of courses don't go into and

(26:23):
I'm really proud we do and Ithink why it's been so widely
adopted is we're going to spendas much time helping you
understand your own internalbiases, complications, et cetera
that are accidentally spewingout in conversation,
non-verbally, toward otherpeople.
That's making them feel uneasyway more than the script I can

(26:44):
give you to say things perfectly.
I don't remember what MrMcDonald said to me 20 years ago
as now a 34-year-old man, but Ido remember the way he made me
feel and I can tell you what wassurrounding in his office and
the look on his face and justthis safety and warmth.

(27:05):
I felt when I was around himthat I don't know what it is,
but this man has my bestinterests at heart and he's
going to protect me and, at thevery least, he's not going to
judge me and I can seek refugehere.
There was another teacher,brother Mark.
We had brothers, priests in ourschool teaching and Brother
Mark was as special, but in adifferent way.

(27:27):
Mr McDonald was really thatadult, masculine, sturdy
influence.
Brother Mark was thisflamboyant, extroverted priest
who was walking around in a robethrough the schoolyard and to

(27:52):
me he represented play that hewould pull me out of funks
simply just by being thispositive, radiating source of
jokes and smiles and playfulnessthat I'm so glad that his
energy was around during thattime as well.
Yeah, wow.

Lucky to have the Mr McDonald's and Brother
Mark's in the world because, asyou said, you don't even isn't
it interesting?
You don't even remember whatwas said.
You don't even you don't, isn'tit interesting?
It's not, you don't evenremember what was said, but it's
actually how you were, how theyboth made you feel, and they
both made you feel secure, safe,a person to confide in and work

(28:32):
through those, and that'sessentially what Real
Conversations is about.

Yeah, it's about care, Drew and care, and this is
the whole premise.
It's this counte r intuitivepremise that feels like you're
putting your shoes on the wrongfeet.
In so many of our brains wethink that care is a practical
thing.
10% of it is practical, 90% ofit is practical, 90% of it is

(29:00):
emotional.
It's actually not what you do.
It's how you make someone feel,and a lot of that is about
listening and receiving them, asopposed to changing them or
their situation.

Yeah, yeah, let's keep going.
The role of real conversationsin leadership.
In your book, you highlightfive steps to building connected
relationships.
As we've said In the schoolcontext, mitch, how can school
leaders use these steps tostrengthen team dynamics and,
importantly, foster trust?

So I'll just highlight each of the five steps
and give you kind of theheadline learning.
So the model is called ELSA-Band so many of us will remember
this by the movie Frozen If youhave children, elsa is the main
character.
So ELSA-B stands for achronological process of engage,

(29:54):
listen, safety, action,boundaries, boundaries kind of
sits through the Elsa part andholds it all together.
So engage is how do you set upa conversation for success
that's not practical in natureand allows us to get that person
in a state where they canreceive our care and our love

(30:17):
and get us in a state wherewe're primed to be therapeutic
without being a therapist, whichis absolutely possible.
And the headline there is tobring the right energy.
It's an inside out job, it'snot the script, it's actually
cultivating an internal world ofopenness and compassion that

(30:38):
will allow that container to befilled with medicine.
Listen, module two is all around.
How do you actively allowsomeone to feel understood for
them as a person, not just theirsituation and problem?
Our default is to those of uswho are positively curious,

(31:00):
which is a great attribute is tobe curious about the situation
itself.
Oh, you're going through adivorce, what's the timeline on
that, or you're strugglingfinancially.
Who are you banking with?
Is it that you have high debtor not enough revenue?
We'll go situation, situation,situation.
Whereas listening is aboutlistening to the person, not the

(31:22):
problem, and that nuance iscatastrophically important how
they feel what meaning they'veattributed to this thing.
Right, you know, a student canget seven out of 10 on a test.
Two students can drawcompletely different meanings
from that.
One person might be overjoyed,another might think they're an

(31:43):
absolute failure.
Life is just a lens.
The stimulus has to then rotateinto perception, which causes
an emotional reaction.
Right?
So if you're just listening forthe situation, you won't
connect with them on anemotional level because you
haven't heard the storyunderneath.

Yeah, the art of listening is so crucial.
And keep going.
I've interrupted because I'mlistening and I've interrupted,
keep going.

