[00:00:00] Dan: Hello, and welcome back to we, not me, the podcast where we explore, how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Paley. And how are you? 

[00:00:16] Dan: Tooling along. Very nice, but it's in it's our last episode of season one.

[00:00:20] Pia: I know I'm feeling a little bit I'm grieving. I know I've been enjoying this, this little weekly conversations that we've been having and, um, yeah, it's been a very enjoyable and insightful experience.

[00:00:35] Dan: Yes. And on the backdrop of a, um, of a, of a tumultuous year for everyone, I think, um, it's been an interesting time, a useful time. I hope to launch a podcast all about we, not me.

[00:00:47] Pia: I do. I hope so. I hope so. And you know, it was unbeknownst to this year and everything that it's taught us. I was given a book called humankind by Richard Bregman and, um, and sent a copy to you. And that I think has probably nourished us over the, over this year, given us insight and yeah, really interesting.

[00:01:11] Dan: I, you know, I'm not sure if our listeners have read it, of course, but I'm definitely strongly recommended, but he, um, you know, it's called, um, your hopeful history and I, he debunks a lot of myths about how we view each. And, uh, we have a lot of these stories.

[00:01:28] We tell each other some backed by experiments B debunks, them and talks about how actually we are kind to each other. And what really jumped out for me is very, very serious research, very well researched solid book, but he amused me that he, he opens his epilogue with, um, by talking about the film love, actually. Um, and, um, and I, I'm just going to read the quote now, Richard w from Richard Curtis, the, the writer and director.

[00:01:53] If you make a film about a man kidnapping, a woman and changing, or to a radiator for five years, something has happened probably once in history. It's called searingly realistic analysis of society. If I make a film like love, actually, which is about people falling in love, and there are about a million people falling in love in Britain today, it's called a sentimental presentation of an unrealistic.

[00:02:14] You know, that really hit me when I read it to think. Yeah. You know, we tell these terrible stories about ourselves in reality, you know, and this is going to sound cheesy, but love is all around peer. You know what I'm saying?

[00:02:25] Pia: Oh, it is. I mean, we could just break out into a bit of a junior, but, but we'll say people for that terrible thing. Um, but it is interesting because quite often we're working with teams and we talk about this, people think, oh gosh, you're going to be sentimental. However, and I hadn't experienced this today.

[00:02:46] It's where the team leans in. It's what we are all craving. And we just need to understand, I think a bit of the newer science that sits behind that and how things work. So none better than Jillian Coots, who is incredibly well-versed in this understands the brain understands research and understands resilience.

[00:03:08] And kindness and mindfulness. So she desperately tried to teach me how to meditate, which I'm afraid she did fail, but all the rest of it, she is absolutely awesome. So let's head over and, um, and hear what she's got to say.

[00:03:23] Gillian. So lovely to have you on this last of season one. How are you?

[00:03:34] Gillian: I really well, thank you. I'm currently sitting here in lightening Ridge, which if anyone's listening and getting out a map of Australia, it's kind of up towards the Queensland border about halfway across New South Wales, surrounded by piles of dirt and fossicking Opal miners.

[00:03:51] Pia: Great. Well, far far-flung from where I'm sitting on the floor in my son's bedroom with no furniture, but, but currently posting from Ninjago, which is his favorite book. So just tell us, we've had some great experiences of working together, but tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

[00:04:09] Gillian: So we, their country director in Australia for potential project and we do a leadership development and team development around. Basically looking at the way our minds work and very specifically around the neuroscience.

[00:04:25] And then how do you develop new neural pathways and train your mind to be able to be calm, clear, and more resilient, more, more wise, God forbid in challenging situations and uncertainty. So it's been a really, it's been a wild ride over the last 18 months as we've had to completely pivot our organization from in-person. To online conversations and delivery, but it's a great, quite a love working with leaders and, and their people. Humans are great.

[00:04:58] Pia: What a big, a big 18 months or nearly two years, it's not been for all of us. So in the work that you do, what's that experience been like for you? 

[00:05:06] Gillian: I think my biggest learning at the start was it would kind of end up teaching what we most need to learn. Right. So my very first experience of the pandemic, when it, when it hit back in March, 2020, um, was I was in the middle of a, um, actually ironically, an online. With a travel company. And it was right in the middle of when Scott Morrison announced that they were closing the borders of Australia.

