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On the WorkWell Podcast, Jen Fisher — Human Sustainability Leader at Deloitte and Editor-at-Large, Human Sustainability at Thrive Global — sits down with inspiring individuals for wide-ranging conversations about how we can develop a way of living and working built on human sustainability, starting with ourselves.
Jen:
Hi, work. Well, listeners, I'm really excited to share that my book Work Better Together is officially out Conversations With Work Well Guests and feedback from listeners like You inspired this book. It's all about how to create a more human centered workplace. And as we return to the office, for many of us, this book can help you move forward into post pandemic life with strategies and tools to strengthen your relationships and focus on your wellbeing. It's available now from your favorite book Retailer. Change is a necessary and unavoidable part of life. And while it may be uncomfortable, the great thing about change is that it can help us grow, evolve, and become better versions of ourselves. But when change feels too overwhelming, we can easily forget the good that can come out of it. How can we adapt our mindset to better embrace the benefits of change and become more resilient when facing changes yet to come?
Jen:
This is the Work Well Podcast series by Deloitte. Hi, I'm Jen Fisher and I'm so pleased to be here with you today to talk about all things purpose, wellbeing, and human sustainability. I'm here with Brad Stolberg, a researcher, writer, coach, and speaker on health, wellbeing, and sustainable excellence. He's a bestselling author of the book's Master of Change and the Practice of Groundedness. He's also the co-author of the book's Peak Performance and the Passion Paradox. Brad regularly shares his insights on his popular blog, the Growth Equation, as well as many top tier media outlets. And he's on the faculty at the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Public Health. Brad, welcome back to the show.
Brad:
Hey, Jen, it's a pleasure to be back. It's
Jen:
Great to have you back and I'm so excited 'cause you have a new book out that is called Master of Change, and I know you posted on social you know, you have other books, but perhaps this one might have been, I don't know if it's the most meaningful, but it took you to a place that you didn't expect. So tell me a little bit about that.
Brad:
So I, I definitely think it's the most personal book I've written yet. And let me, let me walk you through the genesis of it here. So, normally when I go to the drawing board with ideas for a book, I'm doing just that. I'm going to the drawing board with ideas for a book with Master of Change. There was no book in my mind when I started down the path of exploring change. It was purely a personal project. So within the last six years of my life, I've become a father two times I've had major surgery on my leg that forced me out of a sport that was a central part of my identity. I left a job with a large organization to go at it on my own. I moved across the country, I became painfully estranged from certain family members. There has just been so much change in my personal life.
Brad:
And then of course there's the Pandemic, which was the great collective societal change that we all experienced. Yeah, and I distinctly remember early on in the pandemic, in the midst of all this personal swirl reading articles that shared a headline about when are we gonna get back to normal? Mm-Hmm. And there was just something about that that like really sparked my curiosity and kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I had a little bit of a hostile reaction to that thinking like, what do you mean get back to normal ? This is a massive societal shift. Like, we're not gonna get back to normal. I don't think there's any going back to how things were and I started to think about change in my own life. And I'm not someone that loves change, at least old me didn't love change. The research and reporting for this book, you know, has really shifted my mindset on this.
Brad:
But old me was also like fairly hostile to change . And for whatever reason, I had this crystallized moment in my mind where I thought like, well, why do we think about change as something to avoid? And why do we think about going back to where we were? And that led me in on this process of really diving into the, the history of change and particularly the modern history of how we think about change. Which I found like some really interesting turns in how that has played out. Talk to me about that. Right. So in the mid 18 hundreds there was a scientist named Walter Cannon, and he came up with a homeostatic model to describe health and vitality and living systems. And this is where the term homeostasis, which many listeners have probably heard, originates from. And what homeostasis states is that healthy systems like to be stable and therefore change is bad because change leads to instability.
Brad:
So homeostasis describes change is a cycle of order or stability. Mm-Hmm. Disorder change and instability. And then back to order. The whole goal of homeostasis is to get back to where you started. And this was the prevailing model of change for 150 years. Now, more recently, just in the last couple of years, the scientific community has said, actually, when we look at healthy systems, that's not the best fit for change. Mm-Hmm. . So it's true that healthy living systems, whether that's us as individuals or our organizations or communities or family systems, yes, we do like stability and yes, we thrive when we have stability, but that's stability is always somewhere new. So the new model, what researchers call allostasis states that you have order instability, then there's a disorder event, there's change, there's instability, and then there's reorder. So you get back to stability, but that stability is somewhere new.
