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Welcome to the Healing Our Politics Podcast!
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Guest:
Anna Miley is a powerhouse in mindset and mental well-being, working with leaders to create a successful balance in their lives as Lead Coach at Locale Learning, an organization committed to transforming the experiences of Australia’s elected leaders. A graduate of the University of Canberra with degrees in sports science, physiology, and psychology, Anna is also a certified hypnotherapy practitioner, a neuro-linguistic programming expert, an accredited exercise physiologist, and yoga therapist. Anna’s professional mission is to educate on the power of self-care in leadership. She has a deep understanding of the impact of stress on the body and the mind, and how to boost performance and reduce the mental load through mindfulness techniques.
About the Episode:
In today’s episode, I sit down with Anna Miley, an expert in mindset, mental well-being, and leadership. We dive into her personal journey, starting with a genetic childhood condition that set her on the path to healing and helping others do the same. We cover practical strategies for building your own “mental health first aid kit,” the importance of movement, the “Middle Way,” and how to tackle people-pleasing and perfectionism. Plus, we get into the science behind affirmations and how to use them to amplify your leadership. Anna shares her insight and experiences as lead Coach with Locale Learning, an Australian-based company focused on transforming the experience of elected leaders developing ethical, mindful, and high-performing leaders. Recognized by the Apolitical Foundation as one of 26 international political well-being trailblazers, Locale Learning is revolutionizing leadership development in Australia, mirroring the work of the Elected Leaders Collective here in the U.S. We’ll explore how their Eight step Political Well-Being Framework can help you pinpoint the areas in your life and leadership that need the most growth—and how to take action. It’s a packed episode, so let’s dive in!
Key Topics Discussed:
· [00:00:58] Epidsode/Guest Intro
· [00:04:20] “It’s All Too Hard Basket”
· [00:05:55] Our Twin in Australia
· [00:07:40] The Mere Mortals Report: A-Political Foundation
· [00:09:24] How the Health Journey Began
· [00:12:38] Lessons Learned Early
· [00:16:02] What was the “Story”
· [00:18:30] What was Working?
· [00:20:26] The Permission into Self Inquiry
· [00:33:00] Anna’s Broad Skill Set: Anna’s Style
· [00:38:07] Describing the Work of Supporting our Leaders
· [00:40:27] How Anna Got Roped In
· [00:42:12] The Stats of Stigma
· [00:44:20] A Pharmaceutical Approach: Not Right for Everyone
· [00:45:40] The Perks of “The Work”
· [00:47:13] High Performance, Passionate People
· [00:48:42] Ahead of the Curve(ball)
· [00:50:20] Boundaries are Your Job
· [00:52:40] Modern Politics
· [00:53:55] Prescriptive vs. Self Directed & The Middle Path
· [00:56:44] None of this is Easy
· [00:57:37] The Transformational Coach vs. The Athletic Coach (YES! AND! )
· [01:00:28] Locale Learning Containers
· [01:05:48] Session Methods & Takeaways
· [01:08:00] Locale Learning’s Wellbeing Framework
· [01:12:12] How to Navigate the Framework: I. Awareness II. Identify III. Adopt Mindset IV. Developing Micro Skills V. Access Resources
· [01:13:54] The 8 Core Elements of Political Wellbeing: i. Physical and Mental Health ii. Social Connection iii. Digital Safety iv. Technical Know-How v. Motivation & Attitude vi. Time & Capacity vii. Relationships & Conflict viii. Ethical Action
· [01:20:52] Mindsets & Affirmations
· [01:23:55] Empowering with Tools of Self Reflection & Action
· [01:26:00] Affirmations are Science !!!
· [01:28:48] Feedback about the Framework
· [01:30:53] Financing
· [01:33:15] We’re All Human: Performance is Relative
· [01:34:54] Heartlead Work: The Human Side of Politics
· [01:36:30] Overcoming People Pleasing & Perfectionism
· [01:37:22] Saying No & Taking a Literal Step Back
· [01:40:30] Stop Apologizing: Thank & Acknowledge
· [01:42:47] Humor in the Work?
· [01:44:32] The Best People
· [01:45:00] Getting Braver: Letting Go of Inner Doubt
· [01:48:45] Final Question: Remind Yourself of Your Purpose
· [01:50:00] “The Leader’s Handbook” (https://www.healingourpolitics.com/#newsletter) Newsletter
· [01:50:55] Sponsor: ELC (https://www.electedleaderscollective.com)
Key References and Resources Mentioned:
· [00:35:04] Hypnotherapy
· [00:35:44] ELC Foundation donors
Where to Find Anna Miley :
Where to Find Host Skippy Mesirow:
- Receive Support at the Elected Leaders Collective ElectedLeadersCollective.com
- Follow on Instagram www.instagam.com/skippymesirow
- Book a free Clarity Call https://calendly.com/skippymesirow/elc-clarity-call to see if coaching is right for you
Episode Sponsor:
Helping You Heal Our Politics
The Elected Leaders Collective (ELC) organization is the leading US-based provider of mental well-being training for public servants, conducted by public servants and the world's best mental health and human optimization professionals. With ELC Training, you will learn to rise above and become the political healer you were meant to be, improving your well-being in the process.
Website: ElectedLeadersCollective.com
Contact the HOP Team:
Do you have an episode idea?
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We'd love to hear from you!
Contact our team at jesse@healingourpolitics.com
Your input helps us create content that matters.
Creators and Guests
Host
Skippy Mesirow
Skippy Mesirow is a prominent leader, certified Master Coach, and founder of the Elected Leaders Collective (ELC) and ELC Foundation. ELC leads the US in mental health and well-being training for public servants, recognized in The Apolitical Foundation's Mere Mortals report, and named as one of 26 worldwide political well-being "Trailblazer Organizations." A transformational leader in political innovation and wellness, Skippy serves on Gov. Polis’s Natural Medicine Advisory. Skippy’s work has been featured in numerous podcasts and publications, as well as main-stage speaking engagements for organizations NLC, YEO, CML, MT2030, Bridging Divides, and Fulcrum, highlighting his significant contributions to mental health, community, and policy reform. Alongside his professional achievements, Skippy lives in Aspen, CO. with his partner Jamie where he enjoys running ultra-marathons, road biking, motorcycling, international travel, culinary arts, Burning Man, and lifelong learning.
Producer
Aaron Calafato
Aaron’s stories are currently heard by millions around the globe on his award-winning Podcast 7 Minute Stories and on YouTube. Aaron is a co-host of Glassdoor's new podcast (The Lonely Office) and serves as a podcast consultant for some of the fastest-growing companies in the world.
Editor
Jesse Link
Jesse is a strategy, research and partnership consultant and podcast enthusiast. A 2x founder, former Goldman Sachs Vice President and advisor to 25+ businesses, Jesse brings a unique and diverse background to HoP, helping to elevate the range, depth and perspective of HoP's conversations and strategy.
What is The Civic Courage Lab™ Podcast?
This is your training ground for courage.
To survive and thrive in the gladiator sport of public service, you need all six pillars of empowered leadership — mental, emotional, physical, social, financial, and spiritual health.
The Civic Courage Lab™ Podcast brings the world’s leading experts in human development together for the people doing society’s hardest work — public servants, civic innovators, changemakers, and bridge builders. Each conversation explores how to apply these insights directly to your role, helping you strengthen all six pillars of empowered leadership through real stories, practical tools, and wisdom from high-impact leaders who’ve turned their greatest challenges into personal growth and collective success.
Success in the ultra-endurance sport of impact demands courage, curiosity, integrity, and love. Here, you’ll cultivate them all — in community.
From the creators of The COURAGE METHOD™ — the framework that’s helped councils move from combat to collaboration, nonprofits from floundering to funded, policies from ideas to impact, and activists from unknown to unstoppable.
Welcome to COURAGE.
Welcome to the Healing Our Politics podcast. The show that shows you how to heal our politics by starting with the human in the mirror. My name is Skippy Mesereau, coach, former elected official, and lifetime public servant. It is my job to sit down with the best thought leaders, coaches, therapists, authors, scientists, and more, and to take the best of what they have learned and translate it specifically for the public service experience. Warning, this is a post partisan space.
Speaker 1:No policy, party, or partisanship here because well-being belongs to all of us. This show is about resourcing you and trusting you to make up your own damn mind about what to do with it and what's best for your community. So as always, with love, here we go. Hello, and welcome to the Healing Our Politics podcast. The show that shows you, the heart centered leader, how to heal our politics by starting with the human in the mirror.
Speaker 1:In today's episode, I sit down with expert in mindset and mental well-being, Anna Miley. Anna is the lead mindset and mental well-being coach for Locale Learning, an Australian based company elevating ethical, mindful, and effective leaders, basically people like you. Effectively, Locale Learning is our Australian mirror doing the work that the Elected Leaders Collective does here in the states on the other side of the globe, equipping local counselors with 21st century skills and mindset they need to succeed in an ever changing world. Recognized by the Apolitical Foundation as one of just 20 6 worldwide political well-being trailblazer organizations. They are the leader in political healing on the Australian continent.
Speaker 1:Locale Learning is the creator of the political well-being framework helping you determine what areas of your life and leadership are most ripe for growth. I highly recommend you check that out. Anna is a graduate of the University of Canberra. I hope I'm pronouncing that correct with degrees in sports science, physiology, and psychology. She's a certified Santoshayoga and yoga therapy instructor, giving me some tongue twisters today, certified neurolinguistic programming expert, certified hypnotherapist practitioner, and an accredited exercise physiologist.
Speaker 1:In this episode, we dig into the genetic childhood defect that set her on the path to healing and helping others heal, Her journey to yoga at just 17 and how it can improve your life and service. Building a mental health first aid kit and deploying it when you need it. The criticality of exercise and movement. People pleasing, and perfectionism do these sound familiar to you and how you can work with them if you have them to own your own experience and receive what you need, Tactical approaches to saying no, very timely. How awareness improves performance, the value and practice of purpose, the science and power of affirmations and how to leverage them to grow in your leadership, And as coaches mutually focused on the political space, we freestyle, opening up the kimono to workshop best practices, learnings, and openly share and brainstorm about what the, quote, right approach is, spoiler alert, there isn't one, and what's working and not working, and how can we support each other in improving our offerings for individuals like yourselves and your team.
Speaker 1:It's a true behind the scenes view into the uncertainty and iterative nature of improving these support systems that can best serve you. So I hope you enjoy this tactical, practical, personal, and wide ranging conversation with Anna Miley.
