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"All behaviors, even suboptimal ones, even bad ones, are doing a job and they're serving a function." - Britt Frank
The WorkWell Podcast™ is back and I am so excited about the inspiring guests we have lined up. Wellbeing at work is the issue of our time. This podcast is your lens into what the experts are seeing, thinking, and doing.
Hi, I am Jen Fisher, host, bestselling author and influential speaker in the corporate wellbeing movement and the first-ever Chief Wellbeing Officer in the professional services industry. On this show, I sit down with inspiring individuals for wide-ranging conversations on all things wellbeing at work. Wellbeing is the future of work. This podcast will help you as an individual, but also support you in being part of the movement for change in your own organizations and communities. Wellbeing can be the outcome of work well designed. And we all have a role to play in this critical transformation!
This podcast provides general information and discussions about health and wellness. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The podcast owner, producer and any sponsors are not liable for any health-related claims or decisions made based on the information presented or discussed.
Jen Fisher: [00:00:00] Hello listeners. We're halfway through our relaunch season of the Work Well Podcast, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. What topics are resonating with you? Is our new LRA Lynn segment providing valuable insights. Your feedback helps us create content that truly serves your wellbeing journey. So please take a moment to leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.
It only takes a minute, but it makes a huge difference in helping others discover our conversations. And as always, if you like the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you for being part of our work. Well community. We've all been there knowing exactly what we need to do, but somehow finding ourselves completely unable to take action.
Whether it's that presentation we keep putting off, the difficult conversation we're avoiding, or the career change we dream about, but never pursue. Feeling stuck is one of the most frustrating human experiences. But what if being stuck isn't a character flaw or a sign of weakness? What if it's actually [00:01:00] your brain's way of trying to protect you?
This is the Work Well podcast series. Hi, I'm Jen Fisher, and today I'm thrilled to be talking with Brit Frank. She's a licensed neuropsycho therapist, keynote speaker, and author of two groundbreaking books, the Science of Stuck Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward and Her Latest Align Your Mind.
Tame your inner critic and make peace with your shadow using the power of parts work. Britt's work has been featured by NPR Forbes, Esquire, New York Magazine, and the New York Times. Her research-based approach to getting unstuck combines neuroscience, trauma therapy, and a healthy dose of humor to help people understand why they do what they do, and more importantly, how to change it.
This episode of The Work Well Podcast is made possible because of our friends at Lyra Health. Lyra [00:02:00] Health is a premier global workforce mental health solution trusted by leading companies like Starbucks, Morgan Stanley, Lululemon, and Zoom. Lyra provides personalized care to over 17 million people with fast access to evidence-based providers and tools that deliver proven results, including faster recovery and reduced healthcare costs.
This season Lira and the Work Well Podcast are teaming up to bring you more insights on how to build a thriving work culture for today and the future. We'll be bringing you cutting edge data and research on workplace mental health and wellbeing, and we'll have some lira experts occasionally join us to share their perspectives on workforce mental health and creating psychologically safe and effective work environments.
Find out more@lyrahealth.com slash work. Well. Thank you to Lira for helping us elevate this season of the Work Well Podcast. Britt, welcome to the show. [00:03:00] Hi. Thanks so much for having me on. I've heard you describe yourself as a former hot mess of a human who not only hit rock bottom, but grabbed a shovel and kept digging, and I just love everything about this, but can you.
Tell me what led you to dedicate your career to understanding the science behind all of this?
Britt Frank: Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. No, like, I'm definitely still a mess. I wouldn't say a hot mess. I'm more of a medium hot, warm, you know, slight bubble of a mess. I don't do drugs and destroy my life and my finances and my health anymore, so that's good.
Um, so I came to this work not out of a desire to help people. I think a lot of people. Get into the helping professions or the people professions because they wanna help people. Mm-hmm. Mine wasn't quite so altruistic. Mine was more, I don't understand this human thing. I feel like I got sent outta the factory, missing a few pieces, and with a, a software [00:04:00] that doesn't seem to compute with everyone else and I need to understand this human thing.
And then I just fell in love with. That process of learning how humans human and how brains brain and no one really knows what consciousness is. But I like to think about thinking in different ways about thinking. And so I made a career out of it mid thirties, did a big out of corporate America pivot.
And uh, here we are.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, I understand that out of corporate America Pivot. So, uh, I feel like, I feel like I'm in good company. And also just to validate a little bit, you know, I've talked with over a hundred people now on this podcast and many of the people that are in this field, yes they got into it 'cause they wanted to help others.
Um, but I've also heard. Consistently about me search. So they also got into it because they needed to understand themselves. So I think you and I, for what it's worth, aren't that unique and that's probably a good thing
Britt Frank: me search. That's funny. I haven't heard that. Well, we are. [00:05:00]
Jen Fisher: I love it. There you go. So feel, feel free to steal it.
I certainly didn't make it up, but I've heard it a number of times. So, so you've also made this point that your brain's primary function is to keep you alive, not to make you happy. So when we think about motivation, and especially motivation around our work, why do we get stuck? Like what keeps us stuck and what is our brain doing?
Britt Frank: So when it comes to motivation, when we talk about goals or work ambitions, or how we want to create culture or build teams or whatever, or level up our lives, we have to start with the understanding that brains are not designed to be optimized for peak performance. They're not. Brains are designed primarily and historically for survival, not happiness, not culture, building not belonging, and not love.
Abundance brains are designed to keep us from getting eaten by lions, and it's not a bad thing, but if you don't know [00:06:00] that, that is your brain's default setting, you're going to get stuck with what the mental health world calls symptoms or disorders. I. And think that the problem is that there's something irreparably wrong with you, and that's just not true.
