August 21, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode of The Response Force Multiplier, host Emma Smillie dives deep into the power of mindset in high-pressure situations. Joined by Martin Fairn from Gazing Performance, they explore the "Red to Blue" methodology—a practical framework designed to help individuals and teams perform at their best under stress. From the rugby field to the classroom, and even in crisis management, discover how recognising and controlling your mindset can be a game-changer. Learn real-world applications, hear inspiring stories, and find out how this simple yet powerful tool is transforming lives across various sectors. Whether you're in business, education, or emergency response, this episode offers valuable insights into developing mental resilience and achieving peak performance
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello and welcome to the Response Force Multiplier, a
podcast that explores emergencyplanning and response.
On the Response ForceMultiplier, we bring together
compelling experts and thoughtleaders to provide a fresh take
on key issues and cutting edgetechniques in this field.
In each episode we'll dive intoone aspect and we'll use OSRL's
(00:26):
unique pool of experts andcollaborators to distill that
down into actual tools andtechniques for better
preparedness and response toincidents and emergencies.
My name is Emma Smiley.
We are All Spirit Response andthis is the Response Force
Multiplier.
(00:48):
In this episode, I sit down withMartin Fern from Gazing
Performance to discuss theimportance of mindset and mental
resilience in high-pressuresituations.
We dive into the Red to Bluemethodology, a practical
framework for managing attentionand emotions, and explore how
it can be applied in varioussectors, including education,
sports, sports and emergencyresponse.
Join us as we unpack the powerof mindset and learn how to
(01:09):
navigate challenges with greaterfocus and clarity.
Hi, Martin, welcome to theResponse Force Multiplier.
Really pleased to have you here.
It's great to be talking to youafter Andy Carus did his Red to
Blue podcast a few months agoand now we've got you here from
Gazing Performance.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, fantastic, and I'm delighted to be here as well
.
Thank you for the invitationand looking forward to the
conversation today.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Could you start with telling us a bit about yourself,
your background, how you cameto be part of the team that
founded Gazing Performance?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So I'll do a little bit of pre-gazing.
I spent most of my life playingrugby, so I was at college and
then I got a job in sales for acompany called Xerox and that's
what I did through all my earlybusiness career till about 1998,
which is when I met with threeother partners, originally at
Gazing, one of whom I'd workedwith at Xerox in the world of
training and one of whom is aforensic psychiatrist called Dr
(01:56):
Kerry Evans, who some of you whoare interested in red to blue
and perform under pressure maywell have read the book that
Kerry wrote about it.
And then another guy who's agraphic designer and a wonderful
guru, if you will like, when itcomes to performance and
mindset and some of the elementsit takes.
So we got together and we setup Gazing Performance as a
training company and that waswhere we started in everything
(02:17):
from sales and management andleadership in the business
sector, but very specificallyfocusing on the idea of doing
well under pressure and veryclearly realizing that mindset
was a fundamental aspect of that, and that shifted into 2000.
So it was quite early to betalking about mindset in
anything other than maybe sportor as a mental health challenge.
So since then we've reallybuilt it and developed it and
(02:39):
continue to do that now, as wegot to where we are today with
Gazing Red to Blue.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That's a really interesting mix of people there,
with a lot of different skillsthat I guess you all complement
each other really, then.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think that's the best way of describing it.
We used to say it's a bit of aneclectic mix.
I mean Kerry would readily sayI know absolutely nothing about
the world of business.
He happened to have playedprofessional football for his
country and for a team calledoxford united reds.
He was a black belt, seventhdan karate, so we had some real
specialism around that area.
I'd spent most of my first 15years at work in business in
(03:12):
different areas of businessleadership and the other guy was
a trainer.
So I think we didn't come at itfrom a training background.
We came at it very much from aperformance background across
different environments andstraight away.
That led us to the connectionto human beings, recognizing
that they're the common factorin most of the areas we look at
and also acknowledging the factthat pressure is a factor in how
(03:33):
well people are able to do whatthey do.
And sport was an obvious placeto go after.
But you didn't have to look toohard in the world of business
to find different examples ofpressure and the impact that had
.
So that was how we continued tobuild and develop the programs
that we've got and the differentapproach.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What position did you play in rugby?
Out of interest.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I was a fullback in those days.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I was a scrim half.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Were you?
Yeah, very cool.
See, they always had a lot tosay.
They always annoyed everyoneelse on the field.
Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't you.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
No, no, I suspect I was guilty as charged for that
one.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But you can't play a game of rugby without a scrum
half.
So there you go.
You can't, you know you can't.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So for people that haven't heard of the Rope to
Blue methodology, could you justgive a brief overview of what
it is and how it's used?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, sure.
So, emma, I know you and Daveand some of the team are really
engaged in it and it's been aprivilege to work with you all
as we got involved in theemergency response work that you
do and the role that mindsetplays in that, and that's a good
place to start.
So, if you reflect on threeareas and then I'll lead that
into Redtonbury, the first oneis that, rather than starting a
conversation about training orlearning or development,
(04:40):
actually the conversation startsfirst about performance.
So what does it take tocontribute to people being able
to do well or whatever they dowhich is why, by the way, we're
happy to have a conversationabout sport, as happy as we are
to have a conversation ineducation about with teachers,
or about students with exams andall the things that they go
through or in business, or,specifically, an emergency
response.
So you start a conversationabout performance.
(05:01):
You then look at the notionthat there is pressure.
Everywhere you tend to have aconversation about performance,
it comes from a variety ofplaces.
Sometimes the pressure isactually what we create in our
own world and what we put onourselves.
And so performance and pressure.
And then the question reallythat led us to Red to Blue was
what role does mindset play?
And if there's anacknowledgement that mindset,
(05:23):
mentality, has a part to play inour ability to do well when the
pressure's on, then what couldyou do to provide a simple,
practical, accessible way ofdescribing it, of learning about
it?
And our real breakthrough, wefeel around mindset, is to
acknowledge the fact that it's askill, and so, with that in
mind, we developed the ideacalled Redhead, bluehead, red to
(05:45):
Blue.
And that's where that came from.
For those people who have anatural or practical interest in
the psychology that sitsunderneath it, or even, indeed,
the neurology associated withbrain function, comes from
cognitive psychology.
Actually, it's not exactly true.
Our brains don't only functionat one extreme or the other.
It's not we're always red orwe're always blue, or we're
(06:06):
either one or the other.
It's more that there's a lot ofmovement.
We're pretty fluid in the waywe react to situations, and red
to blue just gives you apractical framework for locating
where your attention is at anymoment in time.
The skill we develop, red toblue at its overview level, is
really providing you with apractical way of going.
(06:29):
Look, the first job is torecognize where your attention
is, because actually our energytends to be drawn to where our
attention might be, particularlyin response to difficult
moments and challengingscenarios.
And if that's the case, then,once you recognize where your
attention is, the question is isit in a useful area, is it
focused on the next job orwhatever your job might be, or
is it diverted and distracted bythings you can't control or by
situations that you're dealingwith that feel uncomfortable?
(06:49):
If that's the case, then you'regoing to accept the fact that
your attention is diverted andthe next bit is to choose where
would be helpful to put yourattention for a more useful
outcome, more useful response tothe situation.
So, really, that notion of asimple framework, accessible,
easy to understand, verypractical to do.
It gives you the three stagesof recognizing where your
(07:09):
attention is, acknowledging thefact that it is your attention
it's not the situation or thereferee, as you scrum halves use
, always used to blame.
But then about choosing whereyou place your attention.
So recognize, accept and choose.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So one of the questions I always get asked
actually is why red and why blue, why those two colors?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It's a good question because actually there are one
or two slightly confusingaspects out in the world of
mindset at the moment.
There's a zones of regulation,for example, that's being
deployed within education thattries to attribute emotions to
colors so that they'reconnecting.
The quick answer is that colorsare easily memorable.
They bring a sense ofrecollection to the process.
(07:53):
When you think about red versusblue, naturally there is a level
of unhelpful emotional heatassociated with your attention
being distracted, which is whywe leaned towards redheads, not
because there's no emotion onthe blue side.
Actually, you will know whenthings are going well, when
you're doing well, when you'refocused, when you've got the
(08:14):
intensity in the right place.
There's plenty of emotion inthat place, particularly when
things matter.
