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Each week, Amanda Campbell interviews amazing people, who will share their inspiring stories of resilience. Amanda dives deep into 40-minute DNM’s with guests, exploring their stories of how they have overcome adversity in their lives professionally and personally.
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;05
Unknown
Welcome to the Bend like Bamboo Resilience Podcast, where we discover how life's greatest challenges can become our greatest strengths. I'm your host, Amanda Campbell, Kinesiologist, MS specialist, Resilience Coach and Author. Get ready to be inspired by these remarkable humans who share their raw, real stories of transformation. The breakthrough moments, the lessons learned in the trenches, and the practical wisdom that turned their greatest challenges into their greatest strengths.
00;00;35;08 - 00;01;02;06
Unknown
These conversations offer hope, tools and proof that resilience isn't just possible. It's your birthright together. Let's discover how flexibility can become your superpower. Turning life storms into stepping stones towards the person you're meant to become. Let's dive straight into our next conversation.
00;01;02;08 - 00;01;38;19
Unknown
Hello, Jimmy Burroughes. Welcome to the Bend Like Bamboo Podcast. Thanks so much for really good to be here, Amanda. I appreciate it. My pleasure. So you are a high performance leader and coach. He's specialized in helping managers of managers reclaim six plus hours per week to lead more strategically. So interesting that you are an ex-British Army officer. You used to work in the corporate world as a general manager, and your methodology is called simplify to amplify your two times of your podcast host.
00;01;38;21 - 00;02;02;16
Unknown
And essentially, you've trained 3000 plus leaders across 20 countries. Well, I'm so excited to speak to you today. Thank you so much. I hate it when people read these things out because it makes me feel really arrogant. But it's not at all. It's all done with love. So I appreciate it. So I appreciate your humbleness. It's actually pretty incredible, your background and what you've achieved, though.
00;02;02;18 - 00;02;23;17
Unknown
What got you into it? Tell me to take me back to the start. The start. So start of the professional career was actually go for two. So I finished university. I did a degree in tropical medicine, and I didn't really know where that was going to take me because at that time, the medicinal jobs in it, you could become a doctor.
00;02;23;17 - 00;02;46;25
Unknown
Right? But tropical medicine is more about sort of parasites and vectors and infections and immune responses. And it's fascinating that we've both gotten into that space over our lives. But I kind of was seeking some sort of professional direction and the military called I'd been an Army cadet and I really enjoyed doing what in the UK is called OTK, which is Officer Training Corps at university.
00;02;46;27 - 00;03;02;20
Unknown
So ended up joining the military thinking, well, this would be a great way to see the world do lots of adventure training, have lots of dinner nights, make lots of friends, and there was nothing really going on in the world when I joined up. And by the end of my training, we were in the midst of the Second Gulf War.
00;03;02;23 - 00;03;30;14
Unknown
So my first gig was was headed overseas to Iraq. Well, actually into Kuwait and then hitchhiking into Iraq. That's another story. And leading soldiers in in various forms of essentially a supermarket on demand or collect your shopping in the middle of the desert. Imagine in a very dry, dry. So you're shopping at the supermarket. But for military things, this is fruit and veg.
00;03;30;16 - 00;03;49;28
Unknown
That's what I did for the first few years of my career, which was fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. So that was how I kind of ended up in the military. And I absolutely loved it. Six amazing years in my life doing incredible things. Very busy, very stressful. Learned a lot about myself, learned an awful lot about leadership. And it kind of set me up for the rest of my career.
00;03;50;07 - 00;04;14;06
Unknown
that's amazing. What do you think the core lesson was that you learned about yourself? About myself. I think it's one of the lessons we teach nearly every program that we do, and it's the belief that many leaders hold that they need to be the expert in everything, and they need to have all the answers. They need to solve all the problems.
00;04;14;06 - 00;04;30;10
Unknown
They need to be the one who is the center of all the information. And it's what it works when you're an individual contributor and it kind of works and you're a manager. But when you move into managing managers and leadership roles, it doesn't work anymore. And actually it's one of the quickest routes to burnout as you being at the center of everything.
00;04;30;12 - 00;04;59;29
Unknown
It also doesn't allow you to create teams around you. And I, you know, I really remember this when I was a young lieutenant in in Iraq, and I was trying to be the perfect officer, you know, super fit and knew everything and had all the answers. And a week longer than all the boys. And I remember my my first staff sergeant, amazing guy Dobbs took me aside and he said, Sir, with all due respect, your job is to make the decisions.
00;05;00;03 - 00;05;22;24
Unknown
Our job is to give you the information. And it really kind of cut through this belief that I had, that I had to know everything. And, you know, these these soldiers have got much more experience doing these jobs. And I had seen their jobs had 15 years experience than the third in line in the platoon, had 12 years experience.
00;05;22;27 - 00;05;57;06
Unknown
So these are really experienced guys and girls who live and breathe this operation on a day to day basis. And I'm putting all this pressure on myself to know all the answers and to know everything. And it was really is a real wake at core. And it's something that I we still teach today that you don't your job as a leader is to make decisions and what you need to do is pull those people in around you who have expertise and ask them what they think and riff with them to create ideas and test your decision making wisdom.
