Rethink Your Workforce: From Pandemic Chaos To Thriving Culture With Niki Avraam

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another Change Proof podcast episode. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and today I have a wonderful guest, an amazing woman. Her name is Nikki Avram. She stands at the forefront of a transformative movement in leadership and workplace evolution. A legal entrepreneur with a rich background in employment and discrimination law, Nikki's approach defies convention, challenging the established norms across various industries. Nikki firmly believes that by instilling a sense of ownership in our roles, we become architects of our own careers, steering our organizations toward unprecedented success. You're gonna enjoy this conversation, I know. So sit back and get ready for Nikki Avram. Okay, Nikki. It's fun to listen to somebody else introduce— I think it's fun to listen to somebody else introduce you, read all these things about your life and your past, your accolades, your curriculum vitae, all that fun stuff. You've just heard me do that. I wanna ask you one question. question that I know our audience is dying to know, which is what's something that's not, absolutely not part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you?

Hi, Adam. Thanks for having me and thanks for that intro. But I, yeah, I, I guess this is front of mind because I've spent a lot of time with these ladies recently, but I have had the privilege of being born into this really impressive trio of women. I'm the youngest of 3. So I'm speaking about the sisterhood here and the actual sisterhood. Chief exec is my mum, but that's given me a real gift of, and a sense of camaraderie and resilience.

Hmm.

And I think that is a really understated and undervalued concept or phenomenon because when you have people around you, people in your life that have your back, It gives you this, it gives you this strength. I feel like I've walked through life, maybe not all the time, but I've often felt like I've had an invisible bulletproof vest, which has given me this incredible zest for life and appetite for adventure and for change and for risk-taking. And I think that's very much that, that foundational concept is I know I've got people who've got my back. That's a real gift.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do and it It's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. It's an incredible gift. I was thinking to myself as I'm listening that I should have worn my Got Your Back t-shirt today. You and I, before we started recording, you asked me about the talking tees, the shirts with the messages that I wear frequently. I suppose people haven't seen me in much else because I do wear them a lot.

I love those.

And I'm wearing one that says Change Proof today for those that are not watching this on YouTube. And I think there's some element of Of what it takes to be change-proof, meaning to walk through life the way you just described, almost with this bulletproof vest on, that to me, resilience, or, or I should say, having other people around that support you, people that have your back, really enables that. And it enables you to be change-proof, to experience change in, in all of its ups and downs, and yet somehow not get completely wiped out by it. Am I tracking this? Yes. Yeah?

Yeah. Sorry.

Does that ring true for you? And I wanna follow that up with a question, which is to say, tell me a little bit more about the sisterhood, the concept, the idea that, that you gain resilience and, and that sustain— that ability to be sustainable in it that is as difficult as it is. Because, I mean, there are people listening to this who are doing quite well, of course, and people in some ways having, having a really tough time and probably everything in between. But even the people that are doing quite well know that, that on a good day, life, business, et cetera, the world is difficult. And on the best of days, it's challenging, especially if you're sensitive, if you feel, and if you're tuned into other people's suffering as well as your own. So I wanna understand at a greater level how it is you've been supported by your sisterhood and, and talk about that in, in the context of resiliency.

I'm, I'm in a space at the moment where I am really reflecting on life lessons and how that can be applied in other arenas. So my Leadership Lessons series, which we can talk about, is all about taking life lessons and applying them to Even work, workforce culture, leadership. And if you just take that simple concept of people having your back, people in your life having your back, and that giving you that energy and that real strength. And you even just look at it in the arena of work, there's lots of celebration around individual achievements and rightly so. But imagine and look at the strength that can be garnered from having a collective support. Even behind the scenes or in front of clients. I've been in meetings— I'm a lawyer, as you said, by background, an employment discrimination lawyer. I've been in meetings where one lawyer tried to outsmart me in the presence of a client. That lawyer didn't have my back, and it would have been so much better for the client and for the firm as a whole if we had gone there with— as a united front and delivered that advice or that message or that case strategy Together as a unit, and we would have felt more together. So that camaraderie and that sense of having each other's back, which I came from day one to work with, I understood it inherently through just growing up. That can lead to great work, that can lead to innovation, that can lead to people feeling that they are safe to explore, to learn, to fail. So it's so— I'm not a fan of referring to your sort of work team as a family. I find it a bit cringey. or even disingenuous at times, but there's no reason why you can't communicate that familial sense of, I don't know, trust and support.