But actually the redhead reallyindicates that it's unhelpful,
somewhat misdirected emotionalheat which is captured best by
the red side versus the blue,which captures a calmer, clearer
feeling of being focused, incontrol, clear about the
(08:35):
scenario and most aware of whatthe helpful response should be.
People often relate it to heatversus water ice, and that can
be quite helpful.
In a way, I guess the thing,emma is it's to do with image,
it's the mental nature of theimages, and that's why redhead
versus bluehead is quite helpful, everyone goes.
Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It makes sense.
I think my children have beendoing the zones of regulation
because we now have a discussionabout the different colours and
I always say, oh look, it'sreally simple, you only need two
, actually, and there's a greenand a yellow and they throw all
sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But you know what?
A really nice thing about itand I'm getting told this more
by teachers that we work with ineducation is what they find
with other aspects that areintroduced around mindset and
other ways of trying to dealwith some of the mental health
challenge that we're facing justbroadly across the world and
certainly in education, is thatwhat Red to Blue doesn't do is
pigeonhole you or label you asbeing one thing or the other.
(09:29):
It really provides you withthat fluidity that is more
representative of how wefunction as human beings.
Sometimes our attention isdiverted and distracted and not
in a helpful place, and othertimes it's focused on task and
we're doing what we want to door what we know matters in that
particular situation.
I think, without judgment andthat's probably the thing that I
often get asked about withathletes or in school that Red
(09:52):
to Blue comes without judgment,and maybe that's the thing
because we live in a world thatis full of judgment right now,
and maybe that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Actually, your work witheducation really fascinates me.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It'd be great if you could talk a little bit more
about how you've been workingwith schools, humans and how
well humans adapted to thescenario of the situation.
So that's why we did some earlywork in education, that's why
we've always been able to takewhat we do into different
sectors in business and it's whysports has been an obvious
place for us.
Education to me.
If you said to me what would wereally really like to do with
(10:37):
Red Taboo?
It would be to deploy it in theeducation sector across the
world, for two reasons.
One is we always knew mentalhealth has existed.
Everybody knew.
If I go back to where I was born, everyone's talked about mental
health, but with quite a.
It's a problem that needs fixingapproach to it, and so we're
now facing in the world thismental health challenge and the
(10:57):
level of anxiety seems to havegone up significantly.
Whether we think that's true ornot, it's certainly what the
young people are experiencing.
So I think in the educationsector, both for the teachers
and all the students, we'reseeing mindset as being a factor
that needs embracing, needs asimple, practical way of
developing it, both for theteachers and for the students.
(11:17):
And so we're finding, once weintroduce Red to Blue, much like
we've done with you and Daveand the team at Avanza or
Response.
It's then handing it over tothem and say they, they know the
children, they know theeducation environment, let's see
how you bring red to blue tolife in that environment.
So, without making it somethingseparate, just allowing them to
integrate into the teachingthey do, into the day-to-day
(11:38):
lives that they have as teachersand, specifically, students
with no age limit, by the way-no, I know this very well with
my four-year-old.
Even she resonated with the redand the blue head, absolutely I
have a feeling that what we mayhave done over the last recent
years is removed.
Some of the empowerment tothink, to be creative, to
respond, to not be judged, justto respond in different ways and
(12:01):
my view about red to blue isone of the things that brings
back to people is the level ofempowerment you get to choose.
You get to choose your response, you get to acknowledge when
it's a good response, you get torecognize when it's not and you
get to choose how long thatlasts and where you put your
attention.
And even at a youngdevelopmental age, that notion
of you being empowered to chooseand being able to acknowledge
(12:22):
when actually that's not ahelpful response, even as a
young person you sort of getthat.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And it must be a trend, because we went to the
cinema the other day to seeInside Out 2.
If you've seen it, thatintroduces anxiety into the life
of the main character.
There's a moment there when Iwas like this is so red to blue.
There's joy talking to anxietyabout the circles of control,
and there's things we cancontrol, there's things we can't
control, and the fact that thatis a mainstream film just shows
(12:47):
how much something like Red toBlue is needed.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
We have a vision that says, asyou well know, red to Blue for
everyone, anywhere at any time,and that says there's 8 billion
people who could benefit from it.
I'm not naive.
I realize how stupid that mightsound, but why.
I realize how stupid that mightsound, but why would it stop us
?
Why would that try and limitwhat we do?
Because we know how powerful,how practical, how engaging it
can be.
So we should work to distributeacross the world.
(13:11):
It's not limited by gender,it's not limited by culture,
it's not limited by age andexperience, and because much of
the work that we do will bethrough a foundation as we
continue to grow, which meansthat actually, where it might be
limited by the financialresources to get access to it,
we need to take that barrieraway and make sure that Red to
Blue gets out into all theplaces that people, because
(13:32):
we're just giving a simpleframework and language and tools
just to help people deal withthe challenges they face and the
lifestyle that we've now allgot.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So you're setting up a foundation as well as already
set up.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We've been doing foundation work and we're now
building more structure into thefoundation with more purpose
behind it in terms ofdistribution and looking to fund
it in ways that will get it outinto the education system and
into the broader areas acrossthe world where there's quite
clearly some value in supportingmindset but not a lot of access
to resources to help do it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So mental health has been seen as a bit of a negative
thing, with the stigma aroundit.
What are your thoughts onmental health?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, firstly, pretty much everyone I know is
experiencing mental healthchallenges in some way, either
themselves or people around them.
The circle seems to have gotsmaller and smaller.
Maybe it's because of the worldwe're now talking about and
acknowledging it, but yet stillI suspect it comes with the
difficulty of expressing it, ofdiscussing it and to remove some
(14:29):
of the stigma associated withreally acknowledging that it
exists.
And I'm not suggesting that Redto Blue is a replacement for
mental health support when andwhere it's needed.
Of course that should be inplace and there is dramatically
more resources needed in thatarea.
But if just generally in thelives that we all face, or at
the performance end in sport, orin business, or in education,
or in emergency response thethings that you deal with if we
(14:51):
could just have a simpleframework that acknowledges,
without judgment, the role thatmindset will play in helping us
deal with those responses, inbuilding the mental skills,
building our mentality, tosupport everything else that we
know we have to get to gripswith, then I think that's a
major step forward because we'reremoving the difficulty that
comes with complexity, thedifficulty that comes with just
(15:11):
the fear of having aconversation because it might
come with judgment or lack ofnormalization of a redhead
response and the feelings thatcome with that.
Here's one of the things thatyou often hear.
You've got to control thecontrollables.
I mean, everyone talks about itat the moment and you go
intellectually that's true.
Practically, for people withemotional responses, it's really
(15:32):
difficult to do.
What Red to Blue gives us thespace to do is acknowledge that
actually I am experiencingsomething that I can't control,
but I do feel anxious associatedwith that.
I am responding to it in anunhelpful way.
I've got to acknowledge that,to genuinely accept and free up
my attention so I can get itfocused on what will be a more
useful path forward.
That, for me, is the piece thatI think that Red to Blue will
(15:54):
really provide a pathway to yeah, I get so many uncontrollables
these days as well that it'soverwhelming, isn't it?
From controlling your threefour-year-old, five-year-old to
get them to do what they want,all the way through to the
macroeconomic climate.
Everything challenges thatwe're facing, the existential
threats that could be reallyoverwhelming for many people.
(16:16):
But what the hell do you domentally to respond to those
scenarios?
And I'm not saying we got theonly answer, but it seems to be
a helpful perspective to helppeople navigate through that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
It's about developing mental resilience, isn't it a
lot of it?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I think that's the outcome.
You just build up a bit ofmental toughness and, without
judgment, just go.
Yeah, you've got some skillsnow to help you deal with stuff
that you've already faced,you're going to face or you're
right in the middle of.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Are there any other sectors that you've worked and
you've seen such a really bigimpact of red to blue in?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Because people talk about performance and quite
naturally veer towards winningand losing and, by the way,
that's not just sport.
I mean people would view examachievement as a win versus a
loss, if things went well versusnot going well.
So education, it works there.
I think it works in sport.
But I also think that we wereengaged into the military sector
(17:08):
by the British Army, originallywith the Gurkhas.
We learned a lot inunderstanding war about the
environment, specifically aroundthe Gurkhas, and how they
embraced mindset as a community,as a culture, and recognized it
as a factor in terms of theirability to perform well as a
fighting force of soldiers, bothin barracks but also out in the
(17:28):
field.