Brad:
So whereas homeostasis says change happens, it's bad, resist it, get back to where you started. Allostasis says, change happens, dance with it, be in conversation with it, participate in it. Yes, you wanna arrive at stability, but that stability is going to be reorder. It's not going to be back to order. And it's a nuanced shift, but it's really transformative because the whole model of homeostasis sets stability up in juxtaposition to change, you're either stable or change. Whereas Allostasis says the way to find stability is by being able to change. Well. So literally if you trace the the etymology of these words, homo means same and stasis means stability. So it's stability by saying the same allo means variability. And as I just said, stasis means stability. So allostasis translates to stability by changing. Mm-Hmm.
Jen:
That's so fascinating. I mean, I mind-blown moment , which I guess is what, which is I guess what happened to you, right?
Brad:
Yeah. So it's a lot of science, but for listeners, the key, I think the key way to think of it is the old conventional model of change is order disorder order. Yeah. And the new model of change is order disorder reorder.
Jen:
Yeah. I I I I really, I like it. Sign me up . But, but let's also talk about, you know, beyond the science, I mean, it, it seems to me that change is just hard for us as humans to adapt to. Which is, when you say those words out loud kind of seems funny. 'cause I feel like all we're ever doing is changing, yet we tend to resist it, not like it feel very uncomfortable with it.
Brad:
That's right. And I think that there's these two prevailing ways that people confront change. And on the one hand there is rigidity, resistance in just ruggedness, I'm not gonna change. I'm gonna be durable, I'm gonna be strong, I'm going to push back against whatever's happening. And on the other end, there's all the zen Buddhist super chill people that have spent so much time and spiritual practice that are of the mindset that we can just totally let go and surrender to change. And the flow of life will take us wherever it should go. And I personally don't think that either of those approaches makes the most sense. I think that the problem is that we look at them as being opposites, when in fact they're compliments that the best way to face change is to be not rugged or flexible, but to be rugged and flexible.
Brad:
So to know the hills that you're gonna die on, to know the traits and characteristics and qualities that make you who you are or make your organization what it is, but then be very flexible with how you apply those as the environment around you changes. So I really think a lot of our resistance to change is just based on this old mindset that goes all the way back to homeostasis that says, you know, change is bad. We should resist it, we should be strong. But it defines strength as resistance instead of strength is adaptability. And when you make that shift and you start thinking of strength through adaptability, or not ruggedness or flexibility, but how can I be rugged and flexible, well then change disarms itself quite a bit.
Jen:
So what you're saying is that it's really about a mindset change. And so how do, how do we get there ? Because we're talking about, okay, this is a mindset change, which is, which is a change. So how do we create this rugged and flexible mindset? Like what are the steps that we need to take?
Brad:
Yeah. So I think the first is to realize that change isn't something that happens to you, but that change is something that you're always in conversation with. The second important step in cultivating a rugged and flexible mindset is really accepting reality for what it is. So in order to work with change, you've got to confront it. When it happens, you can't deny it or delude yourself or pretend it's not happening. You've gotta acknowledge it. Equally important to acknowledging it is setting realistic expectations. So if you think that everything is going to be stable, always, you're gonna be in for a really rude awakening when things change, which they always do. But if you have this expectation that life is full of ebbs and flows and changes, then when these things happen, it won't throw you for a loop as much. And if your expectations are wrong, then just updating them really quickly, like, this is exactly what's happening right now.
Brad:
You know, this is, this is the thing that is in front of me. And then part and parcel of rugged flexibility is also realizing that you don't have to sacrifice all agency in the midst of change, but you also can't over control. And we love, you know, us in the West, our linear thinking minds love this or that. So I'm gonna sound like a broken record. You're either rugged or flexible. You either control change and have agency or you completely let go. And I just think like this kind of linear thinking serves us well in some instances, but not at all when it comes to change. And we can have agency to a point without over controlling. So we over control it backfires. But if we completely surrender, that often backfires too. So it's really just about seeing change is the, whether it's allostasis or the first law of physics, right?