Speaker 2:It's just all too hard basket.
Speaker 1:It's too hard basket?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's literally just like I don't know.
Speaker 1:One of my close friends, Fiona, is Australian, and the amount of lingo that you guys have is insane. I'm gonna start I'm gonna have to, like, like normally, I have, like, a mental health tool. We're gonna have, like, an Australian to English translation dictionary that's gonna emerge.
Speaker 2:Pull pull me up pull me up if I'm using any,
Speaker 1:No. I'm gonna pull you into it. I love it. I think it's so good. I just I adored it.
Speaker 1:Like, just makes me chuckle.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:But no, you should you should totally bring it. You should totally bring it.
Speaker 2:Alright. And I think for me, I am a bit of a person that as much as I like to be prepared, I'm just better when I'm in flow. And so while I was waiting for you, I was like, okay, don't go and like overthink this. So I just sort of roamed around the office and which is actually in a bit of a state of a mess at the moment because we have a big community engagement project on. So we've got all of our stuff off to the side there.
Speaker 2:So I just sort of, you know, roamed around in the mess and,
Speaker 1:I must be hiding in a corner because you look like you're in a perfectly manicured studio.
Speaker 2:Yeah. A 100%. This this little corner and behind my desk, which is actually opposite, we try to keep that game face ready.
Speaker 1:So good. It's sort of precisely what I'm excited to talk to you about today, which is you're halfway across the world. In some ways, you are our twin. Like, what you're doing in Australia, I and we are doing in America. And I imagine, like us, people probably look at you like you've got everything figured out and dialed.
Speaker 1:But it's like we're both kind of building this plane as we go, and I think it's so interesting for me to get to externalize my own experience by getting to know you and where you came from and how you built the program that you have and then kind of, like, what's next for us and and how are we thinking about it? I think it's super interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It is exciting, and you're a 100% right about building the plane as we go. I think for me as well, like the piece of the puzzle that I bring to what we're doing here at local learning is very much, you know, as a well-being practitioner with a really quite unique background, it's certainly not, a political background at all.
Speaker 2:Like I have very little experience, in working in government and politics. I come from a health background, a corporate health and also private practice. So I'm really new in the industry, so to speak. But the great thing is it's a human experience. So all of the experience I have and the information that I'm bringing in still really translates into the environment.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited to share it and I feel it's so relevant because of the unique type of people that we're working with.
Speaker 1:And I'm so curious and we'll get there later, but how you decided to take what you've learned and then shift your focus into the political realm and we'll also talk about, you know, what is similar or different between the political realms in Australia and the US. And the bridge that kind of brought us together, which indicates that the experiences are similar, is the Mere Mortals report from the Apolitical Foundation, which did this year round study of the mental well-being of elected officials across the world and its impact on society and on politics and on, you know, citizens' well-being downstream. And from that report, they called out just 26 organizations around the globe that were making a meaningful impact on doing something about that, on delivering services. And so that that's you from Australia. I think you and and politics in color, maybe, are the 2.
Speaker 2:So I do come from
Speaker 1:the political political world. My life is the wellness experience. And so I got the experience of having the treatment, so to speak, of, like, being the client and seeing how it affected me in politics and then being, like, oh, this would be so useful for everybody else. And it's really hard to work in this market because it's brand new and no one knows it and no one has time and whatever. So I'm very interested to learn why you decided to take that path then rather than a 100 paths that would have probably been easier from a business standpoint.
Speaker 1:But, like, I wanna start at the beginning or beginning ish, which is to say, you know, my journey, my first mental health, I would never have called it that at the time, intervention for myself, as people in this podcast have heard, is when I made my mom take me to Weight Watchers, like a weight loss program in 4th grade. Now, in the little bit I know about you, you get kind of very deep into yoga, in particular types of yoga in at 17 in in high school. And so I wondered, is that your equivalent? Is that what was your first big moment of, like, something's going on for me?
Speaker 2:I had kind of, like a bunch of health problems as a child and not that that was apparent to anyone else as quite a healthy from the outside looking in, you know, beautiful rural upbringing, in a beautiful part of the world. I actually grew up in Tasmania, which is the tiny island on the bottom of Australia.
Speaker 1:So beautiful.
Speaker 2:My parents grew most of our own food and we ate really well, but I just, was, you know, lucky enough, I'm gonna say, to, have some genetic stuff come through. And so by the time I was 17, I was kind of burning out being a, high achieving, go getting, wanna do everything person, but my body sort of wasn't keeping up with that.
Speaker 1:Would you be willing to share what it was in particular?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, I'm a unique case. I actually have, an interesting blood disorder, which is called spherocytosis. And so my red blood cells are actually spheres instead of circles. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Super interesting. It's really rare.
Speaker 1:Wait. Can I ask a really weird question? Yeah. Sure. I live in the mountains, so we think about hemoglobin a lot and the ability to process oxygen.
Speaker 1:If it's a sphere rather than a plate and you have the same diameter, then presumably there's greater volume. So are you particularly well adapted to cardio and or high mountain environments?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the opposite. It's a great question because I had an experience in the Andes, and I actually got really sick because of the attitude. Because what happens if I ascend or descend too quickly, Basically my blood cells explode. Yeah. So it's also catastrophic actually for me.
Speaker 2:So it just basically means that I have a slightly compromised immune system. I actually don't have a spleen because the spleen was the primary organ that was, destroying my own blood cells because they weren't the right shape. And so the spleen wanted to get rid of them. And so that just meant that my body was working really hard to constantly make new blood cells to replace the ones that it was getting rid of. Is this so cool?
Speaker 2:No one ever asked me this because no one is so no one is ever interested.
Speaker 1:No. This is so so is it like and I'm I'm sorry. I'm just super curious about this. So is the is it that the spleen has a filter function? It's like trying to put a square peg through a round hole?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then the body has to replace those, so a lot of your energy is going towards that. I imagine that's not something that they test for immediately.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it was lucky because my dad well, it wasn't lucky for my dad, but he got quite unwell, when I was about 10 and they worked out what it was. And then from there, they thought, oh, maybe this is what Anna has too or what's going on for Anna. I guess that was a lucky thing, unfortunately for my dad because he wasn't very well for a while, but he's good now. So yeah, fully functioning, fully engaged, you know, doing life.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, the tax of that behind the scenes was probably, you know, a not so great thing for me as a kid who wanted to get in and do everything. It was sort of, just that feeling, maybe not being able to keep up all the time, which didn't match my natural energy, my natural way of being. So it's been beautiful because I guess I have learned so much from that, learned so much about where I put my time and energy, how I use my time and energy and how I perceive myself. And I think I was saying to you in my voicemail to you pre show just that not needing to always be a 100% on a 100% go, go, go. Got all the answers.
Speaker 2:But having that vulnerability to be like, Oh, Hey, I'm tired or, Hey, I need to take a rest or I'm not a 100% today. So I'm just going to have to show up with what I've got. And this is as good as I've got today. So that's kind of been a bit of a theme. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was just like year 12, which is our final year of high. Oh, we call it college or high school.
Speaker 1:We got high school. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So before you maybe go get a job or gap year or uni, I just like at a point, like I was quite burnt out. I was head prefect. I'd be doing all the things.
Speaker 1:Sorry. What's head prefect for those of us on this side of the
Speaker 2:so like a college captain
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:To like your head leader
Speaker 1:Got it. In school government? Yes. That's
Speaker 2:right. See, I have a political background after all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's been hiding in plain sight. Turns out you just started when you were 5, like all the rest of us secretly.
Speaker 2:And anyway, so I was like, okay, I need to do something. And I'd always been interested in the non normal, the non mainstream. I had an interest in the alternative medicines and health and whatever, but very peripheral, you know, as a teenager, I just saw this little flyer because back then, you know, there was no social media. So it was, flyers stuck on notice boards and it was yoga. And I thought, oh, well, I love gymnastics.
Speaker 2:Maybe yoga is something that I would like to do. I had an inkling that I had a spiritual aspect to it. Yeah. So I went along and it was in the Sachinanda tradition, which they used to wear ropes. And the teacher was a really peaceful, beautiful woman.
Speaker 2:I was the youngest in this class by a long shot. Anyway, she guided us basically through some really gentle stretches and then into a deep yoga Nidra, which as you would know, sometimes in the west they get called body scan meditations as a sort of surface level experience of a yoga, true yoga Nidra. And, my last memory that I have of my first yoga class is, my dad waking me up because apparently I had slept through the majority of the yoga class and that all left and the teacher who was so polite had let me sleep until an irresponsible adult came to collect me. Oh,
Speaker 1:my god. It's amazing. So how old were you when you had clarity about your condition?
Speaker 2:It was around 10. And so then just hitting that tween kind of time. So it was like a totally, I had an early experience in my life where I had to really readjust how I took care of myself or I had to grow up quickly in terms of understanding self care and how to manage my health.
Speaker 1:Because they told you you have to do less effectively. Exactly. Uh-huh. And prior to that, you had been doing all the things and then probably being very well, just wondering why you couldn't have the same output as others for as much time. And was your did you have a story about that when you were younger?
Speaker 1:Like, did you did you make that about something wrong with you?
Speaker 2:I think the story was it's unfair because I felt I've got so much to give, how am I going to do all the things if I'm kind of being held back? So heading into my teens I think I kind of had times where I rallied against it and I just pushed. I just went a 120 percent when really I probably only had 80% or 70% to give in the 1st place. So, you know, the up and down of it, and then I'd pull back and I'd get back into yoga and I'd, you know, stop partying or whatever for at least a week.
Speaker 1:I I remember my first marathon, my big training regimen, which, again, people on the podcast will know I've struggled with substance abuse. It's been part of my journey, but my big training regimen before my 1st marathon was no alcohol for 2 days. And I was like, oh, this is this is gonna be tough. Now I look back like, so it's all welcome here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And maybe a little shame. I think that comes through sometimes. And maybe this is true for all of us, you know, but we have the game face, we have the outward face. And when there's things that are behind that aren't necessarily matching up a 100% with that outward feel of that part of your personality.
Speaker 2:Maybe there's an element there where you have to hide it a little bit or, you know, I certainly didn't go through my teens or my early twenties telling people, like I've just told on a podcast that, I had this condition and I mean, look, it didn't stop me doing anything really. It just meant internally I was conflicted because I felt like I had a lot more to give and that still occurs now in my life. I feel like I've always got a lot more to give, but I'm just sort of not able to probably give it all just with my natural energy levels. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you phrased it the way I would, which I think you said, you know, you feel lucky now that you've had this experience and you had it really early. And everyone who just listened to the introduction knows that you have accomplished a tremendous amount in a lot of different fields in a very short time. So I think I've got, like, a sense of where you came from, some of the constraints and motivating factors, and you have this experience with yoga. I'm wondering what it was at that time.