00;05;57;09 - 00;06;15;27
Unknown
And when you are inexperienced, that testing is probably more rigorous. When you become a little bit more experienced, you know, your decisions are probably a bit based on a bit more experience yourself. Yes, But I think I learned, you know, early in my career that there are there's some information out there that I don't need to have. I just need to get it from other people.
00;06;15;28 - 00;06;45;17
Unknown
And then that helps inform my decision making in a more collaborative aspect that is so inspiring and absolutely accurate. I think so many founders and CEOs right now, and I know with teams that I've led where a business that I've founded it, it was my mindset around, well, if you're the founder and you've become the expert and so you've created this business, you can fall into that trap of thinking that then all that information needs to come from you.
00;06;45;19 - 00;07;11;25
Unknown
But it it's such a intelligent and intuitive shift when you can realize exactly what you said, that actually you're leading and you're making the decisions of the pathway forward of your vision, that you can leverage experts that knows so much more than you in all the different multi layers of aspects that makes up a business that's gold and what you just said.
00;07;11;27 - 00;07;31;29
Unknown
Thank you. And it comes with lots of positive byproducts. You know, if I think back to I'll give you an example. When we were in the desert, one of the things we had to do was set up these drive thru supermarkets and if I was the arrogant young officer that I guess I started off as, which is I have to know everything and I'm not the one with all the answers, I always say, you know, let's put it here.
00;07;32;06 - 00;07;52;08
Unknown
This is how we're going to do it. And there would be mistakes in there. You know, it may be a miscalculated the fuel I had. I would not pay attention to the capabilities of some of the vehicles. I wouldn't be aware of the risk profiles of some of the guys because the things you don't know, you know, you don't know what you don't know when you're inexperienced and you're learning to be a leader.
00;07;52;11 - 00;08;06;17
Unknown
Yeah. And so the way I used to do this was I would say, hey, this is the brief. This is what we've got to achieve. What I what do we think would be some good options? And my sergeant, my staff sergeant would to sit down with me and say, well, you know, this would be a good location because of these reasons.
00;08;06;17 - 00;08;24;09
Unknown
So I'd be learning and grow it. So they'd be feeling like their voice was heard, they'd be feeling like they were contributing. They'll also be building my capability. They'd also be building their capability because I'd be challenging them with new things and new locations and new, new, new, new problems to solve. So they'd be learning and growing as well.
00;08;24;11 - 00;08;40;17
Unknown
Then we bring in all the corporals who is kind of the next tier down in the platoon, and we'd say, okay, so this is what we're thinking. Does anybody see any holes here? So we were asking those guys to do critical thinking. They were, you know, what are the dramas? What are the problems? It has this been used too much?
00;08;40;17 - 00;08;57;15
Unknown
They were out on the ground all the time doing the work, so they would have this first hand experience. Now that hole has been of that that road had a mine on it last week. There's holes there that routes not is out of order at the moment. So we get more context and again, we're asking them to think critically.
00;08;57;15 - 00;09;15;18
Unknown
Problems solve challenges themselves. But all of those things were building trust in me because I would be listening and adapting the plan whilst they were giving me these inputs. And then to say, okay, cool, based on what I've heard, this is what I think we should do. We okay with that? Great. Let's go brief the boys and, and so and then we go off and do our briefing.
00;09;15;18 - 00;09;38;17
Unknown
But everybody who'd been involved in that planning process was brought in into the planning process. So I didn't have to convince anybody of anything because we'd all decided that was the best way forward. Collaborated like that builds trust that means that, you know, the so many people I talk to that they say, there's no point in me doing a good job because my boss is just going to rewrite it or my boss is just going to, you know, correct it all anyway.
00;09;38;17 - 00;10;00;05
Unknown
So I'll just I'll just won't bother. No point. Whereas if your boss saying, Hey, let's get together and do this together, let's get together and write it together, let's create this together, let's brainstorm around a whiteboard. So you've got when we're aligned on the thinking for this plan or this strategy or this initiative, yeah, they get the change that has on the people around you and it's probably just, you know, it's just a knock on effect and just going, what do you think?
00;10;00;08 - 00;10;43;14
Unknown
You know? Yes. Yeah, huge. And leveraging not only the expertise that it's more fulfilling in their roles and their feeling more useful and productive and like it's it's it's yeah. Using their expertise but allowing them to, you know the team to get more involved. It's more purposeful. Yeah absolutely. And just creates these so these ripple effects of positivity that the trust that are engagement that are discretionary assets, higher productivity, better critical thinking you know all these parameters that you want in all these things that you want in your team that we subconsciously or ignorantly suppress because we feel like we have to have all the answers.
00;10;43;17 - 00;11;16;24
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah, I love that. So, so okay, well, this is a resilience podcast, so I want to ask you about resilience next. And as someone who's served in the military and led in Fortune 500 environments, what does true resilience mean to you and how is it different from just pushing through? Yeah, it's, you know, such an interesting topic and it's one the resource thrilled to to be able to come on the podcast when we talk about resilience, I always tell a story.
00;11;16;26 - 00;11;39;29
Unknown
I'm in New Zealand right now and I lived in New Zealand for just over a decade and out the front of the house where where I stayed there was this enormous oak tree and this oak tree was, you know, probably couple of hundred years old and was really, you know, thick and strong and robust. And in New Zealand, we're getting increasing numbers of tropical storms that are coming through.