[00:05:32] And so this radically, like this meant that this company was going to be radically affected by that. And I've met major shareholders, all sorts of things, so publicly listed. And so one by one people started dropping off the call and I'm like, oh, this, this isn't good. And I'm being calm and I'm being inclusive and all of those things.

[00:05:50] But by the end of that day, I'd realized. All of the work that we had planned was going to be canceled. And you know, that that's, I'm the primary breadwinner for our family. And there was nothing going to be coming inside. I did what all good resilience, uh, facilitators would do. And I promptly got a migraine and ended up in hospital late.

[00:06:11] I totally lost it. And, um, and I was lying in bed in the hospital while all of the machines are beeping and I needed to be hired. And, um, and I'm thinking, oh my God, who am I, if I can't even last week, 24 hours into a crisis, know what is this? And the, and the, and the irony of the was the next day I actually had to, to deliver another online session about resilience. I'm just kicking myself going. You are such a shame.

[00:06:39] Dan: There's no situation that can't be made worse by our own self criticism. Is there just, just lay in, just lay in, stick the boot in. Go on.

[00:06:47] Gillian: Go for it. And I think that was that, that was where the training did kicking in. So, because I suddenly went, wow, look at that. I'm in a really chunking situation and I'm just making it a hell of a lot worse. What will happen, will happen. And then let's see what happens next. And of course I eventually recovered and got up and did the resilience session. Of course told the story about that. Everyone laughed and we got on with it. So it was like this, but the biggest insight for me in that was I think I, while I knew that resilience wasn't just about being bullet proof. I think I still held in the vestige of myself as a recovering perfectionist that resilience really is being Bulletproof of never falling over of never having a problem.

[00:07:29] Pia: and it just turns up in different disguises at different points of your life. As you say,

[00:07:34] Gillian: Oh, it's bullshit. Right? We all, we all completely fall over and, and it's your ability to get up again and your ability and it makes us human. And in fact, our ability to share that humanity is what enables the deeper potential, the vulnerability, the risks, all of that sort of stuff. I think that that same I've seen play out again and again and again, over the last 18 months has been amazing. 

[00:07:58] Pia: Given that we're all about we, not me. How did you pivot that last and think, you know, how am I, how am I going to contribute maybe on a community sense or a group sense, particularly when, when our businesses are impacted, it's easy to go into a shell. Isn't it? 

[00:08:13] Gillian: totally. I can remember sitting in the backyard after that. So it was then the weekend, the Sunday after the Wednesday of the Scott Morrison border closing announcement. And I'm sitting back yard going right. So, if I'm looking to earn any money for the next couple of, you know, at least we thought six months at that point, right?

[00:08:30] I'm like, well, what could I do? And I think the biggest thing for me was, if I focus on myself, I'm going to go nuts. So how's everyone else going in this. And so just in a simple community level, there's 120 houses in Australia. I wonder how they're all going. I wonder how they're feeling.

[00:08:48] And I was alone. Yeah, 1200 kilometers away from my parents. So as like, well, I'd want someone to reach out to my parents and, and then fact I did. Um, but so we put together a bunch of flyers and it was like, right. I mean, I printed them out. I'm not going to deliver them around the street. This is my Sunday morning activity. And in my head, I'm like, oh man, I'm still not entirely recovered from being in hospital. I wonder if someone could help. So I put out a little note, we had a WhatsApp group for our I'm straight, but out a little note and said, can anyone help me deliver flights? And within five minutes?

[00:09:22] Yeah. I think it was six families that came forward and said, yeah, we'll deliver flyers. This would be great. And so we, we met covertly appropriately distanced in the little park in Australia, and we handed out the flyers and I can't tell you, it gives me goosebumps even to talk about it. Now that the look on people's faces as they were coming towards me to get that almost makes them cry. This and the conversations without having the family cause they were making meaning of the situation as they walked towards me. I could hear them saying, when the proverbial hits the fan, right, we have to look out for each other. This is what we do. This is who we are as humans is how we are as a family.

