Speaker 2 (00:02.094)
Hi there, I'm Ben Pearson. Welcome to the Tech World Human Skills Podcast. Every episode we talk through how to thrive in the tech world, not just survive. Now, if you want me to work with your team, just give me a shout. I love to help teams to be more influential, memorable and successful with their stakeholders. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to book a chat.
Speaker 2 (00:30.062)
Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. We've got another great episode for you. If I do say so myself, we're going to do another question and answer session. People have loved these before. They're great fun for me to record. And so rather than pick on a particular theme, we've got a load of questions that people have been submitting, that we've been talking to people about. So to help us again.
I've brought back a friend of the show, somebody that's done a number of episodes and I've loved filming every single one with him. So please welcome to the show, Ben Caird.
Hello Mr. Pierce, nice to be back in Pierce Towers.
Yes, well it's brilliant to have you with us. Brilliant, because it's always good fun. I think people like listening and also you've been around for a long, long, long time because you're very, very old.
That's why I've got my hair shorter so you can't see the grey so much. Yes, seasoned I think.
Speaker 2 (01:30.402)
The word is. Yeah. And so that means hopefully we're going to be able to share some insight, answer some questions, share some of our industry experience. And hopefully, as well as have a bit of fun, learn something, learn something useful today. So that's the plan for the day. So we've got some questions that we've got hold of. Do you want to start with a question? No, no, let me start. Let me start. I'm going to start with a question for you. Let's start talking about.
Sounds good.
Speaker 2 (01:58.046)
leadership and leadership in the tech world. So the question I'd love to ask, because I see this on LinkedIn all the time, is around this idea of authentic leadership. I wonder, can I ask you, what is authentic leadership and what does it mean to you?
That's a very good question. think authentic as a word or authentic leadership was probably more used. I think these things go in in peaks and troughs, don't they? So I think I think it was a bit of a buzz term in the past, but I I quite like it overall. So what does it what does it mean? I think it means being true to yourself. But what you know, again, that's a little bit fluffy in and of itself.
It's tricky, I would say, because being seasoned as I am, think the more you do and the more you experience and the more you, if you like, develop your craft, with that sort of self-awareness and confidence, you're much more comfortable in your skin and you're able to be yourself. I think if I try and make it a bit practical, as a leader, you have to do hard stuff, right? And that can be...
relatively topical, can be budgets are tight, you've got to manage costs, you've got to do... I've been involved in sort of redundancy things in multiple companies over the years, those types of things. And I think the very simplistic way to talk about authentic is can you look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and go, I did that in my value set, right? And so sometimes that can be having really direct upfront conversations with people.
Sometimes you can't do that because it's not always appropriate to if you're in a business and you're managing sort of a big change program. But can you are you doing everything within your value set and trying to do the right thing by the people in the business? And I think that's it's just being out of balance that. Yeah, I think the more you do these things, the more you sort of learn. There's the science isn't there. And then there's like how you apply it to your how you go about managing and leading people.
Speaker 2 (04:19.138)
Yeah, I mean, so when I sort of think about it, there is this I've seen teams before where there is a leader and then all the people that work for them are like fake plastic versions of that leader. And for me, that's you can have a company culture, you know, or values of a company. But when you've suddenly got all of these people are just like their
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:45.438)
leader with a very bold personality or very certain, you know, and, and, and when you speak to them as people, they, are different people to the way they come across when they're leading in inverted commas.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I also think there's... you have to go through some of that, don't you? So certainly, if I think back to our... when we worked together a couple of decades ago, you know...
As an early on in your leadership journey, for want of a much better term, there's certain people you look up to and you think I'd like to sort of emulate that. But then you do quickly realise actually that's, you know, while I appreciate their leadership, that isn't me. But there are a couple of elements that I can probably kind of build into how I go about things. I think, yeah, I think that there's a real balance there. think early on in your leadership,
kind of career, you're looking at what you want to put in your kit bag. I don't think that stops, but it probably you're more, you don't move as far as you kind of go through that.