It's like if you don't know that a blowtorch is gonna burn things down and you try to use a blowtorch to light a birthday candle, you're gonna have a melted cake, a burnt kitchen, and then the mental health world would diagnose. You with sudden onset, you know, pyro disorder, and it's like, no, you just didn't know that that tool was for that job.
And so my work is really about let's demystify the brain mechanisms so that we can use the right tools and the right skills for the right occasions and not beat ourselves up, but know how to shift from one state to another.
Jen Fisher: So give me an example of how that plays out in the workplace.
Britt Frank: Procrastination is a big one, and so I find in the workplace people, if you think of a car, like a gas pedal and a brake [00:07:00] pedal at work, people either get stuck with too much brake pedal and that looks like procrastination.
I'm not hitting my sales goals, I'm not doing the things I want to be doing. Or they get stuck on the flip side with too much gas pedal and that looks like. Workaholism and burnout, and my work life is not balanced and I can't settle down and suddenly I need seven screens in front of me at all times.
And so the problem is not that you are a workaholic, and the problem is not that you are lazy, what we call personality traits. Our physiological states. Okay, so what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is your brain, like a car has a gas pedal and a brake pedal. If you've got too much gas going and you can't slow down and you can't relax after work and there's no such thing as after work, 'cause you work from home and you're an entrepreneur and there's no off switch, you need to know how to shift states.
What we try to do is we try to calm down or we try to talk ourselves into [00:08:00] relaxing, but that's just not how the brain works. That's like trying to talk your car into a full tank of gas when it's on empty. Like you can ch chant affirmations all day long, but the only thing that's gonna fill a gas tank is getting to the gas station.
My work is sort of like the gas station of the mind. Okay, so
Jen Fisher: how do we do that? Walk me through that.
Britt Frank: So the number one question that keeps people stuck is, why can't I do the thing? Why can't I start the thing? Why can't I stop the thing? And the why question sounds very compelling, right? Charlie? If I understand why I am stuck, that will get me unstuck.
Mm-hmm. And that's not true. I could tell you why my car ran outta gas, because I didn't go to the gas station. Because I drove too far. But understanding and insight doesn't create momentum, motivation, or change. If we want momentum, motivation, and change, we've gotta act our way into it, not think our way into it.
Not positive mindset our way into it. Like you don't need to feel good to do good. You don't need to feel anything to change everything. And I [00:09:00] think this trend in the wellness world, especially as it's being brought into the workforce. Of, we have to bring all our feelings into work and everything needs to be a trigger managed strategy.
And yes, I'm, I'm not suggesting that we go into sociopath mode at work, but we don't actually want to bring all our feelings to work. We don't want to be fully authentic at work and workplaces aren't families. So I think we've over-indexed on the feelings, and I'm a therapist saying that in like. We wanna be acting, not thinking we want to be, take, you know, taking action, not necessarily feeling all of the feelings.
Or overanalyzing. Or ruminating. Why is a great question for business development. Why is not gonna get you anywhere when you're feeling stuck? I,
Jen Fisher: so what do are external environments ha? Like, what role do they play in. Reinforcing this or rewarding this type of [00:10:00] behavior? Probably not procrastination, but you know, the flip side of, of always having your foot on the gas.
The majority of workplaces that I'm familiar with actually reward that behavior. I.
Britt Frank: It's so true. It's like brake pedal stuckness gets no rewards, but gas pedal stuckness gets lauded and gets promoted. Yeah. And gets raises. And the dilemma there is, it's not sustainable. I, I've been on both sides and it's, I default to the workaholism side, but the reason we have a crisis.
When it comes to burnout and overwhelm and quiet quitting or loud quitting, or whatever, the trend in the workforce is now is because the things that we're championing aren't sustainable for humans. I keep hearing with this whole AI thing that like the future of work is human and our humanness is our greatest asset, which I agree with, but like if the future of work is human.
We need to know how human brains work. And the first thing to know is how do you shift states? You can't shift [00:11:00] states if you don't know that. The question to ask yourself is not, what's wrong with me? It's what gear am I in? Am I going 90 miles an hour in fifth, like if I'm. Grinding my gears at work and I'm doing the project and launching the initiative and hiring the team and training the team and doing all the things.
I can't give myself a first gear expectation. A first gear expectation would be sit down and have a meal. Or take a walk or. Do a yoga class or whatever. But you can't go from fifth to first in a car without shifting. Well, you can in an automatic, I'm talking about manually. If you try to drive a stick, what happens If you've ever tried and you can't, it's because you are getting stuck trying to shift.
Right? It's like I can't get outta first gear without stalling. That's what's happening to our brains at work. When you're stuck, it's 'cause you're stalling. 'cause no one taught you how to shift your brain. And I, I. Disclosure, I don't drive stick because of that very reason. So I spend my time learning how to engage the clutch and downshift my mind.
But if you put me behind the wheel of a [00:12:00] car, I'm still gonna stall.
Jen Fisher: So you wrote something about, and, and I'm somebody that, that lives with anxiety, um, as kind of my natural state, and you write about anxiety as a check engine light for our minds.
Britt Frank: Mm-hmm.
Jen Fisher: Can you explain what you mean by this, by this metaphor and reframe why it's so important for our wellbeing to pay attention to these signals?
Britt Frank: Yeah, and I mean, full disclaimer, I was born and raised in New York. I was an East Coast gal, so I was sort of raised in a sea of anxiety like I was a crouton floating in the soup of anxiety of my family of origin and my, I feel, I feel like we
Jen Fisher: all are these days, right? So it's
Britt Frank: true. It's not just an East coast thing.