00;11;39;29 - 00;12;06;14
Unknown
And over the years, this this tree has weathered those storms. As the storms come through, it kind of sways a little bit and creaks a little bit. But it's always got through. And then suddenly a couple of years ago, we had a big storm come through. And whether it was the strength of that storm or whether it was the culmination of multiple storms back to back, that tree cracked and fell over.
00;12;06;17 - 00;12;27;14
Unknown
And it was unfortunate because it was a beautiful tree. And around the same time I moved to live in Mexico and in Mexico, they lay the palm trees and we get hurricanes all the time. You know, we get well, I think we're on the 13th hurricane of the season coming through where where I am in Mexico. And those palm trees bend in the wind.
00;12;27;18 - 00;12;45;23
Unknown
So when the storm comes through, they bend. They might loosen leaves, but they come back and they keep going. And those palm trees are probably going to be, you know, 50, 60 years old. Some of them are really impressive large palm trees, but they're flexible. Yeah. And the reason I tell that story is because I think it's a really great analogy for resilience.
00;12;45;26 - 00;13;08;09
Unknown
Yeah, people think resilience is like being like the oak tree and you have to be strong and firm and robust and you know, anything that's thrown at you, you have to just take it. Yeah, but they don't realize that each one of those just taking it's, is going to just have make a little crack. Well just weaken you a little bit and then something will come along that you can't deal with and it will break you.
00;13;08;12 - 00;13;27;17
Unknown
And it's to me, resilience is far more about being like the palm tree. It's bending when there's pressure is going with the flow of the know, the extreme energy that's coming at you or the extreme difficulty and not trying to fight it, but rolling with it. You know, if I use a surfing analogy, it's it's surfing the wave rather than drowning in it.
00;13;27;19 - 00;13;52;09
Unknown
Yeah, but it's allowing you so you might lose some hair along the way, as most of us tend to do as we age and the stress goes up. But you will come back if you bend with the wind, you bend with. If you bend with the force. And that's real resilience is for me, the definition of resilience is the ability to to work under extreme conditions and bounce back to full effectiveness really quickly.
00;13;52;12 - 00;14;17;19
Unknown
Yes. Yes. You know, I'm going to totally agree with you because the my business is called bend like bamboo, except I shouldn't said bamboo rather palm station analogy, because there's other trees that bend as well, bending in direct proportion to the wind without breaking and without snapping. And flexibility builds resilience. And that's what I believe, too. And, you know, I learned that with, you know, when I was very sick.
00;14;17;19 - 00;14;38;16
Unknown
And I've got multiple sclerosis and I you know, prior to my diagnosis, I realize now that I was more rigid, I was stressed. And because of my stress levels and not knowing how to manage that often from thoughts and beliefs that I hadn't reimagined from the past. And sometimes we have, you know, some stress in childhood so common.
00;14;38;23 - 00;15;09;03
Unknown
But if we aren't flexible and we don't know what to put in the bin, what to let go of and then how to move forward. And what, you know, we're constantly evolving as human beings and as leaders and as businesses. And it's a forever everyday process of what we're letting go of and how we're moving forward. And I believe that flexibility is about reimagining the stories that we tell ourselves that might lead to that more egoic reaction where we feel like all the information needs to come from us as a leader versus being flexible and going, Hang on.
00;15;09;03 - 00;15;46;27
Unknown
If I see this from a bird's eye perspective, I've got so many amazing specialists around me and working together, we're going to be more powerful and that that's from flexible thinking, isn't it? Yeah, and it's I just love the way you articulated that and the, you know, the idea that so many of us I'm guilty of it as well When I, when I was a GM, that when the pressure goes up, we lean in harder and you know you kind of put your shoulder into it, then you start pushing harder and we end up in this position where, you know, the analogy is just plentiful.
00;15;46;27 - 00;16;06;27
Unknown
But it was sprinting on the hamster wheel or just playing whack a mole with blinkers on. We don't see anything else that's going on around us. And the resilience that you're demonstrating there is resilience is inflexibility is when they push our push back as opposed to saying, well, they're pushing for a reason. What's going on here? What how do I flow with this?
00;16;07;04 - 00;16;30;06
Unknown
And my wife is, you know, she's far more spiritual and Eastern philosophy than I am, But she's taught me over the years that whatever happens will be the best that you and us. And so if something is really causing resistance and causing you to lean in, actually it's worth saying. Or do I step back and let this flow past me and that gives me a clear road ahead to do something else?
00;16;30;09 - 00;16;54;28
Unknown
Or do I do I bend with this because I don't need to fight it and I can put my fight into something else that is worth fighting for? Yeah, we we so much energy focused and fighting and resisting what just needs to be left alone. Yeah. And so then if you're all about helping leaders through organizational friction, how do you do that With the power of flexibility?
00;16;55;01 - 00;17;14;01
Unknown
One of the things that really comes up is this kind of Whac-A-Mole hamster wheel mentality that the faster you work and the harder you go, the faster you work and how do you go? And it's just like this this neverending cycle. People get themselves into this burnout and the plughole of burnout where they just can't and can't recover.
00;17;14;04 - 00;17;39;03
Unknown
And so one of the big friction points that we try and tackle is mental headspace is one of the first things we look at the saying where where is all your time and energy going and how do we pull you back from being involved in everything, Reduce the number of meetings you're in, reduce the number of decisions you're having to take, start delegating things away from you so you've got a bit more time to think.
