How to Move from Survival Mode to Thriving at Work with Jon Rosemberg

Speaker A: Hey Foresight listeners. Thanks for tuning into our show. If you like what you hear and want a monthly roundup, a sneak peek into the insights from our Foresight plus members only events and more, sign up for our monthly newsletter. It's free and subscribing also gets you access to our quarterly Foresight whitepaper. This quarter's white paper is about rethinking entry level work in The Age of AI. Produced in collaboration with Dr. Miranda M. Rodak from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, an important topic for HR leadership and parents, students and society as a whole. Link to subscribe in our show Notes. Now on to today's episode.

Speaker B: You're listening to Foresight, the weekly podcast about HR leadership and the future of work. We explore the ideas, trends and the real stories reshaping how work gets done. I'm your co host Mark Edgar, a former consultant and coach turned chief people officer on a mission to make work more human.

Speaker A: And I'm Naomi Teitelman, former big firm consultant and HR executive, now striving to make work better, one leader and one organization at a time. Every week we chat with top experts and dive deep into the issues facing HR and business leaders today. From retention and engagement to AI, flexible work culture and leadership effectiveness with ideas you can use right now to lead with confidence into the future of work. Welcome to Foresight, a podcast about HR leadership and the future of work. I'm, um, one of your co hosts, Naomi Teitelman, and I'm joined today by our next special guest, Kelly John Rosenberg. As a former operations executive turned advisor, John works with founders and CEOs to widen the frame around difficult decisions and reclaim their agency. He is the founding partner of Anther and author of A Guide to Thriving, which explores how people move from survival mode toward thriving through agency, meaning and connection. I'm really excited, uh, to chat about your book today, John. Welcome to Foresight. It's great to have you here. How are you today and where are you joining us from?

Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me. I'm, I'm in Toronto and I am excellent. I love having these conversations and I think it's such an important topic to talk about thriving. I think we've kind of forgotten a little bit about thriving because we've been so hyper focused on success. So I'm always excited to have this conversation. Naomi.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, before we dive in, we like to start with a check in related to the topic at hand. So today's check in question for you, John, is how do you know if, if you're thriving personally. And what does it look like and feel like for you?

Speaker C: So let's start by defining what thriving is not. I think often we confuse thriving with success. And they're both important. I want success just as much as the next person, but I think it's important to have add some nuance to the definitions. So success is usually defined as extrinsic motivators. So you could say money, title, power. So for example, the size of your team, that could be a, uh, measure of success. Or the title, obviously, you know, if you go from director to vice president, those are measures of success. And of course the salary, those are some big success metrics. And I think we've, as a society, we've been so hyper focused on success that we've forgotten what thriving is. And uh, to me, based on my research and the work that I did as I was working on the book and writing the book, thriving has three core elements. The first one is agency. And we can define what that means because a lot of people look at me like, wow, but what is agency? Is that it like an ad agency or is it like an agent, like an AI agent? It's a word that is. It isn't clear, it's in the zeitgeist. We know it's out there, but we're still not really sure what it is. The second thing is meaning. And meaning is the sense that we make of our lives, is the story that we tell ourselves about how we navigate the world and connection. And by connection, I mean social connection, of course, connection to other humans, but also connection to ourselves and connection to nature or to animals or for some people, connection to the transcendent, whether that's God or religion or whatever that may look like. So agency, meaning and connection. That's how I define thriving.

Speaker A: And so what does it look like for you specifically? And how do you know that you are doing that?

Speaker C: Well, uh, that's an excellent question. I think for me, it manifests often in the choices that I make. So that that's part of my agency, the capacity that I have to see, to imagine many different futures, then to evaluate those different futures and then to choose within those. But that's also supported by the belief that I can actually accomplish what I'm choosing, that I can actually manifest it into something in the real world, that I can actually follow it up with my actions or with the way in I navigate the world. So, so that's one important part. The second one is my. The people around me and how deepening connections you Know, we spend a lot of time on, on zoom calls or teams calls and, and, and we talk to a lot of people throughout our days, but often there isn't enough time for depth. There isn't enough time to actually connect in a human way where we're actually seeing the other person and the other person is seeing us. So that's important to me. And meaning manifests a lot around my work. And having this conversation with you, for example, is a form of meaning or writing a book or, you know, having conversation with my clients. Those are ways in which meaning manifests for me.

