WEBVTT
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Boundaries in your world are crucial.
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And to keep everybody safe and healthy, you actually need to operate within those parameters.
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You know, 44% of people meeting the threshold for depression, that's half.
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We are the stress relievers, which is great, but you're not actually doing anything to relieve the stress of the stress relievers.
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Until our robot overlords take over.
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If humans are getting value for the organization, I don't give a shit anymore.
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I'm losing my I'm a hot mess.
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Hello everyone.
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Welcome back.
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Or welcome if it's your first time to our podcast, Wired to Work, where we talk about everything to do with making work work for today's world.
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I'm Jess Shatman.
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I am neuroplastician, people dynamics expert, and host of the podcast.
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Today we are wrapping up this season, and uh, as we did last time, I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about the nuggets that I have taken away from the episodes in this particular season.
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We have had some absolutely fantastic guests.
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So in this episode, I'm gonna share my top five takeaways from this season, and maybe that will encourage you to go to listen to a few more episodes.
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So earlier in the season, we had a great episode with Dr.
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Joe Borrell, who's a clinical psychologist in the UK who runs a company called Ultimate Resilience.
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And the focus of their company is looking at what's happening with HR people today, and it's triggered a whole lot of thinking for me about what are we doing around supporting the complexity of people's stuff in today's world.
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The stats show that if you're in the Western world and you're in the HR space, burnout levels are on the rise.
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In Canada, about 50% of HR professionals are experiencing burnout.
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In the UK, it's actually up to 75%, and the US is somewhat similar.
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And so thinking about how do we start to reduce burnout levels for HR for leaders and for people in organizations so that we don't have some of these challenges in the future.
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So have a listen to the clip and check out the long episode because Joe has lots to say and it's super valuable.
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As you know, we ran this survey last year and the year before.
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We this year we had 1,447 respondents, a pretty similar number to our response rate last year.
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And I would say that in terms of the kind of the picture across the three years of the survey, it's pretty similar.
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So what we're uncovering is a fairly consistent picture of high levels of distress and mental health issues amongst HR professionals.
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So some of our key findings, we found that 74% of our respondents were experiencing symptoms of depression and 44% met the criteria for clinically significant symptoms.
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And that figure, if you compare it with the the UK general population, is that is two and a half times higher than rates of depression in the general population.
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For anxiety, a very similar picture.
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So 73% of respondents with symptoms of anxiety, 40% meeting the clinical threshold, and again just over two and a half times higher the rate in the general population.
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In terms of burnout, 32% likely suffering from burnout, and a further 12% at risk of burnout.
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So we've got 74%, you've got a concerning sort of symptom.
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Low levels of well-being evident in 63% of our respondents, and 74% scoring below the UK population average for well-being.
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Yeah.
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That's a pretty s pretty stark picture.
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So three quarters of the people who responded are at risk or experiencing burnout.
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That's right.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And for me as a clinician, you know, people who are meeting the criteria for for clinical conditions like anxiety and hyperdepression, you know, that's really concerning because those are the people, you know, had I seen these people in my clinics when I was working in the NHS, you know, those are the people that I would have been taking action on.
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You know, I would have been referring for medication, I would have been thinking about therapy, I would certainly have been doing a more thorough assessment to establish whether those things were required.
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So we'd need to be taking action on those people.
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And we're talking, you know, 44% of people meeting the threshold for depression, that's half, almost half of HR professionals.
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And yet we're still having them go to work and expecting them to absorb the emotional and cognitive load of everybody else's challenges on top of how they're currently feeling.
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And they're responsible for well-being.
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I mean, there's an irony there, isn't there?
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Because you've got a you know, a function that's responsible for well-being, and yet their well-being is likely to be a lot worse than everyone else in the organization.
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Do you think we have a um what's the right word?
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A self-perception problem?
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Like your your comment earlier about um the resilience expectan.
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I think that some of that is self-driven too.
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Like we hold ourselves, we think we are supposed to be the propository of everybody else's challenges and we're supposed to be able to carry the load.
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Do you have a view on how much of this might be unrealistic workplace expectations versus our own internal dialogue?
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You know, I I I think it's a joint project.
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You know, the reality is it's a narrative that we've all bought into.
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I I think it's important to highlight that certainly in the UK, I mean I've looked at the figures, and something like 75% of HR professionals are female.
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So you know, there's a connection, isn't there, between the job and the work and the fact that this is a predominantly female profession.
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And women are socialized into caring roles.
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If we're socialized to be carers and to feel that, and and and we so we grow up with an expectation that that's the way that we should be, that we should put other people's needs first, that a caring role is the right role for us to be in, that we shouldn't put on our own needs first.
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And so there's that already there in our DNA before we even go into the workplace.
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And then, of course, we're all, you know, women are much more predominant in professions that our people facing.
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So we're attracted to jobs that are about caring, and that, but we've got that narrative in our DNA already when we go into the workplace, and then we're met with you know, we contrive together us and the organizations to create this narrative or this expectation that we can just carry the load, you know, and it's convenient for organizations to have that expectation.
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As I think you alluded to earlier, it's like, oh, it's tricky and it's difficult and it's messy, and I don't want to deal with it.
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Oh, it's good because we've got HR and they can deal with it, you know.
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So it's great, you know, we don't have to think about it.
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Yeah, we are the stress relievers, which is great, but you're not actually doing anything to relieve the stress of the stress relievers.
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Okay, so hopefully that that's enticed you a little bit to be thinking about what's happening in the world of work today.
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And I would follow that up with the conversation I had with Dr.
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Paul Zach, who is a neuroscientist in California, who has created an app that measures of whether you are thriving at work, which I think is a fantastic thing.
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Uh, and we at Neuralworks have started to use that with some of our clients and are doing dashboards and tests with people to help them really see if you're thriving.
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What he Dr.
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Paul Zach has done is use your biometric data, the sort of things that come off your Apple Watches, your Garmin's, your Fitbits, to actually assess to what extent you are feeling safe in your work environment and to what extent you are engrossed in the work that you are doing.
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So, in the run of a day, when you're feeling safe and you are engrossed, you have that kind of key moment.
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And if you have six key moments a day, you are thriving.