Speaker 1:What was it that spoke to you and then what kind of captured you there? What was working, I guess, you know, how did it affect you in a positive way?
Speaker 2:I think because I'm very much a person in my body and a physically present person, I have really high sensitivity to all physical experiences, which is amazing, sometimes overwhelming. And so for me, yoga was this beautiful pathway through my body and my breathing to get access into my mind, which I'd never been given that opportunity before. I was growing up in Tasmania within Australia, very white culture, middle, middle upper class experience, private school. Yes, it was a Catholic school. So yes, I had some religious education, which I really valued, but didn't necessarily always resonate with me, those spiritual teachings.
Speaker 2:So yoga provided me as a very young woman at 17, some access into some questions that I guess I'd had about how I was in the world and why I was that way. They gave me permission to slow down and to stop, which from what we've just spoken about is obviously not something that was given space for, and that's not a slight on anyone in my life or, you know, the way I was parented or anything. We're in a busy culture. And so at 17, I guess my body was telling me I needed to slow down. And so slowing down my body or becoming more connected to my body through the mindfulness aspect of the movement in yoga really gave me opportunity to really do some great self inquiry, which I think I've naturally always done.
Speaker 2:I've got memories as a small child of sitting and quite still in a tree. Cause I love to climb the trees. I love heights.
Speaker 1:They're very fun,
Speaker 2:very fun, but I think it was the permission piece. So I think as a child, maybe there was like opportunity for daydreaming, exploring nature. I had quite a free childhood like that, but I don't think that the messaging was necessarily there in my experience as a child and a young person, that self exploration was something that is normal, natural, or a good thing to do. So yoga offered this opportunity for full permission because that is what yoga is. It's a self inquiry practice and it gave me some structure to do it, which I think I really needed at that time and still really enjoy the structure of the yoga practice to pull me back into some self inquiry that allows me to go a little deeper.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You've mentioned to me before that you are in particular, a kinesthetic and a visual learner.
Speaker 2:Was
Speaker 1:that part of the learning of yoga or did you get to yoga because you knew that?
Speaker 2:Oh, I had no idea. I had no insight into that at that age. It was just a intuitive, natural thing that I like to move my body. I could see that yoga, I got to do some stretches and maybe some handstands or something. I mean, you know, I live in the west, so a lot of the information that I knew about yoga was these kind of physically flexible feats which appealed to me because I love gymnastics and dance and things like that.
Speaker 2:So it was very much just initially the physical aspect, just like an intuitive, natural thing. I had no cognitive understanding of the way that I learned or the way that I was in the world at that time, but a 100% and still to this day being in my body and moving my body is a spiritual experience for me. And it definitely is like the first stepping stone to go into meditative state or you know, even like as if I call it, you know, mental health first aid, like a frontline quick fix for me. So preparing for the podcast today, like I danced around, shook it out and use my body to access my mind in a clearer way.
Speaker 1:I have to bite on that mental health first aid. Where does that concept come from? Is it self created? And then if you were to describe that as specifically as possible, so someone who's listening could, like, picture you doing it, what would that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know if it it's mental health first aid. It's probably mental state first aid should be a better term because in Australia, mental health generally gets tied up in more of the psychiatric situation. Like whether you have diagnosed with a mental health condition. So I guess what I'm talking about is mental state or mental well-being first aid.
Speaker 2:So it really speaking to self regulation. So having the insight, you know, I'm churned up, I'm getting a dump of adrenaline. Cause I'm about to speak to Skippy, on a podcast.
Speaker 1:Very scary.
Speaker 2:Yes. It was scary. My heart rates up, you know, I can feel that butterflies in my tummy, you know, so if I'm noticing these things then rather than going into a loop pattern of, am I going to be good enough? Am I going to stuff up and what am I going to say? Which is completely unhelpful.
Speaker 2:I recognize the signs in my body. And then I want to do some first aid. So want to take some initial action to perpetuate that into a better cognitive state or a better state of well-being. So I might be noticing those thoughts. I might be noticing that I'm feeling low mood, that I'm kind of having this negative, critical kind of filter in my thoughts.
Speaker 2:And so the first aid is okay, I've got to get back into my body. I got to get really grounded and embodied here, whether I need to shake it up, I need to get some fresh air. I need to stretch out getting into my body, helping reposition my mental state. So I guess the first aid piece means that I'm applying the tonic, the medicine in the instance. When I say first aid, it's like, what can I do right now to get me feeling better?
Speaker 2:For me, it does come a lot to movement. Yeah, like I jump up and down. I shake it out. I make some sound. I guess with my yoga knowledge in terms of working with the energetic lines in the body, the nadis, like I might do certain movements to stimulate certain energies in the body.
Speaker 2:If I need to be a little more intuitive, I'll focus on my left side body. If I need to really get myself a little more focused and concentrate, I might, you know, kind of tune in more right side body. But I mean, those layers of yoga knowledge aren't necessary for this to work. There could be any number of things for people. So sometimes when I'm working with clients, it might be a smell and aroma that works really well for people having an essential oil that really lights them up.
Speaker 2:That makes them feel good. And just carrying that in a little roller bottle or something, you know, smell
Speaker 1:is so powerful in our brain.
Speaker 2:Lots of great science around that. There's so powerful in our brain. Lots of great science around that. There's so many things for some people, you know, it's just stepping outside and looking up to the sky, you know, that reminder of the big picture to give perspective. We sometimes lose perspective, right?
Speaker 2:Like our perspective is lost generally when we're anxious, we're feeling anxiety, we're getting stressed, the brain tends to get narrow. So I think a lot of this mental health first aid that I'm talking about is trying to get people to broaden their view because I work in this space and because I am how I am in the world, it can be easy for me to use my body to do these things because I am very kinesthetic. I am very connected to my body and other people aren't. For someone listening to the podcast today, this idea of getting into their body to shift their mental state could be really foreign. What does movement do?
Speaker 2:We're moving all the time, but we're not necessarily conscious of the movement, right? Like we're getting from a to b, you know, walking, we're moving around the office, we're clicking the mouse, whatever. That's all movement. The movement I'm talking about is movement that is allowing us to really connect to the senses, noticing how I am, how my body is.
Speaker 1:So what I'm hearing from you is mental health or mental well-being first aid, and we would probably say mental health here. The words are a little bit more mashed up, and we can get into that if you want to, but I don't think it's critical for this, is the steps are basically awareness, noticing or naming, a pattern interrupt, a release, and a reset. So you're first bringing awareness to what's happening. My heart rate is elevated. I'm sweating.
Speaker 1:I'm something. For many people, this will be so common for them as to not know that it's not something that you don't desire, and I have definitely been there. I lived in in stress all the time for years, and I just thought, oh, this is my, like, get up and go juice. I love this. Didn't didn't know that that was not, a place that was beneficial for me to act from.
Speaker 1:So at first, you're just noticing the thing, then you're naming it. Right? So you're identifying, oh, this is what's going on. I feel this here in my body. I'm noticing this emotion, etcetera.
Speaker 1:And then you're throwing in some kind of pattern interrupt. And what I'm hearing from you is it's not hypercritical which one you use. You use the one that's best for you. Mhmm. It could be a scent that triggers a memory for you.
Speaker 1:It could be something from your yoga practice if you have that. It could be literally shaking your body as if a dog gets out of the water and it's just releasing that energy.
Speaker 2:Heard that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Could be some noise. This is familiar to me when I'm out skiing, my favorite activity because a bunch of grown adults are hooting and hollering and yelling at each other off the lift because it's fun, and it's just a way to release energy. So you're doing something to pattern interrupt and then you're grounding that interruption and reengaging the parasympathetic nervous system. Again, variety of tools. It could be breath.
Speaker 1:It could be movement. You're effectively allowing yourself to calm down. Mhmm. And then from that place of calm awareness, you're reengaging with the activity. You're not avoiding the podcast.
Speaker 1:You're going back into it.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Is that a fair summary?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think just to add to that last piece, you're going back in with greater perspective.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that's an important piece there. Like, because the reason that we're wanting to do all those steps, which you so perfectly summarized, thank you so much is to gain that greater awareness. And particularly if we're talking about in the context of leaders under pressure. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I can't overstate as someone who's been a leader under pressure in the room, staring down angry opposition, how much more capable I have been to respond from clarity, strength, but also kindness and compassion in the room when I've taken the time to set my nervous system up and how often, but not always, that is then positively received and reflected and creates better outcomes in the room.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So for anyone listening who's not driving right now, I'm just gonna do a quick little 15 second something and just kinda notice how you've been feeling. You've been feeling this way all day. You're sitting on the couch. You're in the kitchen. You're prepping dinner.
Speaker 1:You're out for a walk, whatever it is, find yourself a place to sit right now, and just gonna allow yourself to sit, plop, there you are. You're gonna straighten up your back just a little bit. You're going to allow your eyelids to close, and with those eyelids closed, the first thing you're gonna notice is your feet planted firmly on the ground beneath you. You're going to place your hands on your thighs or the side of the chair. You're gonna sit up just another half inch taller, and with your eyes still closed, we're gonna give a little 3 second shake to just shake and shimmy your body, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Exhale. We're gonna inhale together. Exhale together. 2 more in the nose, holding at the top and out the mouth. Inhale in the nose.
Speaker 1:Hold. Exhale out the mouth, as audible as you wish. Breathe in the nose. Hold. Exhale audibly out the mouth.
Speaker 1:Allow the cheeks on your face to fall. Allow your forehead to unwrinkle. Let your jaw unhinge. Let the tongue fall off the roof of your mouth. Take one more breath.
Speaker 1:Begin to wiggle your fingers and toes, bringing a little energy back into your body, and very slowly open your eyes. What do you notice? What do you notice, Anna?
Speaker 2:Feel good, clearer, calmer, which is nice. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I noticed my voice cadence is lower.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I noticed my shoulders are softer. So that's 15 seconds. But I think for those who like a previous version of me, would have been like getting into the body, what is that? Hopefully that provides you a little insight. And if you were driving, look at the timestamp right now, save this podcast, and when you get home later today or tomorrow or in a week, just fast forward to this timestamp, hit back 30 seconds once, and give it a go.