[00:10:04] And, and it just really made me realize that when you help people help you help people. So there's this bridge I think that was really powerful for me around. Helping. This is what we do. And then, then you couldn't help noticing you saw within organizations when people came together because the whole business had been interrupted, for example. And there was this, like this euphoric phase where everyone was like, man, I'm in, what do we need to do? Like there was some teams that came together in the most extraordinary way at that time and, and communities and all sorts of things that we didn't expect that would happen, that humans started doing for each other, which I thought was amazing.

[00:10:49] Dan: in that story. Thought we, not me, biggest, you thought who could help. And then you gave other people the chance to help and they took up the, they took, took your offer. it sounds so natural and so wonderful. What, what stops us doing this? What gets in the way? It's not always the case and sometimes it takes a disaster like COVID to cook, make this happen.

[00:11:09] Gillian: It's so interesting. Cause then I got really curious about what was it like this feeling of collaboration and connection that we're seeing in teams and seeing in the community? I was like, well, if you could bottle it, what is it? What is that? So I started actually studying and researching, and collecting stories about what was going on. And it was really interesting. Cause I think there was a couple of things that came into it. The first was COVID was like a massive pattern interruption. Right? We we'd got off autopilot. We'd been so busy without. Blah-blah-blah or their everyday lives, that there's something about the pattern interrupt.

[00:11:43] That means that we start to notice other people in a different way, which I think is really interesting. So I think there is, but I think it's partly about the pattern interruption, and interestingly, the disaster research, which I morbidly then got fascinated by it would back up the same thing that 95% of people will move towards a disaster to help rather than run away.

[00:12:03] But, um, it also, it, in a sense it gave. The interruption gave people time. So they were, they weren't, um, commuting in some ways. So there was suddenly this bubble of time and it was almost like, um, what do you know that, uh, was it Apogee that when you get, when you're in flight and that, that it's that moment when a plane goes way up in the sky and there's a moment when everyone becomes weightless as it, then it goes plummeting back to earth. That kind of, ah, there's this point of Apogee. It was like, we were stuck in this moment where everyone was a bit

[00:12:34] Pia: Terrified, I think is actually

[00:12:36] Gillian: Terrified. Repeat the other word. Exactly. But everyone's kind of white lists 

[00:12:40] Pia: yeah. 

[00:12:41] Gillian: and ungrounded and not really knowing what's it all about really unusual situation. I think that's what the space we were in.

[00:12:48] And so that allowed people then to, uh, to, um, Kind of reached out, but there was, I think it's a couple of things that was also came up in the research was inspiration. Makes it be different. So hearing about other people doing stuff, people go, ah, I can do that. Like that's. So there's something about leadership in this time that is about creating examples or pointing to examples that other people can follow.

[00:13:13] That's like a catalyst that then allows people to then step up. But I think the other couple of things that came up was that the idea of. Needing permission, because just as you were saying, Dan, we have this view in our heads that not only other people, aren't that kind, but if I'm kind to them, I'll be like for those in Australia, the Mrs.

[00:13:33] Mangle from neighbors I'll be that knowing neighbor or that nosy team member who nobody actually wants to hear from. Um, and this, I think that's a real issue. We have this view that when like permission is required and COVID somehow gave us permission.

[00:13:50] So one of the really interesting stats that came up during the research was a study that was done by a group called common cause foundation over in the UK. And they had done a survey with south people replicated in other countries and the same results. Keep coming up that in this particular study, 74% of people declared that they had compassionate values.

[00:14:11] So that meant that they would help us. In in need, if they felt confident and competent. What was fascinating to me about this study was that only 23% of that 74% believed that they lived amongst people like themselves. So this there's this gap prior this gap that keeps showing up around, I think I'm kind, but I bet my neighbors aren't.

[00:14:41] And so this I, as he start to, and I really encourage everyone listening to start to notice how often we assume the worst in others, how often we assume ill intent that we assume that people aren't going to be kind and how much that impacts their own behavior.

[00:14:58] Dan: sure. That's got to have a huge impact. So why, why is this? Um, is it what's what's the brain doing to us here, Julian? What's going on in there?

[00:15:06] Gillian: We've spent a long time talking about people need to have more empathy and things like that in, in the world. And I think that's true. Although from a neurological perspective, empathy is the experience of taking. Someone else has experienced through mirror neurons on each side of our prefrontal cortex, we've taken that experience. We run it through our own what they call the pain matrix, the, um, the effective can we, we feel what someone else is feeling and if we feel pain, then we go, oh wow.