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And so we can now start to measure some of that in a meaningful way, which gives you as an individual a chance to really understand how you're doing and what's making you great and what's filling your cup and what's giving you energy and what's making you love life and what isn't.
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And as organizations, we don't get quite the same level of data because of privacy, but we can also see across the organization how are our teams doing, how are our people doing, and where do we want to intervene to really ensure that our people and teams are thriving.
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Because let's face it, if people are thriving, they win, and so does the organization.
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So have a listen to the episode snippet here from Dr.
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Zach, and hopefully that'll see something interesting for you when you can check out the full episode.
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I have a pet peeve with the word engagement.
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I think it's so overused, it's just meaningless at this point.
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Like, how engaged am I now talking to you?
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Three, nine?
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I don't there's no baseline.
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So the nice thing about neuroscience is every brain has a baseline, and because the brain's so energy hungry, it wants to return to that baseline.
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So when we measure neurologic immersion, we're always looking at changes from your own baseline.
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So baselines to each individual.
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Um so that's the first thing.
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And the second is the individual employee learns about himself or herself.
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What do I love doing so much there?
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And then on this anonymized enterprise interface, then I can ask, am I creating a workplace culture so that people can really thrive?
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So what we've shown in the published research is that people who thrive, that is people who maintain positive mood and high energy, get six or more of these well-defined peak immersion experiences a day.
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And so my view is if I want to sustain my organization's survival, profits, uh, growth, I need to have sustainable humans, first of all, because until our robot over large takeover, it's humans who are creating value for the organization.
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And so by optimizing that experience, then we saw we find in the data that people have higher energy because they've optimized their day for what's really valuable to them.
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It's just one of those weird things, right?
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What you love doing, you just put more effort into and you are more productive.
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Secondly, we actually created a physiologic measure of psychological safety.
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So again, that's a one-second time series.
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I don't have to ask you in some quarterly review, do you feel safe at work?
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You still may want to do that.
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I'm okay with getting people's personal reports, but um I I'm uh just nurse size is expensive and I'm a cheap, cheap guy.
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And so I think from an organization's perspective, you know, if you find out that your um Vancouver office has really high psychological safety and your Toronto office doesn't, find out what's happening in Vancouver.
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Just copy it, right?
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I mean, don't recreate the wheel.
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So by having these data, I can objectively then look at the KPI from doing organizational interventions.
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Have we actually made this department, this organization more productive, more effective because we've created this um situation, this set of social norms in which people can truly thrive?
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Because as someone who works with workplaces to try and make them better, those pieces about engagement, what we often get given like tools that are we did an engagement survey, we did a once-in-a-year engagement survey where we went and asked people questions, and then we may get to interview people about what work they're doing.
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The problem I have with both of those tools, and I'm not saying not to do them because I think they can be useful, but you're asking me once to think back over the full 12 last 12 months and give you an accurate reflection of all the things that happened and parcel that up.
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And then you're asking me about what I did today.
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So when we do like org design work, we'll ask people to track their work and tell us about their work.
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They don't even remember what they did in the day.
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Like, never mind what they did 12 months ago.
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And so when you talk about your data and what you capture with six, which is the app I'm gonna ask you about in a second, I'm like, that's that's someone's brain telling us what's important to them, not them filtering it through all how about they felt today, and the bad conversation they had with Bobby made them feel bad about words.
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No, no, well, I'm actually getting how immersed they were in real time, which I think is f is fantastically useful.
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Yeah, fantastic.
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Yeah, and also, you know, I say people lie and and they lie for all kinds of reasons, not because they're malicious, because as you said, we remember the end of an experience or the peak of that experience.
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Um, or people remember the most negative thing.
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Well, maybe you want to figure out what made you so unhappy in the last 12 months, but from an organizational um design and transformation perspective, I really want that detailed data.
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So we've have found at, for example, a number of tech companies that use the six app is that um Mondays are the lowest neurologic immersion day.
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So people kind of burn out on Mondays.
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Well, I can I can actually lean into that and go, okay, what should we do on Monday?
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Let's have uh so we worked with a um uh company called uh Herman Miller, big furniture maker.
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And they have a big in their in their design yard in Holland, Michigan, they have this big coffee uh bar.
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And so they bought barisas in.
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Hey, let's bring in barisas and and caffeinate the hell out of you guys on Monday, right?
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And then have some muffins and like, hey, it's it's back to work.
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We're excited you're here.
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Let's create this culture where we socialize a little bit, we get to know each other, we facilitate those team bonds.
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Like you can actually look at that, oh, doesn't actually increase those employees' ability to really be on and be productive as opposed to, oh crap, it's Monday.
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I gotta show up at work.
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Yeah, and then to your point earlier, you can make small changes and still measure the impact of those changes.
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It doesn't have to be a massive organizational shift.
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We can try something simple like shifting the team meeting to a Monday and having some fun at the team meeting and see if that actually changes the data that we're collecting.
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Sure.
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So my third choice for our flashback is the conversation I had with Ange Crockwell, who's the ED of Thrive.
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And the reason I've picked this snippet is because when we're thinking about world of work today, if you are working with people, you are working with someone who's experienced trauma.
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But we're still not really talking about trauma informed workplaces widely across the corporate world.
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And I know that many leaders struggle with the idea of how do I support a person, what conversations do I have with a person?
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Should I have those conversations because they're personal?
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Should I not?
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And sometimes the kindness of leadership is allowing a person to have their experiences, but holding the line and knowing that you cannot always be the person to provide support because you may not have the skills or experience or expertise or time to properly support that person, and that actually drawing that line in the sand and saying, no, I'm not the person to help you with this is as much a part of being kind and supportive to that person as anything else that you might do in the organization to help them.
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And I walked away from that episode reminding myself on it's okay to draw the line, and it's important to say when I've reached the limit of my experience and expertise and encourage people to go to the experts who can really help them.
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I've had lots of conversations around boundaries and folks that struggle either because they're extremely kind people and they don't know when to stop, or because they just don't know where the line should be.
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Like they're either in new leadership roles and they're like, I like I don't know where the line is between friend and leader and all those types of things.
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Then I would imagine, and from my experience working with Thrive, boundaries in your world are crucial.