Speaker 1:You'd be surprised.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's exactly it. Right? That's the that's the first aid piece there. It's what we can do right here in an instance, and it only takes a short moment, but I think it's so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's so good. So much I wanna know about how you got to now. I just wanna give you an opportunity to share some of the myriad techniques you're trained in. There's just a lot of interesting stuff here.
Speaker 1:And if you would like to, I would love to learn a bit more about 1 or 2 of them that people might not know.
Speaker 2:I studied psychology and sports science at university, and that led to what we call being an accredited exercise physiologist. I'm not a physiotherapist, so I'm not doing manual manipulation of people or exercise movement and motivational counseling is really what I do to help people to move their bodies so that they can feel comfortable in their own skin to live the life that they want to live. Whether it's, you know, for some of us, it's just to be able to do the basic activities of daily living and for other people it's for high performance. I've really needed to and wanted to integrate the myriad of yoga practices that I have learned from a lot of different teachers. I don't subscribe to one particular yoga lineage.
Speaker 2:I'm very much a person that takes little bits from everywhere because I think there's value in all of the ways. So when I'm asked, so what style of yoga do you teach? I say Anna's style. And, you know, not that I am elevating myself to the great yogis. That's just absolutely what it is and a 100% authentic me, taking all of my learnings and just being the conduit for that and putting that out into the world based on the person in front of me.
Speaker 2:And that is something that whether I've got my exercise physiology hat, my yoga teaching hat, my coaching hat, I am present with the person in front of me. So whenever I'm working with someone, I bring all of the hats, all of the learnings and the experience, and I just do my best to deliver what I'm feeling in that moment that person needs. And so even in this role as a political well-being coach, I bring all of that. I bring the yoga, I bring the mindfulness, I bring exercise physiology. So really deeply understanding how the physiology of someone works, the nervous system, the brain, and you know, some of these neat techniques of hypnotherapy and meditation and how we're communicating.
Speaker 2:For me, it's just taking all of the experience and knowledge, the opportunities that I've had in working with so many amazing people over the years. I've learned so much from them and and then I just take that and see if that's gonna help the next person.
Speaker 1:Anna's style is not actually a particular style. It's a recognition that you can pull a variety of things from your toolbox to meet the person in front of you where they are. And so for each person, it's going to be different because each person's needs and backgrounds and experiences are different.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And now a quick break from our sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show. The Healing Hour Politics Politics podcast is brought to you by the Elected Leaders Collective, the first leading and most highly recognized name in mental health, well-being, and performance coaching for elected leaders and public servants designed specifically for you. Now don't be fooled by the name. The Elected Leaders Collective is not just for elected leaders. It is for all public servants, staffers, volunteers, government, nonprofit, whole organizations, this is for you.
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Speaker 1:Use it today and become one of the brave political leaders healing our politics. Use code hashtag political healer by going to www.electedleaderscollective.com and starting today. That's www.electedleaderscollective.com and starting today. Let's jump in to what we do now and just how would you describe your work in the political well-being area?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, I would start off by describing it as exciting.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it's just taking all of this really good stuff and applying it to people that put their hand up to serve their communities. And I really admire and respect our elected leaders. And I guess for me, supporting people that are doing some really amazing things in the world is super exciting. So for us here at locale learning, we're a really small business.
Speaker 2:And we're actually based in this tiny little town on the east coast of Australia or about 6 hours north of Sydney. Emma, who I work with, Locale Learning is really her brainchild, and her passion. So she is a former lawyer and has worked in local government her whole life. She really saw the need to take what she was doing from that governance perspective. She was seeing people step up to lead their communities and to unfortunately have, you know, quite negative experiences at times.
Speaker 2:And she could see the pressure they were under because she was working, you know, closely with them in in a different role. And so she bravely was like, right. I'm going to pivot my business and I'm going to try and educate and support elected leaders at a local government level here in Australia. I'm not exactly sure how that translates Skippy, for you guys, but we have 3 tiers of government, about federal level, a state level, and then our local level.
Speaker 1:Same.
Speaker 2:Same. Similar. Yeah. Same. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You probably use different words for the units of measure, but it's the same way. You probably have provinces or something like that and we have states, etcetera, but yes.
Speaker 2:Similar level. So that really on the ground level of politics, you know, you're our elected leaders in council are living with their constituents. You know, they are literally at the same cafe. They're at the soccer fields on a Saturday morning. So it's very much the grassroots level of politics here in Australia, perhaps the most complicated when it does come to to that personal and professional divide.
Speaker 1:So how did you get roped into this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. How did I get roped in? Exactly. So COVID, you know, COVID COVID.
Speaker 2:In COVID, Emma could see people were really struggling, seeing the local elected leaders really struggling and she reached out to me. Emma and I met because she came to my yoga classes. That's pretty much how I know everyone in my life because they've done a yoga class with me And she asked, would I come and do a complimentary webinar, open it up to local government leaders across Australia on how to stay motivated and stay well during that time. I'm going to use the word we've overused it, unprecedented pressure. And so I did it and I loved it because it was exciting for me to see this group of people that showed up online.
Speaker 2:They just soaked it up like sponges, you know, it was like a lot had been shed on their experience. And I guess again, that permission piece permission to actually take care of themselves as leaders to maybe be a little vulnerable and to show that human side. We haven't looked back basically from that complimentary webinar that Emma just asked me to facilitate a one off two and a half years down the track. We have developed a suite of training that looks specifically at well-being and yeah, we're actually working on a specific framework that's really relevant to the political leadership space and addressing some of those unique stresses that politicians would experience.
Speaker 1:One of the things that comes up in the mere mortals report that very much mirrors our experience in the states is, I think the stats are 70% of elected officials say that they would want some support or could benefit from support of their mental well-being, but 25% say they would not receive that support even if it was available because of fear of reputational harm or cultural stigma. 65% say they don't have the time, and 50% say they don't have the money. So, basically, you have this huge mass of people who have very high consequence jobs, who could use support but aren't getting it for a variety of reasons. That's totally what we find. We find it's very hard to get people in the door and in the practice, even if they say this is a problem for me and I could use support.
Speaker 1:Do you guys find the same thing?
Speaker 2:At a surface level, that is a 100% true. Stigma is a huge problem, and I think that's just historically the nature of politics in that perhaps weaponization of any weakness that a political leader might show. A few weeks ago, our former prime minister came forward and has publicly declared that he was being treated for severe anxiety during his term. He was his leader during COVID and has released a book and subsequently in the book spoken about his struggle with Interesting. Severe anxiety, which he received pharmaceutical treatment for, but didn't really mention any other supports that he might have got.
Speaker 2:And I think that's an interesting piece there. You know, if our political leaders were to be seen, you know, heading into, a therapist's office, you know, would that be weaponized against them? It's normal for even a leader to have to go to the GP and no one's necessarily going to know what that prescribed. And yeah, the stigma around perhaps 1 disclosing, you know, mental struggles to being treated for that. And then 3, the types of treatment that they might seek, whether it's preventative or treatment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I'll just jump in with a PSA here because I think it's important for people to understand, and this is not a case against pharmacological interventions. They, we are unbelievably lucky to live in a time where those are available to us, and for some people, that is the right option. And it is not the right option for everybody. It's something that we often jump to sometimes prematurely or just unnecessarily.
Speaker 1:And in many but not all cases, what we're doing is treating the symptom, not the root cause. And in treating the symptom, very frequently, we also have side effects. Whereas, if you can treat the root cause through nonpharmacological interventions in a coaching container or a therapy container or something else, and sometimes it's yes and, it's both, you are not only treating the symptoms that you're experiencing and suffering with, but you're also up leveling your understanding of self and, as an extension, others and society in a way that will make you infinitely more able to understand and connect with your work day to day, be it policy or communication or conflict resolution or negotiation. And so really doing the work, quote, unquote, as we say, like, the internal work, is the equivalent of going to the gym. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? Like, there's nothing wrong with taking Ozempic if you have a weight issue and that's affecting your heart, etcetera. But if you're going to the gym, you are also going to lose the weight and you're going to improve bone density. You're going to improve your social life because you're gonna meet people there. You're gonna improve your self confidence.
Speaker 1:You're going to improve your ability to respond resiliently. And so the same thing is true. And so I just wanna put in that PSA of of applying the work comes with many other leadership growth opportunities that a pill, even if the pill is what you should do, will not come with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's so true. Looking at the whole person, that 360 degree approach to all of the things that you just suggested, you know, around that, the whole of their well-being that could be addressed. And that's the space that I'm really excited to be working in. What can we take from what we know generally around mental health, mental well-being and high performance?
Speaker 2:Because look in Emma, in my opinion, like we approach working with our elected leaders as high performing people. I mean, we are working with people that do have good resilience levels. They do have learned levels of stress management. They tend to be naturally like what we would say, thick skinned people, you know, the, they're not stepping into the political sphere generally without all of those things already there in their personality or having been learnt from their experiences previously. We're aware that what we're doing is taking the knowledge we have to these high performing people in a way that makes sense to them and particularly increasing the awareness of the multiple points of stress or stressors that are coming in, working individually with our elected leaders to elevate them back into that space of being able to perform at the level that they're wanting to, because they're passionate people, they're purpose led people, you know, it doesn't sit well for them generally if their performance is lacking because they put their hand up for a reason.
Speaker 2:They wanna make a difference. So, generally, we find that they're highly motivated to be mentally well. We are coming across more and more leaders that are looking to us and and other resources for support and being prepared to put their hand up. I mean, look, I don't know if they're putting it out there on their social media or anything like that, but they're coming in the door, they're signing up to our webinars. We do a lot of complimentary, work, and I know you've jumped on a couple of our complimentary things.
Speaker 2:And that's purposeful from Emma and my perspective. We want to break down some of the stigma. We wanna have more people having this conversation with us because through that we can only, you know, progress as a society, I think, in taking care of the people that we've elected to to serve us.
Speaker 1:Here's the analogy that just popped into my head, and you don't know me that well, but random analogies are kind of my thing. So in terms of the cultural shift, I think about professional baseball or just professional sports, but professional baseball comes to mind because back in the early days of baseball, the days of Babe Ruth and these, like, legends of the game, smoking and drinking were a huge part of the culture. So these players would be out getting hammered the night before a game. And the culture was as such that if you didn't do that back then, the other players would look down at you and call you a, you know, insert offensive expletive here. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, you were weak for not going out and drinking a bunch of booze before a game. Well, fast forward to modern day, we're paying athletes 1,000,000 of dollars. They are training their butts off. They're training their minds. They're training their bodies.