Speaker A: Fantastic. So you are thriving. You are in it. Let's first start with you if you can tell us a bit about your career journey. You spent years as a corporate COO before writing this book. So what was the path like and what ultimately compelled you to write this book?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I think it was right before Christmas in 2021. I'm sitting right here in my office where I'm at, ah, today, and I was working for a startup and we had just raised $115 million Series B. So that's the type of, you know, the type of success that you should be really happy about. And I'm on a call with the CTO of the company and a bunch of other folks, and it's one of those calls where things start escalating really quickly. They start getting really tense and I can feel the heat coming up my neck, you know, on my neck and my hands and my, my, my jaw is tense. And at one point I just erupted and I just kind of closed the lid on my laptop, turn off my phone, and I said, I can't do this anymore. So I step right out here, right out of my, my home office, and I heard my two kids playing in the basement. So I walked downstairs and as I walk into the basement, there's this huge mess of Legos all over the floor. You know, you can imagine coming from a meeting like that, seeing that. And I just took a deep breath and sat on the floor and started playing Legos with them.

Speaker A: I thought you were going to say you stepped on one and it made things even worse or you got really mad at them because of the escalated emotion that you were experiencing. So that's a good outcome.

Speaker C: Yes, the outcome was, you know, a deep breath and some nervous system regulation. And I sat down on the floor with them and that first click of, ah, plastic snapping into plastic for me was a bit of a tiny reset. And, and so, so I ended up playing with them for a While. And one of the things that I realized is that I had been present, but for the past year, I was kind of a shell. You know, they saw me at breakfast, they saw me at dinner, but I wasn't really, uh, engaging with them. I wasn't actually having conversations with them. And I realized that I was missing a lot of. So that night, after we put the kids to bed, I'm sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, and Adriana, uh, my wife, she walks in and she asked me, are you okay? And I said to her, I think I'm done. So over the next two weeks, I untangled myself from the company and decided to start my own consulting firm, and then went back to school, got a master's in psychology, and ended up deciding to write a book. So that's kind of. So, uh, when I talk about thriving, I always talk about the other side of it, which is this state of survival mode. Now, Naomi, let me ask you. Have you ever felt like you're in survival mode?

Speaker A: Oh, a hundred percent, yes.

Speaker C: Okay. What does that feel like?

Speaker A: I mean, you. You noted some of the physical reactions to that, right? Like you're. You're sweating, your. Your. Your heart is racing, you're not able to control your emotions, you're totally direct, disreg, dysfunctional, dysregulated, you're snapping at people. So, you know, operating from the lizard brain, as it's often called. You know, you know, I. I experienced that many times in my. In my life and in my career. Not proud, but. Yes.

Speaker C: Well, but here's the interesting thing, right? Survival mode is actually highly adaptive. It's something very useful. I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and it was a very dangerous place to grow up. In the year that I left the country, by some estimates, there were 52,000 violent murders in. In Venezuela. So you can imagine how being in survival mode saved my life. Many times he told me, don't walk down that street. Don't go out of your house after dark. You know, so. So survival mode can be really useful. I think one of the biggest challenges that happens for us knowledge workers, people who are in office, people who work in corporate, is that we start confusing a situation where. Where our physical health is not actually at risk.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: With that saber tooth tiger in the bushes that's chasing us. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Our brain sites are designed to do that. That confusion triggers that state of survival mode.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So. So, so what I'm suggesting is that the opposite of that is thriving. Right. Like it's a. If we put it in a binary, although I would argue it's not that both can coexist at times. You know, it's trying to figure out how do we move ever so slightly away from survival mode and into thriving. And that's my life's work. And what I have found is that the most powerful way to do that is by training, developing, and practicing our agency.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah. So let's. Let's go to that word because you indicated that a lot of people don't know what it means. I think of, you know, self advocacy. But is it more than that? Is it different than that in the way that you define it?

Speaker B: Mm, mhm.