So how do you balance? Right. So I guess you've got this authenticity. So that's the idea of, know who you are, you know your values, you're trying to live by who you are. You're aware of your strengths. So there's some self-awareness here. I'm aware of some strengths. In your case, there's a lot of weaknesses as well. for everybody,
Speaker 1 (06:18.734)
Because of self-awareness, you see? That's why you don't think you've got any.
I have no self-awareness. That's why I know I have no weaknesses. So everybody's got their value set. They've got their strengths. They've got their equal weaknesses and all of that kind of stuff. So how do you balance that though with developing skill and being able to adapt yourself to different situations? So like if you're somebody that likes having fun, know, or has got a good sense of humour. Yes. Right.
If we think about self-awareness, you haven't got one of that.
No, I've read about that and it sounds like a great thing.
So if you've got somebody that has got a particular style, but now that you find yourself in a very different situation. let me say, you talked about redundancy. So let's say you've got to a really difficult conversation. Yes. Or you're working with a customer and you've got to give the customer some really bad news. How do you be authentic and true to yourself and adapt with skill?
Speaker 2 (07:28.3)
to the situation that you're in. So when are you just yourself and when are you adapting?
And changing the style. Yeah. OK, there's there's a few questions in there. I guess so my default style in a trusted environment is to I always think about how much energy you give people and I think as a leader, you know, I like to think my brand is that I get stuff done, but actually I'm enjoyable to work with now. Might come back to the self-awareness, right?
You know, we spend a lot of time working and it's important to try and enjoy that. So I will be lighthearted. I'll try and kind of break the ice. I'll do certain things like that. If I'll give you two or three examples where I might want to bring that in. OK. OK. So if I'm making a first impression, maybe so if I've got people I work with all the time, they hopefully know that I get stuff done and I'm very serious about what I do.
But we can enjoy each other's company. So in that environment, high trust, proven capability as well, good brand. We can be a little bit more informal, can't we? And I can be a lot closer to the Ben that you might see outside of work. Right. Much, much closer, actually. Almost exactly the same. If if I've got to go and do some kind of redundancy or performance management process, actually, and we've all heard about the
the sandwich, right? You're great, but I need this, but you're great. It's not appropriate. And actually you're doing people a disservice, right? So in that instance, actually it's helpful that I have a, I'm generally positive. So when I sit down with somebody and I'm more serious, they realise that they'll tune in, they'll probably listen more and you can have more of an impactful conversation. in my experience, landing a message as soon as possible is important. So reining that back in.
Speaker 1 (09:32.076)
I still think I'm authentically me, but from a values point of view, I really need them to understand that I'm delivering some bad news or something's got to change or whatever it might be. Does that make sense?
And it does it's that you know so if we take humor as an example that's a Facet of you it's not all you know you've got it's like it's my mind's just gone to Shrek is it Shrek like an ogre's like onions and I remember him Shrek and donkey having a conversation about
You've got to up.
And so you're showing different aspects of your authenticity and also being self-aware and going, and actually this is what I need to, this is the skill set I need to through here.
I think so.
Speaker 1 (10:12.334)
Because it's really easy to say values and what does that really mean? But hopefully that gives an example. My values tell me it's important to be really direct with people and have very straight, serious conversations. But my values also say, where it's appropriate, let's enjoy our time together and make it a place. In my experience, if you've got high trust and a bit of humour, people really give a hell of a lot more. There's a business benefit.
directly why I would do it necessarily. But the business benefit is people really feel part of something. you can, it's great, you know, driving. You also get a lot more. The challenge with leadership is the bigger your job title, the less people tell you. And so by now, by able to just bring the guard down a bit, tend to, your listening systems are better and you can understand what's going on really.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I think with this sort of thinking, you know, authenticity is actually a really powerful thing, balancing that with developing skill, being self-aware and adapting your style to the situation, not being inauthentic, that's just being a mature, leader. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Should we move on? Sure.