[00:15:34] They must be hurting. So that's kind of what empathy is. So there's, um, some great work I called Dr. Paul bloom has done this, um, Big body of research of how that gets in the way actually of us being able to reach out and be kind to each other or help each other because we tend to, um, more easily, well, one, it hurts.

[00:15:56] Like we don't necessarily want to hurt someone else cause that's not very comfortable, but two it's much easier to imagine someone's experience. If they look like. Or I like them. And so empathy, relying on empathy alone is actually a pretty biased tool because it then means that we only really see and empathize with people who are in our interest about that in that we'd like, or that we feel similar to that, but also power different.

[00:16:24] Um, it makes a big difference. So it's hard to empathize with someone in power and as you grow in power and influence you can't, you can't actually empathize with a group of people. We as humans, we can only empathize one-on-one in. That's how the kind of brain works. And so we need to take the experience of someone.

[00:16:48] Amplify or it exemplified across the group. Um, and that's, that's dangerous in leadership, I think because then we miss out on the nuances of what's actually going on for individuals within a group and what actually might be the current cause it's easy to listen to it. You know, then confirmation bias comes in, right.

[00:17:05] I've I've emphasized with one person and they've, they've agreed with me. So therefore I've got the group, like it turns out that's not true. 

[00:17:12] Dan: Yeah. And we were talking last week about diversity, it sounds like, we're slightly rigged against, in bracing diversity, but from, from that research, would that be right?

[00:17:22] Gillian: I think the biggest, like when I talk about the micro mental microskills, cause it's easy to say intellectually. Like I, yes, of course I embrace all people, but when you're, you know, neurologically in the context of difference, what emerges is discussed. So discomfort of, um, someone else's view that's different to yours or someone not being unpredictable because you can't emphasize in the same way, therefore, you can't predict what they're going to do. That is physically uncomfortable for us. We feel uncertain, we feel unsafe. And so a lot of the work we do is actually about helping people. Notice that experience and regulate around it and just go, oh, look at that. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I wonder what'll happen next. But the, the ability, and I know you guys talk about this all the time, the curiosity, the ability to bring curiosity in the context of difference and discomfort is incredibly powerful, really important in teams and keeps us moving towards each other rather than pulling apart

[00:18:23] Pia: And I think it's something that I, we talked about last week too, which was a sort of stopping the process of, of that judgment and making it was the interesting versus interested. And instead of making that judgment, getting curious, cause that's when you actually, you know, you seek to understand and you find actually more commonality and therefore you feel less threatened by the difference that you, that you see in others. And then the humanness kind of, sort of spans across those differences, but it's quite sophisticated. It's sophisticated machinery. When we're under the pressure under the pump, feeling stretched, 

[00:19:06] Gillian: Tired 

[00:19:07] Pia: having our work environment turned upside down and other pressures. So what do we lean on as a, how D how does a team cope with this? So you've, you know, you've got a team and everyone is individuals having an individual experience, but how do you, how do you embrace this as a team? Because it's a different type of conversation I would imagine.

[00:19:27] Gillian: I think that's so true. And I think. Well, I mean, we all know this, the water cooler conversations, the things that we would bump into each other and talk about in the corridor and not the things we talk about in unseen as zoom or a teams meeting. I just made up a new thing that Ziems meeting. They, um, we like, we just, we, um, we're missing the bits that allow, you know, we might see the dog walks through the background or the naked partner or whatever it is. But they're ifferent to be able to say, how am I really feeling here? And I think we've said there's been a lot of conversation over the last 18 months, which has been around, how do we keep the human? Like, how do I know more about where you're at, but I think. It takes like overcoming the discomfort overcoming knowing the way we're wired will keep us in survival mode if we're feeling uncomfortable, is, is this ability to reach out and go, how are you? And you know, it's corny that, are you okay? But it's like the regularly checking in and saying, how are you? How's what what's life like for you? Allowing time for that conversation? And people will say, but I don't have time for that right now.

[00:20:30] Like everyone says, I don't have time for that. I'm so busy. I'm juggling, you know, whether I'm homeschooling or whatever and sorry, it remote learning, I should say, and I S I think we don't have time not to do it because if we don't do it, then everything else takes longer. All of that, you were talking about the stories and the judgments that we can make.