Yeah. But again, I'm not minimizing the discomfort or the pain or the struggle or the consequences. However, 30 million Americans are diagnosed [00:13:00] with an anxiety disorder. That's 20% of this population. It is not possible. That we're all disordered. Like when that many people are being handed a diagnosis and being told This is your disorder.
Perhaps we are framing the question wrong. There's an author, I love Alan Watts, and he always says, oh yes, okay. I love that. You know his work. Yes. So he always says that problems that I'm paraphrasing. Problems that remain unsolvable are questions that are asked the wrong way. And so with anxiety, the question is, how do I get rid of anxiety?
The question is, well, what is anxiety? We all know what it feels like, but in the book I talk about anxiety is not the problem. It's a problem obviously racing heart and stress hormones and you know, can't breathe. If anyone's ever experienced that, you know it's a problem. But when the check engine light, I don't know why I have all these automotive metaphors.
I was thinking you,
Jen Fisher: I was thinking you were gonna tell me you [00:14:00] had some background or, you know, grew up in the automotive industry.
Britt Frank: Zero. I'm not techie. I'm not into gear stuff like I am. Just not. It's just. It's such an easy to understand metaphor. Yeah. If you're driving and your check engine light comes on.
If I take my car to a mechanic and I tell my mechanic, my check engine light is on. He's not gonna tell me, great. That means the car has check engine light disorder. That's insane. Like it's insane. It's laughably insane. But how often do we experience anxiety? Go to a professional and then get told, well, you have anxiety, so therefore you have an anxiety disorder.
It's just not true. Anxiety is the warning light that is signaling that there is a problem somewhere. And when people say, well, how am I supposed to know what that is? My answer is, well, let's start by looking. How is your relationship with your family, your finances, your fitness, your friends pleasure and joy, your [00:15:00] work, your physical health, your environmental stressors, you know, whatever the nature of your environment is, either supportive on one end or oppressive on the other end, but we're not taught that often.
What we call anxiety is the result of an external factor, not a personal one.
Jen Fisher: Right, and that has been so transformative for me. Like I said, as someone who lives with anxiety to. In those moments, be able to go, okay, wait, I'm not, you know, I'm not disordered. There's something going on and dig deeper and figure out what it is that is actually going on.
Correct. So, yeah, my way, my way of saying thank you to you and another concept that you talk about is that there's no such thing as self-sabotage, because I feel like in the self-help world. You know, we're just like constantly self, self sabotaging ourselves. Um, so I think that's gonna surprise a [00:16:00] lot of people.
And so can you explain what you mean by that and what's really happening instead?
Britt Frank: That's so funny. I think I saw online that the thing that. Sort of grinds your gears is PE When people say hope is not a strategy. Yes. For me it's when people say, I self-sabotage, like self-sabotage is not a thing. Here's my disclaimer again.
So you don't send me angry emails saying that you're an idiot. Which, yeah. So like obviously we all make choices that go against our goals, that put us out of alignment with our values. Like I was a drug addict for years while working a corporate job. I'm not saying that my decision to do drugs was not hurting me, it was hurting me.
But when we call a behavior self-sabotage, we are ignoring the, the reality that all behaviors, even suboptimal ones, even bad ones, are doing a job and they're serving a function. And if we don't understand the job that that behavior is doing. [00:17:00] You can quit doing it, but it's gonna show up somewhere else.
That's like people who white knuckle their way through sobriety and then they turn into a rageaholic or a workaholic, or they become, you know, they have a problematic relationship with food or whatever. But self-sabotage is self-protection taken in a bad direction. And if you don't know that, again, the question to ask is not how do I stop smoking?
The question to ask is, what's the job that smoking is doing? Because if it wasn't doing a job, it wouldn't be a problem. And we need to understand the job. I, I tell people, think of your mind like a company where you can't fire anybody, but you need to interview all your employees. 'cause some of them are in the wrong place.
And I'll give you an example. So when I was into drugs and I did speed and meth and cocaine and pills and lots of. Things. Those parts of me were not making healthy choices. But if you sit down and interview a drug addict part of the human mind, you'll discover that they're [00:18:00] very resourceful. Their innovation capacity is endless because when you're wanting drugs, you'll go to lots of lengths to get them, but.
Innovation and resourcefulness properly harnessed is a wonderful life skill. I wouldn't have done half of what I've been able to do professionally if I didn't have some of that drug addict energy online, but this time my drug addict is in a much better role, which is in like PR and marketing and outreach, targeted outreach.
But we need to reorg the system, and that starts with getting curious about behavior. Not judging it. And I'm certainly not saying we should co-sign bad behavior or excuse it, but if you are someone who's struggling with a bad habit, you're not going to sustainably, I shouldn't say that. Most people cannot sustainably change a habit by just stopping a thing or starting a thing.
'cause if that were easy, we'd all just do it. And podcasts like this wouldn't be needed and you and I wouldn't have jobs. [00:19:00] It's also in boardrooms and in That's true. Very true. Yes. Yeah. And in the carpool line, it's like, yeah, this idea that really severe behavioral stuff or really severe unwellness stuff is just a, like a them pro.
Like when I talk, when I do keynotes and I, I tell corporate audiences that I smoked meth, I usually get s. Done silence. 'cause it's like, well, you don't look like what a meth addict? Mm-hmm. Looks like. And it's like, I'm not the only one. Like statistically, there's a lot of people that are doing well, but are not well.
Like I was doing fine. I was getting promotions. I never missed work. I showed up every day. I hit my KPIs. But it's not enough to do well. We also want to be well. And that starts again, not by trying to excuse our behavior. It's like, oh, well I'm a chain smoker, but it's protective. It's not sabotaging. 'cause that's what Brit Frank said.