No, you're good.
No, you're good.
No, that's totally fine,because your energy speaks so
much louder than your words,which is that of genuine care,

(32:38):
safety.
Safety is about how we, ifwe're going to get real, if
we're encouraging people to sitin the mud, to go and rub salt
on the wound and disinfect thewound.
And I say you know, a lot ofour participants that go through
the course are like this isoutstanding stuff.
But I feel like this is I feelwrong, I feel evil for asking
questions like this, like howdoes that make you feel?
You just lost your mother?
Are you sad about that?
That is that's going to makethem feel worse.
And I say if someone came toyou with a graze on their elbow,

(33:01):
would you bandage it straightaway?
No, of course not.
You would have to disinfect itfirst.
If it's not stinging, you'renot helping, because when you
bandage that thing up and youuse pleasantries and avoid the
pain, what's going to happen isyou're going to have to deal
with that infection two weekslater.
You're delaying the inevitable.

(33:22):
People get better by goingtoward it, feeling it, not so
that they can get stuck in it,but so that they can process it
and let it go A law of thenervous system, and emotion must
be felt for it to be released.
You cannot repress it.
It will find you in one way,shape or form.
So listening is really the artof cleansing the emotional wound

(33:42):
, which doesn't always feel goodbut results in therapeutic
outcomes.
So safety is all about.
Well, sometimes the process oflistening will get very real.
A lot of the time it'll be in arange where you feel
comfortably uncomfortable enoughto sit in it, but in a few

(34:03):
situations they might talk aboutnot wanting to be here anymore.
So we want to give you aframework as to exactly how to
navigate that, to label risk andto triage that risk effectively
and deal with it, becausethere's a big difference between
thoughts, plan and intent totake one's own life.
So that's safety in modulethree.

(34:26):
Module four is around action.
So I'm not asking you just todisinfect the wound.
You can bandage it.
But it's a chronological thingand when we're taking action we
need to do that effectively sothat they actually stick to and
are motivated to get themselvesout of the hole that they're in

(34:47):
Now.
That is around flipping from anadvice model, even when we're
fixing, to a coaching model.
How do we ask the rightquestions.
How do we mine their own wisdomto build a map that they are
familiar with and can navigatethrough?
So action is very much, youknow.

(35:07):
There's the obvious gettingthem to professional therapy,
blah, blah, blah, after you havemet them as a person.
But it's the art of bringingthe best out of them using their
own knowledge.
And then boundaries is how doyou identify your attachment
style and your natural habits tonot be over or under involved,

(35:31):
because we all instinctuallyswing a certain way depending on
our upbringing.
And then how do we eitherenhance or reduce the limits
that we've put into theserelationships to balance
connection and safety as atrade-off so that we ultimately
have a sustainable, mutuallybeneficial relationship?

(35:52):
Now, drew, I think that that'skind of the five core tenants of
of the curriculum that resultin someone having a much higher
confidence index to connect andbe helpful with people, um, when
they're experiencing emotionalissues or just proactively in
the absence of issues.
But the easiest and mostaccessible way into this

(36:14):
curriculum is identifying withone of the five disconnection
mistakes, and we call them thefive characters of disconnection
the magician, the thief, theblind optimist, the helicopter
and the ostrich.
The magician's constantlytrying to wave a magic wand and
fix people instead of putting itdown and just sitting with them
in their pain.
The thief is constantly talkingabout themselves and stealing

(36:38):
the focus of the conversation bysaying same or me too, and that
person now feels like they needto take care of you.
This comes with a good intent,but it's not effective.

It does.
It's interesting when you are athird observer and watch that
play out, and I'm sure you dotoo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and because we don't
know what else to say, so webring it back to our own sphere
of reference.
But instead of doing that, weneed to figure out and learn
what to say and do.
And talking about you has aplace, but if it's your default
reaction, you're never going toallow that person to feel valid
for their own experience.
The third mistake is the blindoptimist, someone who's

(37:20):
constantly silver liningsomething Now again positivity
and all that stuff has its place.
But if you do it too much, orstraight away, that person feels
invalidated for their pain andgoes deeper into a shame spiral
and creates what's calledcomparative suffering.
The fourth mistake is thehelicopter, and that's where we,