[00:20:51] I think those stories amplify in our heads without, without real data to ground. So, if someone's in a bad mood, we seem that it's a bad-ass because we have a sentence of our known universe and, and we're really good at going, oh my God, I bet they raised their eyebrow because they don't agree with what I just said and I wish I'd just read up more on that presentation, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of which completely distracts you and is unnecessary effort from the point that they just had an ETI. It's just those sorts of things that we do. Our ability to connect helps us track. The signals that we're getting and then, and make wiser choices.

[00:21:28] Pia: So a little bit of sort of last decades thinking was roundabout, the difference between sympathy and empathy, and really sort of not feeling sorry for people, but empathizing and understanding how they, how they feel. But I think, I feel like we have moated into a whole more sophisticated space of this word around compassion, which had a completely different sense for somebody in my sort of graying hairs. Um, and it was something more, it was a sort of, it was a sort of softy not doing anything type feeling, but actually it's a doing, it's a doing thing. Isn't it?

[00:22:09] Gillian: It's so interesting because people often use empathy and compassion as like interchangeably. And I think what's interesting from a neurological perspective is a very different brain functions. So for some of the research definition, empathy is, as I said before, taking in someone's experience through your pain matrix, you know, what they feel.

[00:22:28] Um, and there's this fantastic researcher in Germany, Dr. Tania singer, who's done some amazing work on this, where she would get people in to an FMRI scanner and scan their brains while she shows them pictures of people, dreadfully, suffering like orphans in Romania and stuff. And as she takes great delight in seeing their brains light up in this pain matrix wagon, she's kind of looking at that.

[00:22:50] Um, and, but there was one part of the experiment she was doing. Um, where she got a long-term meditator. So someone who had been training their brain for over 10,000 hours, guy called Maturer card. And she put him in there for my scanner and asked him to empathize. And so she did, he did that, but as she kind of went to do something else, so she was switching the experiment.

[00:23:13] He's an dusk different part of his brain lit up and she's like, well, hang on. What's happened because. Participants in the study. They're like, it's hard to let go of images when you've been suffering. Like when you've seen people suffering. So often we ruminate about things for a long time and things like that.

[00:23:29] So she was noticing that in the scanner, but this guy had something completely different. This guy had a completely different area of his brain light up and she said, well, what the hell are you doing? I should probably didn't say that. But anyway, I can imagine saying that.

[00:23:40] And. 

[00:23:40] Pia: a really good research. You can comment. What are you doing? 

[00:23:43] Gillian: Stop doing that. 

[00:23:46] And he said, well, you've just asked me to empathize. If these people aren't exhausted. So I'm switching to compassion. She goes, well, what's that? She said, well, I'm deliberately connecting with my own intention. My own wish that these people not suffer and that they be happy. And that they'd be well.

[00:24:02] And I, I can't do anything for them right now, but I can offer them my intention that I want them to not. And what Dr. Singer had noticed was that the areas associated with love and reward laid up in their brain. So an entirely different part of the brain in, in is connected with this sense of volitional intention.

[00:24:23] So it's like a research now would say that empathy is an emotion. Like it's, it's actually a shared emotion and that, um, compassion is an intention. So it's something that we intend and it's usually connected with some sort of action. 

[00:24:37] Dan: Wow. And we can, we can make choices around that. 

[00:24:40] Gillian: I think Dan, it starts with awareness, right? So it starts with awareness to recognize that we're empathizing, because I think that. And it's not like, so don't mean to paint, empathy as bad. Cause we, we, we are naturally empathic beings. We can't help, but taking this other people's experience. Um, but as we notice that we're doing it, um, often what can happen is that we can be almost hijacked by someone else's experience.

[00:25:04] I know some elite art during, um, COVID last year had to shut down 90% of her operations. And what she found was she was so overwhelmed. It meant she was going to stand people down. And that was an area that. Bet you weren't able to receive job capable jobs. And so they, um, had this experience where she was so totally overwhelmed by the experience of what these people were going to go through.

[00:25:28] Like just the financial hardship, the relationship hardships. She became completely stuck. I couldn't even come here. And that's not helpful, right? Because in the moment that leader, what people needed was to hear from her that the, that some way or other, they were going to make it through, there was going to be tough times, but they would, she would never give up on them, something like that, but she, What she did was froze.