I think so.
Speaker 1 (11:29.012)
Yeah, shall I... I was going to ask you... So, there's various things on LinkedIn, And various themes and trends, and I guess it depends who you follow and what you look at, right? But there's a lot about talking value, it seems, at the moment. I wondered, what does that all mean? And what does that mean to you? And how do you think about talking value?
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:52.878)
value is one of those words that can mean about a million things to a million different people. And I do know what I talked to quite a lot of people about this, particularly when I'm working with folks that are more deeply technical, right? So when I'm speaking to folks that are more deeply technical, very often what they want to talk about is the features, the things, how things work, the nuts and bolts and all of that kind of stuff.
And the thing is, that's not really valuable. That's not the value. That's kind of how you do it, what it is. And the challenge is if you're not really into those nuts and bolts, they're a bit irrelevant to you. You don't really have the same passion as perhaps the other people. So being able to talk about the why, being able to talk about the value is really, important. So what does that mean, the value? So what I think about is...
why is this thing of import and of benefit to this person that I'm talking to? Yes. So that means that value is different to different people. Because a lot of people think talking value just means show me the dollars. But actually, that's not what talking value means. So let me give you some example. If, for example, I was talking to a senior business leader that was about to do their budget and wanted to know how much something was going to cost and what benefit it would give me.
Absolutely, I would want to talk to them in dollars. You know, this is where it's going to cost you. This is the return on investment you're going to get. That's what value means.
all your currency of choice. Currency, Tom. be globally inclusive.
Speaker 2 (13:32.262)
It could be euros, could be pounds, it could be anything. Right. So you've then also then got, but let's say I was working with somebody whose day was full, right? They're working 10 hours a day. Absolutely slam. They've not got any real budgetary control, but they are working hard and I can come up with them to solve their problems so that it shaves off two hours a day from the things that they're doing.
That is value to them. They don't really maybe hold a budget. They care about their time. So the valuable thing for there is time. So I guess the point I'm driving at is if you understand the people that you're trying to persuade and influence and convince, if you can empathise with them, if you can take their perspective and understand what's important to them and solve that for them, that is talking value to them.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30.56)
Now, you can then extend that a little bit because perhaps they then need to convince their leaders or their leaders or you need to go up the chain and up the chain. And it seems to me broadly, when you're talking to a business, everything ties back to three things. That's like, how do you generate more money and more revenue? Yep. How do you reduce the cost? And how do you reduce the risk? So if you are making more money,
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:01.154)
That's brilliant. If you can do it cheaper, brilliant. And if you can do that at less risk, brilliant. And if you think about most things, you can probably get to one of those three kind of like. Yeah.
thing.
Speaker 1 (15:16.83)
And it's often pain, isn't it? often think like when we used to do proactive services in the past, we would often be talking to customers about pain, you know, whether it was it took however many thousands of staff this long to log in or, you know, they had an unstable set of servers. It was can we take that pain away? And that comes down really to many of, well, at least one, if not all three of the things that you've just touched on.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:43.8)
Yeah, absolutely. So understanding what are they running from? Yeah. And what are they running to? And if you can understand those two things and talk in that language that helps them on that race or that journey or that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's talking value. So it doesn't have to be dollars or euros or pounds. It needs to be something that is of value and of benefit and of import to the person that you're trying to.
And it's so I guess part of this as well is the I think about Or something we've probably both been fit fairly heavily involved the last 10 years but different cloud services and things, you know in the past it was If we go back to our Microsoft days, it was office has got all these features Whereas now actually it's about what things you consume isn't it which is comes back to value Yeah, and it's kind of how do you keep people sticky?
Yeah. And paying for a monthly subscription that they... I guess that's partly why value is... because we can move around a lot more easily now with different things, can't we? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay.
If they're not using it. it needs to.
Speaker 2 (16:47.564)
Yeah. Well, let me ask you one. Let me just look at my question list. Yeah.