Brad:
Like things move towards entropy and thermodynamics, heat dissipates. Like things are always changing. And when we realize that it, it loses its power over us, and then we can be in conversation with it again instead of it happening to us. And I think the ex the expectations point is also really important. So an example that I wanna use to, to make real the consequences of expectations goes back to the pandemic. And I should like say a trigger warning because I know that the pandemic is is not fun to talk about. And some would say the pandemic's still ongoing talk about being in conversation with something. So if y'all remember, the start of the pandemic was just brutal. Like it, there was so much death and despair and devastation and fear. And then gradually over time things got a little bit better. We started to have a better sense of how the disease worked, of how the disease was transmitted.
Brad:
There started to become better protocols for treating people that had serious covid. And then we got these vaccines like scientific fricking miracles. And there was the summer after the initial wave where things looked really good. Most municipalities covid cases were way down. I distinctly remember my then three, three and a half year old child being just like so wild-eyed that we could go into his friend's house because in his whole memory you weren't allowed to go into someone's house. Wow. Right. So this is summer of 2021 and it seemed like the pandemic was over and then the delta variant came. Yeah. And it was a total punch in the gut and myself, and so many people felt worse about the situation when the delta variant came, then we did at the beginning of the pandemic. But that doesn't really make sense because when the delta variant hit as terrible as it was, we had therapeutics, we had vaccines, the death rate was significantly lower.
Brad:
The case fatality rate, excuse me, because of the vaccines and because of the therapeutics. And we knew more about how covid spread, we knew that it was probably safe to play outside with friends or to be outside. Yet it's still, even though things were objectively better, it felt so terrible. Why? Because we all had the expectation that the pandemic was over. And what's fascinating is when the Delta variant hit the people that were very quickly able to update that expectation and to say, all right, like, that was a nice thought, but here's what's happening in front of me. Those people suffered a lot less. They were able to get on with their lives and adapt to the forever changing current of covid. Whereas the people that kind of clung onto this thought that, Hey, I thought the pandemic was over. I was going to my friend's house. I was able to go back to the office. This was great. They really suffered more because they couldn't update that expectation. So I think this notion of updating expectations is so important to dancing with change.
Jen:
Yeah. I that really, that that really resonates. But I, as you were talking, I was also thinking like, is there, I mean, there's different types of change, right? And so there is like, well, I don't wanna call it positive change 'cause there's positive change that can also be kind of very very disruptive to your life. But like the, the things that we, that we intentionally seek out change, right? I think about your description at the beginning of the podcast, right? You have two children, right? So deciding to to build a family right, is positive change, but it's hugely disruptive versus like cha unexpected change or change that isn't of our own Sure. Agency. Like, so talk to me about that . Can
Brad:
I, let me, let me interject this. And in the spirit of of consultant speak, I'll give you four, I'll give you four quadrants to think about too. Okay.
Jen:
Please do .
Brad:
So there's small good change, which is your presentation went a lot better. Or you got a unexpected promotion at work. You went to the gym and you performed better than you thought. You got a surprise from a close friend or colleague. Then there's small bad change. You've got a kid that's homesick from school. You have a dog that had diarrhea. You get into a fender bender on the way to work, then there's positive big change. You get married, you have a child, and there's negative big change. You get a really scary health diagnosis. You get laid off, you lose a loved one. And each of these changes kind of separate in terms of how we manage them. Of course they share some like universal themes because all change throws us into a state of disorder. And the positive changes also come with like what re researchers would call like an allostatic load or like some stress. It just tends not to be as great as the negative changes. But I am glad that you're kind of pointing that out. So yeah, the, to summarize the way that I like to think about it is small change, good small change, bad big change, good, big change, bad.
Jen:
And so I do, do we, I guess do we, it seems to me that we respond to those differently, right? Or or even not even necessarily perceive some of those things as change per se. Like especially if it's something that we were seeking out or something that we wanted, right? That was by our own agency. Do we, do we still process change that same way? Or is it different, I guess is what I'm asking?
Brad:
I think it depends in where we don't necessarily process it the same way. It still has some similar effects. Okay. So like even a big positive change will shift a lot about your life, right? Like having kids or getting a new job. Like these fundamentally change your responsibilities, how you spend your time how you interact with others. And oftentimes I think that the excitement of those kind of overshadows some of the work that we have to do to update our expectations about what life is gonna be like. And I think this explains why after the honeymoon period of positive, big changes, we often fall into ruts because we only see the positive and we don't necessarily see how things are going to be different. Yeah. I think small positive changes, yeah, those are just kind of like, all right, we should enjoy those.