I agree.

By working elsewhere. So,

yeah. I don't think that's cheesy at all, that, that when you work with people, that, that you could feel close to them yet not feel like they're family. I agree. I don't think it's necessary to just for the sake of the culture statement or whatever other kind of organizational development Training or work that the company has paid for, right? That you have to just adopt a fake family because we know that organizations will get rid of their family, and rarely in your life are you able to get actually fire your family.

Actually, sometimes you feel like firing your family, but you can't.

You want to fire them, some of them, but you're stuck with them. That's just the way it is. Oh my God, you're cracking me up. I couldn't agree with you more, and there's so many things you said that I would love to track to. I think in our world we use that term "got your back." a bit. In fact, one of our— one of the things that we do in organizations is work on how it is that you develop a got-your-back culture versus a watch-your-back culture, which is often more— more often the case, right? Where people really do fear that. Yeah. And what you said about that scene, that, that moment in, in a law office or in a conference room, I'm picturing it. You're around a conference table or something, and you're there to, like you say, deliver a unified Message to a client so they feel confident in your services, etc. And you got somebody that's right there next to you that's you know trying to take the glory or be the literally be the smartest. Exactly. I was a lawyer for almost twenty years, so I really do. I can remember it. And

what's interesting is you can't lose that.

Oh no! I that that's seared into my memory and into my body probably as well, like a brand because. The law is in many ways, and I used to practice in the employment space as well.

Oh, really?

I did a number of things, but yeah, no, federal court work in, in the US and very contentious work is because when employment disputes can be really ugly, really aggressive, not your average run-of-the-mill commercial dispute over a contract or something. And, and it, it was definitely that environment. The law is definitely not necessarily one where you can count on people having your back. It's like they describe lawyers or have done so. as sharks because it's a kind of a solitary, in many ways it is a solitary experience that if you're weak, you get eaten and, and nobody wants to get eaten. You've taken yourself out of the day-to-day of it. I pivoted and wrote a book about that some years ago, leaving the law, et cetera. But tell us about that for you. What's that been like getting, moving yourself out of that environment into new things, the kind of things you've been, you've already been talking about?

Yeah, I love that you've written that book about the, those transitions. It's, it's so important. I look at life like chapters of one big continuous story. So my background— I say I speak a lot about smashing conventions, which sounds like anarchy, but it's, it's really about not being bound and shackled by what's come before. And that's really relevant to the legal industry because law is so precedent-based and it has been a traditional industry. So I worked at bigger firms, but I had a very entrepreneurial, unconventional journey through law. Law. So I was building employment and discrimination departments at each firm that I went to, and that meant a rejection of the conventional. I didn't take the jobs that were on the table in commercial law. I put a business plan on the table at each firm because employment and discrimination law was a subcategory of another department. It, it wasn't a sort of big established area. And in collaboration with the firm I had this vision of building that, and it was really about the societal impacts that I thought employment and discrimination was having and could have. But also, I was motivated by that want to work with autonomy and agency in collaboration with the firm and in alignment with the firm's goals and objectives. But I had that want. That sort of want to own, own the work that I was doing and be in charge of how I did things day to day, architect my own job role. And really the ownership culture, which I'm very focused on at the moment, is really derived from that background as well as I've advised businesses for years. And you really get into the bones of the business when you advise them. I've acted for individuals as well, and I've seen that I'm not that unique. In the want to work in that way. And if there are values and pillars that are strong in every organization, then you can afford to work independently because you have those structures. So within that, have that power over what you do day to day. I don't often quote neuroscience because it's not my area of expertise, but I came across a study the other day, or I follow this lady, Tali Sharot. She's written a bunch of books and I can't now remember the name of any of them, but she's brilliant. And she refers to a study not just applicable to work, but the subject of the study was what elicits joy? What do people associate with happiness, with invigoration? And number one was to have meaning and purpose in life. Number 2 was to have control and agency over what you do. I think social connections scored high on the list. Income was relatively low. So that translates across the board in every sphere. And I think it's so important for us to feel invigorated and significant at work. And that's for me a big part of it. And I've seen it in lots of organizations, individuals that I've advised, individuals that I interact with. Most importantly, I felt it. And 10 years ago, I started my own firm, Howard Avram, London-based commercial firm that does everything for clients as a whole, very collaborative. And we sought to change the way we practiced as well as the way we engaged work. But my entrepreneurial journey or my intrapreneurial journey started way before that.