So it seems to me when I look in the press, there's a big resurgence of this command and control leadership style, which felt like for the last number of years was on a decline and feels like it's on the resurgence again. What are your thoughts on that style?
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:25.454)
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:29.504)
It's a big one. And I can imagine some of the leaders you might have in your mind that draw you to that question. What do I think? I think I sort of look most things are cyclic. Right. And so if you look at where we are. Massive Ben simplification of the world, but we're probably peaks and troughs and things are probably a little bit trickier now. Right. And you look at the pressures in the system.
And to your point, everyone's trying to do everything a little bit cheaper, a bit quicker. There's pressures, isn't there? And I think everybody, everybody feels that. Well, certainly, certainly we do here in the UK and in a number of markets, I'm sure of that. command and control. So I would be more towards servant leadership.
Okay.
as a style, if you were going to contrast those on a continuum at either end, I'd like to think I'm probably somewhere in the middle, but leaning towards servant leadership. What does that kind of mean? think that a bit like situational kind of leadership, there's a time and a place for different things. The challenge with command and control typically is
that you can be going a bit quickly and not including people along the way. So if we lean that towards, let's say change matters. So as a leader, generally speaking, you're trying to, sometimes as a manager, you're managing a business as usual type team, right? But in the main, as a leader and a manager, you're probably trying to transform, certainly as a leader, right? You're trying to make things considerably better. And
Speaker 1 (19:24.854)
generally the hardest thing to do is to change human behaviors, right? We can implement technology, but actually getting people to do the thing that we need them to do to make the investment work is the tricky bit in my experience. So the reason I think servant leadership is helpful is generally in my mind, so servant leadership might sound quite soft to some people, but in my mind it just means more of a collaborative style. So rather than a
decisions being made over here and then an organisation being told that's the change, do the thing. In my head, servant leadership is taking maybe a little bit more time up front and you can't collaborate with everybody. That doesn't work. But you can include people and you can have change agents in the business. I'm working on a change at the moment and we've got representation and we get feedback in and we try and include as much of that feedback as we can as we go.
Is it perfect? No. But have we got representation and do we have regular meetings to solicit that feedback? for me, command and control probably has a place based on, think, where some of the global leaders probably you have in your mind when you ask that question. Maybe it's gone a bit far in those cases. But I think if you look, you tend to see, I think, a bit more command and control when we're in the tough times. And I think in the...
you know, because you're looking at short term, need to make course corrections. We need to keep the wheels on the thing. We need to drive the business forward. And I think you can be a little bit longer term when things are back on the up. And that's where you can be a bit more collaborative. And that's where I think that servant leadership, I think, I think that's the difference between effectiveness and efficiency.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:17.804)
I've been involved in as I'm sure we have loads of programs where we optimize that thing and yet things didn't get better. And that's because you're making the input and the output looks optimized. But actually, there's a load of the other things that aren't. I think probably diving around that bit, generally speaking, when you're driving change, if you can go a little bit slower up front, you can get more people pointing in the same direction and really drive the value of
of the chat.
And it's therefore more effective because rather than tell somebody what to do and they've not done it, they've been included and they are doing it. it took you longer to get there, so it's less efficient to get there, but it's more effective because they're actually doing it as opposed to not doing it.
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:06.1)
Yeah, that's my experience. you rarely get 100 % of the people doing the thing because they want to do the thing. But you can probably get a decent majority who are bought into it that will give you that discretionally, their time, their energy. And then, you know, versus all the people doing the thing because they were told to, it's kind of kicking and screaming is not the effective way to drive a train.
I must admit, so if I think about it as who I want to lead me, I hate my leaders having a command and control style. I hate it. That is like, it doesn't get the best out of me. It doesn't use any of the experience and value that I bring. It's basically me executing the thing that they think is right. and, and.