Brad:
We should savor those and, and then get back on with the day. I think small negative changes though, they play a really big impact in our lives. Like, right, there is so much day-to-day stress that happens when, you know, you get pulled over on the way to work and you're gonna be late for a meeting or even less intense. Like, you know, your cat vomits when you're in a rush. Yeah. And now you've gotta be on a zoom for a meeting and you don't know whether or not to clean up the cat vomit or let it sit. And if you let it sit, there's a chance that your dog eats it and then gets sick. like, this happens to all of us day to day. And how we respond in these moments can really shape like how we feel and do. So I think that the small negative changes are an important place to focus on just accepting what's happening, pausing, processing it, making a plan for how to deal with it, and then proceeding as thoughtfully as possible.
Brad:
Big negative changes is a whole other quadrant. So in that, that, that does require a slightly different approach. And let's just spend a minute more before we go into that on, on the kind of smaller negative changes. So I've got because I'm a former consultant myself, I, I love these heuristics. So the, the two Ps versus the four pss. So the two Ps is we panic and then pumble ahead. So our emotions get hot because there's something that throws off our day or maybe even weak. And we just immediately like, react to whatever's happening. Oftentimes it leads to regret or it's not the most skillful way to handle a situation. The four Ps we pause, we process, we make a plan, and then we proceed. And I think that when we're thrown off, just coming back to that pause, create some space between what's happening and your awareness of it, process it, what does this really mean? Like what are what are my po, what are my potential paths forward? Make a plan. Sometimes that takes a second. Sometimes it, it requires more time and then proceed. And this is really like the difference between responding, which is deliberate and then reacting, which is rash.
Jen:
So how does this relate to building or creating resiliency within an individual organization, et cetera, because that's become such a buzz word, . But there's also a lot of, you know, I mean it goes back to I think, homeostasis in some ways. 'cause We hear about resiliency as, as bouncing back, right? People talk about it as bouncing forward or to a different place. But do you draw any correlations between the two?
Brad:
I like to think that rugged flexibility is somewhat separate than resiliency. Yeah. 'cause Resiliency does require like getting knocked down and that's gonna happen from time to time. Whereas rugged flexibility doesn't really, like, it doesn't see getting knocked down. It just sees like, you know, this is normal. Like how do you stay stable throughout the, this
Jen:
Is part of life.
Brad:
Yeah. Throughout the crazy weather of life. And there will be times when you're knocked down, no doubt. But the goal of rugged flexibility is, is not to get knocked down, but to, to be able to weather those storms.
Jen:
I like that. I like that a lot. Okay. So let's talk about kind of the, you know, potentially, I guess it's big negative change just in terms of how you were describing it. I think oftentimes, and I've talked, I've heard you talk about this, that like we perceive these big changes or these negative changes to kind of being a threat to our identity. And then you talk about the creation, like creating a fluid sense of self as a way to address that. So can you talk about that a little bit?
Brad:
Yeah, that's right. And then even within big negative changes, I think it's important to spend a lot of time here if you're okay with it, Jen, because Yeah,
Jen:
Absolutely. , like
Brad:
This is the hard stuff. It's the hard stuff to write about, the hard stuff to think about. And of course, the hardest to experience. So even within big negative changes, I wanna draw a line between what I'm gonna call like lowercase T trauma and capital T trauma. And these two things also require different responses. So lowercase t trauma examples include an ugly divorce getting laid off from your job unexpectedly being an athlete and suffering a career ending injury. And to your point, what tends to happen is that when we over identify with any facet of our life, when there is a negative change in that area of our life, we can become so disoriented with who we even are. And this is why so many individuals suffer from anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder upon retirement, upon becoming an empty nester. When kids leave the house, when athletes get injured, there's so much suffering because there's too tight a fusion of someone's identity with what they're doing.
Brad:
And then with what, what they're doing changes or gets taken away. In some cases, who am I? And the most important thing that I can stress to work with this kind of change is to diversify your sense of identity. Never just have one thing. It doesn't mean that you can't go all in. It's something that you and I have talked about in the past, like setting a goal and going all in on it is so fulfilling. But you've gotta have other rooms available. So you think of like your identity as a house, and you wanna maybe have four to eight rooms and you can go in one room and spend a lot of time in one room, but you've gotta make sure that those other rooms still exist. So to go from conceptual to very real, my big rooms in my life, I've got my writer author room, I've got my coaching room, it's my professional kind of side of the house, but then I've got my husband room, my dad room in my neighbor slash friend room, and then I've got my athlete room in.