Speaker C: That's that I like the definition of self advocacy. I think that's a. It's very apt for what it is. Now, the thing with agency is that it's a really complex concept.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And it has layers and layers within the definition. So maybe let me start with a story. On January 15th of 2009, there was a flight that left LaGuardia Flight 1549, US Airways Flight 1549. And less than two minutes into the flight, a flock of Canada geese hit the engines. You can imagine what it must have been for the people inside that plane. Suddenly, the engines go silent. So you're in the middle of the air. You just took off, and the plane goes silent. Now in the cockpit is Captain Chesley Sullenberger, also known as Captain Sully. The first officer was navigating. He took over the controls. And as he takes over the controls, we can think of, of low. Agency or no agency would have been a person who maybe didn't have the training or the expertise and said, you know what? We don't have any engines. We're all going to die. So that's very low or no agency. We're just, you know, victims of circumstance. There's nothing we can do here. Now, when, when Captain Sully got on the radio with, with, uh, the control towers, they said, okay, you have two choices. You can go back to LaGuardia or you can fly to Teterboro Airport. So there's a little bit more agency there. Because now he's got two choices. And so you say, okay, so maybe somebody who has a little bit more training or who's developed this a little bit more says, okay, I'm going to choose between one of these two. Now, what Captain Sully did requires really high agency. In 208 seconds, between the moment where he took over the controls and the moment when he landed the plane on the Hudson river, he Decided and proceeded to act on landing the plane on the river.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: So that's a very big deal. And that is agentic behavior. That is agentic thinking.

Speaker A: Not agentic AI.

Speaker C: Not agentic AI, no. Exactly. So I would say there's three big components to agency. Number one, imagining many choices. So you can see many choice, not just one in front of you. Number two, choosing from within those choices intentionally.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: So there's an intentionality around that this is driving me towards somewhere. And number three is believing that the choice, not only that you're capable of executing on that choice, but that that choice is going to have consequences in the world. And again, we could dissect all of that. I can get really nerdy about this, but, um, people might, you know, anyway, email me and I'll be happy to talk about agency until the cows.

Speaker A: No, I love that. And it's a great foundation for the rest of our conversation because as you mentioned, you kind of like to contrast between, uh, survival and thriving. And then you have nine elements that you kind of map to those. So can you talk a little bit about the nine elements to be in the mode of thriving?

Speaker C: Yes. So the nine element framework came to me because I grew up. My mother's a psychologist, she's a behavior therapist, and she studied with Joseph Wolpe, which is one of the greatest behaviorists in the history of psychology. So I grew up with this idea that behavior trumps everything. That if you, uh, you know, if you can just make yourself do the thing, then everything else will follow. And I think a lot of us believe that because it's been told to us in so many ways. Right. If you just change your habits, if you just change your actions, if you just do this, if you just do that. And I think that's useful. And it is also very reductionist. It doesn't actually capture the complexity of life. So behavior is part of the nine elements, but there's also eight others. I won't go through them in detail because I don't know if we all have time to dig in, but I'll say four that are very important are, uh, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and transcendence. So Naomi, take your pick and we can dive into one of those or multiple of them.

Speaker A: Let's go to emotions, because we've talked about emotions already a little bit. So let's dig in there.

Speaker C: Okay. So one of the misunderstandings about emotions is that we often attach a story to them. So you ask somebody, how are you feeling? And they say, oh, I'm Frustrated or I'm annoyed. Those are all perceptions and they're very useful, but that's not really an emotion. The emotion lies beneath the perception or the interpretation. So when you say you're frustrated, well, is there anger there? Is there sadness? So how do we actually name our emotions for what they are now? Often we've been told that emotions are kind of these universal things that come up in whatever way when we have different experiences. New research over the past 20 years suggests that emotions are constructed. And what that means is that it's not just about the experience that you have in the moment, but then there's kind of like a, uh, lingering part of it that it's constructed by your brain and by the patterns that you've experienced. So with that in mind, I think emotions produce excellent information for us to behave more agentically. So, Naomi, I'm not sure. Do you drive a lot?

Speaker A: Yes, I live in Toronto.

Speaker C: Uh, yes. Okay, excellent.

Speaker A: And I'm, uh, in traffic a lot. So are we going to lose emotions?

Speaker C: Yes. Can you think of an incident when you were driving and recently maybe, is there something that comes to mind?