Speaker 1:They're training everything every day. Imagine how you would feel if you were a fan and your team finally made the World Series and your ace pitcher comes out on the mound and throws a terrible game 7, and you find out he was out drinking the night before.
Speaker 2:I love the analogy because I think it's true. The difference is, though, with high performing athletes, often they get to have just one event that are building up to. And I think with our political leaders, it's just the constant, there's always another game or another big event. And for me that says that even more, there has to be the recovery time and the other things built in to bolster their performance even more than an athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And one of the things that you will learn, I don't know, I can't speak for your containers, but if you were in a coaching program with us is boundaries are part of your job. Mhmm. If you have no boundaries, you are going to be a very poor performer, and you're gonna be out of that game really quickly. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And the trap of always doing everything for everyone all the time 247 is a trap of our own construction.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We can go back to our most famous presidents. FDR in wartime was at his time off place for 90 days in the middle of World War 2. That's not an exact time stamp, but for a long period of time. And if you go back and look at some of the quotes, he recognized that he was only able to make the decisions that were required for the saving or losing the lives of tens of millions of Americans with the right mind and built structures around himself to facilitate that proactively. You know?
Speaker 1:And so it is our job to do that. It's part of what we would do in a coaching container. And so, you know, to me, this is ultimately about not just high performance, but prolonged performance.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The sustainability. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:100%. I'll be speaking at a a conference upcoming, and we're kinda tweaking the talk a little bit. And one of the things we're gonna do is share that stat about 70% of people wanting to have support, but 65% effectively not doing it. And we'll do a hand raise where one out of every 8 people gets to raise their hand. And then you look around the room and say like, okay, well, if we wanna keep going in the status quo, this is how many of your colleagues, your allies, quote unquote, that you're gonna have left to work with in a handful of years.
Speaker 1:Good luck. It's just not sustainable. And so, yes, it will take time to shift the culture. It's gonna take time to go from all the boys are partying before the World Series to the boys get paid to take this seriously to win the game. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's gonna take time. But do you wanna be on the front end of that to be revered and look back on as one of the people that actually started taking your job seriously for the best interest of your constituents? And I think that's the question that, you know, 5 years from now, we're gonna be asking in the rearview mirror.
Speaker 2:It's so true. To add to that. And it's modern politics now, right? It's faster paced social media in particular, as we know the research is there, like the negative impacts of social media on everybody's mental well-being. And then particularly people who have a public profile and political leaders.
Speaker 2:I think, actually, our current prime minister just was quoted as saying, you know, I'd never read the comments on my social media, he said, because I wouldn't leave my house Yeah. If I did. And I was like, yeah. Yeah. You're right.
Speaker 2:Like, there's gotta be, the boundaries there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One of the things that I am most interested in your perspective on because you come from an exercise physiology background, you had interest in training professional and world class athletes. I would not consider myself a world class athlete, but I certainly was a competitive athlete for a long period of time. And for me, personally, diet and exercise were absolutely the gateway. If If it wasn't for those things, none of the downstream mental health work could have been present, and it is absolutely the case for me personally that those are the last things to go.
Speaker 1:Like, if I have to choose one thing for my mental health, it's long form cardio, period. End of story. There's nothing else that comes close for me. And so I wonder how much you think about being prescriptive versus self directed in your coaching. You talk about having the flexibility to bring in different things from your toolkit.
Speaker 1:But are you telling people, hey. You should do this or you should try this. You should follow this plan. Or are you on the full like, if the it's a spectrum, the full self directed is like, what do you think is best for you? And I'm gonna support you.
Speaker 1:And I've seen both things work. Where are you in that spectrum? Do you have an answer? Are you figuring it out? I'm so curious to know how you think about that.
Speaker 2:The middle path. And it might seem like a cop out, but it's not. Like, I mean, so much of Eastern philosophy comes back to the middle way and that's not true for everyone. Some people do need to be on either end of the spectrum and as a coach or a facilitator, that is absolutely my job to meet that person where they're at and at the best of my ability on that spectrum, help them whatever end. But even within one person, there's going to be different pieces of the puzzle that require different support, different ways of coaching or different ways of facilitating.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not a dietician. I don't give advice on diet except system basics. I definitely share, but I'm, I'm a really big referrer in, in that, part of it that that's not my domain. So I do like to refer out point people to really great resources Exercise that is my domain and we're human. We need to move.
Speaker 2:We are designed to move. There is no question about that. And I love to support that. The motivation piece behind that is probably the more interesting discussion. You know, how do we get people to move?
Speaker 2:How do we get people to connect to the desire to move value exercise and movement? I mean, Skippy, it sounds like you've had a personal experience where you've really been able to work it out and stick with it and and have an experience of being an athlete. For people that haven't had that experience
Speaker 1:Well, I'll just also say very, very hard fought, long and asynchronous road to that. You know, for my entire youth adolescence into young adulthood, I yo yoed fairly dramatically between periods of athleticism and being very overweight. I mean, obese is what you would, I guess, call it based on a BMI scale. And it was a hard one challenge that eventually I did find mediation with, and it's remarkable. And that first experience, you know, was the benchmark of I can beat some stuff that provided the first stone of confidence up the arc to eventually reach the capstone of I know shit's gonna come up.
Speaker 1:It's gonna go sideways. It's not gonna go well, but I know that I have the ability to meet whatever it is. But that's a 30 plus year journey.
Speaker 2:I love that. And, yeah, none of this is easy. I don't think like, none of this business of taking care of ourselves is easy. Some of us are naturally have a greater propensity towards being aware of our self care and our well-being and, and for others it's less important or there's different expressions of it. And so, you know, this idea of the spectrum I think it comes back to meeting each person exactly where they're at to have the skills, to discern what approach I need to take with each person.
Speaker 2:And then that next layer down when we're looking at the different aspects of their well-being, where do I need to be more prescriptive and where do I need to encourage that that self efficacy?
Speaker 1:You know, my formal training is as a, you know, what we would say in the coaching roles, a transformational coach. And that methodology is it is not prescriptive. It's about cultivating the container, creating this space, regulating the nervous system, asking the right questions for people to get down deep into the root of what's driving their behaviors, and then let them test and find things that are best for them, recognizing that that's slower, but ultimately stickier, and more empowering.
Speaker 2:Agree.
Speaker 1:And the truth is, the athlete in me who, you know, is also a type a challenger, I do have many clients who have incredible physical fitness and whatever, but I have a lot who don't, who live a very sedentary office bound life. There's part of me that wants to say, like, hey. If you're gonna work with me, you're required to do 2 hours of activity a week because I just know in my actual mind that there will be benefit. A 100% time, there will be benefit. But then the coach training side of me, you know, wants to, like, shame myself like, no.
Speaker 1:You can't do that. That's not good. Like, you're gonna be robbing them of their agency. Calm it down. And so I go through that dance in my head, and I wonder what you would say to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, again, the middle way. Like, I think, you know, your intuition there to say that to them, I think that's powerful because I think you have a lived experience of that perhaps in yourself and it's worked. And I mean, look at our high performance athletes. Like they are told exactly what to do
Speaker 1:for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes. They might have a Nate desire to perform, but a lot of them don't, you know, a lot of them have a natural talent, but it's been a situation of a whole team of people supporting them to get them where they are. It's not like they've been motivated every day. Sometimes I've needed people to tell them, you know what? You've got to get out there today.
Speaker 2:It's that's just a fact. So yeah, in my experience as a healthcare professional, as a clinician, like I think it's yes. And, and maybe, you know, as a high achieving type a personality as well, sometimes it just feels good to someone else. Tell me what to do.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. I mean, I'm in any agreement 8, so I love it. If I go into a coach and they're like, oh, I don't know how you feel. I'm like next. Like, I'm like, I don't have time for that.
Speaker 1:I'm here because I I don't know what to do. So tell me and I'm gonna do it. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there you are.
Speaker 1:But that would never work for my partner who's also a coach. Like, that would never work for her. Right? To your point, we're all individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And therefore, you know, this skill as a facilitator, as a coach, as a trainer, whatever it comes down to, Trusting your intuition, but also taking the learned experiences because I love coaching and I love the transformational coaching philosophy that it's deeply grounded in a lot of great science as well. But we're messy. We're complicated humans, and so we need a bit of everything.
Speaker 1:What type of containers do you work in 1 to 1? Do you have particular timeframes? How often are you meeting? What's the blocking and tackling of working with locale learning or with you specifically as a coach?
Speaker 2:Well, there's no straight answer. I mean, look, we have prescriptive programs, so we've, we've set them up sort of like a, you know, 3 part short liftoff type coaching package. We get to have a 15 minute discovery call. Sometimes it goes for 30 and then we send through the client a package. They can take some time to read it and see things that we would like to offer them based on the phone call.
Speaker 2:And then, pricing, according to that, we do tend to find that a lot of people would like that as a start point, because like, this is the start, this is the end. You get to choose 3 things you'd like to work on over the 3 sessions.
Speaker 1:Is it a check these boxes or can they say anything?
Speaker 2:Well, we would have identified it probably in the discovery call. And it's not that we have to work to those three things, but there's an opportunity there to work to 3 different areas. Having said that, we also offer more open ended opportunities where people can choose a longer form coaching package, where it is a little bit more in flow. And so it might be that there's just one main thing that we have to work on over an 8 session period or whatever comes up in each session is what we work on. We decided with this 3 point thing, because we found that people weren't sure why they wanted to work with us.
Speaker 2:Like they knew that they were stressed. There was conflict, you know, relationship breakdown within the elected body, you know, conflict between governance staff or, you know, they might've been experiencing stress around social media bullying, that sort of thing. And then sometimes people are coming in and they're really needing help with their personal lives because the impact has bled into their personal life. We kind of sometimes present what we're doing quite prescriptively to use that word because with this coaching people were coming with more specific professional issues, pinpoint issues and or personal stuff. And so we found that it was nice kind of like stepping stone that Lily pad to say, right.
Speaker 2:You know, you've got 3 sessions. If there's 3 things you want to work with, we're going to workshop these per session. And then if there's more work you want to do, then you can step into this other level of long form coaching And look, we're in early stages, maybe there's a different way of doing it. I think for us, we're trying to as you are, break down the stigma. We have different flavor to you as well, of course.
Speaker 2:I don't really know how to describe it, but I know that the work that you're doing is sort of like more familiar to me outside of my political well-being coaching and more in that life coaching general well-being coaching. In this sphere, we tend to be working a little more, within this framework that we're developing. I think to break down the stigma, we felt that we needed to sort of be like, well, these are the facts, you know, the mere mortals report from a political foundation showing this. This research is showing this. There's been some great work done by Ashley Weinberg.