00;17;39;05 - 00;18;04;21
Unknown
And one of the core activities that does that is we say everybody take 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes with a notebook, no pen, no laptop, sorry, no phone, no laptop, Just take a notebook and pen. Go somewhere away from your people and your office and your work environment. So Café, Forest Park, wherever you can get some, some just headspace and just write down.
00;18;04;23 - 00;18;26;09
Unknown
What's the most important thing for you to be working on today and tomorrow, and what's the most important thing to work on next week? Yeah, and once you've got that because you're energy on that. Yeah. And I'll tell you a story about this. We, we, we had a leadership program. We were working with a very large American business and we were working on their executive transition program.
00;18;26;09 - 00;18;48;14
Unknown
So this is people who are kind of senior manager into, into GM or senior roles. And each of these people had, you know, a couple of thousand plus people reporting into them. So they're pretty sizable leaders already. And we challenged them with this idea going take 15 to 20 minutes with a notebook. And as you can imagine, these are pretty busy people.
00;18;48;14 - 00;19;07;08
Unknown
You know, they're getting a couple of thousand emails a day. They're working on multiple problems. And we got kind of three responses. The first response was, I'm really busy. I don't have time to do that. 15 to 20 minutes is, you know, is critical. In my day, I don't have time. The second group said, I'll try when I can.
00;19;07;11 - 00;19;26;22
Unknown
And the third group said, okay, well, I'm here to learn. I'll do that. Fast forward 12 months. At the end of the program we mapped where people sat in terms of their performance and potential across the business. So how they performed over the course of the year, did they have potential to go even further in the business? And there's no surprises here.
00;19;26;22 - 00;19;46;09
Unknown
The group that had said it's never going to happen were too busy. Many of them hadn't survived the program, they hadn't got through. They'd either burned out or left the business or they moved into other roles. Right. The group had said, okay, well, try. They got one or two ways and they got to group A, which is way too busy.
00;19;46;09 - 00;20;07;08
Unknown
We're not we can't do it all. They graduated to Group C and Group C were our best performers, were our highest potential inconclusively. You know, it was a lot of it. Undoubtedly, they were the best performers on the program and they had the most headspace and they had the most potential because they'd taken this time out to reflect.
00;20;07;11 - 00;20;27;10
Unknown
And it was this flexibility in their approach to say What I've been doing up until now has got me to here. But to do the next job, do this next job well, I've got to start thinking a little bit differently. I've got to be a little bit more flexible in my tool and my mindset. And so 15 to 20 minutes is what I'm going to do.
00;20;27;10 - 00;20;48;16
Unknown
And it was those 15 to 20 minutes that they said was the single biggest differentiator across the 12 months out of everything they learned in the program. Yes. And the reason I tell that story is because when you move into a leadership role, the toolset and the mindset that you bring are great for management. Yeah, but they might not be great for leadership.
00;20;48;16 - 00;21;17;14
Unknown
And so you've got to be flexible in the working harder and longer. It doesn't work anymore. There's new things to try and the resilience that you can develop just by taking 15 minutes out with a notebook is phenomenal and will pay dividends. Yeah, 99.9% of the time. Yeah, absolutely. You know, any of my clients that I am working with that are sort of stuck on that, we'll of just go, go, go, work harder, harder, harder and the always feel like they don't have any time.
00;21;17;17 - 00;21;42;20
Unknown
It is a stress survival response that's going on within them a sense of safety and even me myself, I've been through chapters of my career where I've gotten stuck there because it has felt like life or death, how much I had to get done in that day to get my business from here to here. And yeah, and that it's and that's why I love kinesiology, which is a tool that I use that can get into the subconscious brain.
00;21;42;20 - 00;22;17;27
Unknown
It's very similar to acupuncture. We use the same meridians, but we view the body holistically. So structurally, biochemically, emotionally and energetically, and we can get into that stress response and deep frag it by shifting holding points, but really getting into a why? Why is it so life and death for you to keep going and pushing harder and and like filling your diary And unless you get to the cause of that, you can't pull back and take that space, which is why I really make sure that, you know, just the basics of meditation, journaling, exercising, eating really well.
00;22;17;27 - 00;22;40;28
Unknown
They're my pillars of health. That is what's going to help you to create that flexible mindset and because it's self love, isn't it? We're talking about self-love. We're talking about our ability to be kinder and compassionate to ourselves as opposed to being hard on ourselves. And I'm in areas and a type-A personality. I'm so hard on myself. And so I have to consciously go out of my way to go hang on.
00;22;41;05 - 00;23;08;04
Unknown
And I do that too. What are the top three things that I have to do today? And I'll do them and the rest is noise. The rest is noise. And being able to address what is noise and what is not I heard on a podcast the other day is how Steve Jobs achieved. What he did at Apple is he was very good at understanding the signal and tapping into those three things every day versus what the noise was a great.
00;23;08;05 - 00;23;37;15
Unknown
And that really is one of the biggest differentiators or effective leaders versus non effective leaders or amazing leaders versus good leaders is they know where to put their time and energy to get maximum impact. We have we have five key high performance differentiators and and value and impact are two of them because that that ability to say I've got 300 fires to put out today, but I'm going to work on the three that are going to make the biggest difference to the bigger picture and the long term.