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They are not uh nice to have, it is not something you can figure out as you go.
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What advice do you have for folks who might struggle with setting boundaries?
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Are there things that you have learned that other people could apply?
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Yeah, we have so many conversations around boundaries and ethics, and I think, again, so critical in terms of trauma-informed practice.
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People, again, people need to know where those boundaries are.
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It is what keeps people safe.
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And for people who have histories of trauma, one of the things that has often happened to them is people have crossed people's other people's personal boundaries.
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And so it is actually ethical to have very strong and clear boundaries.
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And sometimes people feel like, again, these are my friends or like co-workers.
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Responsible for you because you work for me as all those things.
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All of those things.
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So I feel like being very clear around boundaries is is part of that trauma informed.
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I understand as an executive director, there is a power that like I have in this role that other people in this organization do not have.
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And so thinking about the right use of power, you know, like on lots of days I am doing the same thing as staff.
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Like I will bring out the recycling to the curb.
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I will like, you know, I don't operate as a power position in the organization, but I recognize the power that I have.
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And it's really important for me to have very clear boundaries and not, I am not your friend.
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Um, you know, often will say, I we will be friendly, but we are not friends.
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Friends are somebody you can call at 12 o'clock on a Friday night and say, I'm in trouble, can you come help?
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And you can't call me and co-workers shouldn't be doing that.
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So I do think it's about thinking about this is a work situation, and we can care about people, and often people do find their friends at work, but when you're at work, there is a there is a coworker, there is a client, there is an employer, employer, uh, employee um boundary.
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And to keep everybody safe and healthy, you actually need to operate within those parameters.
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Because once it all starts to get blurred, it becomes confusing for people.
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It's again for people with strong histories of trauma, it can actually feel really unsafe because why is my boss being my friend?
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Like that doesn't for people who've had their boundaries crossed, that actually it often may not sit well.
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Like this is not what a typical relationship would be.
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So I think it's important to think about strong boundaries is actually strong ethical work behavior.
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So number four.
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I just I had to think a lot about these Ross was like, you've got to pick five, and I was like, Can I pick 15?
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No, I have to pick five.
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Uh so my number four would be the conversation that I had with Ashley Consolo, who is the provost from Acadia University.
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And there's lots of nuggets in that conversation because we talked about like generations coming into work and coming out of school and all those things.
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Um but probably the biggest revelation I had through this entire series of conversations was my conversation with her about climate grief.
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Like I'm obviously cognizant that the climate is changing and that that has implications.
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I live in a part of the world that's not known for the best weather.
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But I can't say that I'd ever really drawn a parallel between the weather and the climate and the world of work in any way.
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Maybe in the days when you're, you know, your air conditioning breaks and it's too hot in the office.
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But the idea that there are people in the world who are truly experiencing climate grief is something that I need to give more consideration to.
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And perhaps suggest that I've been naive or ignorant about something that I need to move the dial on for myself.
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So have a listen to the conversation with Ashley.
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There's loads of good stuff in there.
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But the climate grief thing stuck with me particularly, and I think it's really interesting.
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Um, can we talk a little bit about your work in with Indigenous peoples, indigenous community, and climate resilience?
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Would that be what you would call it?
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Yeah, I actually don't talk about climate resilience because, and this is this came from doing work uh in communities, particularly in northern Labrador, where people would really talk about the problems of resiliency and how it's actually creates sort of hierarchies of privilege.
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Um, so when you keep saying to someone, good for you, you're resilient, and it's so in the climate perspective or in colonial perspectives or residential school, you you praise the people who are continuing to survive the bad thing, but you don't fix the bad thing.
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So this kind of in that context, the resiliency narrative is actually it can be very offensive because it's like, well, instead of praising me for making it through or praising me for being strong, fix the system that created these sort of inequities and problems in the first place.
00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:33.519
Um, so what I look at is more the emotional and relational and mental health pieces related to a changing climate.
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:48.160
So how we relate to community and to land and to place, and then our futures, uh, and a lot of work around that future kind of piece, and then a lot of work around the emotional pieces, the grief pieces, and really thinking through like what does it mean to live in an ever-changing world?
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:53.839
What does it mean when we know the term that um is used all over the world is era of loss and damage?
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.240
So we have entered into this, we know there's going to be fundamental shifts to the climate and environment.
00:19:58.400 --> 00:19:59.279
There already is.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.319
So, how do we live in an era of loss and damage?
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:16.319
And then when you tie it into sort of the classroom or the workspace, when we have more and more people who are directly impacted by climate change, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, like the devastating pieces, um, that impacts work in educational environments.
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.160
It impacts people's ability to learn and to, you know, actually go to work.
00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:29.279
And then if you look at some of the slower, the creeping changes, the day-to-day changes that aren't the major break event, but cause significant anxiety or feature anxieties.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:54.720
So now we're seeing a lot of the research that's coming out, particularly around some of the neuroscience work, the psychology and psychiatry, is uh huge disrupted um impacts to people's ability to work, ability to sleep, ability for um full cognitive function because you've got all this worry and anxiety, the amplification of other mental health challenges if they're present, um, the creation of changing family dynamics, um, even sense of hope for the future.
00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:01.839
So if people start to lose that sort of sense that they can dream a future or have the type of future they want, that impacts their choices of going to school.
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:03.440
It impacts what they do in the workplace.
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:14.640
Uh, and we're seeing a lot of trends now on much higher absence rates from workplaces because people are experiencing all sorts of stress and trauma related to climate change.
00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:21.680
But if you're in an area where you're you're suddenly hit with a forest fire or a hurricane, like that is changing the whole sector as well.
00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:32.880
So there's some really interesting pieces around how climate change will continue to impact our workplaces, our educational environments, and just individuals' people's ability to cope and adapt and respond.
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:41.200
And then how that interacts with all of the other emotional regulation pieces and all of the other stressors that are out there is people are really worried about futures.
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:46.319
There's a lot of future worry and future anxiety that's quite heavy and prevalent around this.
00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:53.599
And so it's climate change, but it's also housing and food and global stability and politics and all of it, right?
00:21:53.759 --> 00:21:56.000
So it's it's all compiled into one.