Where we get distracted anddiverted and caught up in stuff
we can't control is in the area,in the barracks.
So it'd be really good for usto have a simple, practical
framework and language for doingthat.
So the military sector, thecritical services when you
really look hard and you supportthe notion that human beings
exist in whatever factor it is,then there's an acknowledgement
(17:51):
that red to blue could be apractical framework and actually
we've learned over the yearsthat there's no need to exclude
other things that people finduseful.
So take meditation, take someof the mindfulness work that is
done.
If people find some of thatmindset support helpful within a
broad frame of red to blue,there's no reason why you would
want to exclude it, because inthe end the goal has to be to
(18:11):
make sure people feel able torespond well to the challenging
situations they face, to thediscomfort, and just make good
choices about how long thediscomfort lasts and where they
put their attention to moveforward.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
You work with individuals as well, louis
Alexander, for example.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Louis Alexander is a stormwater of the adventurer
explorers, and actually why he'sclose to our hearts as a
business is he's very purposedriven.
His story is connected to hisgrandfather spending 17 years
suffering from Alzheimer's,gradually passing away On his
deathbed.
Louis made a commitment todedicate his life raising money
(18:47):
for Alzheimer's and help find acure, and that is exactly what
he's done.
And he's done some crazy thingsaround the world.
He's currently swimming theseven oceans, swimming a
marathon swim in each of theseven oceans.
He ran 17 marathons in 17 days.
There's just no end to LouisAlexander's sort of desire to
commit to raising the money thathe said, but to put himself
(19:07):
under pressure in such adifficult scenario.
So a brilliant ambassador, butequally Adriana Brownlee, who is
right now an unbelievableclimber.
Tomorrow I'm presenting to abusiness conference about 60 or
70 people who will be listeningto us talk about Red to Blue as
a framework to deal with thechallenges they face, and then
they get to listen to AdrianaBrownlee describing how she's
(19:29):
applied it at 8,500 meters.
She's now climbed 13 of the top14 mountains and she's
currently planning the 14th one,which will accelerate her into
world records as a real rockstar when it comes to that, and
a brilliantly humble descriptionof how mindset support has
helped her.
In words stay alive a halfthousand meters incredible.
(19:50):
Yeah, it's a really impressiveindividuals definitely yeah, and
, by the way, we've got abbypulling.
Oh yes, you shift fromexploring to sport and abby is a
formula one academy race driver.
She currently is.
The Formula One Academy is awhole female race competition.
There is no reason at all whyFormula One two, three or four
(20:10):
motor racing should be female ormale.
It's not, it's just humanbeings driving quick and Abby is
determined to forge her wayinto that pathway and she's
currently leading the FormulaOne Academy and she's really,
really been working hard forthree years on understanding Red
to Blue and how it supports hermentality, either clearing the
decks to make sure that herskill as a driver, her
(20:31):
decision-making on track and offtrack that really determines
how well she performs.
But occasionally she knows thatsometimes her mindset might get
in the way and the quicker sherecognises it, the quicker she
acknowledges it and shifts, thebetter she's going to be able to
perform on a race weekend or ina specific race.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I've got a question here.
We didn't ask Is there aspecific story or anecdote that
really, truly illustrates thepower of Red to?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Blue.
So there's a couple of examplesOne in the world of education
and I'll share this only becauseit was shared by the teachers
involved in this scenario and itwas a very difficult situation
with a highly dysregulated,pretty traumatized student that
they were trying to get through,that they'd been excluded from
a couple of schools, they'dchosen not to engage in
(21:13):
education, they'd chosen not toeven verbalize how they were
feeling, and the teachersinvolved in this school were
genuinely feeling reallychallenged how to help.
They thought, well, let's justtry talking them through red to
blue.
And they did that.
They went through a couple ofsessions and then used the
graphical representation thatyou've seen having yourself the
back, really at a very simplelevel, just to say, look, we're
(21:34):
going to talk a little bit aboutmindset and here's a simple way
of expressing it and theopportunity, without necessarily
teaching them the cognitiveskills associated with it, just
to go look, here's a way ofreflecting on where you are.
And that process led to thisstudent re-engaging in the
education discussion, choosing,as a body, dysmorphic, real
sutter or anxiety associatedwith it, choosing to get up and
(21:56):
decide their own volition to goto the gym.
So they attended class, theywent to the gym.
And then perhaps the mosttelling piece was that they made
a video wow, somebody with allof that going on making a video.
I mean, I don't even like beingfilmed for a podcast, so and
they just said I'll talk aboutred to blue and it was.
But you know what an amazingjob really done by those
teachers with that student togive them a pathway through.
(22:18):
And then I work with theseamazing athletes you've told me
to me talk about them and peoplecome with passion sometimes and
people come with intent andintensity and everything that
you grow up with as part of yourpersonality and characteristic.
And there's a really terrificyoung golfer we work with and
she's been challenged in thearea of wanting to win
everything she does from the ageof about one.
Apparently.
(22:38):
If I had a mom and dad on herenow, they would say the same
thing, and that translates intoincredibly high expectations of
herself now as a 17 year old.
And that's not just on the golfcourse, but that's how it
manifests itself in, you know,playing for your country and
competing in high levelcompetitions.
And what is learning now is theacknowledgement that the redhead
(23:02):
response is hers, that it isfine, it doesn't need to come
with judgment, but it is in fact, unhelpful when those moments
occur, and she's got thisbrilliant way of saying as soon
as the ball has left my club,it's outside my control, so I
only now have to manage myresponse to that situation and
(23:22):
acknowledging the highlyemotional response sometimes
comes with something that is notwhat you expected or wanted or
planned, and then being able tothen acknowledge that and reset
where you put your attention.
In her world, in Ibby's world,that's about refocusing on the
next shot, the next decision,all the things that go with that
, and then she's taken thatthrough into her exams and the
(23:44):
world she does there.
Is she brilliantly, mentallyskillful at every moment?
Definitely she's still gotplenty of work to do but she
knows it and she's seeing thatvalue in her own self.
Two stories for me that reallymeaningful in terms of how
people are taking Red to Blueforward and how about you
personally?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Has it had an impact on you?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So there's an easy answer is yes.
The slightly longer answer isthat when we talk about Red to
Blue and one of the techniquesthat we've taught everybody who
learns it, and we ask people tocoach around it is the ability
to take a step back and see aslightly broader perspective on
the situation that they'refacing.
We call that zooming out beforeyou zoom back in on the task at
(24:21):
hand.
We would suggest and this isnot new as a piece of advice,
taking a step back is a veryhelpful mindset approach when
we're really feeling overwhelmedand under pressure and
responding in a not helpful way.
And I've found that aparticularly telling part of Red
to Blue for me the mindsetapproach, because everybody
comes across trauma, difficultsituations, uncomfortable
(24:45):
scenarios.
So I believe the message we'regiving to the world, to the
people we talk to, is don't gettrapped by this view that there
shouldn't be any discomfort,there shouldn't be any pressure
and everything will be fine ifyou think positively.
I'm not dismissing those peoplewho find value in thinking
positively, but for sure,everybody is going to at some
(25:06):
moments in their lives, andmaybe multiple moments they're
going to face trauma and thatmight be trauma with a capital T
and it's terrible and difficultand it's challenging and it's
life-changing.
Or it might be trauma with asmall T, like I've just missed
the bus I really wanted to get.
It's frustrating.
Whatever it is, we're going toexperience those difficulties
and we're going to face thechallenging mindset moments
(25:26):
related to that.
And just pausing long enough totake a step back, to zoom out,
can give you just a slightlydifferent perspective, a
slightly different view thatallows you to maybe see your way
through it without pretendingthinking that way will make you
feel happy, but just actuallyfinding a way to navigate
through it, giving people thatempowerment, that choice, I find
personally extraordinarilyhelpful with the different
(25:48):
challenges I've faced.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I was listening to a podcast the other day, a
high-performance podcast withJason Fox, and he talked about
his 10-second rule in terms ofresponding to anything, just
pausing for those 10 seconds.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, because people often think, oh, you need to and
again not dismissing the valueof meditation or you need to
step away, or you need to go,you know, take a walk around the
block or, in the old days, gooutside for a cigarette,
whatever the current thing usedto be.