Now, if I then think about where I've led teams and I'm managing down, of course, sometimes you're under pressure to make a change quickly. We need to change quickly. And then there is that tendency to go down and say, look, just do this. We need to do it. But then I flip back and go, but hold on. I'm not taking advantage of all of their skills, all of their things. And I just remember. And so there's a couple of flaws with that command and control thing that I think of it. Firstly, you're assuming that the person that gave the edict.
has got the right answer, that there is a right answer and that is the answer, which may not be the case. And it might be some other people have got a different approach that's a better answer. And then also you're just demotivated. I remember there's a chap that we both know well, very smart chap, extremely motivated, was working in a command and control type leadership environment.
And his boss just never asked him, what do you think? And then he got a new master, not slavery, got a new boss, got a new boss. And the first thing was like, what do you think? And I remember our friend going, that is such a powerful question. It's a refreshing, it motivated him. And that's my challenge with the command and control is.
Speaker 1 (24:09.378)
Yeah
Speaker 1 (24:24.184)
Sure. think, you know, being devil's advocate to, and I'm not contradicting myself, the devil's advocate is you can't ask everyone what they think and you have to move forward and you know.
Every decision made by committee would take forever.
So there is a balance, but I think you have to... I mean, it's a bit like parenting, isn't it? You know, if I ask my kids what they think, and that's a little bit dangerous. But, you know, generally speaking, if they come up with the idea, they're pretty keen. And they're brought in and they'll... If I tell them we're going for a walk, it's like, there's other things I can be doing that involve a screen, right? Whereas if I say, you know...
We are going to go out, but where do you want to go? It's a different conversation. Yeah. And I think that's human nature, isn't it, really? Yeah. I also think about the difference between delegating tasks and outcomes in a work setting. OK. So, you know, we need to get X done. Can you come back to me with a plan on how you'd go about that and we can bounce it around? Yeah. It's very different to these are the three things I need you to do by Friday. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it can be slower.
And then the worst thing is when there's the fake empowerment, right? Here's an outcome and then they come back with an outcome. No, now do these three things. Which is like, they've been on a course that tells them they need to listen more.
Speaker 1 (25:49.652)
But then, you know, the other side, it's really tricky because there's not an exact answer. I think with if I think about that, I've had things where people come back and I'm like, it's going to be tricky to get where we need to. Yeah. And I'm not sure if I've got time for a full on afternoon with a whiteboard. Right. So, you know, but then I also think that's where you have to play to strengths and delegate the right level of of outcome. you know. Yeah, it's it's yeah.
That's where the art and the science come together, right? You have to make some judgement calls along the way.
Yeah, and actually probably the not the right answer because there is a right answer, but there's a bit of balance and a bit of diversity.
That's a little bit why I talked about the spectrum upfront, because I do like, you know, I think I think generally it's a bit like strengths and weaknesses. If you can get the balance right. Yeah. Then then you can get the benefit. extreme on something, then it's. not me. We should. I was going to chat to you about so there's all sorts going on, lots of pivoting left and right.
And it seems to me that being able to, I would say juggle, being able to adapt is quite important. And I thought given what you do and how you do it, you might be someone that can share a bit of insight on adaptability.
Speaker 2 (27:20.814)
I think adaptability is one of the key things at the moment. And if you can adapt, you will be able to thrive. And if you struggle to adapt, it's going to be a really tough time. you know, and things that make me think that, you know, let's just take the rise of AI, right? Suddenly the way that lots of people do their day job is just changing, you know, and whether you're
Most people are starting to use it, think, particularly in tech, but you just need to adapt. And if you can adapt and start to use this new tech, and it's always been like that in tech, if you can adapt to the new tech, then that's going to help you. I think firstly, know, that's not so. But secondly, I see things, you know, like lots of redundancies, lots of reorgs, lots of changes happening. And again, people need to be adaptable. You need to be able to adapt.
whether it's a direction you want to head in or it's because something gets thrust upon you, like you've been re-orged into a different team, you've been made redundant, you've decided like me to start your own business a few years ago, you know, so there's all of these things. And I remember there's a training course and I think you went on it as well many years ago, this is back in the noughties with a chap called Nicholas Bate, I you did go on it, didn't you? I did. And was it called Personal Excellence or...