Brad:
What this does is that whenever there is a real downswing in one or maybe even two of those areas, I can walk into another room and gain stability and confidence there. So if I have a big writing project and it flops, it's still gonna suck, but I can lean into strength training and being a dad, it pains me to even think about it. But when my kids are too cool to spend time with me because they're older or they move outta the house, , that will be devastating. It will be heartbreaking. But I'll have my marriage room and I'll have my athlete room in my professional room, right? So this notion of not just having one room and it, and it kind of goes against some of the cultural, I mean, not even hustle culture, but this notion of like, if you wanna be Kobe Bryant or you wanna be Bob Iger, like you gotta go all in. And I think that's true to a point, but I think that that point, like, you can't leave other parts of yourself behind because if you do whatever short-term gain you get out of it long-term, you're gonna suffer.
Jen:
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, and I love the, I just love the, the visualization of the rooms in a house. Like that makes it very real for me. And again,
Brad:
To be clear, because I know we're gonna have a lot of really high performing pushers on here, it is okay to intentionally with self-awareness, say like, during this season of my life, I'm spending all my time, you know, in the corner room on the second floor. But you just gotta keep those other rooms available knowing that eventually, like that corner room on the second floor, like it might not always be there, it might not always be going well,
Jen:
Right?
Brad:
And you see a lot of suffering, a lot of addiction, a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression amongst high performers when they don't have other rooms to walk into.
Jen:
Yeah, I think that's really powerful. Like, just really important. And I feel like I need to sit down and draw a house and and, and decide what my rooms are gonna be. So I have some, I have some work to do. The the other thing that you talk about that is also important is to have the core, like core values that you live by. And I think a lot of people perhaps already have core values, but you know, just haven't spent the time on them to kind of solidify them or truly define them or reevaluate them or revisit them. So can we talk about core values and why they matter? And then, you know, what your tips and strategies are for either defining your core values or just, you know, revisiting and kind of solidifying those and bringing them forward in your life and in your decisions.
Brad:
Hmm. So core values are the qualities and characteristics that you aspire toward. Examples could be things like intellect, wisdom, creativity, health, relationships on and on and on, right? Those are just a handful. And core values really represent your ruggedness. So these are the hills which you will die on. Now, what's interesting about core values is that generally speaking, how you apply them, how you practice them, you can be really flexible with. So when change happens, you take your core values and you say, all right, given this new environment or given this new reality, what does it now look like to practice My core values, and this really comes from evolutionary biology. So like it has proven out at the largest scale. So you think about species that have been endured over time, and they're flexible enough to adapt when the world changes, because if they can't, then they get selected out, right?
Brad:
They die off, but they're not so flexible that they become something other than they were before. So in evolutionary terms, they have like these core attributes that don't change, but then everything else does, which is how a species survives over time. And when we think of ourselves and our identities, I think that we have to take the same approach. Like we do wanna have core attributes, core values that don't change that make us who we are, otherwise we're just chameleons mm-hmm. . But we gotta learn how to be flexible and applying those core attributes. I speak in metaphors, right? Another metaphor that I like that I I write about in the book is like, to think about self like a river. And a river is constantly flowing. It is fluid. It is always changing. There's that famous Greek quote from hair colitis that you can't step in the same river twice, right?
Brad:
We are that river, but a river has banks and without banks, a river would just be random water. And I think that our core values, those serve as like the banks of our identity, those define our path. So where that water's gonna flow, it's gonna admin go. And, and that will change over time. But the core values are what channel it and point it in a certain direction. And even when our core values change, it tends to be our old core values that lead us to our new, new ones. So core values are the stability, the ruggedness that we hold onto, and then we have to be willing to apply them flexibly. So the story I love to tell here is the tennis superstar, Roger Federer, who is known for many things, but perhaps most for the longevity of his career. So in a sport where most athletes peaked between 23 and 27, Federer was dominant at age 36 and 37.