Yeah. I wanna touch on one thing in particular because it feels that in the, in the world we're living in right now, the world of work, let's say, there's been a massive shift. There's been incredible transformation in that. I don't, I really don't try to use that word very much because I think it's overused and, and maybe gets diluted that way. But something has transformed. of it. It literally— the thing that emerges is wholly different than the thing that preceded it, the way a butterfly is entirely a different creature than the caterpillar that it's birthed out of. So I think we've hit a transformation period. We've been in a transformation in the world of work for some time. The pandemic really exponentially sped that up. And now what we're seeing is that The there's an effort on the part of some to try to force the butterfly back into the cocoon, and it's a really and I've never said it that way. So I feel really happy just that the conversation has evolved, and I've gotten some clarity there to for that one thing there because we're struggling with it. The people that we work with, the companies that we support much maybe the way you do as well, they are struggling with this return to the office. The RTO is very controversial, at least as I see it in the organizations we've been a part of. And the controversy, I think, in part flows out of what you just described, which is that there's a basic desire, not in everyone, as you say. If you look at that hierarchy, I'm not referring to Maslow now, but that hierarchy of needs, of people's needs, money is on the— is in there for sure, but maybe it's not at the top and probably not at the top for most. But fulfillment might be there and meaning et cetera. But for sure, this idea of agency and control, I know that's there. And for me, it's at the top of the pyramid. And for someone else, it might be at the bottom of that pyramid.

Yeah.

But the return to office controversy, if you will, I think is really based in the fact that there are— that 2 people, no 2 people are exactly alike. And in bigger subset of humanity, you're gonna find that Many people would prefer to have agency and control over money, or they, or at least it would be higher on the pyramid for them. So when you say to somebody who craves agency and control and have, and they were given it as a result of this thing that showed up out of nowhere and literally cleaned house in a minute, everybody had to work from home, work remotely, figure it all out. And then you tell that person who now has agency and control over how they work, the way you said it earlier, want to work that way, how you would work the way you want, and that you can't any longer, or that it's only a matter of time before we claw you back into the office, back into the cocoon for you. That's a big deal. I think you put your finger on something really important there. When you are talking about something like smashing conventions or ownership culture, I wanna understand If you're advising an organization now on RTO, let's use this as an example, on return to office, what might— how would you approach that? Do you mind if I make you create a fake cult case study for our audience to see what that advice in an advice section here, what would this look like?