Speaker A: Uh, the potholes.

Speaker C: Okay, the potholes. So you fall into this big pothole.

Speaker A: What happens after fear, that I hurt myself or that I hurt my car. And then annoyance that the city is not fixing the potholes.

Speaker C: Beautiful. So, so there's like, there's two things happening here. Like there's the fear and annoyance, which we could also, I don't know, maybe you, you can disagree with me here, but we could potentially call it anger. Mhm. Is there some anger there?

Speaker A: There's some anger. There's some anger for sure.

Speaker C: So let's work, let's work with. These are two really good emotions. So there's fear and anger. Right. So what do you think those emotions are trying to tell you in the moment?

Speaker A: They're trying to tell me to get out of that situation, probably.

Speaker C: Uh, so they're trying to protect you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: They're telling you this is not safe. The fear is telling you this is not safe. Right. It's telling you you got to get out of here. And what would you guess the anger is trying to tell you?

Speaker A: Call 3 1, 1 and tell the city that they should do their job a little bit better.

Speaker C: Aha. Uh-huh. So it's prompting you to action. And anger often does that for us. Right. It tells us there's something unjust, something unfair, something wrong here that I need to fix. So in this case, we're now, instead of being subject to Our emotions. We're actually taking them and studying them and saying, what is this emotion telling me?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: About what's important to me, what's the information that it's given me about how I want to navigate the world? And in that moment, you're no longer the subject to your emotions, but you use them as a stepping stone for more agentic behavior, for calling the city, calling 311 or saying, I'm never going to drive down the street again because this is the fourth time I fall into this pothole, you know, so, so, so, so they can actually be really good guidance for, for us now. I just, I recently learned, learned this term and I hope I'm pronouncing it right, alexithymia. I had never heard of this term before. I, I learned it like four or five weeks ago and I've been really interested in reading about it, which is basically being unable to name the fact that we're experiencing an emotion or unable to recognize it. So we m. See this a lot. And you can see it even in, in the quote unquote stoic executives out in the, in the workforce. Right. Like the people who always seem to be so composed and so straight and that can be really helpful in certain circumstances. But we're also ignoring a lot of the important, important information when we ignore or compress or suppress our emotional reactions. And I think that's an important part of thriving. It's to actually reconcile ourselves with the fact that we're human and we have emotions. And m. Most of the people I've met, at least that I know of, unless you're experiencing a psychopathology, and let's not go into that, but most of the people who I've met, they experience emotions no matter how much they want to ignore them. So the prompt here is if you want to thrive, you got to become an expert at understanding your emotions, your emotional state and what it's trying to tell you.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. And I love the work that Mark Brackett has done most recently around Ruler. And you can all go and look up Ruler in his latest book.

Speaker C: He's amazing.

Speaker A: Yes. And he always talks about you got to name it to tame it. Right. I think about that all the time. Like emotional intelligence isn't just being aware of your emotion, it's doing something deliberately as a result of the data that you're getting from those emotions. And I know in one of your recent LinkedIn posts, you talk about the need to slow things down and you can't possibly do something Deliberate with those emotions. If you are running 3,000 miles an hour and no time to think or metabolize the emotions.

Speaker C: I think so many of us, because we're so connected and because we have so much access, technology has made things so much faster for us. Mhm. But it is so fast that our brains and our bodies can't keep up. So if you're listening to this and you feel even once a week like you can't catch up, you cannot get your head above water, like you're, you're actually drowning because your inbox has a hundred unanswered emails. You keep getting that red dot on your phone, uh, you're checking your Instagram, Uh, you know, just life is, is just, you know, there's no way to catch up with life. The best advice I can give you and I, I, I try not to give a lot of advice, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. It's to slow down. Mm.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but the fact is that when our nervous systems are activated, when we're in the state of survival mode, which could also be fight, flight, or freeze, we can't actually prioritize. We can't actually see what's important and what isn't. So, uh, slowing down, regulating the nervous system, whether it's that's through a breath practice, or taking a bath or going for a walk, or playing with your pet, or hanging out with your kids, or having a drink with your friends, whatever it is that works for you. Slowing down is a way to distance yourself from the situation and to gain a new perspective. As I was diving deep into the research and writing the book, what I learned is that there were three big things that were really useful in order to slow down and start practicing Agency.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And I summarize them in an acronym, air, which stands for awareness, inquiry and Reframing. So, so let's walk through it. I have a 10 year old son now. Last year, before going to summer camp, right around this time, he broke his arm. He had to have a surgery. It was kind of scary. And as we were driving to the hospital and he's with a broken arm, he's like, how am I going to swim in the lake when I go to summer camp? You know, he was like, so anyway, he ended up going to summer camp with a big cast from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder.