(37:45):
as a supporter, freak out orfreeze up when someone's trying
to hang on to us for stability.
That often comes when we care alot.
The parent-child relationshipis the number one thing that's
going to blow us out of our ownsense of self and completely
enmesh with the other.
But emotions are scientificallyproven to be contagious, so we
need to figure out how to allowthem to show I'm attuned to you

(38:08):
a core tenet of psychologicallysafe parenting attunement.
I'm aware of how you feel, Icare about the way that you feel
, but I'm not going to becomethe way you feel, because it's
not helpful for me to do thatfor multiple reasons.
If a child fell off the bikeand came to you crying, if you
cry back at the child, they'regoing to grow up thinking that
the world is chaos.

(38:29):
If you don't pay the child anyattention, they're going to grow
up thinking the world iscompletely rigid and doesn't
care.
We're trying to show attunement, but also a healthy amount of
separation, which is how toovercome the helicopter aspect
of disconnection.
And then the fifth character isthe opposite of the helicopter
it's the ostrich.
I'm paying no attention to you.
I'm burying my head in the sandand I'm pretending that this

(38:51):
emotional issue does not existbecause I want to avoid an
awkward thing.
Awkwardness is like we treat itas if it's lethal, when
actually it's.
Part and parcel of being a humanis to know how to sit in these
moments without ejecting, and ifyou're a parent or a teacher or
a principal, you've signed upfor this.

(39:13):
This is an enormous part of therole that you voluntarily
consented to is sharingexperiences with someone that
are hard, and the way to getsomeone out of an ostrich is
telling them.
You can do hard things withoutimploding when you know that the
benefit is to the person thatyou actually want to be helpful

(39:34):
to and ostriches the firstpeople to hand others tissues
when they're crying, whenactually that's the biggest
mistake you can make, because itsymbolizes clean yourself up
and hurry up.
The best tissue you can givesomeone is three words take your
time and then stop talking.

(39:54):
Crying is the catharsis, it'sthe nervous system purging.
It's a good thing.
We don't want to stop that.
We want to witness someone intheir pain, because that's when
the resolution happens.

Yeah, wow, so much to unpack in that and such
valuable knowledge and hence whyReal Conversations is a
professional learning piece,because what you've just
unpacked there in the last fiveto eight minutes is huge.
I know you simplified it withthe ELSA.

(40:29):
I love the ELSA acronym thereas well.
It just simplifies that process.
But in just embedding it andbeing a participant myself, it's
that leaning into that pain butI think people listening in is
that's a real skill set.
Can that skill set be learned?
Or people going, hey, mitch,that's all great, but that's not

(40:54):
me.
I'm established, I'll do mywhat's in it for people
listening to this conversation.

Yeah, you will become a better person and you
absolutely can do this.
You know, I work withindustries that are hyper IQ
based, so that where this isvery, very unfamiliar, way
beyond the territory of teachingfor example, professional
services, auditors, accountantsby no means worse people at all

(41:27):
I have dear friends that work inthis profession, but just in
terms of this particular skillset is quite foreign, and even
they leave sessions like thisgoing.
Wow, this is a genuine gamechanger, because deep down, we
know that the quality of ourlife is directly proportional to
the quality of ourrelationships, and so it's

(41:49):
almost like do you want to livea good life?
That's what this course comesdown to.
Do you want to have a goodcareer?
If so, you cannot avoid learninghow to become a better, real
conversationalist, because atthe heart of everything is
connection, is a core capability, particularly at the heart of
leadership, and a lot of it isjust a willingness to suspend

(42:14):
the rigid belief systems or,probably more relevant, to get
the courage to go toward thepain and lift up the hood of
your own way of being and saying.
I wonder how I might be able toshow up better.
Not that I need a completeoverhaul there's so much
goodness and positive reasons asto why you're acting the way

(42:35):
that you are, but is it worthbecoming a better person for
myself and those around me thatI love and that love me?
And that might involve lookinginward for a little bit, and
invariably the answer to that isyes.

Yeah, yeah, well said.
It's not just for thoselistening.
It is a one-day course, so tospeak, but it's more than that.
There's also a whole raft ofsupport mechanisms put in place.
We can go into that now ifyou'd like to.