00;23;37;18 - 00;24;06;16
Unknown
Yeah, that is just a core skill you need to work on and that's one of the things we kind of focus our people on. So something else you said and I'd love to go back if we may, was the idea of rest and we call it downtime in my book. But essentially it's the idea of switching off a little bit and it's probably worth talking about that in terms of resilience as well, because you you bring up this great point that we all go, go, go all the time and you'll probably know this as well.
00;24;06;16 - 00;24;28;17
Unknown
In our brains, we have two separate networks. I like to sell to two different TV channels, and you can only watch one TV channel at any one time. So when one turns on, the other one turns off. And those two TV channels are fast processing network and our default mode network, in simple terms, it's kind of our executive function versus our daydreaming function.
00;24;28;20 - 00;25;06;05
Unknown
And so when we're in executive functioning, daydreaming is off. When we're in daydreaming, executive is off, and too many of us don't access our daydreaming function because we're even when we're not working, we're still checking text, doing emails, watching TV on an iPad, multi screening. And, you know, it's we miss those core moments that happen when you're meditating, reflecting, journaling, when you're washing the dishes, when you're having a shower, you're walking the dog, being creative.
00;25;06;08 - 00;25;31;25
Unknown
And that daydreaming function has this incredible effect. And when the daydreaming function TV channel is on, it's like the janitorial staff go into to the executive function part of your brain and start doing some cleaning. They clean up the mess, they file everything away, they organize everything. So when you come back to work the next morning, the office is tidy, Things have been sorted out for you, but if you're constantly go, go, go.
00;25;31;25 - 00;25;56;03
Unknown
You know you're working till 11:00 at night, 12:00 at night, you're not sleeping. You're using substances, whether it's alcohol, drugs, tranquilizers, sleeping pills to help you get through. You're using stimulants in the morning. Janitorial stuff never gets activated. And so you're constantly coming in the morning to a filthy, dirty office with stuff everywhere, disorganized, in disarray. And then you're expected to perform and function.
00;25;56;05 - 00;26;24;03
Unknown
So the ability to be resilient and to have to be a high performer requires you to consciously activate your daydreaming TV channel on occasion and every day, ideally, and there's heaps of research we could go into about this, but essentially what we see is that you can get a sort of 15 to 20% performance improvement just by going home at 5:00 every day and not working anymore.
00;26;24;05 - 00;26;49;12
Unknown
You can have massive improvements in the way you adapt to your hobbies and your time off to be what we call creative creatively versus consumptive. Lay down timing. And you talked about this before. I just think it's so I think it's an important point to bring out because there are so many people that just go, go, go, and they think they're highly productive, but actually they're unproductive because they're coming back to work and the janitorial staff haven't been in to clear up.
00;26;49;14 - 00;27;18;20
Unknown
Yeah, no, I love how you explain that and the science behind it. I, I actually I didn't. I knew that, but I didn't know it on that level and. Yeah, that's that's incredible. I'm glad you shared that. That's amazing. Well, for my chronically stressed people out there that are listening that might have an autoimmune condition or they recovering from burnout, you've explained, you know, some tips on, you know, three cool things that you should do every day to be productive.
00;27;18;22 - 00;27;47;02
Unknown
But I'm also interested in the common friction points that people may not realize that might be draining their energy. Let's go back to those five differentiations again. And one of the one of the core. But I thought we use two of them. First one is purpose. This is such an interesting concept because if I was to ask you, why were you put on this planet?
00;27;47;04 - 00;28;06;17
Unknown
What difference are you here to make? Most people, more than 80% of people in our workshops struggled to answer that question really clearly. They don't know why they're here. They just kind of drifted into this job because it was the promotion or pay rise in the previous job, and they don't really know what difference they had to make apart from maybe helping people.
00;28;06;20 - 00;28;35;26
Unknown
Everybody's going to get something about helping people. So when you have a lack of purpose in your personal life, in your individual, in your sense of soul and core. Yeah, it's it's kind of like being a boat without a rudder or a sail. You're just a victim of the tides and the winds. And so where the boss takes you is where you go, and that causes you to end up in all sorts of trouble and places that you necessarily didn't want to be true.
00;28;35;28 - 00;29;16;06
Unknown
So having a lack of purpose is is key. And the first chapter of my book is all about purpose. But it's we try and line up this almost like drawing a thread or pulling a needle and thread through individual purpose, then translating that into the purpose of my role. So what's my role here? To do an absolute clarity and granularity on what my role is here for the things I'm meant to be delivering, what I've got authority to decide on and not decide on were what latitude I've got to make decisions and what education, experience and exposure I'm going to get from the people around me to help me develop and grow in this role.
00;29;16;06 - 00;29;36;23
Unknown
I'm who I go to for support, and we teach a framework that allows people to to achieve this, this purpose in their role and to give purpose to those around them. And what we find is that boosts trust, alignment, clarity and and a whole lot of other things. Then we try and translate that into purpose of t So why is this team here?
00;29;36;23 - 00;29;56;13
Unknown
And what we see is we start to shift from individual purpose and role burst. Purpose is all about identity and team purpose and subsequently organizational purpose is all about impact. So people identify with who they are and what they are and what they do. And a perfect example, when you go meet somebody new, you ask what they do because people's identity is based on what they do.