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.759
And it's that one is hitting all generations, but obviously the youngest generation, too.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:01.839
Is really struggling with those pieces.
00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:07.680
And my last pick, but by no means least, would have to be the conversation on menopause, because I'm in the middle of it.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:11.039
If you work with women, you need to know about menopause.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:17.519
Um, the conversation we had with Tina Pomeroy around menopause will not be the only one we have, but it was so helpful.
00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:25.839
My two takeaways were one, I have never really thought about it as an evolution.
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:37.200
So we talk about it as a change, and sometimes we talk about it as a lessening, but thinking about it as an evolution and what more I might be becoming through perimenopause and menopause is not a lens I had had on it.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.680
So that's kind of interesting to take away.
00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:47.119
And the other piece that stuck with me was around recognising the seriousness of this situation and change for some women.
00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:56.319
And so making sure you're educated at least a little bit on what perimenopause and menopause is and the impact it can have could just make a really big difference for the person working next to you.
00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:03.519
So that would be my last pick, and we'll be talking more about menopause because I think there's still much more that needs to be said in the next season that we record.
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:24.079
Well, your your whole characterization of it earlier in this conversation around emphasizing the transition and that it's not a lessening in any way, and that actually it is simply a move an evolution to a new stage of thinking, operating, and being as a person is really interesting because I don't think we often see that characterization of it.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:30.720
If anything, it's probably more what you described around we talk about the medical components of menopause and it is a medical thing that's happening to women.
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.319
So your idea that it's an expansion, I think, is a really interesting one.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:37.519
What kind of led you to think about it or to talk about it that way?
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:47.039
Well, first when I was doing my research, I started reading these articles about how our cultures impact, like different cultures experience menopause differently.
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:52.960
And also that our beliefs about aging can influence our experience in menopause.
00:23:53.119 --> 00:24:02.799
Our beliefs about menopause can obviously And I'm like, hey, wait a second, if this is like purely a medical thing, then wouldn't it be more consistent across the board?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:08.240
And so I was like, oh yeah, like first of all, it's it's not consistent and every woman is different.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:14.160
In fact, well, different societies have different uh values and different experiences with menopause.
00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.079
In some societies, menopause is actually fantastic.
00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:23.359
It means that a a woman is wise and and and like powerful, right?
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:28.319
Whereas in in our Western modern world, it's it's more about diminishing.
00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:29.839
Now we're changing that.
00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:31.839
That is starting to change.
00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:46.720
That that's what kind of influenced my thinking that this is more holistic and this is more about you see women, powerful women, right, in their later 70s, 80s, 90s, and it's like, well, how come they're so powerful?
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:51.759
And then you see these other women, you know, kind of or this perception of women being, you know, declined.
00:24:51.839 --> 00:25:01.200
It's like, well, I mean, I'm not gonna get into the history of this because it would take too long, but historically, when women women's health is not researched as much.
00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:05.039
Women women were hysterical when they were going through perimenopause.
00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.599
That's why you know hysterectomy is called what it is.
00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:13.279
Oh my gosh, there's so much stuff I read about this stuff, and of course, that's in our DNA.
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:21.839
So, like we have those messages imprinted on us, we can't help it, and so it's gonna take a lot to shift that.
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:43.759
But this idea of expansion and spirituality, so many women started when women's voices started being heard because they've been silenced for so long, and we're just starting to listen to women's voices, and all of a sudden they were talking about this being a spiritual awakening, an expansion, like a great thing.
00:25:43.920 --> 00:25:46.000
I don't give a shit anymore, right?
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:55.279
I can't I care about the things that are important to me and and that are important in the world, but I don't care about that drama over there or that over there that doesn't mean anything for me.
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.960
And so I, in my own experience, have had that as well.
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:07.519
And then I started talking, and of course, a lot of my friends are in this phase, either perimenopause or or just past menopause, and they're also the same.
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:25.599
And I'm like, that's worth, even if it's not evidence-based research, that is so worth talking about this idea that we we're expanding, we are becoming greater, you know, and and it's not all medical.
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.000
Yeah, there's physiological stuff happening.
00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:35.759
There is, but that doesn't mean that we're no longer intelligent, capable, attractive.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:45.599
Like, think about the beauty industry and uh the messages that we're getting about aging and how we need to fix our wrinkles and plump our lips.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:54.720
And I'm not judging anyone that does any of that stuff, but we have to think about why are we getting we're getting those messages that that's what's beautiful.
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:55.359
All right.
00:26:55.519 --> 00:27:04.640
And so when we start to shift out of that, like, no, what's beautiful is the fact that you don't you're awakened or you're enlightened and I don't like to use the word enlightenment, you're expanding.
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:16.079
So yeah, so it's like all kind of interconnected, but it's I like that idea way more than oh my god, our hormones are going away and all the we're losing everything.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:17.119
We're losing everything, right?
00:27:17.279 --> 00:27:19.039
I'm losing my I'm a hot mess.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.079
So that's a wrap on this season.
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:28.960
Hopefully, the recap there gave you some nuggets to listen into and some excitement for some episodes you might not have heard before.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:36.799
Uh, don't forget to like, subscribe, and please share so we can reach more people who are interested in talking about the way that work needs to work today.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.400
And of course, our new season is coming up uh in the fall.
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:48.240
So between now and then, you can find us on Substack if you want to join our Substack community for more updates, articles, and tips and tools.
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:54.480
And then we'll see you for the new season to have more of the important conversations about making work really work.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.319
Boundaries in your world are crucial.
00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:08.720
And to keep everybody safe and healthy, you actually need to operate within those parameters.
00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:12.560
You know, 44% of people meeting the threshold for depression, that's half.
00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:16.960
We are the stress relievers, which is great, but you're not actually doing anything to relieve the stress of the stress relievers.
00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:18.960
Until our robot overlords take over.
00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:22.879
If humans are getting value for the organization, I don't give a shit anymore.
00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:24.800
I'm losing my I'm a hot mess.
00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:27.120
Hello everyone.
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Welcome back.
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:35.679
Or welcome if it's your first time to our podcast, Wired to Work, where we talk about everything to do with making work work for today's world.
00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:36.960
I'm Jess Shatman.