Speaker 2:He's identified that there's these particular stressor types, institutional stressors, cultural stressors, and then the individual layer as well. And so we've sort of taken it all of these things and tried to distill it into something that is culturally relevant here in Australia to our local government politicians here.
Speaker 1:Let me put myself back 3 months into my first term. What would I say? I had 3 things to work on. I would have probably said I have all these great plans that I've been working on for years and I can't even get anyone to read them. What do I do?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yep.
Speaker 1:I would have probably said I'm trying to do what I think is my job, which is bring the public who voted for me in to demand what they need. And my colleagues are pissed at me for it, and I don't understand why. And I probably would have said, I'm just completely overwhelmed. I am on my phone from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed 7 days a week. Help.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 1:Similar to what you
Speaker 2:A 100%. A 100%.
Speaker 1:I realized there's a 100 solutions that could work, but, like, if we pick one of those, what might I leave the session with?
Speaker 2:So I would pick so in my role, I would be coaching you with the overwhelm piece. Emma, my colleague would probably step in with your other 2 because her background really allows her to support people around conflict, coaching, governance, legislation, where and how to do the job of being an elected leader on that level.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:And then I step in more with the soft skills of leadership in general, life organization.
Speaker 1:What might I leave that session knowing or would I have a system or an approach? Like, what would I leave with?
Speaker 2:If you came to me in the in the session was really on this overwhelm, I would be talking to you about boundaries and what boundaries are. Mhmm. Because sometimes people aren't sure what it is to have a boundary around time and energy. Some people don't always understand their energetic output. So that would be probably a conversation that we'd be having as well.
Speaker 2:Like how is it for you to be naturally feeling good? What does it feel like for you to feel overwhelmed? What does it feel like for you to feel tired or exhausted and to start to have a little bit more language and understanding around their energy and how it works for them
Speaker 1:and
Speaker 2:remembering that boundaries are for us to keep, not for others to enforce or keep for us. How does that look for that particular person? As you mentioned being on your phone from first thing in the morning, I would definitely jump into and workshop that with you. You know, why is that a little bit of questioning around what what's the need for that? Is that something that is expected of you or that you expect of yourself?
Speaker 2:How are you feeling? You know, what are you noticing when you do that? What are you noticing around? What else is happening in your house if that's where you are at that time. It's also individualized, but with overwhelm, I think it's necessary and important to look at boundaries and understanding your energy output as a person.
Speaker 2:And maybe I would jump in a little bit with some it's bland, but I think it's really relevant looking at people's ability to prioritize and time management and some structural skills around diary management and things as well. Like, I, I do think that that is a valuable helpful thing.
Speaker 1:Yes. My, for podcast listeners and not YouTube viewers, my eyes just cut 4 times larger than their normal diameter. I'm like, yes, that.
Speaker 2:But I would definitely start the session out by asking you, how do you wanna feel at the end? What do you wanna walk away from with this session and getting people to articulate that in terms of how they feel? And that's what I would work towards.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Beautiful. So that might be a great bridge into this new well-being framework specifically for politics that you guys have. You've had a bunch of clients. You've tried a bunch of different things for different people with different needs.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've tried different approaches naturally, organically, and also intentionally. So what has worked with clients? What has really not worked with clients? And then what have you cherry picked to put into this political well-being framework?
Speaker 2:We're still working out what's working and what hasn't worked. I can't be definitive on that. We've had great feedback on everything we've put out there, which is exciting, but also hard for us to pick and choose what is the most effective here in New South Wales. So the state of New South Wales, we're just about to head into, elections for local government in September this year. So this previous election cycle that we've just worked through has been the groundwork for us.
Speaker 2:And we feel like as a collective we're about to really launch into the world, these, the learnings that we've taken from this election cycle into this next one. So we're really excited to be sort of delivering things a little more formally in terms of our well-being. We've been doing some 1 on 1 coaching, which we were just speaking about. But this framework that we've been working on is sort of our, our flagship into really propelling what is political well-being into the world. Yes.
Speaker 2:Our framework is specific to local government counselors, in Australia, but I think it's all relevant and would apply across a lot of other jurisdictions. It's actually something that we're launching into the world for individual counselors to take and use as a self guided experience. Of course, we are pointing them in the direction of utilizing services like ours, like yours, and a whole bunch of other resources. But our intention with this work is very much to elevate the conversation that you and I are having now, into something that is black and white on paper, bolstered by the research of the Apolitical Foundation and others so that our leaders can have a reference point, a framework to work through. We've identified 8 core elements that we believe are the most important in terms of elected leaders impact and performance, wanting our leaders to understand the correlation between their mental well-being and their ability to execute what they want to as a leader and to draw that line for them.
Speaker 2:And it might seem obvious, but it's not. And so we're really wanting each individual elected leader to have this self awareness on, are these stressors that are unique to me as as a councilor? Are they impacting? And if they are impacting, how are they impacting?
Speaker 1:I'd love to pretend that that person is listening, and we probably don't have to pretend. So you are taking them through these 8 periods of well-being to execution as a leader or to being a more effective leader. And I wonder how much of that course is the meta learning of this is important, like, tying that together for them versus the learning of how to do it and and put it into action. And if any of it is the meta learning, how do you get them to opt into the program before they fully understand that?
Speaker 2:I can't answer your question on how are we gonna get them to opt in yet because I really don't know. You know, there's a whole lot of hope, goodwill, and determination behind us just like with you. Right? Like, we know this is important. This conversation today is hopefully gonna have a few more ears listening in.
Speaker 2:We're gonna keep shouting from the rooftops, approaching political organizations, and sharing what we're doing. We're madly waving our arms around like pick us, pick us for your next conference, your next forum. We're working hard to get ourselves out there. But more specifically, there's 8 core elements which I'll go through in a sec, but how we ask people to move through the process is that first people need to be aware of what the stressors are. And it sounds obvious, but it's not always obvious.
Speaker 2:And I think awareness is key. Then we ask the elected leader to identify from those 8 elements, which ones are most out of balance or of most importance to them to address initially. Of course, they probably all need addressing, but most people will have some that are really in dire need of some support, some work. Then from there, we've actually identified specific mindsets for each of the 8 elements. So the next step is to adopt the mindset for that element that you're wanting to work on.
Speaker 2:And I can talk you through that. So if it was the overwhelm thing, there's going to be a mindset that we want to adopt to come out of overwhelm. And then the micro skills within this core element need to be developed to make change and there's going to be skills that we're going to want to learn and implement. And then the final piece is to access resources. So whether it's coaching, online resources that are available, which we've listed them, we've gone deep and wide to cast the net to allow our elected leaders to have a whole suite of points of information and support that they could dive into.
Speaker 2:We'd like to think that the coaching that we do would be absolutely a piece in that because we're really invested in the elected leader space, but there is a lot of good stuff out there and we definitely want to point people to all sorts of ways of getting help because there's no one answer. So, let me go through the 8 elements, these, these 8 things that we've identified, and this is off the back of the research that apolitical have done, but more specifically, Ashley Weinberg, has done in looking at political well-being prior to that new models report that a political did number 1, the obvious one, your physical and mental health. So this is talking about your diet, your exercise, and your general mental health. And that's why that little kind of sticky bit is without definitions. This is about political well-being.
Speaker 2:So your political, mental well-being impacting on your performance. So people can be great politicians and have pre existing mental health conditions. And so your mental health is something that is like your physical health. There is lots of things that can support that specifically. Now, of course, if we're becoming unwell physically because we're eating Tim Tams and hot chips
Speaker 1:I know what Tim Tams are, but not everyone's gonna get
Speaker 2:that reference. Is that an Australian thing? Oh my gosh. Okay. Chocolate biscuits.
Speaker 2:The chocolate biscuits. They're quite delicious. But we do have a thing here around eating a whole pack of Tim Tams is an emotional sponge. Yeah. The point being that if your physical and mental health is not good, then there's going to be repercussions for that.
Speaker 2:It's an obvious thing. We know this. This is not a mind blowing piece of information I'm sharing here that your, your physical and your mental health impact on your performance. So the second one is social connection. Isolation, loneliness is a real risk in civic life.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Becoming an elected leader can really change how you socialize. We have digital safety. So here we're referring to your online presence and we know that bullying, trolling and abuse is absolutely a reality for elected leaders. And that that does have really significant consequences for your mental well-being and performance. Number 4 is the technical know how.
Speaker 2:So actually knowing how to do your job. We hear time and time again from Councillors that we're working with that the learning curve is so steep when they step into an elected leadership role for the first time or even the second time. You know, no one likes feeling out of their depth. No one wants to give away that they might not fully understand their roles and responsibilities or how it works. So that's definitely been something that we have come across in our own coaching that that's a huge source of stress for counselors.
Speaker 2:Just not understanding the technicality of the role. So the actual governance and legislation and all of that.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if this is the case in Oz, but here, not all, but very many local level elected just don't get any training. This their municipality, their county simply doesn't provide it.
Speaker 2:Just in I think it was 2016 legislation came in now that it's mandatory for new counselors to undergo training, the specific things that they have to cover off on. And as, as a business, we, we provide that particular induction training as well. We're lucky to get the insight into what's missing from those induction training packages and well-being is one of the things that we've added as a base module in our induction training because we've just seen time and time again that where people have come unstuck, but of course it's, it is governance heavy and it has to be because people need to know what they're doing. They're taking all their passion and their purpose. But there is the confines of leading in a group and all of the other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So moving on, number 5 we've identified is your motivation and attitude. This is looking at the quality of your thoughts, being aware of unhelpful thought patterns, whether you've got a declining attitude towards your role. So looking at, you know, if you're ruminating, if you're becoming rigid, if you're constantly having expectations or, or whatever else it might be. So this one's quite a nuanced one, and this is where I love to work in this space.
Speaker 2:So number 5, being our motivation and attitude. So for example, we've had, say maybe a council has been really passionate about a decision and it has gone against them. So maybe, you know, they were trying to get something across the line. It was voted down. So they're feeling under motivated now, and they're starting to feel quite negative about lots of things involved in their role and the people that they're working with, etcetera.
Speaker 2:And so their attitude towards their role is declining.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So it's a really important piece, I think.
Speaker 1:Super common.