00;29;56;13 - 00;30;18;01
Unknown
And I know it's how I see people with the exact thing. I said, you are a high performance leader and coach. Yeah, and I'm so many more things. And now I'm a dad and I'm a scuba diver and I'm a wine lover and all these other things. But we start with everybody starts with their job and then this impact thing is we like to feel like we're making a difference in the world.
00;30;18;04 - 00;30;44;02
Unknown
So and the reason been a bit of a roundabout answer to your question, but the reason I go into that first and that purpose thing is what we know is that we are basically giant electromagnets. You know, there's electrical signals all over us and you know, if you could look at us with a different type of lens, we'd be like a giant radio antenna beaming our RF energy that we just can't see right now.
00;30;44;04 - 00;31;05;12
Unknown
But we've got infrared energy, we've got electrical energy, we've got radio frequencies, all these things inside us. And when you have purpose, it's like tuning the radio and focusing the beam to the thing that you're working on. And what we see is when people are tuned, they're clear on what they should be doing, they clear on their purpose, they're clear on their goals, the clear and their objectives.
00;31;05;14 - 00;31;32;28
Unknown
And they're clear on the the thing they're working towards. That's making a big difference. We see all of the stress hormones drop. We saw see all of the neurochemicals that cause stress and depression and anxiety drop. We see burnout levels drop and people with autoimmune conditions. I'm not saying this is like a magic bullet cure, but we see a reduction in the symptoms of a reduction in the causes of some of the symptoms of autoimmunity.
00;31;32;28 - 00;32;00;26
Unknown
These is we see blood markers change, we see kidney conditions change, we see hormonal levels shift and it's just from like, say, tuning and focusing the radio waves that are inside our body by getting clear on purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100% agree with you. And I love the Yeah, because by the way, I work with my clients is helping them to identify the inner conflicts that's causing that stress response.
00;32;00;29 - 00;32;33;03
Unknown
But what you've just said is so positive, it's also about aligning with your purpose and, and, and knowing what your purposes is a journey within itself. It also requires self-belief and and confidence to be able to believe that you're worthy of working in a role and finding something that is of purpose. But when you do find it and I'm so grateful that I did, you know, 15 years ago when I studied kinesiology and, you know, that's essentially you just describe kinesiology, the electromagnetics of that, you can't really see in the body.
00;32;33;03 - 00;32;50;03
Unknown
Well, kinesiology is a tool that helps you to tap into that, you know, from, you know, from the top of your head to through all your organs and fascia and all structural and biochemical and emotional aspects of the body. Back in the day, they used to, you know, in caveman days to release trauma, beating the chest and chanting.
00;32;50;05 - 00;33;17;11
Unknown
So we release trauma in the body, but we also hold wisdom in the body as well as the energy helps to open the chakras and to get all the information of, in my solar plexus. I'm really working through some life lessons here. Self identity, trust, confidence, joy, your ability to hold that space. So yeah, finding purpose and, and integrating that into your role helps what feels amazing.
00;33;17;11 - 00;33;40;12
Unknown
But of course I can see how the science behind how it reduces burnout and the stress response. Yeah and it obviously has a commercial impact as well, which is what makes it worthwhile doing. And in terms of my, my profession. But, you know, I think it's one of the things I've discovered as I've as you know, I've moved through these stages in my career, is this connection between energy and performance.
00;33;40;15 - 00;34;12;17
Unknown
Yes. And and I mean, kind of the electromagnetic energy that's inside is the light that's inside us all and how that can be channeled and tuned and focused to create incredible commercial performance outcomes. And, you know, I used to be a scientist and very literal, and now I've become a bit more woo and, and energy focused. And it's that there's a really powerful combination of being able to navigate those two different worlds and leverage each for the benefit of the other.
00;34;12;20 - 00;34;46;15
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. So you've got a book, Escape The Multitasking Trap, and it challenges how we think about productivity. And so for someone managing autoimmune symptoms or chronic stress where everything typically feels urgent, what's your advice about prioritization? Yeah, this is such a great question. Probably. I mean, the simple and flippant answer would be just stop multitasking because it doesn't help you or others.
00;34;46;18 - 00;35;02;24
Unknown
But if I go into that a bit more detail, the book was written, it's just it's a very short book is only kind of 45 pages long. And it was written off the back of a piece of work I did with the CEO of an organization, and he was Mr. Multi-tasking and he thought he was great at it and he thought it was really helpful to get lots of things done.
00;35;02;26 - 00;35;43;11
Unknown
And what we tend to see as you move up the leadership ladder is that you are challenged by three different types of switching. The first one that we see is what we call altitude switching. So this is the move between being strategic, sitting around the leadership table or doing strategy for the three years ahead and planning with the board to being in a 1 to 1 with a member of your team talking about the fact they were late to work and then going into a regional planning meeting and then coming back because somebody is feeling a bit sick and then going in to brief the board on the new funding model and then coming back
00;35;43;11 - 00;36;19;18
Unknown
to do a one on one with the memory team. And it's this is altitude switching is exhausting. So we've identified that as a source of stress. And essentially what happens when you're moving strategic operational, strategic, operational, strategic, tactical, strategic, tactical is, is a cognitive cost. And we certainly see that you burn more sugar in your brain, so therefore it's more byproducts, but there's also neurochemical and biological markers in blood and lymph that we see that are triggered from this constant stress of switching.