Speaker A: Oh, that's so hard.

Speaker C: Yeah, it sucked. And if you ask him, he'll tell you without, without any Any type of self editing. So while all his friends were jumping in the lake, he was playing with a Rubik's Cube. Now when we're experiencing a difficult situation, it's like the Rubik's Cube is right next to our eyes. Like it's right next to our face. So you can't actually see that it's a cube. All you can see is maybe one sticker, right? Um, so maybe it's a red sticker or a white sticker or a yellow sticker, but that's all you can see. You can see the collar, but you can't actually see the object. What awareness does is it gives us enough distance to move the Rubik's Cube ever so slightly from our face. Maybe 12, 14, 16 inches. And now we realize, ah, uh, okay, this is a Rubik's Cube. There's an object here. That's what awareness does. Then there's inquiry. Inquiry is getting really curious and asking lots of nonjudgmental questions about what is this? So we can start playing around with the Rubik's Cube. Oh, it has, you know, six sides and each side has nine stickers. And oh, look, it moves, it moves in different ways. And that's what inquiry does. It allows us to actually explore that object and learn how it functions and what the different moves are. Reframing is finding the combination of the Rubik's Cube that works best for us. Now that may be solving the Rubik's Cube for some people, but not for all of us. And a reframe can offer a way to take this situation that was so hard when it was right next to our face and see it as something different that allows us to move forward. So awareness, inquiry, reframing, it's like coming up for air. It's a, it's a simple acronym that you can remember. And by the way, you can practice this in seconds. This is not like you don't need to sit there and journal about it, although it'd be pretty awesome, but you don't need to sit there and journal about it. It's a, it's a practice that, uh, once you get into that rhythm, it kind of happens almost automatically that you create awareness, then you inquire and then you reframe.

Speaker A: Mhm. Now let's talk about how we would apply air to the Thief of Joy comparison, which as we know is only so much worse with social media on every screen at every juncture in our life. I know you've said in your book that you used to measure your Worth by comparison. Always looking to see who was succeeding more than you. And now we could see it everywhere we go. So maybe you could talk about how we can use the ERROR framework or other tools in order to reframe that.

Speaker C: Yeah. So let me share a little story. When I started, um, the book was published, uh, late last year, and I started promoting, and I've been on a lot of podcasts, and I think it was the third or fourth. It's a pretty big podcast. And, you know, I prepared and I was ready. So I sat with a host and we recorded the podcast. And as soon, as soon as we were done, he presses stop on the recording. And he looks at me and he says, John, I've recorded 436 of these podcasts and I've never done this. We have to re record it. And my heart sunk.

Speaker A: Yikes. Is it because he didn't hit record?