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I am neuroplastician, people dynamics expert, and host of the podcast.
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Today we are wrapping up this season, and uh, as we did last time, I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about the nuggets that I have taken away from the episodes in this particular season.
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We have had some absolutely fantastic guests.
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So in this episode, I'm gonna share my top five takeaways from this season, and maybe that will encourage you to go to listen to a few more episodes.
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So earlier in the season, we had a great episode with Dr.
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Joe Borrell, who's a clinical psychologist in the UK who runs a company called Ultimate Resilience.
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And the focus of their company is looking at what's happening with HR people today, and it's triggered a whole lot of thinking for me about what are we doing around supporting the complexity of people's stuff in today's world.
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The stats show that if you're in the Western world and you're in the HR space, burnout levels are on the rise.
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In Canada, about 50% of HR professionals are experiencing burnout.
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In the UK, it's actually up to 75%, and the US is somewhat similar.
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And so thinking about how do we start to reduce burnout levels for HR for leaders and for people in organizations so that we don't have some of these challenges in the future.
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So have a listen to the clip and check out the long episode because Joe has lots to say and it's super valuable.
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As you know, we ran this survey last year and the year before.
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We this year we had 1,447 respondents, a pretty similar number to our response rate last year.
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And I would say that in terms of the kind of the picture across the three years of the survey, it's pretty similar.
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So what we're uncovering is a fairly consistent picture of high levels of distress and mental health issues amongst HR professionals.
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So some of our key findings, we found that 74% of our respondents were experiencing symptoms of depression and 44% met the criteria for clinically significant symptoms.
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And that figure, if you compare it with the the UK general population, is that is two and a half times higher than rates of depression in the general population.
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For anxiety, a very similar picture.
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So 73% of respondents with symptoms of anxiety, 40% meeting the clinical threshold, and again just over two and a half times higher the rate in the general population.
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In terms of burnout, 32% likely suffering from burnout, and a further 12% at risk of burnout.
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So we've got 74%, you've got a concerning sort of symptom.
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Low levels of well-being evident in 63% of our respondents, and 74% scoring below the UK population average for well-being.
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Yeah.
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That's a pretty s pretty stark picture.
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So three quarters of the people who responded are at risk or experiencing burnout.
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That's right.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And for me as a clinician, you know, people who are meeting the criteria for for clinical conditions like anxiety and hyperdepression, you know, that's really concerning because those are the people, you know, had I seen these people in my clinics when I was working in the NHS, you know, those are the people that I would have been taking action on.
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You know, I would have been referring for medication, I would have been thinking about therapy, I would certainly have been doing a more thorough assessment to establish whether those things were required.
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So we'd need to be taking action on those people.
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And we're talking, you know, 44% of people meeting the threshold for depression, that's half, almost half of HR professionals.
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And yet we're still having them go to work and expecting them to absorb the emotional and cognitive load of everybody else's challenges on top of how they're currently feeling.
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And they're responsible for well-being.
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I mean, there's an irony there, isn't there?
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Because you've got a you know, a function that's responsible for well-being, and yet their well-being is likely to be a lot worse than everyone else in the organization.
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Do you think we have a um what's the right word?
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A self-perception problem?
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Like your your comment earlier about um the resilience expectan.
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I think that some of that is self-driven too.
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Like we hold ourselves, we think we are supposed to be the propository of everybody else's challenges and we're supposed to be able to carry the load.
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Do you have a view on how much of this might be unrealistic workplace expectations versus our own internal dialogue?
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You know, I I I think it's a joint project.
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You know, the reality is it's a narrative that we've all bought into.
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I I think it's important to highlight that certainly in the UK, I mean I've looked at the figures, and something like 75% of HR professionals are female.
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So you know, there's a connection, isn't there, between the job and the work and the fact that this is a predominantly female profession.
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And women are socialized into caring roles.
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If we're socialized to be carers and to feel that, and and and we so we grow up with an expectation that that's the way that we should be, that we should put other people's needs first, that a caring role is the right role for us to be in, that we shouldn't put on our own needs first.
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And so there's that already there in our DNA before we even go into the workplace.
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And then, of course, we're all, you know, women are much more predominant in professions that our people facing.
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So we're attracted to jobs that are about caring, and that, but we've got that narrative in our DNA already when we go into the workplace, and then we're met with you know, we contrive together us and the organizations to create this narrative or this expectation that we can just carry the load, you know, and it's convenient for organizations to have that expectation.
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As I think you alluded to earlier, it's like, oh, it's tricky and it's difficult and it's messy, and I don't want to deal with it.
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Oh, it's good because we've got HR and they can deal with it, you know.
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So it's great, you know, we don't have to think about it.
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Yeah, we are the stress relievers, which is great, but you're not actually doing anything to relieve the stress of the stress relievers.
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Okay, so hopefully that that's enticed you a little bit to be thinking about what's happening in the world of work today.
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And I would follow that up with the conversation I had with Dr.
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Paul Zach, who is a neuroscientist in California, who has created an app that measures of whether you are thriving at work, which I think is a fantastic thing.
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Uh, and we at Neuralworks have started to use that with some of our clients and are doing dashboards and tests with people to help them really see if you're thriving.
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What he Dr.
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Paul Zach has done is use your biometric data, the sort of things that come off your Apple Watches, your Garmin's, your Fitbits, to actually assess to what extent you are feeling safe in your work environment and to what extent you are engrossed in the work that you are doing.
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So, in the run of a day, when you're feeling safe and you are engrossed, you have that kind of key moment.
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And if you have six key moments a day, you are thriving.
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And so we can now start to measure some of that in a meaningful way, which gives you as an individual a chance to really understand how you're doing and what's making you great and what's filling your cup and what's giving you energy and what's making you love life and what isn't.
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And as organizations, we don't get quite the same level of data because of privacy, but we can also see across the organization how are our teams doing, how are our people doing, and where do we want to intervene to really ensure that our people and teams are thriving.
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Because let's face it, if people are thriving, they win, and so does the organization.
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So have a listen to the episode snippet here from Dr.
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Zach, and hopefully that'll see something interesting for you when you can check out the full episode.
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I have a pet peeve with the word engagement.