But what jason fox will know,what other people recognize, is
just that very deliberate shiftin mentality, in perspective.
Zooming out for a moment justgives you your now and then to
(26:24):
redeploy your energy into a morehelpful, thoughtful response to
the situation.
And it doesn't mean we get itright all the time, it doesn't
mean our response is the bestamazing response, but it does
give you space to decide andthat can be truly valued.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It takes practice, though, doesn't it, not to just
instinctively respond.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and I think that's why one of the
breakthrough moments with us,with Red to Blue, is the fact
that we position it as a skill.
There's plenty of coaches whomay not believe that.
There's, I'm sure, plenty ofleaders and coaches who think
actually there's anothersolution there.
Just get really knowledgeable,really skillfulful, whatever it
is you want to do, so that youtake the diversion out of the,
you sort of factor it out bybeing totally skillful, totally
knowledgeable.
I just think there's avulnerability risk with that.
(27:08):
So we're saying actually becomementally skillful.
How will I later deal with allthe difficulties, challenges and
traumas that are coming yourway?
And getting ready now to beready when.
The when is when those toughmoments occur.
And that's the skill thatyou're learning.
And, as you rightly say, thetougher the moments, the bigger
the occasions, the more skillfulwe need to be.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Absolutely.
One of the questions we want totouch on with communication is
key.
Have you seen?
Red to Blue help peoplecommunicate better when they're
under pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, at the heart of what we started to do, going
right the way back to thebeginning, we always believed in
different areas in businessgenerally in terms of leadership
, the customer service and salesand all but actually in life,
language is such a significantfactor in people's ability to
articulate how they feel, howthey want to respond, how they
feel in response to a certainscenario, and often the
(27:59):
commonality of language gives usan easier pathway for that
communication.
So it's one of the reasons why,as you go through Red to Blue,
you get a simple, practical,graphical map that just
represents that common languagein a way that is immediately
easy to engage with and relateto.
And so the common language wesee working across all teams is
designed to exactly do that.
It gives us an easy way tocommunicate in those difficult
moments.
And so the common language wesee working across all teams is
(28:20):
designed to exactly do that.
It gives us an easy way tocommunicate in those difficult
moments.
And it does so because redversus blue is designed to come
without judgment.
It's more driven by observation.
And then the common language interms of how to help, support,
and it may well be a little bitof redhead.
Response time to get back ontask can literally be the
(28:40):
language that helps people resetin the moments that matter.
It doesn't invalidate theseriousness of some of the
situations we experience, but itmay well give you just a common
language to reset, refocus inthe moment that matter, and then
you can get to the review, areflection piece, when the time
is appropriate.
So that's why I like the ideaof common language.
(29:02):
It just gets us allindividually, collectively
focused when it matters.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I have actually seen that in a big exercise where we
were introducing Red to Blue andthen people were talking in
that language and sharing howthey were feeling.
It was that being perfect sense.
If you don't recognize it, it'shard to verbalize it, and then
it's hard for other people tounderstand where you are in your
head at that moment yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So when the all blacks talk about how they use
rent-a-blue and they've been atit since 2009, working it into
their culture they talk aboutusing the language on the field
for themselves, talking tothemselves if they need to
remind themselves, but actuallyengaging with others.
Talking to others, recognizingpeople's redhead responses,
because as you get to know eachother in a team in a situation
and environment that matters,mind of themselves, but actually
engaging with others.
Talking to others, recognizingpeople's redhead responses,
because as you get to know eachother in a team in a situation,
(29:44):
in an environment that matters,you get more able to go a little
bit of a redhead response.
They're back on task.
You can remind people, you cangive people gentle
acknowledgement that that'swhere they need to be and that's
what you can do.
That to help in that situation.
And it helps in Abby's raceteam.
So we've got the engineer, theengineer team and her coach.
They're very aware of thecommon language.
Often talk to Abby aboutzooming out, just to take a
(30:06):
pause, take a breath.
So that common language can bevery helpful.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Have you seen any lessons from other sectors that
we could apply in crisismanagement the emergency
response side.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I think that you do preparation, of course, in
dealing with the response.
I think that's natural and Iimagine the debriefs, following
the support that you've provided, will be there.
I mean, in any environmentwhere performance in the moment
really matters, the preparationto get ready and the reflection
on what we did and how we didand where to improve is always
(30:38):
part of it.
But what I have seen is thevery deliberate, purposeful
integration of mindset into thatconversation.
So I think, to make sure, inthe preparation questions and
the actions and in the reviewreflection questions, just to
ask what role did our mentalityplay?
Was there evidence of a redheadresponse?
If we look at the situation,was it contributed to by our
(31:00):
mindset and if it was, then whatcaused it?
I would say the explicitintegration, rather than
implicit, can be really valuable, because some of the true
learning comes when we'reexplicit about acknowledging the
role that mindset plays yeah, Ithink that's probably more we
can do in a debrief.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
For sure.
The last bit would be youlooking at how do you see Red to
Blue evolving in the next sortof five to ten years?
Because I guess you startedwith the heads and have added
the extra tools to the shoe tohave it evolve.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
We started with a bit more detail actually, so we
started probably with too muchdetail.
I think where Red to Blue willevolve now is we've evolved into
the broader, simpler picture.
So it's made it more engagingfor young people, made it more
engaging in the moment becauseof the simplicity of the
overview version of the redtablet pads.
The detail still needs to bethere.
I think what we're seeing nowis that the development in
(31:49):
neurology, the understanding ofhow brains function and some of
the triggers that impacts howour brains actually work.
I think that we can providesupport for making that less
complicated on the basis thatnot everyone either wants to be
a brain surgeon or ever will bea brain surgeon, but we all have
the capacity to think, thecapacity to respond unhelpfully.
(32:12):
So I think the red to blue willevolve that way, bringing a
natural pathway to what we learnmore about mindset and pressure
, the impact of pressure.
I think it will naturallyevolve because we need to
digitize it, as committed as Iam to deploy it through the
foundation and more broadly,we've got to have a digital
answer.
People are engaging digitallynowadays with their devices,
(32:32):
with the different platformsthat they can do.
That Red to blue has to beavailable so they can
practically do that withoutremoving the value of the human
interface and the humaninteractions that people still
see huge value in.
So I think it will evolve thatway going forward and I think
the more people that know aboutit, the greater the demand there
will be to get at it andunderstand how to use it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I hope so, because it's so useful in everyday life,
not even just in an informantsmoment, just in a parenting
moment or a getting out the doormoment or a, like you say,
catching the bus moment.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, I'm entirely with you and in fact, if someone
says, 10 years on, five yearson, if we can just get to
students, kids, young people ina way that helps them navigate
through, I don't see the worldgetting any easier and in fact I
think one could make areasonable case and say it's
going the other way.
If it is going to do that andpeople are going to experience
individuals, groups, families,the tough moments, the
(33:24):
challenges they face, then ifRed to Blue and the description
of it, the delivery of it, thecoaching around it, just helps
them understand that they've gota simple, accessible framework.
It represents how we respondmentally to different scenarios
and it gives us a pathway totake ownership of our mindset.
Just that in itself, and notget caught up with stuff that we
just can't control, but resetour attention, acknowledge how
(33:47):
we feel and focus in on what wecan control.
That's gold dust for me If wecan get that happening that's
really where we're headed.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
If there was one thing you'd want someone
listening to this podcast totake away, what would that be?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I really would urge people to deliberately
explicitly acknowledge the factthat mindset has a part to play
in how we navigate our waysthrough our lives and that there
is something that we can chooseto do to affect how we
individually respond to thechallenges we face and how we
might be able to help others.
And if you don't choose red toblue as a simple language, then
(34:23):
find another way of doing it.
But to shy away from theexistence of mentality, either
as a problem to our mentalhealth or an opportunity to help
us do really well when itmatters, is a shame, because I
think that's missing out on someof what makes us incredible
creatures as humans.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Thank you, that was really really interesting.
I really enjoyed thatdiscussion around to blue.
It's incredible the way you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Well, thank you, emma , and I knew I would enjoy
today's session and I knew we'dcover all kinds of areas, and
there's more stories buildingeverywhere we go, and there's
some stories you and I will noteven know about that are just as
amazing as the ones we've beento share.
So that's what I love aboutwhat we do and I look forward to
speaking again sometime in thefuture.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Thanks, Martin.