It's like, no, Brit. Frank said, we gotta understand what smoking is doing for you, what drinking is doing for you, what binging [00:20:00] is doing for you, whatever your thing is. Even things like not working out. When people tell me I'm just lazy, and I'm like, you're not lazy. 'cause that's a. Judgment, not a biological reality.
So we have to figure out what does your brain think The benefit of inertia actually is. I tell people, do a cost benefit analysis of every habit, just like you would in your business. And people are very quick to count the cost of a habit, but no one wants to fill out the benefit column. If the benefit column wasn't longer than the cost column, it wouldn't be a problem.
So we've gotta suss that out.
Jen Fisher: I would say in the workplace, we probably don't. Judge those people negatively. 'cause a lot of them are probably high performers because the substances that they're using are actually. Helping with their performance in some weird way.
Britt Frank: Right? Performance enhancing drugs. Again, I'm not advocating for, I remember one night I was doing budgets, I was doing annual [00:21:00] budgets, which was a nightmare process, and it was like a month of sleepless nights and up all night, and.
Making numbers work and this whole thing, it is a lot easier to stay up all night high on speed. I'm not saying that was a good call, but like you said, the problem is when we look at some. Someone that's functional and go, well, that's a person who doesn't have a problem. And those are the people that often fall through the cracks.
'cause yeah, I was in denial about it. 'cause I'm like, see, I go to work. I don't have a problem. It's fine. I can control it. The fastest way to know if you really are in control of a behavior is try to stop it and see how that goes. Whether that's your screen, whether that's like getting off your email or whatever it is.
But if you think you're in control of something, see what happens when you try to stop it. Mm.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. I don't even wanna think about that when it comes to my screens. I'm a full added to my screen. We'll, we'll park that for now. Yeah, no shame. So, so your, your [00:22:00] latest book, which congratulations, um, just, just came out a couple weeks ago.
Align Your mind is about. Parts work and inspired largely I think by internal family systems. So can you explain to me what parts work is and why you decided to dedicate an entire book to this approach?
Britt Frank: Yay. Okay. So of all the things I've ever learned as a human or a clinician, this is the thing that moves the needle for.
Everybody, in my opinion, the fastest. So if you've seen the movie Inside Out, I think the easiest way is to think of that Pixar movie with all the little characters running around, you know that person's head. That is a really good way to describe how human minds are organized. In fact, those movies inside Out and Inside Out too are based on a framework that I'm trained in called Internal Family Systems, and it was created by Dr.
Richard Schwartz and it sounds like family therapy, but it's not. He took the concepts of family therapy and just [00:23:00] applied them to inside your head. So just like in the movie, you've got a lot of characters running around up. They're all who have different agendas and motivations and goals and beliefs and feelings.
His model is beautiful and he's been at it for, I don't know, 40, 50 years. It's an evidence-based model of psychotherapy. It's my favorite thing that I do, and it's based on what's called parts work, which is the idea. That our mind, just like our body is made of different parts, you would not treat a knee injury the same way you would a respiratory infection, but we treat our mind anxiety or depression or burnout or overwhelm or whatever.
We treat it like. It's part of this one mushy thing we call the mind. When you treat your mind like it's made of parts, it's so much easier to get to the problem faster. And then solve it. I took his model and sort of went rogue with it. And I was so scared because I love IFS, which is what it's called, um, and again, I'm [00:24:00] trained in it.
I've dedicated my career to doing it, but like I've also found that there are ways to apply it to the work world or to a business meeting or to. Whatever, and I just sort of took it and created my own tools and techniques and frameworks. Of course, heavily attributing the credit for this to Dr. Schwartz.
I thought he was gonna send a cease and desist letter. I was so scared. I've never met him, but I just sort of cold reached out to him on LinkedIn and sent him the manuscripts. And he sent the most beautiful endorsement back and he's really passionate about spreading the word, and he was 10 outta 10, recommends me going and scrappy with his model, which I'm very grateful for.
Jen Fisher: I love that. So you say you contain multitudes and that any given moment your inner critic might be yelling at you. Yes. Checkbox. Your inner saboteur might be blocking your way. Yes. Checkbox. And your inner teen may be feeling angry. [00:25:00] So tell me how we even begin to identify and understand these different parts of ourselves.
Britt Frank: And that Walt women, well, it's a longer poem, but Walt women said, I am large, I contain multitudes. Yes. And parts work is based on that idea that part of me knows don't do drugs, and another part of me is doing them. Part of me knows, go to the gym, get your steps in meal prep. And another part of me is like, I want pizza and we're gonna DoorDash donuts after the pizza.
And so understanding what do we mean when we say a part of me is feeling a certain way? And the book really deconstructs in a very, very nonclinical, very easy to understand way. This is what the inner critic's job is, and this is what they're trying to do. And here's what you say to your inner critic to help reframe what it's doing.
And the same thing with the parts of you that get tantrumy. Like anytime you see an adult, absolutely pop off on someone. It's not [00:26:00] that. That person has suddenly morphed into toddler brain, but a part of them has taken over. And if you don't know how parts work, then you're going to react and then go, why did I just say that?
Oh my God, I can't believe I just did that. Wow. Or if you are arguing with someone you care about and you say really terrible things, it's 'cause an angry part of you has taken over. And if you don't know that that's happening, how are you gonna stop it?
Jen Fisher: And so how do we, like, how do we know that? How do we begin to identify or understand what's happening?
Britt Frank: Yeah. So then the fir, when people say to me like, well, how do I know which parts of me are up there doing what jobs? And I would say, how do you find out anything about anyone is first you do an inventory, you just take a, and this is mindfulness, right? And we know from study, after study, after study, like a meta-analysis of all of the people doing the things has shown mindfulness works to reduce stress hormones, to improve mood, to reduce, you know, [00:27:00] decision fatigue to help us move faster and do.