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I think it's so overused, it's just meaningless at this point.
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Like, how engaged am I now talking to you?
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Three, nine?
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I don't there's no baseline.
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So the nice thing about neuroscience is every brain has a baseline, and because the brain's so energy hungry, it wants to return to that baseline.
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So when we measure neurologic immersion, we're always looking at changes from your own baseline.
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So baselines to each individual.
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Um so that's the first thing.
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And the second is the individual employee learns about himself or herself.
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What do I love doing so much there?
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And then on this anonymized enterprise interface, then I can ask, am I creating a workplace culture so that people can really thrive?
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So what we've shown in the published research is that people who thrive, that is people who maintain positive mood and high energy, get six or more of these well-defined peak immersion experiences a day.
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And so my view is if I want to sustain my organization's survival, profits, uh, growth, I need to have sustainable humans, first of all, because until our robot over large takeover, it's humans who are creating value for the organization.
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And so by optimizing that experience, then we saw we find in the data that people have higher energy because they've optimized their day for what's really valuable to them.
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It's just one of those weird things, right?
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What you love doing, you just put more effort into and you are more productive.
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Secondly, we actually created a physiologic measure of psychological safety.
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So again, that's a one-second time series.
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I don't have to ask you in some quarterly review, do you feel safe at work?
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You still may want to do that.
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I'm okay with getting people's personal reports, but um I I'm uh just nurse size is expensive and I'm a cheap, cheap guy.
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And so I think from an organization's perspective, you know, if you find out that your um Vancouver office has really high psychological safety and your Toronto office doesn't, find out what's happening in Vancouver.
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Just copy it, right?
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I mean, don't recreate the wheel.
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So by having these data, I can objectively then look at the KPI from doing organizational interventions.
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Have we actually made this department, this organization more productive, more effective because we've created this um situation, this set of social norms in which people can truly thrive?
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Because as someone who works with workplaces to try and make them better, those pieces about engagement, what we often get given like tools that are we did an engagement survey, we did a once-in-a-year engagement survey where we went and asked people questions, and then we may get to interview people about what work they're doing.
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The problem I have with both of those tools, and I'm not saying not to do them because I think they can be useful, but you're asking me once to think back over the full 12 last 12 months and give you an accurate reflection of all the things that happened and parcel that up.
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And then you're asking me about what I did today.
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So when we do like org design work, we'll ask people to track their work and tell us about their work.
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They don't even remember what they did in the day.
00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:01.440
Like, never mind what they did 12 months ago.
00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:14.720
And so when you talk about your data and what you capture with six, which is the app I'm gonna ask you about in a second, I'm like, that's that's someone's brain telling us what's important to them, not them filtering it through all how about they felt today, and the bad conversation they had with Bobby made them feel bad about words.
00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:20.080
No, no, well, I'm actually getting how immersed they were in real time, which I think is f is fantastically useful.
00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:20.879
Yeah, fantastic.
00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:30.559
Yeah, and also, you know, I say people lie and and they lie for all kinds of reasons, not because they're malicious, because as you said, we remember the end of an experience or the peak of that experience.
00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:32.720
Um, or people remember the most negative thing.
00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:43.200
Well, maybe you want to figure out what made you so unhappy in the last 12 months, but from an organizational um design and transformation perspective, I really want that detailed data.
00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:51.519
So we've have found at, for example, a number of tech companies that use the six app is that um Mondays are the lowest neurologic immersion day.
00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:53.279
So people kind of burn out on Mondays.
00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:56.639
Well, I can I can actually lean into that and go, okay, what should we do on Monday?
00:11:56.799 --> 00:12:03.679
Let's have uh so we worked with a um uh company called uh Herman Miller, big furniture maker.
00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:08.639
And they have a big in their in their design yard in Holland, Michigan, they have this big coffee uh bar.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:10.159
And so they bought barisas in.
00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:14.399
Hey, let's bring in barisas and and caffeinate the hell out of you guys on Monday, right?
00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:17.440
And then have some muffins and like, hey, it's it's back to work.
00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:18.639
We're excited you're here.
00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:23.600
Let's create this culture where we socialize a little bit, we get to know each other, we facilitate those team bonds.
00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:32.240
Like you can actually look at that, oh, doesn't actually increase those employees' ability to really be on and be productive as opposed to, oh crap, it's Monday.
00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:33.440
I gotta show up at work.
00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:38.399
Yeah, and then to your point earlier, you can make small changes and still measure the impact of those changes.
00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:40.480
It doesn't have to be a massive organizational shift.
00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:47.759
We can try something simple like shifting the team meeting to a Monday and having some fun at the team meeting and see if that actually changes the data that we're collecting.
00:12:48.159 --> 00:12:48.559
Sure.
00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:56.159
So my third choice for our flashback is the conversation I had with Ange Crockwell, who's the ED of Thrive.
00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:07.360
And the reason I've picked this snippet is because when we're thinking about world of work today, if you are working with people, you are working with someone who's experienced trauma.
00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:12.960
But we're still not really talking about trauma informed workplaces widely across the corporate world.
00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:20.240
And I know that many leaders struggle with the idea of how do I support a person, what conversations do I have with a person?
00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:22.879
Should I have those conversations because they're personal?
00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:23.919
Should I not?
00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:51.840
And sometimes the kindness of leadership is allowing a person to have their experiences, but holding the line and knowing that you cannot always be the person to provide support because you may not have the skills or experience or expertise or time to properly support that person, and that actually drawing that line in the sand and saying, no, I'm not the person to help you with this is as much a part of being kind and supportive to that person as anything else that you might do in the organization to help them.
00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:03.679
And I walked away from that episode reminding myself on it's okay to draw the line, and it's important to say when I've reached the limit of my experience and expertise and encourage people to go to the experts who can really help them.
00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:17.919
I've had lots of conversations around boundaries and folks that struggle either because they're extremely kind people and they don't know when to stop, or because they just don't know where the line should be.
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.159
Like they're either in new leadership roles and they're like, I like I don't know where the line is between friend and leader and all those types of things.
00:14:24.399 --> 00:14:29.600
Then I would imagine, and from my experience working with Thrive, boundaries in your world are crucial.