I just want to pick up on that, Drew, because
it's really important and Ispend a lot of time working with
clients to help them understand.
This is not a one-day course.
The the workshop is theflagship part of the program.
In fact, I don't even call it atraining, I call it a program
so that people understand thatthe one-day workshop is the
tentpole moment for us all tocome together, connect in real

(43:32):
time to do the practicalelements of the workshop like
put it into practice and learnthe curriculum.
However, we pride ourself onbecause I don't know any other
vendor that does this giving acomplimentary year's worth of
coaching after that workshop,where we host twice monthly

(43:52):
coaching and community callsrefresher trainings.
We have an always-on e-learninghub with downloadable resources
and the whole video curriculumof me delivering it and a whole
raft of other things that we goon a 12-month journey.
We kind of give you the 80% youneed in a day and then embed
the remaining 20% over thecourse of 12 months following.

Yeah, extremely powerful, absolutely, as an
advocate myself and aparticipant myself.
Now let's move into mentalhealth in education.
Mitch, what do you see the keymental health challenges in
education today, and how canleaders use real conversations
to address them?

I think we're experiencing, from a leadership
perspective, a broadening scopeof the responsibility and role
of the workplace, which isreally overwhelming for
principals, understandably so.
I myself I'm a leader of abusiness and I can feel that,

(44:59):
and so I think for educators oreducational leaders it's double
as complex because then thelayer down from that is children
are involved and there is anemerging landscape of newness in
that, with the huge increase inneurodiverse populations at the
moment, on a micro level, asopposed to macro meaning, kind

(45:22):
of an always on, but micromeaning timely there's a
financial constraint thatparticularly Australian
educators and children andfamilies are feeling we are
going through a hugegeopolitical changing landscape
which plays on all levels ofthat, both parents, children and

(45:43):
educators.
So I think that the kind of thecore theme at the heart of all
that is that we are in a highlearning, high newness phase of
life, society and and and work.
So, as educators, the abilityto traverse that landscape in a

(46:10):
cohesive manner means having thecompetency and skills to bring
people along that journey, andthat is the delicate art of
being vulnerable in the rightmoments, of showing your
humanity, showing cards.
To say this is hard and as ahuman being I'm I'm struggling

(46:32):
with a whole bunch of this stuff, too.
That buys you trust whilst alsoshowing stability and
confidence and futureorientation of, and here's where
we can head to as well andsteer the ship.
And this is a nice kind ofpoetic call back to the start of
our conversation, which is ifyou choose black or white there,
it will fail.
If we somehow integrate boththe soft and the hard approach

(46:55):
of leadership, we will be wherewe need to be in this incredibly
complex, ambiguous time.

Yeah, and that's the struggle.
The struggle is, many leadersstruggle with vulnerability and
being generally authentic, so tospeak, especially in the
context leading such a diversecommunities with a lot of
transactions in any given day orweek at a school.

(47:26):
Your book, Real ConversationsFive Steps to Connective
Relationship how does it offer aframework for overcoming these
challenges, Mitch?

Well, I think we've covered a lot of that in
our discussion so far, whetherit's the book, the workshop, the
keynote is the exact technologyto be helpful in emotional
issues.
You have so much choice outthere.
It's almost like impostersyndrome, I'm like.
Are you sure that you want tocontinue working with me and my

(47:59):
team?
And they keep coming back tothis works because it's hyper
practical.
You've taken something that isso complex and so emotionally
charged and put it intobite-sized, digestible
frameworks.
That truly does go and createresults.
We are seeing leaders walkaround the workplace and act

(48:20):
differently after this course.
We are seeing in our pulsesurveys, when we audit our
workforce, that they do feelmore psychologically safe.
Our peer support networks arethriving.
Our leadership teams have awhole new dynamic to them.
So I think it's the practicalnature of this IP that really is
the game changer.

Yeah, absolutely Mitch.
In terms of going further intothe advocacy of your work, are
there any particular moments orstories that highlight the power
of that meaning of connectionthat's transformed lives?

Yeah, I mean we go into this course in a workplace
setting to help people becomebetter leaders and sometimes
better staff members as peersupporters, sometimes better
staff members as peer supporters.
But what makes me most proud isthat, of course, we
accomplished that goal.
But I see them leaving asbetter parents, better partners,
better siblings, better friends.