00;36;19;21 - 00;36;40;03
Unknown
So that that's really interesting. Yeah, it is. The second one that we see is what you would probably think of as traditionally as task switching. So this is I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm spinning lots of plates and juggling lots of balls at the same time. And what happens when we do that is we're not actually doing that at all.
00;36;40;06 - 00;36;59;16
Unknown
When you were when you were younger, I'm probably going to show our age here to the listeners. But when you when I was younger, I used to have one of those double decker type machines. yes. And you couldn't be president. And so what I would do is I make my own mix tapes and I thought I was being really cool deejay Essentially what you do is you you press record on one and you press play on the other one.
00;36;59;16 - 00;37;14;09
Unknown
And then at some point you've got to quickly press stop, take the tape out, turn it round, put it back in, press play again, and to keep the mics going. And and this is this is essentially what multitasking is for most people is pressing. Stop taking the cassette out, putting in the cassettes in, closing the door, pressing play.
00;37;14;12 - 00;37;44;09
Unknown
And and you do that hundreds and hundreds of times a day and every single one of those has a cognitive cost. It's slower. And the the very simple example I could give you this is can you can you count back from 26 to 24 May 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 22 okay. Can you now say the letters to S in order A, B, c, D, e, f, okay.
00;37;44;13 - 00;38;25;16
Unknown
Now can you count back from 26 and intersperse those with saying ABCDE s going forwards? 26 A 25 B 24 say I'm finding it difficult right. Okay. So, so two very simple times like that when you back when you did what we call batching, it was really easy, right? You just went back. But when you had to do the swap swap switching and it wasn't a very hard task, but you were like, okay, stop, think, act, stop, think, act was and energy used to go on.
00;38;25;17 - 00;38;56;17
Unknown
You said announcement. Okay. Yeah. And this is what we're doing all day, right? So again, the biomarkers are there to see that there's a massive cognitive strain and you combine that with being constantly in the executive TV channel and not in the daydreaming channel. And you can see the consequences. Yeah. The third challenge that we see in switching is what we call functional switching, which is moving between being a member of a leadership team and running a team and where do I put my energy?
00;38;56;17 - 00;39;35;29
Unknown
And your priorities are different. Your requirements on you are different. The character you play is different. One, you're a team member, one you're a leader. And so this again creates strain. Now, the reason I talk about these three different switches is when we see people who are multitasking, often they're doing all of those at the same time and each of them has the has a cognitive consequence, a biological consequence, a neurochemical consequence, and most importantly, a performance consequence, whether it's the performance of the way your body works or the results that you're creating commercially and so the reason I wrote the book and the book was written quite early in this research, so it's more
00;39;35;29 - 00;40;03;16
Unknown
about Michael's story and how he stopped doing this, but what he noticed when he stopped multitasking, when he stopped switching all the time and started batching more so he'd have a day on his team, have a day with the leadership team. He would do tasks in batches. Is it created more energy for him, more clarity for him, but also created more clarity for the team because he wasn't dipping into dipping out of things.
00;40;03;16 - 00;40;23;14
Unknown
He'd actually say, Let's have a focus day on this and solve that one thing. So people became clear on what was the priority for the day. Today's a workshop or a session or a meeting on just this one thing to get it finished, and when we finished it will move on. Yeah, and it sounds easy to say, and there's probably lots of people listening thinking, Well, that's easy to say, but how am I can actually do that?
00;40;23;14 - 00;40;48;21
Unknown
Because the reality of my life is that it's chaos all the time. But unless you start doing something, nothing will change. So what we teach is the 1% rule. Where can you find a 1% shift in the way you're managing your multitask scheme and just shift it and then tomorrow find another 1%, and then tomorrow if I add another 1% and over time you'll see this massive shift in the way you operate.
00;40;48;23 - 00;41;02;00
Unknown
But it feels very hard to say, I'm not going to multitask anymore because of the people who are in charge of my diary or other people put meetings in my diary and I've got the other things that I'm responsible for and I've got a family and I've got other things I've got to be involved in to start small.
00;41;02;04 - 00;41;26;18
Unknown
And this is the thing when you're in burnout, you in politics overload when you're in recovery is start small. Look and think with your diary, with your journal for 15 minutes. What's the smallest thing I can do that will have the biggest impact? Yeah, the most important thing. Everything else will still be there tomorrow to be fixed. That's okay.
00;41;26;20 - 00;41;45;24
Unknown
But just start working on the very smallest thing and it could be like one step in the right direction. One meeting. You don't you don't say yes to one commitment. You don't put on yourself one time. You don't beat yourself up because you say no to somebody. Yeah, those very small steps all start to compound effect over time.
00;41;45;24 - 00;42;08;08
Unknown
So, you know, you see this exponential curve over the course of a year. Yeah. Now that's great ideas at all in my diary, which might help people listening and you've just explained why stacking is is actually beneficial where for example after this podcast I'm going straight into another one and you just, you know, so I keep all that stacked.
00;42;08;10 - 00;42;41;06
Unknown
But then also for the rest of the week, the most important things, my repetitive work tasks are in my diary as are all of my lunches, all of my really important personal, you know, exercise, you know, all personal appointments, and then everything else is then, you know, in between. But if you've got your skeleton in there and you try and stack your task like I'm really good very early in the morning, very early, like I get up at sometimes early than 5:00.