Thank you for listening to theResponse Force Multiplier from
OSRL.
Please like and subscribewherever you get your podcasts
and stay tuned for more episodesas we continue to explore key
issues in emergency response andcrisis management.
For more information, head toosrlcom.
(35:27):
See you soon.
Hello and welcome to the Response Force Multiplier, a
podcast that explores emergencyplanning and response.
On the Response ForceMultiplier, we bring together
compelling experts and thoughtleaders to provide a fresh take
on key issues and cutting edgetechniques in this field.
In each episode we'll dive intoone aspect and we'll use OSRL's
(00:26):
unique pool of experts andcollaborators to distill that
down into actual tools andtechniques for better
preparedness and response toincidents and emergencies.
My name is Emma Smiley.
We are All Spirit Response andthis is the Response Force
Multiplier.
(00:48):
In this episode, I sit down withMartin Fern from Gazing
Performance to discuss theimportance of mindset and mental
resilience in high-pressuresituations.
We dive into the Red to Bluemethodology, a practical
framework for managing attentionand emotions, and explore how
it can be applied in varioussectors, including education,
sports, sports and emergencyresponse.
Join us as we unpack the powerof mindset and learn how to
(01:09):
navigate challenges with greaterfocus and clarity.
Hi, Martin, welcome to theResponse Force Multiplier.
Really pleased to have you here.
It's great to be talking to youafter Andy Carus did his Red to
Blue podcast a few months agoand now we've got you here from
Gazing Performance.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, fantastic, and I'm delighted to be here as well
.
Thank you for the invitationand looking forward to the
conversation today.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Could you start with telling us a bit about yourself,
your background, how you cameto be part of the team that
founded Gazing Performance?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So I'll do a little bit of pre-gazing.
I spent most of my life playingrugby, so I was at college and
then I got a job in sales for acompany called Xerox and that's
what I did through all my earlybusiness career till about 1998,
which is when I met with threeother partners, originally at
Gazing, one of whom I'd workedwith at Xerox in the world of
training and one of whom is aforensic psychiatrist called Dr
(01:56):
Kerry Evans, who some of you whoare interested in red to blue
and perform under pressure maywell have read the book that
Kerry wrote about it.
And then another guy who's agraphic designer and a wonderful
guru, if you will like, when itcomes to performance and
mindset and some of the elementsit takes.
So we got together and we setup Gazing Performance as a
training company and that waswhere we started in everything
(02:17):
from sales and management andleadership in the business
sector, but very specificallyfocusing on the idea of doing
well under pressure and veryclearly realizing that mindset
was a fundamental aspect of that, and that shifted into 2000.
So it was quite early to betalking about mindset in
anything other than maybe sportor as a mental health challenge.
So since then we've reallybuilt it and developed it and
(02:39):
continue to do that now, as wegot to where we are today with
Gazing Red to Blue.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That's a really interesting mix of people there,
with a lot of different skillsthat I guess you all complement
each other really, then.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think that's the best way of describing it.
We used to say it's a bit of aneclectic mix.
I mean Kerry would readily sayI know absolutely nothing about
the world of business.
He happened to have playedprofessional football for his
country and for a team calledoxford united reds.
He was a black belt, seventhdan karate, so we had some real
specialism around that area.
I'd spent most of my first 15years at work in business in
(03:12):
different areas of businessleadership and the other guy was
a trainer.
So I think we didn't come at itfrom a training background.
We came at it very much from aperformance background across
different environments andstraight away.
That led us to the connectionto human beings, recognizing
that they're the common factorin most of the areas we look at
and also acknowledging the factthat pressure is a factor in how
(03:33):
well people are able to do whatthey do.
And sport was an obvious placeto go after.
But you didn't have to look toohard in the world of business
to find different examples ofpressure and the impact that had
.
So that was how we continued tobuild and develop the programs
that we've got and the differentapproach.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What position did you play in rugby?
Out of interest.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I was a fullback in those days.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I was a scrim half.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Were you?
Yeah, very cool.
See, they always had a lot tosay.
They always annoyed everyoneelse on the field.
Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't you.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
No, no, I suspect I was guilty as charged for that
one.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But you can't play a game of rugby without a scrum
half.
So there you go.
You can't, you know you can't.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So for people that haven't heard of the Rope to
Blue methodology, could you justgive a brief overview of what
it is and how it's used?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, sure.
So, emma, I know you and Daveand some of the team are really
engaged in it and it's been aprivilege to work with you all
as we got involved in theemergency response work that you
do and the role that mindsetplays in that, and that's a good
place to start.
So, if you reflect on threeareas and then I'll lead that
into Redtonbury, the first oneis that, rather than starting a
conversation about training orlearning or development,
(04:40):
actually the conversation startsfirst about performance.
So what does it take tocontribute to people being able
to do well or whatever they dowhich is why, by the way, we're
happy to have a conversationabout sport, as happy as we are
to have a conversation ineducation about with teachers,
or about students with exams andall the things that they go
through or in business, or,specifically, an emergency
response.
So you start a conversationabout performance.
(05:01):
You then look at the notionthat there is pressure.
Everywhere you tend to have aconversation about performance,
it comes from a variety ofplaces.
Sometimes the pressure isactually what we create in our
own world and what we put onourselves.
And so performance and pressure.
And then the question reallythat led us to Red to Blue was
what role does mindset play?
And if there's anacknowledgement that mindset,
(05:23):
mentality, has a part to play inour ability to do well when the
pressure's on, then what couldyou do to provide a simple,
practical, accessible way ofdescribing it, of learning about
it?
And our real breakthrough, wefeel around mindset, is to
acknowledge the fact that it's askill, and so, with that in
mind, we developed the ideacalled Redhead, bluehead, red to
(05:45):
Blue.
And that's where that came from.
For those people who have anatural or practical interest in
the psychology that sitsunderneath it, or even, indeed,
the neurology associated withbrain function, comes from
cognitive psychology.
Actually, it's not exactly true.
Our brains don't only functionat one extreme or the other.
It's not we're always red orwe're always blue, or we're
(06:06):
either one or the other.
It's more that there's a lot ofmovement.
We're pretty fluid in the waywe react to situations, and red
to blue just gives you apractical framework for locating
where your attention is at anymoment in time.
The skill we develop, red toblue at its overview level, is
really providing you with apractical way of going.
(06:29):
Look, the first job is torecognize where your attention
is, because actually our energytends to be drawn to where our
attention might be, particularlyin response to difficult
moments and challengingscenarios.
And if that's the case, then,once you recognize where your
attention is, the question is isit in a useful area, is it
focused on the next job orwhatever your job might be, or
is it diverted and distracted bythings you can't control or by
situations that you're dealingwith that feel uncomfortable?
(06:49):
If that's the case, then you'regoing to accept the fact that
your attention is diverted andthe next bit is to choose where
would be helpful to put yourattention for a more useful
outcome, more useful response tothe situation.
So, really, that notion of asimple framework, accessible,
easy to understand, verypractical to do.
It gives you the three stagesof recognizing where your
(07:09):
attention is, acknowledging thefact that it is your attention
it's not the situation or thereferee, as you scrum halves use
, always used to blame.
But then about choosing whereyou place your attention.
So recognize, accept and choose.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So one of the questions I always get asked
actually is why red and why blue, why those two colors?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It's a good question because actually there are one
or two slightly confusingaspects out in the world of
mindset at the moment.
There's a zones of regulation,for example, that's being
deployed within education thattries to attribute emotions to
colors so that they'reconnecting.
The quick answer is that colorsare easily memorable.
They bring a sense ofrecollection to the process.
(07:53):
When you think about red versusblue, naturally there is a level
of unhelpful emotional heatassociated with your attention
being distracted, which is whywe leaned towards redheads, not
because there's no emotion onthe blue side.
Actually, you will know whenthings are going well, when
you're doing well, when you'refocused, when you've got the
(08:14):
intensity in the right place.
There's plenty of emotion inthat place, particularly when
things matter.
But actually the redhead reallyindicates that it's unhelpful,
somewhat misdirected emotionalheat which is captured best by
the red side versus the blue,which captures a calmer, clearer
feeling of being focused, incontrol, clear about the
(08:35):
scenario and most aware of whatthe helpful response should be.
People often relate it to heatversus water ice, and that can
be quite helpful.