(49:18):
And what heartens me is thenext day receiving a DM on
LinkedIn, for example, fromsomeone that said I just had the
most connected conversationI've ever had with my
12-year-old son tonight, andthis is a CEO that ultimately,
at the end of the day, I knowthat that is what makes his life
worth living, way more thananything in his career, hobbies,

(49:40):
interests et cetera, that's itand to add value in that part of
his life.
Or even, you know, I've spokento participants where that
weekend they will be supportingsomeone who's in a crisis, who's
actively suicidal, and they'vejust there's no way they would
have had the framework tonavigate a conversation like

(50:01):
that had they not gone throughthe program.
And they're not justlife-changing but potentially
life-saving things and theripple effect of what happens
exponentially when you drop thatrock in the water.
That's what excites me is if wecan get a saturation point in
certain industries or in certainsegments and at-risk

(50:21):
communities within Australia andabroad, that this living
organism starts to become athing and real conversations
becomes a tool and a skill setthat's available to the vast
majority of the population.
We will start to see reversingtrends in the worrying
statistics that we're readingabout on a daily basis.

So there is hope.

There is hope.
There is hope I mean we canbalance present moment concerns
with future optimism and hope atthe same time, because it's
about holding multiple things inthe same container.
I think without hope, we'restarved of the core essence

(51:07):
which drives us as humans, whichis the want to progress.
And you know, I personallychoose to use the word belief
instead of hope, because hopefeels theoretical and abstract
to me.
Belief is, I know, things willget better.
There's a certain certainty toit and you know, with real
conversations, I believe in it.

(51:28):
I don't hope it works.
I believe it works because Ihave evidence to prove that and
I have evidence to prove in myown life, as someone that has
overcome complex obstacles, thatI didn't think possible, what
kept me alive in moments that Ididn't think I could be here,
wasn't hope, it was belief.

This will get better could be here wasn't hope
, it was belief.
This will get better, yeah,yeah, and you can really feel
that coming through and you mustpinch yourself when you get
those messages from CEOs aboutthat impact and does that
continually drive you Mitch interms of your mission.

It does.
The impact definitely drives me.
Ultimately.
What drives me is coming backto I want to help one person not
go through what I've beenthrough.
When it all gets big and egogets involved, the bigger things
get, and so I constantly tryand humble myself, or the

(52:26):
universe humbles me.
To come back to the coreessence of why I'm doing this
and a lot of it is a selfishreason to make meaning from my
own pain, because when I wake upin the morning, for me to play
the game of life, I have tobelieve that this is 51% good,

(52:47):
because if it's 51% evil, Iwould opt out.
And so for me to continually goalong that belief system and
schema, I have to perpetuallymake meaning from pain,
otherwise it's pointless andworthless, and that's just not
what I subscribe to.
And so if we can serve thosearound us, not only do they

(53:12):
benefit, but we benefit from anintrinsic sense of self-worth
which will buffer againstanything bad that can come up in
life.

Your mission doing that and making sure that
it is, as you quote, 51% forgood.
How do you balance your ownwell-being while advocating for
others to prioritize theirs?

Do you find that hard?
Well, there's a book coming onthat soon.
Okay, yeah, my core focus as apsychology thought leader is all
in on relationships andconversations and healing
through other.
But I also have an IP that Iuse in my keynotes but will soon

(54:06):
be a book, which is nervoussystem regulation very focused
on just self supporting self asopposed to supporting other.
And so if I borrow from some ofthat right now in terms of how
I navigate my own life is well Aboundaries are an enormous part
of it Boundaries with the world, boundaries in relationships

(54:28):
with other people, boundarieswith myself, like being really
conscious about my limits.
Therefore, being conscious aboutmy energy exchange is a vital
part of my self-care, and myboundaries with my work is
mission critical as well.
So connection, the right typeof connection, is key Coherence.

(54:50):
So for me, journaling is anenormous part of my self-care
strategy Understanding why Ifeel things the way that I feel,
integrating my logic with myheart.
Like all those, I journal on adaily basis to orientate myself
in the world and in my nervoussystem.
And then another part is likethe chemistry component of

(55:12):
mental health, the bio,biological, body-based stuff.
So what are the pistons I needto fire regularly to keep myself
sane.
Exercise massive one.
Um you know, steam rooms andice baths help me a lot.
Eating, eating the right things, getting the right sleep.
Oh my goodness, a couple of badnights sleep not good.