More things and make better decisions. So mindfulness just means you're paying attention to what's happening. It doesn't mean you have to quiet your mind and get into this zen-like blissful state. And so I would tell people, start listening to your own thoughts. What are you thinking during the day? Do your thoughts sound like angry, mean critical?
Teenagers? Do they sound like scared out of control? Toddlers, anytime I need to get up early to do a workout, I can almost hear. In my mind, a part of me going, I don't wanna, it's cold and it's raining, and my bed is comfy. Like that's clearly a child part of me. I don't need to know exactly how old they are or who they are, but the best way to figure out what's going on in your mind is just to start noticing.
Just do an inventory. Think of yourself as like an anthropologist of your own mind. Just keep a notebook or use your phone's notes app. Just start jotting down what you hear. We're not judging it. We're not shaming it. We're not [00:28:00] trying to change it. We're just saying, well, if we're gonna change how you human, we gotta know, first of all, who's your main cast of characters.
Some people are really, really dominated by a ple, a people pleaser. Others are really dominated by a perfectionist part. We gotta know who's in charge, and then we can start using tools and techniques to help your system reorganize. That's what I call being aligned. When you align your mind, that's how.
You know, you can act based on what you value. Your choices match your beliefs, and you don't feel all outta whack.
Jen Fisher: Okay. And so perhaps I'm not alone, but my inner critic is the loudest and the most obnoxious main character energy in my mind. Uhhuh without a doubt, um, I suspect I'm not alone. But you suggest we shouldn't try to silence it.
And so what's a better, healthier approach? And. How do we go from moving [00:29:00] that loud, obnoxious, inner critic? From enemy to ally.
Britt Frank: It's so funny too, when people say, banish your inner critic. I'm like, where would you like me to send her? It's a part of my mind. You, I'm happy to, but how? Right. Like silence your anxiety, tell your anxiety to shut up.
First of all, you, you can't silence parts of yourself. Because if you try, you will very quickly learn. They get louder. That does not work. They get louder. Exactly. They get louder. So for your inner critic, and I promise I won't therapize you in here, but like I would say, what if we had a cup of coffee with Jen's inner critic?
And I actually asked a question like, well, it sounds like you know, you have a really, really strong opinion on things like, I wanna understand, what are you afraid of? What is it that you're worried will happen to Jen? What is it and where did you learn that? Like where did you come up with this belief that if she does X, Y, Z, something bad will happen?
And just like any relationship with humans, we have to [00:30:00] practice the relationship that we have with ourself. It's changing now. So, but I don't know if you're like me. I grew up in the eighties. No one was teaching me how to. Skillfully and emotionally intelligently have a relationship with myself, let alone other people.
So if you have an obnoxious inner critic, that's 'cause that part of you has never been listened to. Just like if you and I were friends and you never listened to me, I might get really pissy pouty, I mean. I'd set boundaries. Who wouldn't be friends? Who wouldn't be friends, right? But when it comes to our own thinking, you don't need to get rid of your bad thoughts.
You need to understand what is the need underneath them. And that sounds like a lot of work, but my argument is it's more work not to do it than to do it.
Jen Fisher: I would agree with that. And you were talking about you and I having coffee with my inner critic, but you also talk about this idea of turning your inner monologue into inner dialogue.
So you're suggesting we ask ourselves those types of questions. [00:31:00] It sounds as opposed, yeah. As opposed to just letting our inner monologue completely tear us apart.
Britt Frank: So, if you're comfortable, can you give me an example of what your inner critic might say? Just high level, nothing detailed.
Jen Fisher: Um, let's see. Uh, my inner critic tells me that my ideas are stupid all the time.
Okay. This is perfect. That nobody's, yeah, that nobody's gonna like that idea that that's stupid.
Britt Frank: Okay. I have that thought too from mine. So my inner critic bows to yours. So if you were to sit down and imagine yourself having a cup of coffee with this part of you like, and you are gonna genuinely be curious about it, 'cause you can't fire it, you can't silence it, you can't tell it to shut up.
So just because we've run out of other options, we're just gonna get curious about it. I would say it sounds like you're really afraid that Jen's ideas are bad and you can say this to yourself, and this is just. Having a conversation with yourself. We do it all day anyway. It's just bringing more mindfulness to it, right?
We think thoughts all day. I'm suggesting since you're thinking all [00:32:00] day, why don't you talk to your thoughts. So, okay, this idea is terrible. No one's gonna like it. Okay, so help me understand more. What about this idea don't you like? Do you not want me to try it? Like if, let's say writing a book, do you not want me to write a book at all?
Do you not like where we're going with this? Because I guarantee you, once you get to know your inner critic, they start trusting you and then they become a high performance coach. What that might sound like, isn't your ideas suck? No one's gonna listen. What that might sound like is, Hey, I'm speaking for myself.
Hey Brit, uh, good job with this chapter, but your storytelling is not really on par, like you're just not doing a very good job. With the story thing, so maybe we find someone who knows how to do it, what books can we read that's constructive criticism. And so when you dialogue with yourself long enough, you get to the nuggets of wisdom in the criticism very, very quickly without all the shame.
And then it's like, oh, this is what this part of me wants me to know. That's really true. I wasn't a great [00:33:00] storyteller until I learned how to do it. And so that's how the critic becomes a coach. Yeah.
Jen Fisher: And so it's the, I guess it's an old adage or just the adage of, you know, how would you talk to your friend, like
Britt Frank: you said, right.
It's so smooth. Yeah. But yeah, like it's hard when the voices of anxiety are telling you you're gonna die, or when your inner critic is just screaming. I, you know, I told you this morning I was doing a TV interview, and TV is really nerve wracking. Live tv. I don't care how many times you've done it, is just a very, very fast, high intense environment.