In a way, I guess the thing,emma is it's to do with image,
it's the mental nature of theimages, and that's why redhead
versus bluehead is quite helpful, everyone goes.
Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It makes sense.
I think my children have beendoing the zones of regulation
because we now have a discussionabout the different colours and
I always say, oh look, it'sreally simple, you only need two
, actually, and there's a greenand a yellow and they throw all
sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But you know what?
A really nice thing about itand I'm getting told this more
by teachers that we work with ineducation is what they find
with other aspects that areintroduced around mindset and
other ways of trying to dealwith some of the mental health
challenge that we're facing justbroadly across the world and
certainly in education, is thatwhat Red to Blue doesn't do is
pigeonhole you or label you asbeing one thing or the other.
(09:29):
It really provides you withthat fluidity that is more
representative of how wefunction as human beings.
Sometimes our attention isdiverted and distracted and not
in a helpful place, and othertimes it's focused on task and
we're doing what we want to door what we know matters in that
particular situation.
I think, without judgment andthat's probably the thing that I
often get asked about withathletes or in school that Red
(09:52):
to Blue comes without judgment,and maybe that's the thing
because we live in a world thatis full of judgment right now,
and maybe that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Actually, your work witheducation really fascinates me.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It'd be great if you could talk a little bit more
about how you've been workingwith schools, humans and how
well humans adapted to thescenario of the situation.
So that's why we did some earlywork in education, that's why
we've always been able to takewhat we do into different
sectors in business and it's whysports has been an obvious
place for us.
Education to me.
If you said to me what would wereally really like to do with
(10:37):
Red Taboo?
It would be to deploy it in theeducation sector across the
world, for two reasons.
One is we always knew mentalhealth has existed.
Everybody knew.
If I go back to where I was born, everyone's talked about mental
health, but with quite a.
It's a problem that needs fixingapproach to it, and so we're
now facing in the world thismental health challenge and the
(10:57):
level of anxiety seems to havegone up significantly.
Whether we think that's true ornot, it's certainly what the
young people are experiencing.
So I think in the educationsector, both for the teachers
and all the students, we'reseeing mindset as being a factor
that needs embracing, needs asimple, practical way of
developing it, both for theteachers and for the students.
(11:17):
And so we're finding, once weintroduce Red to Blue, much like
we've done with you and Daveand the team at Avanza or
Response.
It's then handing it over tothem and say they, they know the
children, they know theeducation environment, let's see
how you bring red to blue tolife in that environment.
So, without making it somethingseparate, just allowing them to
integrate into the teachingthey do, into the day-to-day
(11:38):
lives that they have as teachersand, specifically, students
with no age limit, by the way-no, I know this very well with
my four-year-old.
Even she resonated with the redand the blue head, absolutely I
have a feeling that what we mayhave done over the last recent
years is removed.
Some of the empowerment tothink, to be creative, to
respond, to not be judged, justto respond in different ways and
(12:01):
my view about red to blue isone of the things that brings
back to people is the level ofempowerment you get to choose.
You get to choose your response, you get to acknowledge when
it's a good response, you get torecognize when it's not and you
get to choose how long thatlasts and where you put your
attention.
And even at a youngdevelopmental age, that notion
of you being empowered to chooseand being able to acknowledge
(12:22):
when actually that's not ahelpful response, even as a
young person you sort of getthat.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And it must be a trend, because we went to the
cinema the other day to seeInside Out 2.
If you've seen it, thatintroduces anxiety into the life
of the main character.
There's a moment there when Iwas like this is so red to blue.
There's joy talking to anxietyabout the circles of control,
and there's things we cancontrol, there's things we can't
control, and the fact that thatis a mainstream film just shows
(12:47):
how much something like Red toBlue is needed.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
We have a vision that says, asyou well know, red to Blue for
everyone, anywhere at any time,and that says there's 8 billion
people who could benefit from it.
I'm not naive.
I realize how stupid that mightsound, but why.
I realize how stupid that mightsound, but why would it stop us
?
Why would that try and limitwhat we do?
Because we know how powerful,how practical, how engaging it
can be.
So we should work to distributeacross the world.
(13:11):
It's not limited by gender,it's not limited by culture,
it's not limited by age andexperience, and because much of
the work that we do will bethrough a foundation as we
continue to grow, which meansthat actually, where it might be
limited by the financialresources to get access to it,
we need to take that barrieraway and make sure that Red to
Blue gets out into all theplaces that people, because
(13:32):
we're just giving a simpleframework and language and tools
just to help people deal withthe challenges they face and the
lifestyle that we've now allgot.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So you're setting up a foundation as well as already
set up.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We've been doing foundation work and we're now
building more structure into thefoundation with more purpose
behind it in terms ofdistribution and looking to fund
it in ways that will get it outinto the education system and
into the broader areas acrossthe world where there's quite
clearly some value in supportingmindset but not a lot of access
to resources to help do it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So mental health has been seen as a bit of a negative
thing, with the stigma aroundit.
What are your thoughts onmental health?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, firstly, pretty much everyone I know is
experiencing mental healthchallenges in some way, either
themselves or people around them.
The circle seems to have gotsmaller and smaller.
Maybe it's because of the worldwe're now talking about and
acknowledging it, but yet stillI suspect it comes with the
difficulty of expressing it, ofdiscussing it and to remove some
(14:29):
of the stigma associated withreally acknowledging that it
exists.
And I'm not suggesting that Redto Blue is a replacement for
mental health support when andwhere it's needed.
Of course that should be inplace and there is dramatically
more resources needed in thatarea.
But if just generally in thelives that we all face, or at
the performance end in sport, orin business, or in education,
or in emergency response thethings that you deal with if we
(14:51):
could just have a simpleframework that acknowledges,
without judgment, the role thatmindset will play in helping us
deal with those responses, inbuilding the mental skills,
building our mentality, tosupport everything else that we
know we have to get to gripswith, then I think that's a
major step forward because we'reremoving the difficulty that
comes with complexity, thedifficulty that comes with just
(15:11):
the fear of having aconversation because it might
come with judgment or lack ofnormalization of a redhead
response and the feelings thatcome with that.
Here's one of the things thatyou often hear.
You've got to control thecontrollables.
I mean, everyone talks about itat the moment and you go
intellectually that's true.
Practically, for people withemotional responses, it's really
(15:32):
difficult to do.
What Red to Blue gives us thespace to do is acknowledge that
actually I am experiencingsomething that I can't control,
but I do feel anxious associatedwith that.
I am responding to it in anunhelpful way.
I've got to acknowledge that,to genuinely accept and free up
my attention so I can get itfocused on what will be a more
useful path forward.
That, for me, is the piece thatI think that Red to Blue will
(15:54):
really provide a pathway to yeah, I get so many uncontrollables
these days as well that it'soverwhelming, isn't it?
From controlling your threefour-year-old, five-year-old to
get them to do what they want,all the way through to the
macroeconomic climate.
Everything challenges thatwe're facing, the existential
threats that could be reallyoverwhelming for many people.
(16:16):
But what the hell do you domentally to respond to those
scenarios?
And I'm not saying we got theonly answer, but it seems to be
a helpful perspective to helppeople navigate through that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
It's about developing mental resilience, isn't it a
lot of it?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I think that's the outcome.
You just build up a bit ofmental toughness and, without
judgment, just go.
Yeah, you've got some skillsnow to help you deal with stuff
that you've already faced,you're going to face or you're
right in the middle of.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Are there any other sectors that you've worked and
you've seen such a really bigimpact of red to blue in?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Because people talk about performance and quite
naturally veer towards winningand losing and, by the way,
that's not just sport.
I mean people would view examachievement as a win versus a
loss, if things went well versusnot going well.
So education, it works there.
I think it works in sport.
But I also think that we wereengaged into the military sector
(17:08):
by the British Army, originallywith the Gurkhas.
We learned a lot inunderstanding war about the
environment, specifically aroundthe Gurkhas, and how they
embraced mindset as a community,as a culture, and recognized it
as a factor in terms of theirability to perform well as a
fighting force of soldiers, bothin barracks but also out in the
(17:28):
field.
Where we get distracted anddiverted and caught up in stuff
we can't control is in the area,in the barracks.
So it'd be really good for usto have a simple, practical
framework and language for doingthat.