Speaker 2:Number 6 is your time and capacity. So this is what we were speaking about a second ago. It's like juggling the demands of being the elected leader with other life responsibilities and that friction that can start to occur between your civic role, your employment because most counselors have to remain employed because it's quite an underpaid role here in Australia. And of course their personal lives. We speak directly to time and capacity as a standalone stressor for people.
Speaker 2:Number 7 is relationships and conflict. So politics is generally a low trust and competitive working environment. But it's also dependent on the relationships you have. And it's all about relationships and building relationships with other counselors and obviously your constituents and other stakeholders. So as humans, if we're in conflict, that's very impactful on our mental well-being.
Speaker 2:It's a really difficult thing for us to manage. And so we do like to speak about that directly. And then number 8 is ethical action. If someone acts outside their integrity or their values, this causes really significant internal stress for us. And so, again, here, it's an elected body that makes a decision.
Speaker 2:It's not one single counselor. And so if one single counselor is feeling like the decision that the group has voted on is not ethical, it doesn't align with their deeper values. That's very stressful for the human mind and experience. So that's our 8 core elements that all lead into a counselor's impact and performance. And so each of those elements has a mindset that we thought about, we looked at and we wanted to connect each of these core elements of well-being with a specific mindset so that people could have a tangible way to approach it from that cognitive or that mind space.
Speaker 2:And we've developed an affirmation. So each mindset has an affirmation to support the positive bolstering of that mindset. And so that that mindset can then support an improvement in that area of your well-being.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I want to sign up now. Yay. I mean, yeah, it feels deeply comprehensive, deeply applicable, deeply useful. And I'm curious about the structure of it.
Speaker 1:Are the 8 modules in a particular sequence? No. No. So you can complete the 8, but they can happen in any order.
Speaker 2:The idea is for it not to be prescriptive in terms of any hierarchical or linear progress. It really very much we're developing a self reflection tool for people to use to see all the possible stressors, influences that could be impacting on their performance as a counselor. And when I'm speaking about performance as a counselor, I'm talking about the counselor feeling that they are doing the best job that they can do with the resources they have available to them so that they feel like at the end of their day, their week, their term, that they have achieved to the best of their ability what they set out to achieve because I think that's a pretty nice definition of performance. I'm not talking about how many votes they get across the line or how many decisions go their way or whether people like them or not, you know, if they're a popular politician. We're really speaking here to how that individual councilor feels about the contribution that they have made and that they've contributed to the best of their ability and done the things that they needed to do to make sure that they were operating at a level that they were giving it their all.
Speaker 1:Got it. So it's not as though if I were to complete all 8 modules of this course, I would have superhuman abilities in all of them, and I would have solved every problem that's ever come up in my life. Rather, the intention is that I would now better and more fully understand the challenges that stand before me, the opportunities I have for growth or improvement, and have a clearer vision to make a conscious choice on if and where I would like to invest more time to improve my condition in 1 or 8 or anywhere in between of these elements?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely, Skippy. That's exactly what it's about. So
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 2:It's really empowering the individual counselor to understand the external and internal influences or points of stress or stressors that they will experience in their civic duty, in their civic role. And then from identifying those, allowing them to go through that process of, well, do I want to develop skills in this area that might bolster against, you know, my declining attitude towards my role? Do you know, do I want to start to explore a mindset that would allow me to switch out of this negative pattern that I'm starting to go into? This information is presented visually. It's like a web.
Speaker 2:There's no hierarchy or linear movement through the framework. It's literally a framework. It's a scaffolding from which people can jump off or, you know, step down or up or out or in or whatever they wanna do, but giving some really concrete ideas for people to look at. So the micro skills that come under each of the 8 elements are gonna specifically help people address that element. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So with digital safety, for example, we need to talk about boundaries in that. So talking to people in their digital safety about how they interact with social media and reminding counselors that they have a choice around that. And actually they have the choice not to use social media. It's actually not necessary. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We've listed out a bunch of points where people can question and inquire for themselves as well as identify specific skills that they might be lacking in social media. It might be that a counselor is replying to every single comment underneath a post that they've written.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:The mindset we chose for digital safety is actually a resilience mindset. I have the power to choose how I use social media and what I focus on when using it. Affirmations have science behind them. Science based evidence on the power of using affirmations, they actually change or have effect in the brain. The prefrontal cortex is actually involved.
Speaker 2:When we use affirmations, we're actually changing the way that we take on what might otherwise be considered threatening information. So by using affirmations, it actually changes the way we process a perceived threat. So being trolled or bullied online is threatening. And when we use affirmations like this one that I just read out to you, I have the power to choose how I use social media and what I focus on when using it. That actually is gonna change the way your brain is perceiving these threats and bolster against it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Actually give you a filter through which to receive that information. I would advise not reading the comments full stop, but sometimes it's necessary. And so sometimes we need to have the right mindset to approach that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I, just this week, I've been working with an affirmation, or just a reflective statement. There's a particular guest that we hope to have on this podcast that I've been very excited about. They were kind of the beginning of my mental health journey. It would be, amazing benefit to the audience to have this person on.
Speaker 1:And, the truth is they have been directly super open, welcome, receptive, and then I get handed off to the staff, which has a different orientation to scheduling and language and communication. And I noticed that as soon as I see the staff member's email pop up, I get very panicky because I have a core belief somewhere that everyone in my life is gonna leave me, and so it's like, oh, we're not gonna get it. We're gonna get abandoned. We're not it turns into this whole thing in my nervous system. And so my affirmation is, like, when I feel the panicky feeling, just to breathe into it, to know it's safe, and to trust that what's supposed to come will come.
Speaker 1:And it's insane how well that little moment break helps me get back to normal and then helps me respond from an empowered place rather than a victimized place or a scarcity place, which if I were to respond from those places would actually drive the outcome that I fear.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I just highlight that was something tangible for me today. Well, I love this this framework. I'm so eager to see how it's received, how it will be utilized. Do you guys intend to be getting direct feedback from folks so you're learning how it's working?
Speaker 2:We are reaching out and asking for input from counselors, and I've had several conversations with counselors who've so kindly given me their time to give their direct feedback on what we've put together so far. And we have absolutely tweaked and changed according to that feedback. We've also been working directly with the apolitical foundation and sharing our work as we go with them. And they've been so kind as to also give us some great feedback. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And also from the perspective of councils themselves, so the staff working within the organization of council, we've been so lucky to have conversations here with governance managers, the CEOs, because it's a tricky area. You know, here in Australia, when you take on a civic role, you don't fall under any particular work conditions or award as we call it. So our elected politicians are kind of in no man's land, so to speak. So they don't fall under eligibility for the things that you would normally expect in a workplace. Politicians here in Australia, they are in this unique space and often they're quite underpaid for the amount of work that they put in.
Speaker 2:And so that financial security piece is something that we talk about in the framework as well. This framework is really kind of working to fill that gap, to share with people the necessary steps, not just that the individual can take, but we also have information in there for the organizations themselves so that they can dial up the protective factors and turn down the negative factors that might be at play just within those organizational structures or the way that things are communicated. So we're trying to come at it in all different ways and we, we can't do it in a vacuum. We are a 100% seeking. And, you know, and if any of your listeners would, would be keen on having a conversation with me and have thoughts to reflect on, I'd be so grateful.
Speaker 1:How are you guys getting around that there's no financial support for this work for individuals? Is everyone paying out of pocket at this point?
Speaker 2:Individual counselors here in Australia will have some small amount of professional development budget. It's not huge. And we have had some counselors be able to use that for our services. A lot of the times though, I will say that the council has approved that expenditure more for conflict coaching or, particularly if someone's coming up against a code of conduct complaint where it's a little more at the spicy end of things. But we have also had clients come through for our coaching around the well-being from that professional development budget.
Speaker 2:We offer some of our products and services directly through council. So we're actually contracted by the organizations themselves to provide support. And then, yes, we've had many counselors self fund to do our programs. Yeah. Kudos to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's an issue that we're solving for as well. And it sounds like our condition in the states is better, but only in certain places where many equivalent commissioners, city council members, state representatives, they will have a budget for professional development or an EAP or a council budget where they can allocate funds for this work, and so many do. But it's entirely up to the community itself. There's no requirement. And so very often, those most in need are from communities that are economically disadvantaged and don't have that ability, and so it's something that we've been working on as well as how to make sure that this support is available to everyone based on need, not simply those who can afford it based on the relative affluence of their communities.
Speaker 1:So I was I was curious about that, and that's why we started our foundation. So we have private donors that do things like help fund the podcast, so we can get information to everybody, but also allow us to offer free or subsidized service to some communities. But those dollars are limited. Right? There's only so many donors who get this right now
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In our experience. So it's interesting to hear how others are addressing that. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1:So I wanna kinda shift back into your experience. But before I do, is there anything in the sphere of delivering of mental well-being coaching to, not just politicians, but public servants that you think would be important to touch on that we haven't touched on?
Speaker 2:You know, remembering that that we're all human, you know, like, maybe I haven't repeated that enough in the conversation today. The definition of performance is very much the individual's goals being addressed and met and supporting them to achieve the goals that they set out for their counselor term. Because that's what matters most, right? That the sustainability of our leaders, you know, we've elected them because we need leaders and we elected these particular leaders because we have belief in them. And then when they get in that role, it's important to us to see them supported through that whole election cycle so that they are working for the citizens in a really positive way.
Speaker 2:I know you have personal experience, Skippy, as being an elected leader and I don't, but from the outside looking in, I just think that the amount of effort that I see most counselors put in the passion that they have
Speaker 1:so much
Speaker 2:and the fact that we as as citizens have elected to get them there, it is heartbreaking for me. And I know for Emma and yourself and, you know, so many other people working in this space, when we're seeing these people who, who have great intentions, almost actively being cut down, you know, whether it is on social media or, you know, the working conditions that they're put under. So I guess I just wanna finish off by saying, you know, this is absolutely the heart led work that we're doing. You know, this is this is really meaningful for us and we're in it because we care and we care about, you know, the human side of politics.
Speaker 1:And you said something that really struck a chord with me earlier, which is when you're acting outside of your integrity, it leads to stress. And in the way that we talk about and define mental health, to be mentally healthy is the state of being aligned, connected, and safe with self, others, and environment. Beautiful. And anything that draws us away from that, that disconnects us, that has us feeling unsafe, whether that's between our ears or in our home because of an online attack or because of a story not enough or because we've been doxxed and there's someone at our door, leads to the presentation of the symptoms of mental health challenge. And that starts with stress to overwhelm to anxiety, but it can go right up that path.