(55:33):
The inverse is true.
If I can really get some deep,therapeutic sleep, my resilience
level goes through the roof.
It is such a good ROI sleep.
Every dollar you put into thatslot machine you'll get at least
a dollar 30 return on that.
So, um yeah, I'm I.
I would say those three pillarsof my non-negotiables

(55:54):
connection, coherence, chemistry.

And that is built up over time, or you've learned
that through your research.

Absolutely, Drew, both, um, I, I.
I tend to be a learner or ateacher actually, because, you
know, a large part of myprofession is teaching.
I never thought I'd be ateacher but, you know, I came to
realize in the past 12 monthsholy shit, I think I'm a teacher
, um, because so much of thework that I do is is educating
people on frameworks andstanding in classrooms.

(56:24):
You know, um, and so you know alot of my style and my approach
, for better or for worse, isintuitive first, logic second.
So I try and figure out whatworks, regardless of the
research.
Just, you know instinctually inmy own life, what do I believe
to be true.
And then I go back to say do Ineed to tweak that?

(56:47):
Did I just make that up?
Can the research help sharpenthat or at very least explain
why it does?
And so you'll see, in the bookI'm constantly moving between
the personal and then theempirical and marrying those two
in the work that I do.

You're a lifelong learner Mitch, which is
incredible.

Amen, I love learning Drew.
It's such a passion of mine,I'm sick for it.

Yeah, but as you said in our conversation, there
is so much out there in terms ofyou said in the previously,
like you know why come back.
The point of difference is thereal conversations is well, it's
real and it's practical.

(57:42):
And if we apply that to aneducational leadership
perspective, now we've got inthe New South Wales PPA, we've
got a membership of over 1,800principals I hope you're all
listening in colleagues.
They've got such a diverseamount of school communities.
How can the strategies fromreal conversations help improve

(58:03):
communication and foster aculture of support?

Foster a culture of support.
It'll give you a framework tovalidate what you're already
doing or extend what you weren't.
So what I mean by that is someof the principles that go
through real conversations inthe cohorts we've run previously
.
Drew, everyone absolutely comesaway with skills that they can
apply that evening.
But I think what's asbeneficial and I'm okay with
this is this enormous peace ofmind that comes from fuck, I was

(58:38):
doing a lot of things right.
So a lot of people leave thecourse and what's as helpful for
them as they say, wow, there'sa lot of things that I was doing
right and there's something inthat you know being validated
and affirmed that what I wasdoing instinctually is correct

(58:59):
empirically, and it just bringsa sense of renewed confidence
into these conversations andinto the leadership that you're
carrying back into yourworkplace and I think as well it
motivates you to continuouslyhave psychological safety at the

(59:21):
forefront of the way that youshow up in the world and good
things come of that in themonths to come.
It just does.

Yeah, and if we go to the big word in education
and, I'm sure, across sectors,is that word about impact and
measuring the impact.
Mitch, what advice would youoffer leaders who are listening,
looking to measure the impactof real conversations into their
school context?

Yeah, so at the moment the main measurement we
use is how much can we boostconnection as a core leadership
capability, and at the momentthe best way we can do that is a
self-reporting tool pre andpost intervention intervention
and what we found is we canboost connection as a capability

(01:00:12):
by up to 400 percent.
Now we might not see thosetypes of numbers in in this
audience because we're coming inwith such a potentially high um
level of intrinsic skill, beingeq orientated people in this
demographic originally.
But what we might also do ischange some people's

(01:00:36):
self-reported metrics by.
I thought I was connecting well, but actually I had not the
same definition of connection,which is understanding a person,
not understanding a problem,let alone fixing a problem.
How practical I can be, Ithought was being a good
connector, and now that I'velearned this, I actually
exponentially improved thatcapability.

(01:00:56):
But also so I think that's oneway to measure success.
Another measure of success is Igot to deeply connect with my
colleagues in the business andhear from them in ways that I'd
never known before.
That's a huge outcome from aqualitative perspective.
You know, was this a goodinvestment of time?