So the military sector, thecritical services when you
really look hard and you supportthe notion that human beings
exist in whatever factor it is,then there's an acknowledgement
(17:51):
that red to blue could be apractical framework and actually
we've learned over the yearsthat there's no need to exclude
other things that people finduseful.
So take meditation, take someof the mindfulness work that is
done.
If people find some of thatmindset support helpful within a
broad frame of red to blue,there's no reason why you would
want to exclude it, because inthe end the goal has to be to
(18:11):
make sure people feel able torespond well to the challenging
situations they face, to thediscomfort, and just make good
choices about how long thediscomfort lasts and where they
put their attention to moveforward.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
You work with individuals as well, louis
Alexander, for example.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Louis Alexander is a stormwater of the adventurer
explorers, and actually why he'sclose to our hearts as a
business is he's very purposedriven.
His story is connected to hisgrandfather spending 17 years
suffering from Alzheimer's,gradually passing away On his
deathbed.
Louis made a commitment todedicate his life raising money
(18:47):
for Alzheimer's and help find acure, and that is exactly what
he's done.
And he's done some crazy thingsaround the world.
He's currently swimming theseven oceans, swimming a
marathon swim in each of theseven oceans.
He ran 17 marathons in 17 days.
There's just no end to LouisAlexander's sort of desire to
commit to raising the money thathe said, but to put himself
(19:07):
under pressure in such adifficult scenario.
So a brilliant ambassador, butequally Adriana Brownlee, who is
right now an unbelievableclimber.
Tomorrow I'm presenting to abusiness conference about 60 or
70 people who will be listeningto us talk about Red to Blue as
a framework to deal with thechallenges they face, and then
they get to listen to AdrianaBrownlee describing how she's
(19:29):
applied it at 8,500 meters.
She's now climbed 13 of the top14 mountains and she's
currently planning the 14th one,which will accelerate her into
world records as a real rockstar when it comes to that, and
a brilliantly humble descriptionof how mindset support has
helped her.
In words stay alive a halfthousand meters incredible.
(19:50):
Yeah, it's a really impressiveindividuals definitely yeah, and
, by the way, we've got abbypulling.
Oh yes, you shift fromexploring to sport and abby is a
formula one academy race driver.
She currently is.
The Formula One Academy is awhole female race competition.
There is no reason at all whyFormula One two, three or four
(20:10):
motor racing should be female ormale.
It's not, it's just humanbeings driving quick and Abby is
determined to forge her wayinto that pathway and she's
currently leading the FormulaOne Academy and she's really,
really been working hard forthree years on understanding Red
to Blue and how it supports hermentality, either clearing the
decks to make sure that herskill as a driver, her
(20:31):
decision-making on track and offtrack that really determines
how well she performs.
But occasionally she knows thatsometimes her mindset might get
in the way and the quicker sherecognises it, the quicker she
acknowledges it and shifts, thebetter she's going to be able to
perform on a race weekend or ina specific race.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I've got a question here.
We didn't ask Is there aspecific story or anecdote that
really, truly illustrates thepower of Red to?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Blue.
So there's a couple of examplesOne in the world of education
and I'll share this only becauseit was shared by the teachers
involved in this scenario and itwas a very difficult situation
with a highly dysregulated,pretty traumatized student that
they were trying to get through,that they'd been excluded from
a couple of schools, they'dchosen not to engage in
(21:13):
education, they'd chosen not toeven verbalize how they were
feeling, and the teachersinvolved in this school were
genuinely feeling reallychallenged how to help.
They thought, well, let's justtry talking them through red to
blue.
And they did that.
They went through a couple ofsessions and then used the
graphical representation thatyou've seen having yourself the
back, really at a very simplelevel, just to say, look, we're
(21:34):
going to talk a little bit aboutmindset and here's a simple way
of expressing it and theopportunity, without necessarily
teaching them the cognitiveskills associated with it, just
to go look, here's a way ofreflecting on where you are.
And that process led to thisstudent re-engaging in the
education discussion, choosing,as a body, dysmorphic, real
sutter or anxiety associatedwith it, choosing to get up and
(21:56):
decide their own volition to goto the gym.
So they attended class, theywent to the gym.
And then perhaps the mosttelling piece was that they made
a video wow, somebody with allof that going on making a video.
I mean, I don't even like beingfilmed for a podcast, so and
they just said I'll talk aboutred to blue and it was.
But you know what an amazingjob really done by those
teachers with that student togive them a pathway through.
(22:18):
And then I work with theseamazing athletes you've told me
to me talk about them and peoplecome with passion sometimes and
people come with intent andintensity and everything that
you grow up with as part of yourpersonality and characteristic.
And there's a really terrificyoung golfer we work with and
she's been challenged in thearea of wanting to win
everything she does from the ageof about one.
Apparently.
(22:38):
If I had a mom and dad on herenow, they would say the same
thing, and that translates intoincredibly high expectations of
herself now as a 17 year old.
And that's not just on the golfcourse, but that's how it
manifests itself in, you know,playing for your country and
competing in high levelcompetitions.
And what is learning now is theacknowledgement that the redhead
(23:02):
response is hers, that it isfine, it doesn't need to come
with judgment, but it is in fact, unhelpful when those moments
occur, and she's got thisbrilliant way of saying as soon
as the ball has left my club,it's outside my control, so I
only now have to manage myresponse to that situation and
(23:22):
acknowledging the highlyemotional response sometimes
comes with something that is notwhat you expected or wanted or
planned, and then being able tothen acknowledge that and reset
where you put your attention.
In her world, in Ibby's world,that's about refocusing on the
next shot, the next decision,all the things that go with that
, and then she's taken thatthrough into her exams and the
(23:44):
world she does there.
Is she brilliantly, mentallyskillful at every moment?
Definitely she's still gotplenty of work to do but she
knows it and she's seeing thatvalue in her own self.
Two stories for me that reallymeaningful in terms of how
people are taking Red to Blueforward and how about you
personally?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Has it had an impact on you?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So there's an easy answer is yes.
The slightly longer answer isthat when we talk about Red to
Blue and one of the techniquesthat we've taught everybody who
learns it, and we ask people tocoach around it is the ability
to take a step back and see aslightly broader perspective on
the situation that they'refacing.
We call that zooming out beforeyou zoom back in on the task at
(24:21):
hand.
We would suggest and this isnot new as a piece of advice,
taking a step back is a veryhelpful mindset approach when
we're really feeling overwhelmedand under pressure and
responding in a not helpful way.
And I've found that aparticularly telling part of Red
to Blue for me the mindsetapproach, because everybody
comes across trauma, difficultsituations, uncomfortable
(24:45):
scenarios.
So I believe the message we'regiving to the world, to the
people we talk to, is don't gettrapped by this view that there
shouldn't be any discomfort,there shouldn't be any pressure
and everything will be fine ifyou think positively.
I'm not dismissing those peoplewho find value in thinking
positively, but for sure,everybody is going to at some
(25:06):
moments in their lives, andmaybe multiple moments they're
going to face trauma and thatmight be trauma with a capital T
and it's terrible and difficultand it's challenging and it's
life-changing.
Or it might be trauma with asmall T, like I've just missed
the bus I really wanted to get.
It's frustrating.
Whatever it is, we're going toexperience those difficulties
and we're going to face thechallenging mindset moments
(25:26):
related to that.
And just pausing long enough totake a step back, to zoom out,
can give you just a slightlydifferent perspective, a
slightly different view thatallows you to maybe see your way
through it without pretendingthinking that way will make you
feel happy, but just actuallyfinding a way to navigate
through it, giving people thatempowerment, that choice, I find
personally extraordinarilyhelpful with the different
(25:48):
challenges I've faced.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I was listening to a podcast the other day, a
high-performance podcast withJason Fox, and he talked about
his 10-second rule in terms ofresponding to anything, just
pausing for those 10 seconds.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, because people often think, oh, you need to and
again not dismissing the valueof meditation or you need to
step away, or you need to go,you know, take a walk around the
block or, in the old days, gooutside for a cigarette,
whatever the current thing usedto be.
But what jason fox will know,what other people recognize, is
just that very deliberate shiftin mentality, in perspective.
Zooming out for a moment justgives you your now and then to
(26:24):
redeploy your energy into a morehelpful, thoughtful response to
the situation.