Speaker C: No, it's because he didn't. He didn't like it. He said, I don't think my audience is going to. I don't think it's going to resonate. I don't think the ideas are clear enough. So you can imagine, you know, this is like the third or fourth, and I have to do like 30 or 40 more. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is awful. So in that moment, my awareness was, what am I feeling right now? And I was feeling a lot of shame. Shame was a big, like, it was a big sticky emotion that was present in that moment. I said, huh, there's shame here. So what is this shame all about? I'm like, well, I'm not a good enough podcast guest. I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm never going to figure it out. I suck. Uh, let me hire somebody to promote my book for me, which is crazy because nobody will promote anything for you. These are things that you have to do on your own. So there was a lot of negative thought. And of course, I'm comparing myself to all of these people who go on all of these podcasts and have, like, super successful, you know, I was like, I am the worst at this in that moment. So I started inquiring and I said, what is really going on here? I said, well, you know, this is a new skill. You've never actually recorded a lot of podcasts before. You haven't really done this much. So, uh, maybe it's okay to suck a little bit at something that you haven't done before. And so slowly, uh, by the way, this is all happening in Seconds after the host has just told me that we need to rerecord. And then the reframe came in, and I said, you know what? From now on, I'm going to look at every podcast that I record as practice, including this one, Naomi. As practice. This is just practice for getting my ideas out into the world and sharing them with people and hopefully giving people, uh, a little nugget of information that will help them thrive a little bit more. And in that moment, I took a deep breath and I said, hey, okay, we were recording this on a Friday afternoon. I said, how's your Monday? And he said, sure, 1pm and I said, sure. So I spent the weekend working, and then on Monday, I came back and we recorded the podcast. And at the end of the podcast, he said, john, that was excellent. That was great. And the podcast got published. So that was air in the moment. Had I not done that, had I let the take the shame take over the conversation, I would have acted defensively. I said, I would have said, what do you mean? What do you mean? People don't understand it. I thought it was great. I would have gotten maybe confrontational. That's my default, my go to. And he might have said, you know what? I, uh, just don't think this is a good fit. Have a great weekend. And hung off the call. And that was the end of it. Right. So air in that moment helped me not only learn a valuable lesson, but actually record the podcast and get my ideas out into the work.

Speaker A: That's great, and a great learning. I'm going to talk about another. Another post that you made recently on LinkedIn about catastrophizing. One little thing that happens in your day, which we're going to bring it to our HR audience in this one, which is that happens in HR all the time. Right. You have one really crappy moment in the day, you know, employee, uh, relations issue you can't solve, or someone's not happy with the, uh, with how a performance management discussion went, and you're taking the brunt of it. Those things happen all the time. So what, what's your advice to overcome those types of situations so that we're not catastrophizing things and letting it overtake our whole day or our whole week.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I would say the first thing is to acknowledge that most of us, if not all, catastrophize. This is a very human thing to do. Our brains are not wired to make us happy. They are wired to protect us. And catastrophizing is a way to analyze what is the worst case scenario here. So this is going to happen. And if you're feeling it, trust me. And if you don't trust me, go look at the research. Most people around you are feeling it too. These are called thinking traps. And catastrophizing is just one of them. All or nothing. Thinking is another one. M There are many of them. Mind reading is another one. When we think we're actually reading somebody else's mind. But so with catastrophizing, what happens is imagine you're driving down the highway and a little pebble hits your windshield and you immediately say, oh my God, the car is going to explode. Uh, but we immediately go to the worst case scenario. That's a way for us to reach for certainty. It makes us feel if I just imagine the worst case scenario, I can erase the uncertainty because everything is just going to go bad.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, to your point about agency, it may make us feel like we're taking on more agency if we can predict what's going to happen with certainty.

Speaker C: Exactly. But here's the funny thing. We are terrible at predicting. Humans are terrible at predicting. There's this research where they took couples and they set them together and they did some experiments to try and uh, see how well they could guess what their partner was thinking. And these are long term partners. And the result was that they couldn't predict what the other person was thinking more than 20% of the time, which is no better than chance. We are notoriously bad at, uh, predicting what's going to happen. And if you work planning projects or doing any of that stuff, you know what I'm talking about, that a, uh, plan is excellent until you start executing on it and then you have to throw it out the window and redo it. So that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan, but I'm just suggesting it's really hard for us to predict what's actually going to happen. So what that ends up doing is feeding anxiety. Because once we, once we've thought about the worst case scenario and are holding onto it for dear life, then a whole slew of thoughts comes with it, right? Oh, this is going to go bad. And now I'm going to get fired and I'm going to be living under a bridge and I'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage and da da da, da, da da. And by the way, I'm an expert at catastrophizing. So, so I'm talking with a lot of property here. So, so, so So I think what's helpful here, going back to air, it's taking a moment, stepping back and saying, okay, awareness. What is actually happening here? Oh, I might be catastrophizing and use that word, give it a label that works for you. If catastrophizing works, great. If you want to make up your own word, do that. Whatever works best for you. Name it. You just mentioned that, Naomi. Name it to tame it. This is Mark Brackett's work. And uh, by the way, across the literature on emotions, naming it is one of the most powerful things we can do. And then inquire, hey, what is actually happening here? What are the risks? What are the potential things that could go well? What are some of the different perspectives that I'm not looking at? Look at the Rubik's Cube from all the different angles that you can. And sometimes partnering with somebody else or journaling or whatever works for you, uh, could be a really good way to do that and then reframe it and say, okay, so, uh, a, uh, pebble just hit my windshield and my windshield is cracked. And yet I'm still driving. I'm still going to be able to get to my destination. And you know what, When I get there, I might be able to find somebody who can change my windshield. Maybe I won't even have to change it. Maybe I can drive it with a crack for a little while. So the reframing piece is about understanding that. And even if you lost the car, you might be able to get a new car. It's seeing all of that and trying to create a story that actually works for you.