Some of this might sound high level, and in some cases I've given concrete advice on that when I've been more involved in the sort of day-to-day with organizations on the lawyering front. But I— so coming out of COVID or even during COVID this talk of return to work and how are we going to do it, what are we going to do, the real practical significance of it. I almost— as we came out of COVID I tired of this whole return to work, what to do, hybrid working, and I wanted to look beyond that. What does it really mean? What are you really getting at when you want to call people back, when you want them to be present Every day. And some of the big boys over there, I think for the purposes of the press and attention, they were like, we're going to go back to the office 5 days a week. All the talk of sort of Elon Musk having ever firing people who weren't there on the day that he strolled around the office. Encouraging organizations to look behind that. What is your culture? What are your values? And what are your principles? Yeah, what are the values that bind people together? What are your actionable principles? And how collaborative are you prepared to be with your workforce before making those more concrete decisions. Because there was a lot of talk about when are we going to get back to normal, organizations and individuals alike. If you— any study of history, what is the point of history? It's to focus on change. It's a study of change. What is the point if you don't learn anything from it? And I feel like before COVID We were already at breaking point. I'm talking globally here. Oh, for sure. It might be a big statement, but I was in our organization. We were trying to work more flexibly, but even working from home like a day or two a week, that was proving controversial with clients and even colleagues were like, we want to be told what we're doing when trying to give everyone that, that autonomy. COVID accelerated that. And I was pleased for that. Because I felt that it needed a big push. And that's the way I've always sought to work, you know, to have that agency and control and instill that. And if we have, I've spoken about values, principles. If you have, if we have number one, the values that bind culture, we're going to make it happen, or the broad high-level stuff that you see in mission statements and vision statements. If we have those. And alongside or just beneath, we have principles, more actionable principles. I don't know if you look again at the big boys, if you look at one of Google's principles, it's what? User first, everything else will follow. So what do you have, right? You have all the great web-based products. You've got, you know, for free Gmail, now Google Docs, Search, Maps. That's arisen from that. Principle. And if I refer to Elon Musk before, really what was behind him welcoming back Trump with open arms as opposed to his predecessor, uh, Dorsey and Co., he— the focus there, the principle was to grow subscription engagement, right? So of course there wasn't going to be as much censorship as before. But you know, that's aside from whatever direction his political alliances are going towards. So having those strong principles and those values are what's important. And then you figure out the practices that follow. Sure, we can see the advantages from building community and building that culture that can be assisted by face-to-face, going to the office, spending time with each other, or you build structures around it, have more team meetings, have more socials together, have more wellbeing meetings. The company should be free. I don't have any strict views on whether or not to return to work full-time, hybrid. Every organization gets to decide and hopefully do that collaboratively with the team members.

I love what you say about collaboration. That really rings true for me. And again, in thinking about how we advise on that question, I think it's really important. You're right that things have to flow in the logical sequence. That is one of the, one of the things that's embedded in me from, from my practice of law that I don't wish to get rid of. I'm a logical person, in part because I was trained to, to look at things looking for the logic, looking for the if this, then that construct. It makes sense that, that in thinking about how you would address return to office or return to work as a matter of principle, it would flow out of the values. It would flow out of what the company's culture is really all about. And obviously, every company is different. They work differently. There's different needs. I know that there's an element of mentorship that's missing. I just know it in my bones, especially working, getting the privilege to work inside organizations through our company WorkWell, that we get embedded because they're looking to raise their engagement among their employees there. They're looking to increase well-being, etcetera. So we get a front row seat to see what's going on, the good, the bad, and often—

The ugly.

And often— but the truth is that if, if the culture itself is not one of collaboration. If the culture itself is rigid in its approach, it will have more difficulty in finding the right harmony of, of ways to work. Because as we've said, everybody has a different sort of feeling about that. And it's— and you cannot accommodate— if you've got 10,000 employees, you can have 10,000 different ways to work for people. But I don't think it's— it really is like that. I think there's just an element of If your collaboration is truly valued by the organization, you will find ways to collaborate. And inside organizations, mentorship is needed. I know in my bones that mentorship is missing in places where people are remote and they're not getting contact. Their only contact is through 13-inch laptop screen or what have you. And they're missing something, especially younger people that maybe haven't had a lot of mentorship in the past. And so They don't yet know how that might impact their career path. They don't know how it'll impact their career development, meaning the development of their skill set, because it's not something that they ever had to begin with. Those that were hired during the pandemic or since the pandemic just may not be getting that. But being in the office and being in the, in the next, in, in the, in, in a room together is not the only way that you can provide mentorship. It is not the only way that you can effectively collaborate. That's a BS story when it's being used as a tool to get people to come back simply because the agenda— there's a different agenda at play. And if that's the agenda, if the agenda at play is truly, hey, we need to see people to know they're working, that's the only way we can check to make sure people are doing their job, right? I'm being blunt about it. Or some other similar agenda, then be transparent. I know this is a big, important thing in your world, so I want to come to you with this. Be transparent and honest about it. And that way people understand what really matters. And then the culture is one of honesty. It may be dog-eat-dog. It may be, it's primarily about the, the, the stakeholders' financial interests and KPIs. It's, but then there are people who want to work in that kind of environment because it's truthful, because it's based in money and, and their highest priority might be how they earn the most. And that would work just fine. But without that transparency and that honesty, you have a culture of lies. which only disintegrates when, when things are as tough as they are post-pandemic.