[00:25:51] And so when we overemphasize that screen, watch what can happen. So as we noticed that we're doing this, that we're taking on someone else's experience, it's almost like if we can stand back from that, just even in a micro second ago. Well, look at the. I'm experiencing someone else's suffering and connect with our intention, that we don't want that person to suffer then a whole different sense of capacity arises in us because then we start to problem solve. We love our brains. Love we could problem solve how, you know, how can I help solve this problem. But I think it's doing it in a way that doesn't over-resourced ourselves, which is really important as well. So self-compassion is also really important.

[00:26:27] Pia: And I think too, going back to that bit about the diversity and you know, we looking for the differences or the similarities sometimes with empathy, where it can go wrong is, is it. Empathize then we think, well, it's not worthy of empathizing, so I'll judge. So we sort of go, we'd take it back roots. And what compassion does is actually just suspend it as a human being and have compassion for people even though they may have different choices, different ways of doing things, to be able to hold that. Otherwise we go into, we going to judge, which means that we just sort of. Undone everything. And then a team that's when, when a team can start form, you know, opinions about other people in the team and then it becomes stories and then we tell ourselves those stories and then, you know, we feel like we've got the reality of it. You can see how it's so momentary, but we've, but it's, but it's important. We catch ourselves falling into that, into that trap

[00:27:29] Gillian: So that the idea of mindfulness is training ourselves to catch ourselves. That's that's what it's all about. Is it like the Pali word for, um, mindfulness is actually remembering, so it's remembering to not get sucked in to the stories that we're telling ourselves. 

[00:27:45] We're labeling all the time. So there's still question is, is the label helpful to you or not? And I want a really good example with the team. We had someone, we were talking about this idea of labeling and did a practice of being awareness where. And someone said, oh, I had this really annoying colleague who kept coming into my head and everyone kind of snickered. Cause they want to hear it was that I didn't know who I was. And um, and so, and he goes, I just realized if I just labeled him knob, he goes away in my head and I don't need to, like, I can, I can feel different from that in my head. I'm going. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. That's an, that is a label. I'm just not sure it's a helpful label. It's a label anyway. And someone else said it's so interesting because I have the same person into my head. And what I do is label them a bundle of anxieties. And it was really interesting because in that moment you could feel the whole group just scope. They kind of dropped a level. Cause it was like, actually now you're naming and then naming causes an inclination towards care, right? Like if someone's a bundle of anxieties, we all know what it feels like to fit, be a bundle of anxieties. I can actually relate to you and you're not nurse doesn't annoy me so much in that moment. Cause I don't label it as nobness.

[00:28:55] Pia: And that's the difference between judging because you don't feel you can have empathy. So you judge, and the difference between that and compassion. So a bundle of nerves, you're having compassion for somebody in that in that state and let's be Frank, everyone has been a bundle of nerves at some point. 

[00:29:13] Dan: And probably a nob as well.

[00:29:15] Gillian: No doubt. 

[00:29:16] Pia: exactly. You know, we just think we, we, we have this belief that we need to be perfect all of the time and we're, and we're not, and nor is humankind. And I think know, leaning into that. And embracing that with a view to what does it say about me? How can we connect? We may not be best friends, but how can we connect

[00:29:38] Dan: Yes, I think that's it. Isn't it. I can see this is how labeling could really block off any compassion, whether that's in the streets, like you started as you started Jillian or in a team or in a, in a community, so, um, Jillian, you know, we've covered so much ground as been, uh, Deep dive into the mind. Um, where can we start? Where can our listener, um, start here to, to, to make some progress and start to, to feel they're making some, some differences as they try to embrace this. We, not me, spirit, we're talking about today?

[00:30:11] Gillian: Well, I think one of the places is to start with yourself. Right? So self-compassion is a thing. Um, and being able to talk to yourself, like you would talk to a good friend so often, like if you're. What would you say to a good friend in a certain situation? And then what would you say to herself to what we'd say to ourselves is horrible.

[00:30:31] And I think just again, using this awareness to go, wow, what do I say that to someone else? No. Okay. Let me back up a bit. Let me, so really kind of dialing this and if anyone's interested to kind of explore that word. Um, world more, the work of Dr. Kristin Neff in the states is amazing around self-compassion.