There was personal excellence, one, two and three and personal mastery, I think. was it? Yeah, yeah. I remember laying down and meditating in a room with lots of work colleagues. Yes, yes, yes.
There was a whole series.
Speaker 2 (28:56.492)
Now, and I remember there was a framework that he came up with that I use all the time, which is BAT. B-A-T. So basically, the idea is firstly, getting on board with the fact that you do need to adapt, that you do need to grow, you do need to learn and that that's an important thing to help you throughout your career. And then this BAT. So B stands for belief, A stands for attention and T stands for technique.
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:26.252)
Right.
So believe that you can make the change, give it some attention, some time and learn some techniques that are going to make you be better at it. And if you put those three things together, it's really powerful. So if I think about it from starting my own business. So let's say, for example, I needed very early on, I needed to create a video course that can help people. So the challenge I had was there's some stuff in my brain that will help people.
How do I structure that? Then how do I record it so that it's high quality? And how do I distribute that out? Basically the entire thing. How do I run the entire business? Because I had no idea. And I applied back to all of those things. So if I take like, say, videoing or something like that. So how do we record a high quality video or podcast or anything like that? Well, firstly, I've got to believe I can do it, you know? And that gives me bit of motivation to get up and do it.
got to give it some time. That's what a lot of people don't do is then say, right, it's going to take me time to learn and it's going to only time to practice and to how to pull it all together. So you need that time element and that's where a lot of people stop. But then the other thing is technique. How do you do it so that you're not reinventing the wheel and you're learning and standing on the shoulders of giants? So that was what I did. I found the people that were there on YouTube, the people that were already doing this type of stuff.
to learn the techniques from them so that then I could do it a lot quicker and get a lot better a lot quicker. Mentors and people to talk to. And so then it's something now I apply to everything and I have to adapt quite quickly because I'm running my own business as the trends change, as customer requirements change, as the world is changing. One of the great things about being in a small business is
Speaker 2 (31:21.602)
you can adapt really quickly and it's not like turning an oil tanker like a big corporate. Well, the flip side, it could be overwhelming because you're constantly having to adapt. So I just keep going. It's back. You know, where do I need to adapt and learn? Right. Can I do this? Yes, I believe I can. Right. I need to ring fence some time to do it. And now what who the people I trust to teach me or books to read or YouTube to watch, whatever it is that's going to give me the skill set. Pop it all together.
And you see this high quality podcast before you.
Yeah, I think if you keep going you'll get there. Yeah, it happen. It could happen.
I'll get a listener.
Speaker 2 (32:01.614)
What about you? Because you did that personal excellence course. Have you ever used that sort
Well, mean, say that that particular chap actually incredible and he's got a book, Life Compass as well, which I think we've chatted about in the past, but great, great book. But I use today, in fact, so I've had a bad back for a few months and so I haven't been able to go to the gym as I was. And so I thought, well, swimming is probably the answer, but
Although I can swim fine, I'm not brilliant at it and I don't therefore enjoy it too much. So I decided that that wasn't good enough and also my 11 year old can now swim.
So when you said I could swim, you kind of... You could not drown, was it the step?
Additional motivation there. So I do believe I can get better. I guess to use the thing, attention. So I go to the where I was, well, where I am a member of the gym, I go swimming there. But I've been having a half an hour lesson each week where somebody can sort of tell me. And then I've been watching a couple of YouTube videos on, you know, technique, arms, legs, breathing, basically different strokes. yeah, weirdly enough, if you have a lesson and you then
Speaker 1 (33:18.754)
go and swim for half an hour, three times a week, you get better within a period of weeks. I'll just keep cranking away and getting a bit better until I'm then just swim without the lessons, I guess. Yeah. But it just means I can get out and do some stuff, right? That's lower impact and keeps me, keeps the mind learning as well. I think that's the other thing is you can learn. actually, it's not, you know,
Have a
Speaker 1 (33:45.742)
not very interesting, but it was was a 60 second length and I'm I can do a sort of 52 second length now and that's eight seconds shaving that off the way you know how my mind works. I like a number and I like to see an improvement. So there's just things like that that really help if you can learn the technique and then see an impact. It's quite motivating. Yeah. So yeah, love it.