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:33.600
They are not uh nice to have, it is not something you can figure out as you go.
00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:36.480
What advice do you have for folks who might struggle with setting boundaries?
00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:38.720
Are there things that you have learned that other people could apply?
00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:49.120
Yeah, we have so many conversations around boundaries and ethics, and I think, again, so critical in terms of trauma-informed practice.
00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:53.519
People, again, people need to know where those boundaries are.
00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:55.279
It is what keeps people safe.
00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:05.039
And for people who have histories of trauma, one of the things that has often happened to them is people have crossed people's other people's personal boundaries.
00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:12.000
And so it is actually ethical to have very strong and clear boundaries.
00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:17.840
And sometimes people feel like, again, these are my friends or like co-workers.
00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:21.039
Responsible for you because you work for me as all those things.
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:22.320
All of those things.
00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:29.840
So I feel like being very clear around boundaries is is part of that trauma informed.
00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:40.720
I understand as an executive director, there is a power that like I have in this role that other people in this organization do not have.
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:48.399
And so thinking about the right use of power, you know, like on lots of days I am doing the same thing as staff.
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.799
Like I will bring out the recycling to the curb.
00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:59.519
I will like, you know, I don't operate as a power position in the organization, but I recognize the power that I have.
00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:05.840
And it's really important for me to have very clear boundaries and not, I am not your friend.
00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:12.639
Um, you know, often will say, I we will be friendly, but we are not friends.
00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:19.600
Friends are somebody you can call at 12 o'clock on a Friday night and say, I'm in trouble, can you come help?
00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:23.759
And you can't call me and co-workers shouldn't be doing that.
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:44.399
So I do think it's about thinking about this is a work situation, and we can care about people, and often people do find their friends at work, but when you're at work, there is a there is a coworker, there is a client, there is an employer, employer, uh, employee um boundary.
00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:51.279
And to keep everybody safe and healthy, you actually need to operate within those parameters.
00:16:51.679 --> 00:16:56.399
Because once it all starts to get blurred, it becomes confusing for people.
00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:06.000
It's again for people with strong histories of trauma, it can actually feel really unsafe because why is my boss being my friend?
00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:12.480
Like that doesn't for people who've had their boundaries crossed, that actually it often may not sit well.
00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:16.480
Like this is not what a typical relationship would be.
00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:23.759
So I think it's important to think about strong boundaries is actually strong ethical work behavior.
00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:25.519
So number four.
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.720
I just I had to think a lot about these Ross was like, you've got to pick five, and I was like, Can I pick 15?
00:17:30.799 --> 00:17:31.839
No, I have to pick five.
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:38.799
Uh so my number four would be the conversation that I had with Ashley Consolo, who is the provost from Acadia University.
00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:45.839
And there's lots of nuggets in that conversation because we talked about like generations coming into work and coming out of school and all those things.
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:54.400
Um but probably the biggest revelation I had through this entire series of conversations was my conversation with her about climate grief.
00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:59.200
Like I'm obviously cognizant that the climate is changing and that that has implications.
00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:02.480
I live in a part of the world that's not known for the best weather.
00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:10.000
But I can't say that I'd ever really drawn a parallel between the weather and the climate and the world of work in any way.
00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:14.319
Maybe in the days when you're, you know, your air conditioning breaks and it's too hot in the office.
00:18:14.559 --> 00:18:23.119
But the idea that there are people in the world who are truly experiencing climate grief is something that I need to give more consideration to.
00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:27.759
And perhaps suggest that I've been naive or ignorant about something that I need to move the dial on for myself.
00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:29.680
So have a listen to the conversation with Ashley.
00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:30.880
There's loads of good stuff in there.
00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.480
But the climate grief thing stuck with me particularly, and I think it's really interesting.
00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:40.400
Um, can we talk a little bit about your work in with Indigenous peoples, indigenous community, and climate resilience?
00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:41.839
Would that be what you would call it?
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:57.359
Yeah, I actually don't talk about climate resilience because, and this is this came from doing work uh in communities, particularly in northern Labrador, where people would really talk about the problems of resiliency and how it's actually creates sort of hierarchies of privilege.
00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:12.000
Um, so when you keep saying to someone, good for you, you're resilient, and it's so in the climate perspective or in colonial perspectives or residential school, you you praise the people who are continuing to survive the bad thing, but you don't fix the bad thing.
00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:27.599
So this kind of in that context, the resiliency narrative is actually it can be very offensive because it's like, well, instead of praising me for making it through or praising me for being strong, fix the system that created these sort of inequities and problems in the first place.
00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:33.519
Um, so what I look at is more the emotional and relational and mental health pieces related to a changing climate.
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:48.160
So how we relate to community and to land and to place, and then our futures, uh, and a lot of work around that future kind of piece, and then a lot of work around the emotional pieces, the grief pieces, and really thinking through like what does it mean to live in an ever-changing world?
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:53.839
What does it mean when we know the term that um is used all over the world is era of loss and damage?
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.240
So we have entered into this, we know there's going to be fundamental shifts to the climate and environment.
00:19:58.400 --> 00:19:59.279
There already is.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.319
So, how do we live in an era of loss and damage?
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:16.319
And then when you tie it into sort of the classroom or the workspace, when we have more and more people who are directly impacted by climate change, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, like the devastating pieces, um, that impacts work in educational environments.
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.160
It impacts people's ability to learn and to, you know, actually go to work.
00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:29.279
And then if you look at some of the slower, the creeping changes, the day-to-day changes that aren't the major break event, but cause significant anxiety or feature anxieties.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:54.720
So now we're seeing a lot of the research that's coming out, particularly around some of the neuroscience work, the psychology and psychiatry, is uh huge disrupted um impacts to people's ability to work, ability to sleep, ability for um full cognitive function because you've got all this worry and anxiety, the amplification of other mental health challenges if they're present, um, the creation of changing family dynamics, um, even sense of hope for the future.
00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:01.839
So if people start to lose that sort of sense that they can dream a future or have the type of future they want, that impacts their choices of going to school.
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:03.440
It impacts what they do in the workplace.
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:14.640
Uh, and we're seeing a lot of trends now on much higher absence rates from workplaces because people are experiencing all sorts of stress and trauma related to climate change.