And you know, I didn't say things as perfectly as I probably could have. And so my critic was like, ah, that sucked, and we're gonna get canceled and we're gonna die at first. And then I'm like, I know that was, that was kind of hard, wasn't it? That's what I would say to our friends. And then that critic voice was calming down and then we could dialogue about how.
It might not have been the best performance, but it wasn't the worst. We'll probably be okay. And isn't it great that [00:34:00] we get to practice? 'cause live TV isn't something we do every single day. What a great growing edge.
Jen Fisher: And live TV is scary. Like really scary. It's so scary. Oh my. So I wanna combine feelings of being stuck and parts work.
So how does understanding our different parts help us with kind of these professional challenges and decision making about I. What I should do next?
Britt Frank: Yeah, I love that question so much. 'cause I hear it too. And the question, do I stay or go is going to often lead to stuckness? 'cause it's too big of a question.
Yeah. I can't answer that question for myself or anyone. Without digging a little bit deeper, what's your financial situation? Somebody who has no kids and a trust fund can answer. Do I stay or do I go? With a lot more certainty and security than someone with nine kids and no savings. And so the question before we even get to our parts, we [00:35:00] wanna start with what's the, the simplest question I can answer right now?
Do I stay or do I go? The simplest question is probably how much money do I need to live my life? Then I can ask, okay, if I need X amount of dollars to live my life. Is this the only job available for 500 miles that will pay me that? Because if the answer is yes, you should probably think about staying and I'm not telling people what to do.
Just we need to be able to really narrow down what we're talking about and then it's okay. Well. I wanna do this job. I don't have the skills. Parts of me are telling me it'll never work out and you can't do it. The wisdom in that might be, you know what? You're right. I don't have the skillset to go into the industry that I want to go into.
Then the question isn't, do I stay or do I go? Then the question is, all right, what skills do I need to be able to get another job? And then. Who and how, and what do I need to do to get those skills? Keeping Why far, far, far away from the [00:36:00] conversation after you do that? It's a lot easier to notice which parts are popping up.
So why is
Jen Fisher: a bad word, huh?
Britt Frank: It really is. And again, I built my whole career as a psychotherapist based on the why question. And I'm like, if you really wanna know why, call me. And like, I'll help you diagram on a whiteboard. The why, but why? Is not a good starting gate question. Why on a marathon is more of a mile nine question.
Once we get you unstuck, once we get you moving, once we get momentum, most people don't care about the why. At that point. It's like, I just wanna feel better and move forward. I don't really need to know why. Sometimes we do. But why is a mile nine challenge not a starting gate question.
Jen Fisher: Okay. And that was a marathon metaphor, not a car.
So I don't run marathon. We moved from wheels to feet.
Britt Frank: Oh, that's hilarious.
Jen Fisher: So, so, so this is not a why question. It's a how question. How so? How can leaders that are, you know, leading teams, [00:37:00] supporting their teams, supporting other humans. Um, apply parts, work concepts, you know, into, into the support of their team.
So like when you're having a difficult conversation or when somebody does seem stuck, how can we as leaders, or even just as colleagues and friends, use this work to help each other?
Britt Frank: So knowing about parts makes workplace conflict so much more efficient because no conflict is going to get solved quickly and effectively.
If someone is all. Up in one of their angry parts or if someone is in a panicky part. And so when meetings run twice as long and are half as productive, that's often 'cause people are venting and verbal vomiting and oversharing, and that's not conducive to a healthy work environment. As a leader, if you know parts number one.
I call this the who has the mic exercise. As a leader, you don't walk into that meeting unless you [00:38:00] feel confident, capable adult clearheaded and curious. Because if you are all in a part of you that's reactive and fearful and angry, then that's not going to demonstrate the leadership qualities that change culture, that move the needle, that allow people to pursue and.
Progress despite uncertainty. And so as a leader, don't walk into any room, any meeting onto any mic. If you don't know that the, the inner CEO, if you will, has the mic. If you're having a conversation with the person and you can sense that they are not in their adult inner CEO self, there are things that you can do.
And the book goes into that for how you can quickly and efficiently get people out of their parts brain. Into their inner CEO brain. So I always say think of parts brain, like the reactive parts of your brain. Inner CEO brain is the prefrontal cortex. It's the where logic and reason and all of the executive functioning, it's where curiosity and innovation are housed.
And so if you [00:39:00] want things to go better, knowing which parts of you are up and which parts of your people are up is the first step to changing culture and changing how things are getting done.
Jen Fisher: And is there a way to like know which parts of people are up?
Britt Frank: Yeah, if, well one, you have to get to know them.
Yeah. But like if you see people out in the wilds and someone's screaming at a customer service person or someone is having a, that was obvious. Yes, it's fairly obvious. But with your people, if you're a leader, if you know parts, you're gonna start noticing which parts of your people are up. Like, okay, I'm about to have a meeting with so and so, and I know that they tend to ski.
Really anxious. I'm not gonna coddle them, but knowing that one of their anxiety parts is up is going to help me know how to approach this conversation. The era of the compliment sandwich is over, and so you can't just do compliment, piece of hard feedback, compliment like that does not work [00:40:00] anymore on most people, and so you can, broadly speaking.
Generally divide people into, most people are either dominated by anxiety, avoidance or fear. And so if you know that, then you know how to approach a conversation. And again, frameworks and tools and really easy practical guides for like, how do I do this if I'm running a company of like thousands and thousands of people and I don't have time to learn everyone's parts?
Well, the good news is you don't have to, if you know how to manage your own parts, it's a lot easier to lead people to.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, and this is detailed in. Your book align your mind, and, um, I promise you, if you read it, you will dog ear and highlight many, many, many of the pages and keep it by the side of your desk.