[00:30:50] So I've learned a lot from her. I think that's the first thing. The second is to make if, if, as much as you can between now and the end of the year, make time to connect with people. Even if it's just five minutes, to be able to say how I, how are you really. How are you and how are you really? That just allows Justa, Elin, not having any agenda for whatever happens in the next five minutes that that sense of really connecting can just diffuse all of the stories, because then we gather data from each other and we can kind of connect pieces that we might've otherwise made up judgments and labels about that we're talking about. And then really getting curious, I think about. The reality is as humans, none of us get out of bed to piss each other off. We really don't like we are, we get out of bed. We just want to be happy. Nobody wants to suffer. We are all the heroes of our own journey. And I think that if you can keep holding that in mind, even in the most annoying conversations, how is this person, the curiosity, how is this person just trying to get their needs met? And can I. Have empathy and calm and compassion for that because I just want to get my needs met too. So if we can just drop some of the, the other blah-blah-blah that goes over the top of all of that, when we're pretending that's not just how things are, then that can be super helpful and actually a hell of a lot less effort and a hell of a lot more, what I think is really interesting as well is when we come from that place of, I wonder what's going on for this person? Courage is another interestingly. Complex system courage arises and with courage teams can do anything.

[00:32:29] Dan: Well, that's a great way to wrap up. Isn't it. What could be better than that? Uh, Jillian, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure and I think that you have inspired us all. I hope at the end of this, um, of a trying year for the whole planet and, uh, just giving us some lovely, reflective points as we go into this next holiday season and a time for reflection. So thank you so much for joining us today from lightning ridge. 

[00:32:56] Gillian: So I love it. Thank you.

[00:32:58] Pia: Do you know, the, the best part of this year is that I have worked with many, many teams debriefing Squadify and I've really wondered as it taken a pandemic and lockdown to make us really. Appreciate each other and the value of teamwork, you know, I have never heard a team say, well, this has been great.

[00:33:27] You know, I've got, I didn't, I didn't like doing out for coffee with people. I didn't like having lunches or, you know, got that. Got, I don't have to go into the office. People have really missed one. Another really missed one another and that human connection. It has, I think has really become sharpened and focused and, and we can, we can find a medium of being able to work in the way that is flexible and manage that, but actually probably appreciate each other a little bit more. And the relationships that we have. 

[00:34:01] Dan: It's so true. And I do think there are ways of, um, we can get better at doing that virtually, but we are, we're built to connect aren't we, and, and I think the, um, you know, working in teams, you know, why do you even get into a team? Or one of the things we've talked about a lot is actually about diversity or difference, you know, to, to use it sort of, to use a more simple word in a way, but we are, we want to get together in these little groups. In order to take different views on problems to water here in order here, different things. So you're inevitably going to be working with difference. And it's so important not to sort of allow some, some, some of our emotions to be triggered by that, but I actually really enjoy that. Enjoy that diversity, that difference in others and work with it. And, and that Jillian's comments really reinforced it for me. And I've seen teams blow apart because of difference, but others cohere bring those differences together into something amazing. And that is actually a choice that we make every day.

[00:35:00] Pia: And I think that was where Jillian really sort of made that distinction around empathy and compassion. And, and I think compassion is something that really challenges us because it is intent. It's an action orientated. It's it's. Acts of kindness. It's, it's, it's a, it's a way that we relate rather than, than a sort of static emotion that you may have, which is an important part, but it's actually showing somebody that you care and actually showing that intent, which is a different, a different element and really thinking then, you may not necessarily agree with the other person, but you can still have compassion. 

[00:35:41] Dan: And I, I love that idea that it's not the end point, isn't empathy go on to the next point of intent and it changes the way your brain is actually reacting to that situation. And, um, it's a wonderful place to find us as we go into the festive season, um, to find us in that position where we can really think about how we can be compassionate and, and do some things for others of this lovely time of the year. So, um, very exciting opportunity and a real love actually note on which to do NPR. I think.

[00:36:10] So that is it for this episode. And for this season, we'll be back on the 14th of January with season two, with loads of fabulous new guests from researchers to people working on the front line, all across the world. You can find notes and resources at Squadify dot net. Just click on the we, not me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends were not me. It's produced by Mark Steadman of origin, FM. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:36:41] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.