I've got question for you.
Speaker 2 (34:14.414)
It as I've said, and I'm not being all doom and but it feels like the tech world's going through a bit of a tough period at the moment. Lots of change, lots of things happening. see a lot of stories on LinkedIn as well, or speaking to colleagues that perhaps lost jobs, struggling to find new ones. Quite a that going on. I want to talk about resilience.
got quite a bit that going on.
Speaker 1 (34:36.322)
Yeah, because resistance is futile. Resilience is important.
Resilience is important. So how do you build your resilience?
Good, good. It's a broad one. Let me give you a couple of thoughts. So actually, the swimming is an element to it. I suppose I've had different things go on in life. Other people have had harder lives. There's different things that happen and it will be different for everybody. For me, sleep is one of the critical elements, I think. When you don't have sleep, everything's hard. Right. So I've had a problem with my...
the disc with a bit of a bulge at L3. And so I've had three months where I've not really been able to sleep very well. And the world just gets a little bit. pretty, hopefully it comes across. I'm quite a positive chap. More of a can do. How do we get stuff done in personal and professional life? And it's just been, those few months have been a bit tricky. It didn't help that, you know, it over winter as well and, you know, the doom and gloom of the British winter. But it was, it's been a bit tricky. So
I think just from a. If you don't sleep, it's difficult to concentrate, it's difficult to focus for any period of time, procrastination and just generally maybe a half empty glass rather than a half full. So for me, it was working, working on what things can I do that are just the right things to do that will make me feel a little bit better. Right. And so some of that is.
Speaker 1 (36:13.742)
the very specific things. One is swimming that we've just touched on. So one is, is there some kind of exercise I can do that's low impact? The other thing I could do is walk and actually walking is very good for bad backs. Staying still is not. So again, I've been walking a lot. I've got a dog, a pup that helps helps get me out of the house. And then a bit of yoga. So I do 15 minutes a day. I've got a...
happy back challenge thing that I do. so resilience is probably different for different people, but if you break it down to sort of fundamentals, I would say from my experience, if you move about a bit, if you drink some water, if you can try and get your sleep to be a little bit better, those are a couple of like fundamental things that will help you be resilient.
And then I think it becomes a bit less of a generic answer after that, because it sort of depends what you need to be resilient.
But one of the other things that sort of come out as you were talking about there was you found some kind of way forward and kept doing it. So where is your life before was right. I'm going to do a lot of the gym and that kind of stuff. And that's going to that is how I help keep my mental fitness going is why I'm working on doing that. Yeah. What you that was then taken away from you. Yeah. So it took away, your exercise and and b, your
ability to recover.
Speaker 1 (37:49.824)
And my routine, which was the tricky bit actually.
All those legs get taken off of you. So what you did was you then went, but actually I can't do that. I could dwell on that or I could find the thing that I could do. And that was walking, swimming. And well, there's not a lot you could do about sleep, but you go, right, I can do the walk and the thing. And I can just, that can become the new routine and that can, and I just keep, there's something about persistence there as well.
Yeah, there is. you know, I can't, I couldn't, apart from some very good pain killing drugs, right? There's a limited amount you can do to stop the back pain waking you up, right? Yeah. But actually, some real simple things. If you don't drink any alcohol, when you are sleeping, it's better quality. Yeah. Yeah. If I found that if I went for a walk after my dinner and I didn't eat too late, there was a reasonable chance. And then, yes, it didn't fix anything, but it did mean
that actually as I came out the other end of things and I could sleep for longer periods of time, that my recovery, I would say, was quicker. it just had kind of the mental well-being, I think, was a term you used, like, know, just feeling a bit better about your situation is important. So, yeah, I think it's it's trying to get tangible, simple things and then build on. there's the, what's it, the habit stacking. There's a book, I think, on that and various things. how...