Brad:
But what a lot of people don't know is that between 33 and 36, Federer suffered a slew of injuries, and it finally seemed like age was gonna catch up to this. Great. And he was losing, he was dropping outta tournaments that once he would've won in his sleep, things were really falling apart for Federer. And what Federer did is he defined his core values and he defined 'em broadly. It was like a love of excellence, a love of tennis, a love of competition. And then he said, all right, like, change is here for me, in his case, the change was aging. Like that's the change that comes for all of us. Yeah. In sport it comes early, it affects you early, I should say. And then Federer, instead of being rigid, said, all right, like, you know, my core values are pretty broad, like time to apply them differently.
Brad:
So at age 36, at the time, this was before IC came on the scene, or I always mispronounce his name, Novik, Yik, I think before he came on the scene. So Federer was the best in the world, best ever, and he completely reinvented his game. He got it brand new racket. So he let go of the racket that took him to be the best in the world for a new racket. He learned a new one hand backhand that would help slow down points. He started serving in volley more so he didn't have to run back and forth on the baseline with younger competitors. So he kept those core values of excellence, competition, and tennis. But he completely changed how he applied them. And he had the best year of his career at age 36 and a half.
Jen:
Wow.
Brad:
So I think like that story is is an extreme version of though what I think all of us should be thinking, which is like, what do we really care about? Like what are the hills we're gonna die on? And then what are the things that we need to let go of when things change, whether it's external or in federer's case, internal, like aging.
Jen:
And one thing that you said that I think is important to maybe push on a little bit is that our core values can and probably should change over time.
Brad:
Yeah, that's right. I think that, I don't know if I'd say should, but I think can and in some cases will. Okay. I like to stay away from should, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty like nor normative and directive. And I think some people go through life with the same core values and it's lovely. And other people, their core values change multiple times. But yeah, we don't have to be attached to core values. Okay. Does that you know, you is people we change. And I think though you most people hit like a certain point of adulthood where like, you know, you kind of really do know what your core values are. Right? And then if you define them broadly enough, how you apply them changes. But those values probably stay the same.
Jen:
Okay. And that takes us back to rugged flexibility, .
Brad:
Yeah, exactly. And, and, and, and that's right. And, you know, maybe an example where it changes is so like a young person might have a core value of reputation, and then as they get older, they might say, eh, like, I don't really care what other people think about me. Exactly. And then that core value goes away. Or maybe they just change how they define reputation, which is like, I wanna be held in high regard by people I care about.
Jen:
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay, I like that. So let's kind of go back to change creates growth. But how can we get better at like seeing and connecting to that growth, even though what we're going through, even though the, the change feels really hard.
Brad:
So this is this is a good way to talk a little bit about that, that scary quadrant. Yeah. Which is like the big negative changes loss, really bad illness, things that just completely upends your life. And here there's this really fascinating paradox that I think is so important for people to be aware of, which is that yes, we do tend to grow and find meaning in these things, but that growth and meaning has to happen on its own time. You cannot force it. Hmm. So, growth mindset, gratitude the adversity advantage, all these buzzwords from positive psychology, they're all true up to a point. But at a certain point, the most masterful, skillful thing to do is to not put pressure on yourself to do anything but survive and get through. So when you lose a spouse, or when you first get a terrible health diagnosis, or when you suffer a clinical depression, the worst thing that you can do for most people is to say, well, you know, Carol Dweck said, I need a growth mindset and I'm gonna grow from this.
Brad:
Maybe that'll work. But oftentimes things just suck, and it's okay to give yourself permission to let things just suck. And what the research shows is that when people undergo these really massive negative changes, the more of it they try to force meaning or some kind of positive growth on their experience, the worst they feel for a longer period of time. Whereas people that can release from any need to grow or find anything positive and just get through, those people tend to turn out the best. So it's this paradox that the best way to get growth and meaning when things are really crappy, is to release from the need for growth and meaning itself. Now, this doesn't mean that you ought to become a nihilist and just say like, I'm gonna be in despair and hopeless forever.
Jen:
Right?
Brad:
But what it does mean is to say, if it feels impossible to try to find meaning in something, then it's okay to let go of that and just show up and get through. And there are some like very key attributes that can help you show up and get through. But taking the pressure off yourself to find positivity or meaning in a really harrowing experience is important. I mean, like the, the example that I like to use because it's a, it's an extreme one, and I think it's easy to see these concepts in the extremes, is if somebody loses a child, the dumbest thing you could possibly say to that person is, well, why don't you write down three things you're grateful for every night, . Yeah. Like, you know, beyond dumb. Now, at the same time, gratitude practice is really good and important like 98% of the time, but the 2% of the time when it's not, you gotta be able to release from those things and just focus on showing up and getting through.