00;42;41;08 - 00;43;08;23
Unknown
But my most creative and, you know, focused work where I really need to sit down for a good 5 hours in a row to get a deeper work task done. I'll do that then, or I'll stack a much podcast. So by the sounds of it, I'm doing the right thing, but you're probably far more organized. And to be honest, it's just quite I mean, if we organize our diaries in the way that we, you know, we're in charge, we can design our lives, then all the chaos can sort of fit around that.
00;43;08;23 - 00;43;40;06
Unknown
But at least the core of our mental health, our physical health and our important work tasks are stacked. You know, you're you're really going to be ahead of the game. Yeah, I love that idea. We teach something very similar is that plan your day and plan your day around your energy, not your time. So tackling the hard tasks when you're clear and agile, leaving the administrative tasks or the basic tasks till you've got a little bit less energy, when you're more creative, when you're less creative, and putting in deep work windows exactly the same.
00;43;40;06 - 00;44;15;19
Unknown
So I need we allocate to 90 minute or 360 minute deep work tasks before you even turn your emails on, get that important thing done. So it's done for the week. Yeah, I love that. I've got one more question for you. Shoot. And it's brief because I know we have to go soon, but if someone listening is feeling overwhelmed right now with my work or health challenges or just life, what's one piece of operational friction they should eliminate today to create some energy and clarity?
00;44;15;22 - 00;44;45;27
Unknown
It's interesting, you know, when when you feel out of control, everything feels out of control. And so the first piece of friction that we we talk about that you can control is asking for or giving help with a mnemonic called Heart and the Age of Heart sounds for help. And what that means is if you're feeling really overloaded, go find somebody to talk to because a problem shared is a problem halved.
00;44;46;00 - 00;45;11;18
Unknown
You get a second perspective, you get a sounding board, and often when you're in the middle of it, you can't see it. We all find this, you know, it was very easy to coach somebody on their on their problems, but it's very difficult to deal with your own. So asking for some help. The other beautiful piece of help that we discovered kind of later was giving help is a great way to get clarity.
00;45;11;18 - 00;45;36;17
Unknown
And I don't know if you my wife is obsessed with Hallmark movies. And one of the beautiful things that happens in nearly every Hallmark movie is there's a Christmas fair and nobody goes along to help the whole village clubs around and gives. And then normally a village that's struggling because something's in a closed down or, you know, if you've seen a Hallmark movie, but there's this beautiful neurochemical pattern that happens when you're giving help to people.
00;45;36;17 - 00;46;03;09
Unknown
So when you're volunteering at something, when you're being charitable, when you're helping somebody else walk the dog, when you're helping a child learn, it creates this incredible oxytocin response, which is the sort of the connecting and loving chemical. It also creates a beautiful dopamine and serotonin response, which is the happy chemicals in the brain. And so when you're feeling kind of really overwhelmed, who can I help?
00;46;03;11 - 00;46;25;13
Unknown
What could I do to support somebody else? And it just makes my problems feel a little bit less and it gives you a feeling of control or that you're doing something that will help people. There are lots of others that we could talk about, but I kind of really like that one because it feels nice as well. Yeah, and it's good that we're talking about it because usually when we're stressed, we, we can become very self focused from being stressed out and to remember to have something in place.
00;46;25;13 - 00;46;46;17
Unknown
Maybe it's somewhere where you volunteer or you, you know, you go and help people. Maybe in like minded industries where you're just you're there to support younger people, where it's instead of also locked in the diary. And it can remember remind you life's okay. Even when you go through big challenges at work or in your life, that you get some perspective, but you're also helping.
00;46;46;20 - 00;47;12;23
Unknown
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's so true. I had a a few meetings yesterday in, in New Zealand and the job market in New Zealand is very, is very tough right now. And so there's lots of people who are out of work who are looking for jobs. And yeah, people are asking for advice. And my immediate response was, well, who can you connect with other people who are networking and try and introduce people so they can make new connections, make new relationships and possibly find work and that again, it's just tuning the energetic tuning fork, right?
00;47;12;23 - 00;47;34;21
Unknown
So you're focusing your electro magnetic energy in a positive way. Yeah, but that has a resonant effect into the world around you and nine times out of ten, you know, when you start helping people help comes to you. Absolutely. I love that. Let's end on that because that's beautiful to me. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you today and to have you on the podcast and sharing your expertise.
00;47;34;21 - 00;47;58;06
Unknown
Thank you for what you do in the world. Thanks, Amanda. I really appreciate the opportunity and I'm glad it was useful. I will share all of your links of your podcast and your books and your website in the show notes and yeah, thank you again, Jimmy. Welcome. Thank you for joining us on the Ben Like Bamboo Resilience Podcast.
00;47;58;09 - 00;48;26;15
Unknown
I hope today's conversation inspired you and if this resonated with you, please write, follow and share it with someone who needs to hear this episode. If you would like to go deeper with me, whether you're leading through burn out, navigating health challenges or rebuilding after setbacks, I'd be honored to support you. Head to Ben like bamboo dot com to explore our program aims, check out my new book or book a free discovery chat.
00;48;26;18 - 00;48;33;05
Unknown
Trust your ability to bend and flow with life. I'll catch you with the next episode.