Yeah.

So I wanna come back to you and ask you about authenticity, ask you about transparency and truthfulness and how important that is that, you know, in your work when you're working in an organization, how, how important are those things? And how do you help an organization that just seems to be one that's built, you know, where the culture is built more on half-truths or being covert, let's say?

Transparency is key. Yeah, people see through the BS very easily. I've changed a lot as a leader over the years. I've— I started as a very top-down leader in bigger firms when I was managing people in my team. It was very, okay, this is how we're going to do it. I was so passionate. You'll be inspired by me, don't worry, just come along for the ride. It was very much— yeah, and I guess some of the people may have been inspired by my gusto and want to serve the clients and provide that really full service, go above and beyond and fight those cases. But in the end, I think some of those people may have felt smaller as a result of that, because of that more sort of hierarchical structure. So I evolved as a leader, and I became very more so collaborative, and also one where I saw my role as being an empowerer, if that's a word. As in, I'm going to empower you, I'm going to facilitate relationships. I'm going to facilitate your learning journey through work because that's so important, that forward motion, that, that progression is so important to people. And to now, the biggest transition more recently is that I'm leading more through inspiration, but with a view to having societal impact and sharing my journey to say that I want everyone to work with invigoration and significance. And I want to do that So talking about my journey, the things I've learned, the ownership culture, which I think is so important, the preferred discomforts, working outside your comfort zone, all of those things, it's all different types of leadership. But going back to your point about the transparency, it's important to sit down with people and say, this is the justification. What do you guys think? This is justification for working together in the office, having more face-to-face time because it builds community. Because you learn a certain amount through osmosis. In lawyering, I learned so much by listening to people on the phone and by being in that environment. And I've learned that even if I look back in my household growing up, I learned so much from the entrepreneurial journey and the struggles that my, my family went through. All of that I was able to bring into the workforce. So it's important to be transparent about all of that and also For people really to thrive at work, it's important that they feel a sense of belonging. So how do organizations cultivate that? That is through— so important. I refer to the leadership lessons when I speak about the sisterhood, right? How can we apply life lessons to leadership, workforce culture? One of the first pieces that I wrote in this series was— so I'm Greek by background, Greek Cypriot. My family's from Cyprus. And this sounds bizarre that I'm marrying the two and perhaps completely off point, but I'll, I'll get, I'll get to it in a minute. But it's— I named it Leadership Lessons from the Greek Cypriot Kitchen because this was going back to all of the preparation that we used to do on a Sunday as a family, right? People would— we'd have loads of people over and an abundance of food, not in an opulent way, but it was important that we present the best version of our home. Right? Having loads of food, giving up the best bedding if people were staying over. The kids were allowed to— the other kids were allowed to watch what they wanted on TV. We wanted them to feel loved and cherished.

Right.

And first day at work, day one, sure, I'd had summer jobs and I'd had part-time jobs before that, but first proper day at the law office, I immediately understood the concepts of serving a client. Going above and beyond. If they were going to come to us, to my firm or to me, I would really provide the best service like my family and I did on those Sundays. So if that's why I say for an organization to thrive, it's cultivate that by creating that sense of belonging for everyone. And then the individuals and the organization, which anyway is a bunch of individuals, They thrive together.