What's your morning routine where you can kind of do a couple of things that are like zero friction, right? There's no reason not to do it in the morning or there's no reason not to, instead of sitting down to have a five minute, 10 minute lunch, just walking around the block is something that we could all do or there's loads of things like that.
Speaker 2 (39:38.21)
And I think the other thing is, and you touched on it earlier, know, life's a bit cyclical and life's got highs and lows, hasn't it? And it's understanding actually, maybe I'm in a bit of a low at the moment, but that's okay. Cause there will be brighter times. with a bit of optimism and ability to adapt. So tying it back to that previous thing. So a bit of optimism, a bit of an ability to adapt.
taking some action and then just getting back up. I I found that thankfully my back is fine. But with running the business, you there is a lot, you get a lot of nos and a lot of not backs and a lot of things don't go the way you want them to go. And it's okay to have an emotional reaction to that and go.
Yeah, words to that.
And then go, okay, and now I'm going to get back up. I'm going to be optimistic again. I'm going to keep with the habit stacking. I'm going to keep with this, with the view that there will be brighter times and I'm going to keep adapting and keep trying.
I think so. I... 100%. I think it's...
Speaker 2 (40:47.949)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:52.462)
I always have in my head, judge me on how I get back up. You know, not on. In fairness, my back is a really silly example. I've got some other darker examples, right? Right. we don't need to necessarily go, you know, that have been much harder. Yeah. But I think we're talking principles here, which is why I used a relatively like the world isn't going to end. I've got a back and discs take a while to sort themselves out. But yeah, I think it's that. It's exactly that. You just.
You just, got to be kind to yourself though as well. that's the balance of the, if you take it to the extreme, judge me by how I get back up, could be quite negative for some people because it's like, well, if other people couldn't do it, then why can't I? And you can be a bit hard on yourself. Whereas I've got quite high self assurance, I would say. So I never, I never beat myself up for having a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. I just think I'm not gonna let that happen again.
Try and move forward with it. sometimes it's harder than other times, like you say. Life's hard. But what I will say, with my silly back example, my God, I feel like a different person. Like the low, if you like, of not sleeping and just feeling generally lethargic to now sleeping again, like I feel like a...
So you're in more of the high. And actually that low helps you appreciate...
The contrast, I think, in life is a key thing, actually.
Speaker 2 (42:19.394)
Yeah. And it's an easy thing to think rationally. If life was just a flat line, it'd be very beige and boring, wouldn't it? Yes. And so of course you need that amplitude, you know, the lowness and the highness. But when you're in the low, that can feel really low and that's when you really need that resilience. And so there's the rational thought as opposed to the emotional reaction of what you can do about it.
And there's simple things, you know, I listen to bit of Dr Chatterjee, I won't go on too much of a tangent, right? But there's just some basics he talks about. like, you know, in some instances, if people are low, like he'll prescribe, go out with your friends, right? And actually, it's not that hard to ping a couple of, you know, I've got a couple of different sort of social WhatsApp groups, and actually you're on one or two of them. It's easy enough to, well,
It's not easy for everybody, but actually just knowing that spending time with people or doing something is important, I think, just to kind of balance the lower periods of time.
But you know what, I'm just glancing at the clock. I think we are out of time. So hopefully everybody has enjoyed listening and took to us.
It's possible. It is conceivable.
Speaker 2 (43:38.286)
So, final thing I just want to say is thank you so much for coming on. It's always good fun and really insightful and just a great conversation. So, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us.
Cheers mate.
Well, there we go. Thanks for listening. Remember, if the podcast is not enough for you and you want weekly tips delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for the Elevated You newsletter. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to sign up. can you do me a favor? Could you subscribe to the podcast and rate the show? It really helps spread the word.