Jen:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that, that
Brad:
Information. I mean, it's just, it's such a trap that like overly optimistic people fall into is, you know, I'm so growth oriented. Like, yes, I'm suffering this depression, or Yes, I just got a really bad cancer diagnosis, but like, I'm gonna grow from this and I wanna be clear. 'cause I don't wanna be negative. Nancy. If you can do that and you genuinely mean it, that's great. You ought to. But if you find yourself kind of like lying to yourself or not giving yourself permission to just grieve for a little bit, then that can backfire.
Jen:
Yeah. And you will eventually work your way through it.
Brad:
Yes. Growth happens on the other side. So there's a study that I profile in the book from university of Wisconsin, and they look at people that undergo capital T trauma. And what they find, well, there's two really important things to the finding. The first is that most people, certainly not all, but most people come out of trauma having experienced growth, not P T S D. Now, those differences are a result of our inheritance. So our neurochemistry and our environment. Now, the second thing that they find is that for the people that experience growth, their trajectory looks the exact same as the people that experienced P T S D for the first six months. So the first six months after a trauma, nobody is practicing gratitude and growing from struggle. The, the trajectory is the exact same. They're all on a P T S D trajectory. But then at the six month mark, people that give themselves permission to just let things suck, they tend to have this rebound. And by one to two, in some cases for bigger traumas, five years later, most people look back on those experiences and they don't like 'em. They're not grateful for them, but they have some sense of meaning and growth that came from them.
Jen:
Yeah. That really resonates with me because as a cancer survivor, I, I will never say that I was grateful for having been diagnosed with cancer. Those are not words that you will ever hear me say, but I can look back and, you know, see how I have grown and how I've changed from having a cancer diagnosis. But no way, shape or form, do I think it was a gift or will I be grateful for it ever ,
Brad:
Right. And, and I think that and that's it. And, and, and, and my sense is like as you went through that process, you probably ebbed and flowed between, you know, I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna find meaning I'm gonna get stronger from this. And some days just like, this is just senseless pain that I'm facing. Mm-Hmm. . And I think like it's really hard to sometimes recognize that like the universe can be a crazy, chaotic, cruel place. And sometimes, like, pain is just pain. Yeah. Especially when we're experiencing it. But if we can get through and get to the other side, then we tend to find meaning, growth, compassion, all these good things.
Jen:
Yep. Completely agree. Okay. So let's talk about the workplace a little bit. And I'm gonna give you like a specific example maybe that we can talk through as to like, how do you apply these lessons in the workplace? So let's say your team or your company is kind of going through a, a reorganization which happens fairly regularly these days. And so what are some specific things that you can do to help your team develop this rugged flexibility mindset to kind of move through these changes that happen within an organization pretty regularly these days?
Brad:
I think the first is just to normalize change and to help people realize that this isn't something that's happening to them. This is something that they're participating in. So yes, change shapes us, but we also have the opportunity to shape change. The second is painting these two extremes between complete overcontrol and ruggedness. On the one hand, in complete surrender and flexibility on the other and saying, we don't want y'all to feel like you're either extreme. There's a huge chasm in the middle. So like, let's all be in the middle setting expectations that it's gonna be hard. And, and, and we're going to get through a period of disorder and disorientation before we get to reorder. And helping people realize that reorder doesn't come overnight and there's no getting to reorder without going through the disorder period. So just normalizing that expectation, right? It gets back to the delta variant.
Brad:
If everybody expected the delta variant, it wouldn't have sucked as much. So when there's big change, giving people permission to let it suck during the disorder p period setting the expectation that there will be confusion, and that's totally normal, and that's okay. I think that having this fluid sense of self is also really important, even just within a professional setting. So my core value is I'm a writer that makes me pretty fragile. What happens if books go away? But if my core value is as I'm creative or I communicate, or I'm interested in creating knowledge, I could podcast, I can do an online course, I could lecture. I give myself so much more optionality. So I think helping people define their roles and their skills, or helping leaders define their organizations broadly, really helps us feel more stable through change. And then the last thing that I'd say in an individual level is when the world around you feels like it's chaotic and complex and kind of in a disorder period, the more that you can have routines and sources of simplicity in your own life, the better.