I know that you have worked with many people that are, quote unquote high achievers, um, that seem successful on the outside, but feel really stuck internally. So can you help explain this [00:41:00] disconnect? Um, and then. You know, from a parts perspective, and what role do the different parts play in? Professional success versus professional fulfillment, which are two very different things.
Britt Frank: Oh, that's so true. And this goes back to doing well versus being well, and it's why I called the book Align Your Mind And Not Change Your Mind Or Fix Your Mind, because if you're doing well, but behind the scenes you're unwell. That's what I call being out of alignment. And so when people are like, how do I know if I'm out of alignment?
It's snarky, but I always say, well, like are you, if you, if you take a second and ask yourself, honestly, how am I doing? Does what I show match what I feel? Do I enjoy myself at the end of the day? Can I tolerate? My own mind, or do I feel like the enemy of my wellbeing lives inside me despite my professional accolades?
I would call that being out of alignment. So the best way to know if you're out of alignment, professional fulfillment versus [00:42:00] professional success is just to ask yourself and then answer. Honestly, that sounds so simple, but it's true.
Jen Fisher: The answering honestly might be the hard part. I think
Britt Frank: it's tricky. And again, we are experts, humans at.
Obfuscating our own truth, like I would've sworn up and down to you, I was fine back in my, yeah, shenanigan days, I was fine. Like you weren't gonna tell me I wasn't fine. But I also wasn't willing to sit down and ask myself, honestly, what is my behavior costing me? And again, you don't have to be a drug addict to ask that question.
What is your workaholism costing you? What is your inability to do conflict costing you? And again, if you do an inventory, just like a business that fails to take inventory, will eventually go broke. A human who fails to take inventory of our own minds is eventually going to have symptoms and problematic relationships.
And this epidemic of isolation and loneliness, I think would not be solved, but would be very much [00:43:00] assisted by people learning to befriend the voices in their own minds.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, and I would say if you, if you have a hard time being honest with yourself, if you're willing. To ask those closest to you. I know in my own experience, um, those, they'll tell you when, when I was struggling, they, you know, they, they did tell me my issue was I didn't listen to them because I decided they didn't know what they were talking about.
You're so kindred. Right? So, you know, there there is that too. So, um, so anyway, Brit. I, I love your humor. Your books are filled with the same humor that you bring to your conversations, to your presentations, to your podcast. Um, but, but you do it alongside very serious therapeutic concepts. So talk to me about humor and why it's so important.
In healing, in growth work and also in professional settings because I think in professional settings, we, we have forgotten how important humor is and we try to be way too [00:44:00] serious all the time.
Britt Frank: Yeah. And humor's tricky because it is, if you, if you use it unskillfully, it could come across as incredibly condescending or.
Unkind. Insensitive. Yeah, insensitive, uh, sociopathic. But humor, like anything. But the same is true for compassion. And the same is true for empathy. Someone who's overextending empathy is going to end up being codependent and enabling. And so I think humor and I certainly don't make light of the human condition.
I have a trauma history, a mile long and severe, severe. Stuff in my history, so I'm not making light of our pain. I am saying humor properly. Wielded is an incredibly potent medicine to make things work better, to make people feel better, and nothing connects humans as fast as humor when it's done really, really well, and I study this, it's again, it's like a.
Skill. There's a woman who's incredible, Beth Sherman. Um, I've studied with [00:45:00] her on how to use humor specifically when it comes to workplace conversations and workplace situations. 'cause she's a ninja at how to strike that tone between using humor as a tool and not using it as an avoidance tactic. And she's great.
Yeah. Shout out badly. That's.
Jen Fisher: Well, thank you and thank you for all of the wisdom and humor that you shared today. Um, I know I got a lot out of it. I could keep talking to you forever. Um, but sadly it's the end of our conversation. I'll last. We must go.
We're back with another edition of Lira Lens, a special segment where we explore the workplace wellbeing implication of our conversations with leading experts. Today I called up Dr. Joe Grasso from my hotel room on the road. Joe is the VP of Workforce Transformation and customer marketing at Lyra Health.
Joe Grasso: Joe, welcome. Thanks for having me, Jen. I loved the conversation with Brit. I've walked away feeling like I could be best [00:46:00] friends with her. She's so engaging and insightful.
Jen Fisher: I ha I had that feeling too. So I wanna dig in with you. Um, when we were talking, you mentioned how much you really like. Brits metaphor of too much brake pedal versus too much gas pedal when people get stuck.
So from your perspective, you're a workplace clinical psychologist. What do you see happening when high achievers have their foot on the gas? Literally all the time.
Joe Grasso: Yeah, I thought it was such a powerful metaphor, and honestly, it hits close to home like a lot of people. I've had to do my own work to recognize how my self-worth had become tethered to achievement in my career, and I.
That's not an accident. I think this belief that we have conditional worth is something many of us absorb early on through messages from society, from media, even well-meaning family dynamics. So when that internal drive. Meets a [00:47:00] workplace culture that's rewarding, overextending yourself, pushing beyond your boundaries.
It reinforces this idea that nonstop output is the only path to creating value, and that dynamic doesn't just impact the individual. It, it's quietly shaping the culture. So one person pushing beyond their limits. Can become the new standard on a team in an organization, and so soon the whole operation's at risk.
So what starts as a personal pattern can actually become an organizational risk.
Jen Fisher: You know, this is something that I learned and became very curious about, especially during my own experiences with burnout, because mm-hmm. I think that. Yes, there's an individual piece of it, an individual responsibility in terms of them getting stuck.
But how does this create those systemic problems across teams and [00:48:00] organizations? Like what does that actually look like?