Speaker 1:And so we can't disconnect the humanity from the performance.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Well said. That's it.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely a myth because you cannot perform at your best when you're being dehumanized because you don't have access to those parts of your brain or your emotion that are required for making complex decisions amongst many different interest groups, which is the definition of democratic politics. You can't do it. Correct. Just highlight that.
Speaker 2:Yes. Thank you for doing that so so articulately. That's beautiful. Yeah. Well said.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that you mentioned to me before this interview is the progress that you have made in I I don't wanna say overcoming because it makes it sound like there's something wrong, but in working with your predispositions for people pleasing and for perfectionism. Yeah. And these are things that I hear all the time from public servants. So I think this will be very relatable, and I'd love to kind of wind down by talking a little bit about that experience. It doesn't have to be super long, but how did you work with that?
Speaker 1:What were some of the techniques or approaches that you've found? And after their application or during their application, because it's likely a practice that's ongoing, how have you found that's affected your work?
Speaker 2:Multiple ways. One thing that I started doing was saying no. Seems simple, but I'm just even getting a little breathless thinking about it. When you want to please others and you want to be doing a great job all the time, you say yes a lot. And you often say yes to the detriment of your own energy, your closer intimate relationships, you know, your close family, friends because you're pleasing so many people and it spreads you thin.
Speaker 2:So I started with the practice of saying no, and it was, challenging and yeah, I disappointed people. Maybe I missed a few opportunities as well through saying no, but ultimately I feel like I'm a lot better human for saying no to certain people at certain times and to certain projects at certain times. I'm more vital and it means the things that I do really care about get way more time and attention. So that's definitely been pivotal for me.
Speaker 1:And when you began the practice of saying no, did you say no to everything, to certain things? How did you determine what got to know?
Speaker 2:I started listening to my intuition more. So I started deliberately pausing and I learned this from a coach.
Speaker 1:I
Speaker 2:mean, it's not like I didn't know the practice of pausing before answering. I mean, that's one of the things we learn in the mindfulness practice, but what she did is sort of just frame up for me that you really need to take a physical pause. So what I started practicing is taking a step, a half step back from the person. So that gave me physical space. And I immediately dropped into how I felt in my body because as I said, I'm very connected to my body, my intuition and the way our brain is set up, you'll feel before you get the thought.
Speaker 2:And so I started to notice that icky feeling inside me and listening to it. And so then she gave me some great little phrases to use. So thank you for asking me that I'll get back to you. Thank you for asking me that. I'm gonna take a little more time to think about it.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting point you make. I need to think about it a little more, or I really appreciate that. Can I look in my diary and I'll make a decision? So it seems simple, but gosh, it made a difference to me because I would be like, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Let's do it. Or absolutely. Or yes, I can do that. You name the time and I'll be there.
Speaker 2:And it's just giving away power and energy and time that, you know, we don't have. I mean, when you're, when you've got multiple balls in the air, you're a civic leader, you're, have a home life, a personal life, and you're probably working too. I mean, there's gotta be a moment to pause and reflect. And so those little phrases that that particular coach gave me, I started implementing them and then I really would actually take a moment to think about it. And, yeah, usually get back to them with a no, if I had that icky feeling inside me.
Speaker 1:And when you delivered the no, did you use any particular phrasing that was helpful?
Speaker 2:I didn't apologize. So that was the second stage. Stop apologizing. And I still use that all the time.
Speaker 1:Do you explain the reason? Is that allowed? I'm, I'm just very curious because people really have trouble with noes and I've received noes that frustrated me. I've also received noes where I've been like, hell, yeah. Good for you.
Speaker 1:Like, I I wanna say no that way. Right? So there's a there's an art to this. Are yeah. Other than the non apologizing, are there any other specifics that you put into your notes?
Speaker 2:I think acknowledging the person, thanking the person, and then I don't necessarily explain myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Very cool.
Speaker 2:Because it's not really relevant. You know, if they want an explanation, I will choose whether I'm brutally honest or I give a more discerning answer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:At least in the beginning, maybe it still happens if you still have that shortness of breath. If you still have that little bit of internal panic of, oh God, I'm letting someone down. I'm not going to do it. I've got FOMO, whatever it is. How do you treat yourself?
Speaker 1:What do you do to alleviate that or release that feeling in yourself?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I remind myself by saying no to that thing, that I'm saying yes to so many other things. Yes. I'm saying yes, 1st and foremost, to myself. And that's really powerful because I think as a perfectionist, as a people pleaser, it's not about us.
Speaker 2:It's about everybody else all the time. And that's not such a great place to be operating from. To operate from a place of deep self awareness is really powerful and you can only do that when you start to put those boundaries in place, start to take that time to really know how you are in the world, what really matters to you and where your skill set lies. And the more that you can say yes to the things that really mean something to you, that you are actually naturally and through learning good at, then that's a lot of yeses just in a different direction. So I remind myself that all the time.
Speaker 1:Amen to that. Couple of quick hitters that just kind of caught my attention. Curious about you reference humor a lot. You reference it in your bio. You talk about being a kitchen comedian.
Speaker 1:And if I'm being honest, we haven't done a lot of no. I'm not going to ask you to do that. But but we haven't been laughing a lot on this podcast, and sometimes we do. We have it a little bit. But how does humor come into your work?
Speaker 1:Do you allow it to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Look, you know, I'm probably being a lot more polished on this podcast than you would get if we were catching up outside of this. And I'm just being really honest with the listeners on that. I do really value my professionalism. And so I am definitely crossing my t's and dotting my i's on this podcast and I'm intentionally showing up like that.
Speaker 2:I'm a 100% being authentic in my answers, But, you know, if we were to hang out outside of the podcast, I love to laugh at myself. I love to find the humor in all things because I think it is an absolutely fantastic antidote for the stress and, you know, the the big things that are happening in our world, which, you know, we can't ignore and and do impact and play on my mind. So, yeah, I love to laugh, and, I do have a a pretty, you know, sometimes just a bit more of a bar room humor than maybe what I'm gonna bring to the podcast today.
Speaker 1:We'll get her on again and we'll,
Speaker 2:we'll see that. Swearing, you know, like, well used swearing is with one of my my greatest delights. And in Australia, it's quite okay to swear.
Speaker 1:Well, you guys use words that we don't approve of socially here.
Speaker 2:And I I've really, watched myself today.
Speaker 1:Some of the most interesting, most well known clients that you guys have worked with, could you share a couple, obviously not individual names, but, I've seen some some pretty impressive stuff and I like to think that when people see that, they go, oh, I could do that too.
Speaker 2:The best people that I've I've worked with are probably people that no one is, ever gonna know because there are individual counselors in, you know, regional areas in Australia that have just impressed me no end with with their incredible leadership.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. And then you mentioned earlier that you are starting organizationally to get braver. And I wonder what, what was the insecure voice?
Speaker 2:For me, I have no political experience except for having personal interest in politics and, other social issues. So I guess moving from a corporate coaching and then, and also my healthcare background, I guess there was like a little bit of an imposter syndrome, you know, who am I to speak about political well-being? I feel like I'm over that now. I feel like, you know, we were talking about humans and I'm well qualified to talk about humans. And so that was a big part.
Speaker 2:What am I doing? I'm trying to get more vocal about my passion for this on platforms, you know, like LinkedIn and and those kind of places. Speaking to you today was a huge thing where I had to go, yep. I can do this.
Speaker 1:I sure can. You did.
Speaker 2:Yay. Emma and I are speaking next year at, local government conference here in Australia, which we're really excited about. And we've just been reaching out left, right, and center to anyone who will listen to us to speak about this. So, yeah, that's how I'm getting braver. Also putting this framework out into the world like it is a lot of hours behind the scenes, Emma and I working away, bringing our minds together.
Speaker 2:And we did a soft launch of it at a well-being webinar where we launched this framework, just a super soft launch. And so we had an audience there mostly of the staff within the council organizations. So the CEOs like CEOs or the general managers. And so that was a big deal because there is a tension point there between councilors and council staff, you know, the people who work within the organisation and the elected body. So, yeah, that would, that was interesting how that was received and, I feel it was received positively.
Speaker 2:And I also feel that I'm excited to get braver, to keep having this conversation with people within the organizations. I think sometimes it's, it's my natural place to speak to the individual counselors, the individual person, but to explain it to others and for others who might have influence over a counselor's well-being, you know, that's, that's a delicate conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Beautiful. Well, I'm so glad and grateful that you guys are getting out there more and more that you are introducing this framework, that you're raising awareness, that you're holding events. This is the work that it will take, and the world will be better for what you are doing. So I just wanna offer a genuine, heartfelt thank you for that.
Speaker 1:And if people want to return the favor and reach out to you or find you or learn more about you and locale learning and all that you're doing in the framework, where can they do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. So, I would love to connect on LinkedIn. My handle is Anna Miley Coaching, and that's the same on Instagram. On our website, which is www.localearning.com.au, we do have some free mindfulness recordings that your listeners could access if they would so like to.
Speaker 2:They set up specifically to take 5 minutes in a busy day in the life of a civic leader, so please feel free to to jump in and and access those recordings as well and a bunch of other free resources that we have there for people as well.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And final question, same for every guest, which is our audience are the proverbial humans in the arena as you know very well. And so if you could leave them with just one thing, one quote, one link, one program, one idea, one thought, one anything that would best resource them to be a vector, personal vector, for healing our politics, what would it be?
Speaker 2:I would say remind yourself every day of your purpose.
Speaker 1:If
Speaker 2:you can get up and you can have that sticky note on the mirror or wherever it works for you to remind yourself of your purpose, to remind yourself why you're here and putting in the effort that you're putting in. I think that would be just incredibly powerful and really up level the general energy and culture of of our politics.
Speaker 1:Beautiful place to end, Anna Miley. Locale Learning, thank you so much for your time today from the other side of the world. Bless the Internet. And, thank you for what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Thank you so much, Skippy, for having me. I'm deeply, deeply grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us today. If you wanna put what you've heard here today into practice, sign up for our newsletter, the leader's handbook, where each month you'll receive just one email with a curated selection of the most useful tools and practices discussed on this podcast today and over the course of the last month. Delivered in simple how to worksheets, videos, and audio guides, so you and your teams can try and test these out in your own life and see what best serves you. And lastly, if you wanna be a vector for healing our politics, if you wanna do your part, take out your phone right now and share this podcast with 5 colleagues you care about. Send a simple text, drop a line, and leave the ball in their court because the truth is the more those around you do their work, the better it will show show up in your life, in your community, and in your world.
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