Speaker A: Mhm. That's a great way to reframe things. Let's stick with HR for a moment before we wrap up our conversation today, because many of our listeners are HR leaders. And so based on everything you've learned about thriving versus surviving in your research, what's one thing? I know it's a big loaded question, but what's one thing HR can do to help employees move out of survival mode mode at work into thriving mode at a more rapid clip without it feeling like just another wellness initiative.

Speaker C: Having partnered with many HR folks over my career, and some of them incredible people who taught me a lot, some of them who were great teachers, what I learned is that having somebody at work who is present with you, who can listen to you, can be a really, uh, powerful way to change a system and a culture. So what I would say is if you're in the HR profession and you're engaging with people during sometimes during their most difficult times, and sometimes during some really happy times. The capacity to be present and to actively listen can be life transforming for employees. And I think a lot of times, in order to thrive, all we need to do is a little bit of really meaningful human connection and that can make all the difference in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great suggestion. And, and I also would add to that, coaching leaders to do that with their teams as well. Right. It's not all sitting on hr, but HR can be on the lookout for those moments and that skill development that leaders need in order to activate more of that skill more of the time.

Speaker C: I love that. Yes. You know, it's, it's interesting because I think a lot of times at work we feel like we're all therapizing each other because work has gotten so difficult and so challenging over the past few years. So the question is, how can we mutually offer ourselves that capacity to connect as human beings, not just as the title, the role, the function, or whatever it is that you need to do. I think we're underestimating the value of human connection in workplaces. And it's become so transactional. Talk about, uh, a key driver of burnout. If you go in and out of work without being able to create meaningful connections with other people, you will burn out. Because we're not designed for it. That's not what we're designed for. We're designed to be in community. We're designed to belong. We're designed to be able to see other people and be seen by other people. We're designed to add value and be valued. And unless that can happen, this burnout epidemic will continue to go on. AI is not going to fix it. Uh, if anything, it's going to make it worse.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, it has the potential for sure to support us in things that we need support with, but also to exacerbate the issues that we already have in our organization. So totally with you on that. We are unfortunately getting to the end of our time together, John. So before we go, how can our listeners learn more about the great work you're doing. Doing.

Speaker C: I'm on LinkedIn all the time. If, if you see something that catches your eye or that you're interested in, email me or, or message me or comment or whichever way feels most accessible to you. And if you're interested, get the book. It's, it's called a, uh, Guide to Thriving and it's available on all the major booksellers. And again, if you do engage with it and you find something useful or you disagree with me, hit me up because I want to hear it. Um, I'm always excited to have conversations with people and change my own perspectives.

Speaker A: Great. And we'll put all those links in the show notes. And before we go, we like to end with a feel good. So what are you feeling good about today, John?

Speaker C: I'm, um, feeling good about this conversation. Naomi, I appreciate you reaching out. I'm always excited when I get to talk about this, and especially with the, uh, HR population. Like folks who work in that world. I know how strange their work has been over the past few years, so I hope that they found something useful from our conversation today. Great.

Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for being a great guest on our show. And until next time, everyone take care. Thanks for listening to Foresight. If you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you. Leave us a review wherever you listen

Speaker B: to your podcasts, your ratings and reviews also help more people like you find our show so that we can reach more Future Forward leaders and achieve our mission of making work better.

Speaker A: Uh, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram utureforward and sign up for our monthly newsletter, Foresight, on our website, futureforward.com that's

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Speaker C: new world of work.

Speaker A: Talk to you next week.