Joe Grasso: Yeah. Many of us have experienced this before where we feel like we work and workplaces where achievement is the only currency for feeling worthy It, it traps. Individuals, but then it sets up the entire team, uh, or teams to follow suit.
And that's why we really need a, a dual response to this dynamic. So, you know, within ourselves, I encourage people to try practicing what I. What I would call values-based working. So this is just a shift from working to earn praise or to prove yourself, and instead work towards ways that reflect your deeper why.
So that means aligning your work with what you care most about. So that might be. Growth or purpose or connection or creativity? When I think of an example, I think of instead of stretching to meet the ask of everyone who's coming to you for with a [00:49:00] particular need. Instead, you might ask yourself. What do I want my effort to enable for my team, for myself, for my wellbeing, for my family?
Getting that kind of clarity can help untangle our identity from what we produce and lead to more sustainable and more purpose-driven performance. And then at the org level, I wanna rethink what we reward. So if we only celebrate hustle, we're sending this message that burnout is what earns. Belonging or burnout is what earns inclusion.
And when we recognize that being effective over the long term sustainable work is really what enables people to produce their best and protect their wellbeing, that's when we reshape the culture to support people's individual health and their long-term success. And there's lots of different ways that companies can prioritize that.[00:50:00]
Jen Fisher: And so if I am a manager or a team leader and I'm sitting here listening to you going, yes, I totally agree with this. Mm-hmm. Um, but this isn't the way that my organization functions. What should I do?
Joe Grasso: Yeah, I think you wanna take a look at, there are probably all of these little points of friction that cause.
Pain for people's wellbeing and also their performance. Things like unclear expectations or misaligned incentives or inefficient processes. All of those things can force people to overwork to overcome those frictions and. Cause people a lot of stress in the process. You know, when managers pay attention to how is work designed in terms of processes, the work environment, uh, protocols and, and their own management behaviors.
Uh, and they look for ways to make work both more efficient. Less [00:51:00] ambiguous, um, and then also more supportive of people's wellbeing. It usually creates a win-win situation for people being at lower risk of burnout and more likely to produce their best work over time.
Jen Fisher: How does this apply at the organizational level when managers kind of get frustrated with employees, for example, for not following through with something
Joe Grasso: when, when someone doesn't follow through.
Our brains want a simple explanation. We're assuming that someone else is being careless or difficult or unmotivated, and that's a fundamental attribution bias. It's our brain's shortcut way of jumping to conclusions about character and overlooking the context, but everyone's behavior always has a function.
I think that's what Britt was getting at. They're struggling to meet expectations. It's probably not because they're trying to do that on [00:52:00] purpose. It could reflect a systemic problem, something like chronic overload or priorities that aren't clear or friction that's arising because they don't feel safe raising a concern or an idea about a different way of getting things done at work.
So if we don't get curious about. What's underneath someone's behavior, we risk solving the wrong problem and missing a real opportunity to provide some support and improvement to ways of working that solve not only the problem for that one person's behavior, but maybe solving problems for an entire team.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, I think that that is such a powerful reframe, you know, looking for ways to move from blame to moving to curiosity. Um, I think especially when addressing performance issues. So can you give me an example of I. Like a [00:53:00] concrete example, what would that look like?
Joe Grasso: Yeah. You know, I think, um, in a lot of cases where, um, a manager is looking to maybe shift from blame to curiosity.
You're wanting to look at what's underneath the behavior that you're seeing, and also. Where have you seen this pattern of behavior before? Because a lot of times we treat examples of behavior we don't like in isolation, but if we step back a little bit, we could probably see a pattern where this has shown up before.
So again, leaning into that curiosity and looking for. Patterns of behavior or patterns of misalignment. And then again, questioning what's happening within the system, what's happening in terms of our policies, what's happening in terms of, uh, reinforcements, how we reinforce certain behavior and we don't reinforce others.
Uh, what's happening in terms of culture? Do people feel like they can speak up, like they can ask [00:54:00] questions? Do I see people quietly struggling often? And that leading to a lot of. Misinterpretations or misunderstandings. Um, you know, I think when we, we extend more empathy to people and try to understand where they're coming from and, and why behaving in the way that we want them to behave seems challenging or hard for them.
Uh, we can turn what typically feels like a, a you problem or a me problem into a systems problem, and we can kind of. Lock arms and treat, uh, that problem as a, uh, as a collective unit. So when, when I think about doing this as a manager, I think about recruiting the people on my team who are experiencing this problem.
Like, Hey, I notice, um, you know, let's say it's timeliness with a deadline. Like, Hey, I've noticed a pattern of you being close to missing a deadline, or actually going past the [00:55:00] deadline. Help me understand what's happening for you in these situations, and then based on what they're telling me, maybe I'm gonna pull some other folks on my team, see if they're facing some of the same challenges or friction points.
If they are, then I can treat this as the team issue that it is. Consult with my team on ways that we think we might overcome what is more of a systemic issue, and really demonstrate to the people who are struggling on my team. This is not about blaming you, but it is about calling out. There's something about our ways of working that don't work for us, so we have to hold ourselves accountable and fix it, but we can fix it together.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. I, I love that perspective. Joe, thank you so much for, uh, taking the time to unpack some of this with us.
Joe Grasso: Awesome. I really enjoyed it. Thanks, Jen.
Jen Fisher: I am so grateful Brit could be with us today to help us [00:56:00] understand the science behind feeling stuck and the power of parts work. Her insights give us practical tools, not just for getting ourselves unstuck, but for creating workplaces where everyone can thrive. Thank you to our producer and our listeners.
You can find the Work Well podcast by visiting various podcasters. Using the key word 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, reach out to me on LinkedIn.
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