And it doesn't mean we get itright all the time, it doesn't
mean our response is the bestamazing response, but it does
give you space to decide andthat can be truly valued.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It takes practice, though, doesn't it, not to just
instinctively respond.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and I think that's why one of the
breakthrough moments with us,with Red to Blue, is the fact
that we position it as a skill.
There's plenty of coaches whomay not believe that.
There's, I'm sure, plenty ofleaders and coaches who think
actually there's anothersolution there.
Just get really knowledgeable,really skillfulful, whatever it
is you want to do, so that youtake the diversion out of the,
you sort of factor it out bybeing totally skillful, totally
knowledgeable.
I just think there's avulnerability risk with that.
(27:08):
So we're saying actually becomementally skillful.
How will I later deal with allthe difficulties, challenges and
traumas that are coming yourway?
And getting ready now to beready when.
The when is when those toughmoments occur.
And that's the skill thatyou're learning.
And, as you rightly say, thetougher the moments, the bigger
the occasions, the more skillfulwe need to be.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Absolutely.
One of the questions we want totouch on with communication is
key.
Have you seen?
Red to Blue help peoplecommunicate better when they're
under pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, at the heart of what we started to do, going
right the way back to thebeginning, we always believed in
different areas in businessgenerally in terms of leadership
, the customer service and salesand all but actually in life,
language is such a significantfactor in people's ability to
articulate how they feel, howthey want to respond, how they
feel in response to a certainscenario, and often the
(27:59):
commonality of language gives usan easier pathway for that
communication.
So it's one of the reasons why,as you go through Red to Blue,
you get a simple, practical,graphical map that just
represents that common languagein a way that is immediately
easy to engage with and relateto.
And so the common language wesee working across all teams is
designed to exactly do that.
It gives us an easy way tocommunicate in those difficult
moments.
And so the common language wesee working across all teams is
(28:20):
designed to exactly do that.
It gives us an easy way tocommunicate in those difficult
moments.
And it does so because redversus blue is designed to come
without judgment.
It's more driven by observation.
And then the common language interms of how to help, support,
and it may well be a little bitof redhead.
Response time to get back ontask can literally be the
(28:40):
language that helps people resetin the moments that matter.
It doesn't invalidate theseriousness of some of the
situations we experience, but itmay well give you just a common
language to reset, refocus inthe moment that matter, and then
you can get to the review, areflection piece, when the time
is appropriate.
So that's why I like the ideaof common language.
(29:02):
It just gets us allindividually, collectively
focused when it matters.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I have actually seen that in a big exercise where we
were introducing Red to Blue andthen people were talking in
that language and sharing howthey were feeling.
It was that being perfect sense.
If you don't recognize it, it'shard to verbalize it, and then
it's hard for other people tounderstand where you are in your
head at that moment yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So when the all blacks talk about how they use
rent-a-blue and they've been atit since 2009, working it into
their culture they talk aboutusing the language on the field
for themselves, talking tothemselves if they need to
remind themselves, but actuallyengaging with others.
Talking to others, recognizingpeople's redhead responses,
because as you get to know eachother in a team in a situation
and environment that matters,mind of themselves, but actually
engaging with others.
Talking to others, recognizingpeople's redhead responses,
because as you get to know eachother in a team in a situation,
(29:44):
in an environment that matters,you get more able to go a little
bit of a redhead response.
They're back on task.
You can remind people, you cangive people gentle
acknowledgement that that'swhere they need to be and that's
what you can do.
That to help in that situation.
And it helps in Abby's raceteam.
So we've got the engineer, theengineer team and her coach.
They're very aware of thecommon language.
Often talk to Abby aboutzooming out, just to take a
(30:06):
pause, take a breath.
So that common language can bevery helpful.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Have you seen any lessons from other sectors that
we could apply in crisismanagement the emergency
response side.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I think that you do preparation, of course, in
dealing with the response.
I think that's natural and Iimagine the debriefs, following
the support that you've provided, will be there.
I mean, in any environmentwhere performance in the moment
really matters, the preparationto get ready and the reflection
on what we did and how we didand where to improve is always
(30:38):
part of it.
But what I have seen is thevery deliberate, purposeful
integration of mindset into thatconversation.
So I think, to make sure, inthe preparation questions and
the actions and in the reviewreflection questions, just to
ask what role did our mentalityplay?
Was there evidence of a redheadresponse?
If we look at the situation,was it contributed to by our
(31:00):
mindset and if it was, then whatcaused it?
I would say the explicitintegration, rather than
implicit, can be really valuable, because some of the true
learning comes when we'reexplicit about acknowledging the
role that mindset plays yeah, Ithink that's probably more we
can do in a debrief.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
For sure.
The last bit would be youlooking at how do you see Red to
Blue evolving in the next sortof five to ten years?
Because I guess you startedwith the heads and have added
the extra tools to the shoe tohave it evolve.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
We started with a bit more detail actually, so we
started probably with too muchdetail.
I think where Red to Blue willevolve now is we've evolved into
the broader, simpler picture.
So it's made it more engagingfor young people, made it more
engaging in the moment becauseof the simplicity of the
overview version of the redtablet pads.
The detail still needs to bethere.
I think what we're seeing nowis that the development in
(31:49):
neurology, the understanding ofhow brains function and some of
the triggers that impacts howour brains actually work.
I think that we can providesupport for making that less
complicated on the basis thatnot everyone either wants to be
a brain surgeon or ever will bea brain surgeon, but we all have
the capacity to think, thecapacity to respond unhelpfully.
(32:12):
So I think the red to blue willevolve that way, bringing a
natural pathway to what we learnmore about mindset and pressure
, the impact of pressure.
I think it will naturallyevolve because we need to
digitize it, as committed as Iam to deploy it through the
foundation and more broadly,we've got to have a digital
answer.
People are engaging digitallynowadays with their devices,
(32:32):
with the different platformsthat they can do.
That Red to blue has to beavailable so they can
practically do that withoutremoving the value of the human
interface and the humaninteractions that people still
see huge value in.
So I think it will evolve thatway going forward and I think
the more people that know aboutit, the greater the demand there
will be to get at it andunderstand how to use it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I hope so, because it's so useful in everyday life,
not even just in an informantsmoment, just in a parenting
moment or a getting out the doormoment or a, like you say,
catching the bus moment.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, I'm entirely with you and in fact, if someone
says, 10 years on, five yearson, if we can just get to
students, kids, young people ina way that helps them navigate
through, I don't see the worldgetting any easier and in fact I
think one could make areasonable case and say it's
going the other way.
If it is going to do that andpeople are going to experience
individuals, groups, families,the tough moments, the
(33:24):
challenges they face, then ifRed to Blue and the description
of it, the delivery of it, thecoaching around it, just helps
them understand that they've gota simple, accessible framework.
It represents how we respondmentally to different scenarios
and it gives us a pathway totake ownership of our mindset.
Just that in itself, and notget caught up with stuff that we
just can't control, but resetour attention, acknowledge how
(33:47):
we feel and focus in on what wecan control.
That's gold dust for me If wecan get that happening that's
really where we're headed.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
If there was one thing you'd want someone
listening to this podcast totake away, what would that be?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I really would urge people to deliberately
explicitly acknowledge the factthat mindset has a part to play
in how we navigate our waysthrough our lives and that there
is something that we can chooseto do to affect how we
individually respond to thechallenges we face and how we
might be able to help others.
And if you don't choose red toblue as a simple language, then
(34:23):
find another way of doing it.
But to shy away from theexistence of mentality, either
as a problem to our mentalhealth or an opportunity to help
us do really well when itmatters, is a shame, because I
think that's missing out on someof what makes us incredible
creatures as humans.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Thank you, that was really really interesting.
I really enjoyed thatdiscussion around to blue.
It's incredible the way you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Well, thank you, emma , and I knew I would enjoy
today's session and I knew we'dcover all kinds of areas, and
there's more stories buildingeverywhere we go, and there's
some stories you and I will noteven know about that are just as
amazing as the ones we've beento share.
So that's what I love aboutwhat we do and I look forward to
speaking again sometime in thefuture.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Thanks, Martin.
Thank you for listening to theResponse Force Multiplier from
OSRL.
Please like and subscribewherever you get your podcasts
and stay tuned for more episodesas we continue to explore key
issues in emergency response andcrisis management.
For more information, head toosrlcom.
(35:27):
See you soon.
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