That makes so much sense to me. It really does. And, and I think the story of how you spent your Sundays and what you learned from your family is one I just would say anybody listening to this right now, in addition to maybe having a smile on your face in relating to what Nikki was just sharing, or even if you can't relate to it, that there's a learning involved. To, if you could imagine, and I think it's easy to imagine what it would be like to be a young child in that beautiful family. And Sunday comes around and there's all this food and expecting people to show up. And, and as you said, everybody got the best. They got the best plates. They got just whatever the best that your family had to offer to welcome those people into the home and for them to feel as though they truly belong, as though they were, quote, Like family. I think that's a phenomenal lesson when you think about how you apply something like that to how you treat your customers, your clients, how you treat your employees, how you set the table really for, for every engagement that you have in your life, in your business life, and maybe well beyond your business life as well. So I so appreciate that. And I'm also thinking too, there's this idea of cult or looking in your history for life lessons because I speak as part of our work. I'm, I'm always speaking in front of audiences. Corporate audiences, et cetera. And, and in many ways, that's the start of a— it's a conversation that begins but doesn't end there because they, you know, those same groups want to have us come and, and do work with them, et cetera, on how to apply those same principles. But in any role, that ability to, to share a story, to look and search— it's great to read books and find there's wisdom you can apply from other people's life experiences. I'm a great big reader. I love it. But I think what you've just shown us is that you can search inside of yourself to find find your own life experiences, really important guideposts for how it is that you show up in the world, in the work, and in the world all around. And those are the most powerful ones because those are the most authentic. To come back to that, the through line of that question from before, those are the ones that this— you don't need to try them on for size. They just already fit. When you just said that, when you shared that, I could just feel it. It was so evident that this is how you've created so much of what you've done in your work life is based on what you learned at home.

Yeah, I'm doing lots of speaking at the moment to organizations at various conventions. The talking or the speaking that I enjoy the most is to universities in the UK, speaking to Gen Zers, young people who perhaps haven't entered into the workforce, or maybe they've done like a sandwich year, any organization. The life lessons that I'm communicating to them is really about inviting them to reflect on their life lessons. How can they have a leadership mindset, know what type of innovator disruptor they want to be if they've never entered into the workforce? It's looking at what can you take from your life. Maybe there's a kid in there who's looked after a sick family member, organized a funeral even, or had to take care of a younger sibling. Those are things that can be taken, the lessons from that can be taken and applied to work from day one, just like I applied those life lessons. And there are so many vision statements, mission statements, manifestos. Sometimes they can feel like just words.

Yes.

If you're taking the things from your life and applying them to work, then you know the impact that those principles have. You know how that feels. And like you say, that's so much more powerful. How did I know to serve people in the way that I did from day one? How did I have that scrappy entrepreneurial sense? That's taken directly from my familial background that I've referred to. My father came to the UK with nothing, and he had various jobs and then created different small businesses. We had a fish and chip shop, hairdressing shop, and all that was shared. We were shielded from nothing, which was anxiety-inducing at times. But I wouldn't swap it because we went through that journey. We knew what was going on with the staff or what problem or whatever, but we felt it and we went through it together. So I applied that. And when you align— going a bit off point here— but when you align anything technical, whether you're a coder or a lawyer or an accountancy, with what I call an essential skill, human skills, what we've previously called soft skills, which isn't an apt word for it because they are essential. If you marry up the technical with some of those, that's— you've got a superpower.

You really do.

A lawyer that's an entrepreneur that wants to do things differently. I found what I've done doesn't sound that radical now, building these departments and founding a firm, but it felt like it at the time. And imagine you've got, imagine you've got a coder who's a brilliant communicator. People don't often associate one with the other, but why not? And imagine that's like gold dust, having someone like that.

Exactly.