Brad:
Hmm. So if work feels crazy, but you can still show up and do your workout every morning or spend Saturday afternoons in the garden, just have like these things that are predictable, that you do have some greater control over in your life that can help bolster us for them when we face the storm in other areas of our life. So when I work with, especially my founder clients, I'm always like really keen on making sure they have something that is separate from work that they can make progress in that's just for them. And it's not because like they're soft and they need to win at something. It's because if everything is always out of control in your life, that gets pretty hard. But if we can create some small things like these, these kind of safe spaces that we can all go into, and again, for a lot of people it's a workout or it's time in the garden, or for religious people it might be going to church or synagogue, or the mosque could be listening to music for an hour a week, could be a journal could be dinner with the family.
Brad:
Like whatever. These things are just creating routines that we can rely on because it, it does help our brain to know that, hey, even when everything is spiraling outta control at work, there's these things in my life where there's a sense of predictability. Yeah.
Jen:
Yeah. That, that resonates a lot. A lot. And I, and I, I wanna close on a really important question about change. And what if change just feels too overwhelming and you're really, really struggling and these strategies don't seem to be getting you to where you need to be? What, what should you do?
Brad:
I think that the short answer is it depends. So there's different degrees of overwhelming. If it's overwhelming to a point where you're struggling to get outta bed Yeah. Or you're having constant thoughts of meaningless or despair or perhaps self-harm then the, the path forward that I would recommend is seeking help from a professional. Yeah. So a therapist, a physician, a psychiatrist, a counselor. If you're overwhelmed but still functioning, I think it might make sense to experiment releasing from the need for growth for a period of time Hmm. In shifting the goalpost to, Hey, like, I just wanna show up and get through this. And then social support is so important. Yeah. to bolster us. So in the models of allostasis, they show that at a very like animalistic level, when species don't have enough resources to get from disorder to reorder, they borrow resources. Like, quite literally, they borrow resources. And I think for us humans, borrowing resources means leaning on our social support for help.
Jen:
I love that . That's a really great way to think about that.
Brad:
Yeah. And I mean, you see this in the human body. So when one organ is suffering or in a disease state, yeah. Other organs tend to have to chip in a little bit more to keep the body stable. And like that's just borrowing resources during a period of disorder. And I think when the disorder happens in an organization or communally, and we're operating at the level of individual and we feel like we're overwhelmed, and borrowing resources often means leaning into colleagues, family, friends, and like I said, if it gets real tough professionals,
Jen:
That reminds me of too, something that, that I talk about regularly is, you know, the, the kind of the misnomer of, of self-care, right? We, none of us can really actually take care of ourselves wholly by ourselves. We need other people to do that in all the best ways. So the language perhaps around self-care makes you think that it's you and you alone. But you really need others, whether it's through, you know, social support or just taking care of your kid for an hour so you can go do something . Right. We need other humans.
Brad:
Yeah, that's right. I mean, we could record a whole other episode on this. Yeah. But I think that the self-care movement was really well intended. Yeah. But I think that in, in some corners, it, it's actually been counterproductive and backfired because totally, oftentimes the like really complex self-care routines just isolate you more from other people because they take so much time and they're things that you have to do as an individual. And when self-care becomes work that you do alone, it's no longer self-care.
Jen:
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And a great way to end this episode. Brad, it was great having you on. Again, thank you for sharing your wisdom like you always do. I learned so much. I've been drawing a picture of my house as we're talking. I've been doodling. So thank you for that visual and for everything else that you shared on this episode.
Brad:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Jen. It's always a pleasure to get to talk with you.
Jen:
I'm so grateful Brad could be with us today to talk about rugged flexibility and change. Thank you to our producers, Rivett 360 and our listeners. You can find the Work Well podcast series on deloitte.com, or you can visit various podcast catchers using the keyword work. Well all one word to hear more. And if you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. So you get all of our future episodes. If you have a topic you'd like to hear on the Work Well podcast series, or maybe a story you would like to share, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. My profile is under the name Jen Fisher or on Twitter at Jen Fish 23. We're always open to your recommendations and feedback. And of course, if you like what you hear, please share post and like this podcast. Thank you and be well. The information, opinions, and recommendations expressed by guests on this Deloitte podcast series are for general information and should not be considered as specific advice or services.