(01:01:17):
A hundred percent.
We've never not seen that goodinvestment of time from a PL
standpoint.
So there's absolutely no riskto taking people out of the
business and thinking was that awasted use of resource and
funds?
And then downstream, whateventually?
What we hope to do is becausewe do this with companies, they

(01:01:37):
then use their own surveys topulse and say is this more
psychologically safe?
And they have their own ways ofasking that.
And I think what we wouldeventually like to do is, with
the PPA, go, have we hit enoughsaturation point of principals
going through real conversationsand then pulsing teachers that

(01:01:57):
report to them and asking, onaverage, do you feel more
psychologically safe at work, doyou feel more supported by your
leader?
And if that is trending up andwe can materially link that back
to real conversations, to methat is huge structural change
in the biggest employer in theSouthern Hemisphere.

Drew Janetzki (01:02:14):
Huge, huge and a huge challenge, which I know
that you will not lean away from.
That pain point, mitch, it does.
It excites me too because thereis a belief there, a real
belief, that this work canchange people, this can support
leaders, this can supportprincipals, this can support
principals, this can supporttheir teachers, this can
ultimately have the flow andeffect of supporting students

(01:02:37):
and the whole school community.
So very powerful, and we'reonly in early stages, as you
know.
But when you talk about themeasure of impact, we haven't
seen surveys like this come backto us and there's only been a
small amount of workshop, whichexcites me as well.
Quotes such as the bestprofessional learning I've done

(01:03:01):
as a principal.
I use it every day.
What a powerful quote.
That was from our pilot program, quote that was from our pilot
program and we've had thosesimilar type of conversations or
evaluations come through, whichis excites me and excites our
members, should be exciting ourmembers to.
If you're thinking where, Iguess in terms, we'll go to

(01:03:23):
where to next, but in terms ofgoing to real conversations for
schools, what's the lastingimpact of educators and students
, or what would you like to seethe lasting impact for both
educators and students in NewSouth Wales public schools, or
not just New South Wales beyond.

Mitch Wallis (01:03:44):
Ultimately, a healthier generation of children
.
Like that, selfishly, is whatexcites me most about partnering
with the PPA is.
I know for sure, and it givesme joy, that principals will
walk out better leaders andbetter people.

(01:04:05):
I know for sure that theirstaff, teachers, human beings,
will benefit from that.
Because we spend, you know, ourmanager at work has more
influence to our mental healththan a therapist, and on par
with that of a romantic partner,as research published out of
the uk and and talked about inforbes, uh, so so that's that's

(01:04:27):
the second ripple, but the thirdis we're going to have a
healthier ecosystem of childrenwho will one day be in the roles
that we are right now andultimately that's legacy right,
that's why we're here is tocontribute positively.
That's true purpose and impact.

So that really is the ripple effect so that that
really is is the ripple effect.

Any last words of advice for people listening in
the curiosity what's the call toaction?
I think for some peoplelistening to this, this has been
enough to give them a bunch oflittle golden nuggets to go and
apply today.
I need to be less of a magician,more of a listener, you know,
um, and I need to even anawareness that a different
technology is required in anemotional conversation than a
practical one, like if that'ssuccess today, then this is an

(01:05:17):
hour well spent and hopefully anhour well listened.
I think for those, that iswhere it sparks something deeper
, a hunger, a thirst to learnand grow, and that you see, the
practical application foryourself or principles within
your PPC is to get, rally yourtroops, get a cohort together
and let's go and do this andwalk the full journey so that

(01:05:40):
you can experience thelife-changing power of Elsa B
firsthand.
And you know, getting in touchwith yourself, drew and and um,
and allowing us to get you knowas many people as possible.
We want upwards of 30 people inin the workshop, um, going
through this program togetherand uh, and I think that it's a

(01:06:01):
good way to.
If you're gonna do pl, this isa good way to spend it
absolutely and testimony to you.

Thank you for everything you do in the mental
health space.
Mitch, it's been an absolutepleasure you coming on and
talking to us today and, we hope, people listening.
That's that call to action make2025 your year of connecting
and have a fantastic year.
Mitch wallace, thank you foryour time.

Thanks, Drew, and thanks everyone for listening.
Thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mitch Wallis: Building Deeper Connections through REAL Conversations

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

All Episodes

Mitch Wallis: Building Deeper Connections through REAL Conversations

Stuff You Should Know