00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:21.680
But if you're in an area where you're you're suddenly hit with a forest fire or a hurricane, like that is changing the whole sector as well.
00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:32.880
So there's some really interesting pieces around how climate change will continue to impact our workplaces, our educational environments, and just individuals' people's ability to cope and adapt and respond.
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:41.200
And then how that interacts with all of the other emotional regulation pieces and all of the other stressors that are out there is people are really worried about futures.
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:46.319
There's a lot of future worry and future anxiety that's quite heavy and prevalent around this.
00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:53.599
And so it's climate change, but it's also housing and food and global stability and politics and all of it, right?
00:21:53.759 --> 00:21:56.000
So it's it's all compiled into one.
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.759
And it's that one is hitting all generations, but obviously the youngest generation, too.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:01.839
Is really struggling with those pieces.
00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:07.680
And my last pick, but by no means least, would have to be the conversation on menopause, because I'm in the middle of it.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:11.039
If you work with women, you need to know about menopause.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:17.519
Um, the conversation we had with Tina Pomeroy around menopause will not be the only one we have, but it was so helpful.
00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:25.839
My two takeaways were one, I have never really thought about it as an evolution.
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:37.200
So we talk about it as a change, and sometimes we talk about it as a lessening, but thinking about it as an evolution and what more I might be becoming through perimenopause and menopause is not a lens I had had on it.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.680
So that's kind of interesting to take away.
00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:47.119
And the other piece that stuck with me was around recognising the seriousness of this situation and change for some women.
00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:56.319
And so making sure you're educated at least a little bit on what perimenopause and menopause is and the impact it can have could just make a really big difference for the person working next to you.
00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:03.519
So that would be my last pick, and we'll be talking more about menopause because I think there's still much more that needs to be said in the next season that we record.
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:24.079
Well, your your whole characterization of it earlier in this conversation around emphasizing the transition and that it's not a lessening in any way, and that actually it is simply a move an evolution to a new stage of thinking, operating, and being as a person is really interesting because I don't think we often see that characterization of it.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:30.720
If anything, it's probably more what you described around we talk about the medical components of menopause and it is a medical thing that's happening to women.
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.319
So your idea that it's an expansion, I think, is a really interesting one.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:37.519
What kind of led you to think about it or to talk about it that way?
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:47.039
Well, first when I was doing my research, I started reading these articles about how our cultures impact, like different cultures experience menopause differently.
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:52.960
And also that our beliefs about aging can influence our experience in menopause.
00:23:53.119 --> 00:24:02.799
Our beliefs about menopause can obviously And I'm like, hey, wait a second, if this is like purely a medical thing, then wouldn't it be more consistent across the board?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:08.240
And so I was like, oh yeah, like first of all, it's it's not consistent and every woman is different.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:14.160
In fact, well, different societies have different uh values and different experiences with menopause.
00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.079
In some societies, menopause is actually fantastic.
00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:23.359
It means that a a woman is wise and and and like powerful, right?
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:28.319
Whereas in in our Western modern world, it's it's more about diminishing.
00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:29.839
Now we're changing that.
00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:31.839
That is starting to change.
00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:46.720
That that's what kind of influenced my thinking that this is more holistic and this is more about you see women, powerful women, right, in their later 70s, 80s, 90s, and it's like, well, how come they're so powerful?
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:51.759
And then you see these other women, you know, kind of or this perception of women being, you know, declined.
00:24:51.839 --> 00:25:01.200
It's like, well, I mean, I'm not gonna get into the history of this because it would take too long, but historically, when women women's health is not researched as much.
00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:05.039
Women women were hysterical when they were going through perimenopause.
00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.599
That's why you know hysterectomy is called what it is.
00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:13.279
Oh my gosh, there's so much stuff I read about this stuff, and of course, that's in our DNA.
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:21.839
So, like we have those messages imprinted on us, we can't help it, and so it's gonna take a lot to shift that.
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:43.759
But this idea of expansion and spirituality, so many women started when women's voices started being heard because they've been silenced for so long, and we're just starting to listen to women's voices, and all of a sudden they were talking about this being a spiritual awakening, an expansion, like a great thing.
00:25:43.920 --> 00:25:46.000
I don't give a shit anymore, right?
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:55.279
I can't I care about the things that are important to me and and that are important in the world, but I don't care about that drama over there or that over there that doesn't mean anything for me.
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.960
And so I, in my own experience, have had that as well.
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:07.519
And then I started talking, and of course, a lot of my friends are in this phase, either perimenopause or or just past menopause, and they're also the same.
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:25.599
And I'm like, that's worth, even if it's not evidence-based research, that is so worth talking about this idea that we we're expanding, we are becoming greater, you know, and and it's not all medical.
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.000
Yeah, there's physiological stuff happening.
00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:35.759
There is, but that doesn't mean that we're no longer intelligent, capable, attractive.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:45.599
Like, think about the beauty industry and uh the messages that we're getting about aging and how we need to fix our wrinkles and plump our lips.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:54.720
And I'm not judging anyone that does any of that stuff, but we have to think about why are we getting we're getting those messages that that's what's beautiful.
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:55.359
All right.
00:26:55.519 --> 00:27:04.640
And so when we start to shift out of that, like, no, what's beautiful is the fact that you don't you're awakened or you're enlightened and I don't like to use the word enlightenment, you're expanding.
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:16.079
So yeah, so it's like all kind of interconnected, but it's I like that idea way more than oh my god, our hormones are going away and all the we're losing everything.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:17.119
We're losing everything, right?
00:27:17.279 --> 00:27:19.039
I'm losing my I'm a hot mess.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.079
So that's a wrap on this season.
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:28.960
Hopefully, the recap there gave you some nuggets to listen into and some excitement for some episodes you might not have heard before.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:36.799
Uh, don't forget to like, subscribe, and please share so we can reach more people who are interested in talking about the way that work needs to work today.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.400
And of course, our new season is coming up uh in the fall.
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:48.240
So between now and then, you can find us on Substack if you want to join our Substack community for more updates, articles, and tips and tools.
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:54.480
And then we'll see you for the new season to have more of the important conversations about making work really work.