And it goes for almost any industry. There's nothing to say, whatever industry, whatever space you're in, There's nothing to say that you shouldn't exercise that kind of mindset.

And this is probably a good way for us to close out the conversation with something that is, is really forward-looking, which you said earlier about facilitating the learning journey. I think again, when we go back to whatever it is, whether it's the controversy around return to office or anything else that's going on, I know in, in many organizations right now there's retraction. Many companies have had their best years of on record over, over through the pandemic or post-pandemic and have done phenomenally well, broken sales records, and yet they're in contraction or retraction mode. In many instances, people are losing jobs, et cetera. And yet even in the midst of that, I think it's important that we think about how it is that you facilitate the learning journey for the people that you have the the privilege to lead if that's the case, or follow as is also the case. And I think if in the midst of these challenging times or these uncertain or complex times that we are living in, which I venture to say, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, I think times will get more complex and uncertainty will increase and the velocity of change will only become greater as well. So in the midst of all of that, what are the real solid pillars that we can build stuff on. I think you've given us a number of them. And one of those is, I think, to facilitate the learning journey. Because if that's what is part of what you're committed to at work, and you're committed to it personally, but you're also committed to it for others, then every experience becomes something that you can learn from, that you can learn through osmosis, as you said, and through direct experience. And then in the end, you are better. There is transformation. There is that butterfly effect for everyone, regardless of whether things are up or down at any particular moment in time. Because if you live long enough, you're lucky enough to live long enough, what is that? It's a constant series of ups and downs. That's like the waves on the ocean. That's just the way it is. And I would imagine is supposed to be for our growth.

Yeah. I'm, I'm nodding furiously because I'm completely with you. And I think the pace of change will increase. It will accelerate. In the times that we're in. So that ability to be agile is very important. And beyond the values and the principles that we've spoken about, supporting people to lean into what I've, I've called preferred discomforts. And that's to say, you know, it's the distinction between not pushing people into what they absolutely don't want to do. When you're on the precipice of something and you feel a potential thrill from it, and you instinctively know that it's going to lead to growth, invigoration, learning, is pushing through and doing that and getting over the fear to not do it. And that encouragement and that support for people to lean into their preferred discomforts is so important for invigoration, for significance at work, for growing, for forward motion. That's when people feel alive. And that's, again, I derive, that derives from my own experiences, even growing up, going to work. I can think of a million instances where I leaned into my preferred discomfort and it led to that growth. So it's in that space where people feel that they are able to do that. Because I think that everyone has an appetite for that, very, maybe varying bandwidths. But everyone has some appetite. And sometimes you don't even know that you're unhappy without that change. But once you've made the change and once you've pushed through, that's when you've realized it. So some of that, some of those exercising those muscles is important. Everything that's happening now with the AI, robotics, automation— human skills are more important than ever.

Indeed.

I read a study, I can't remember what study it was. I read something that said that 75% of the UK's professional workforce wanted to change jobs, 75%. And it showed that there's, they're wanting to go into jobs in tech and sustainability, but there's a lot of jobs, supervisory jobs in the next 10 years that we can predict will happen, whether it's managing data, metaverse, or whatever it is where we know those human skills will be essential. That ability to be agile, that ability to grow and to push through.

Yes.

And one of the things that, that has been met with some controversy when I've spoken about it— controversy is strong— but I've had to explain myself. We've spoken about authenticity and being an authentic leader, but the— and that word's been banded around lots over the years, that be authentic, be yourself. But as long as we're not bound by it, and as long as that doesn't prevent agility, forward motion, we have to have that ability to be multilingual in our approach so that we can connect with other people. Human connection is what technology can't replicate, as well as that want and need to look forward and to progress.

I think we have to— we're In, in— there's a lot of things that we share in common with every other sentient being, for sure. The need to breathe air and sunshine and love and things that have been discussed. But what we also crave is growth. That is one thing we all share. We all have in common things that don't grow in nature. This is the greatest example that things that do not grow in nature, we know. I ask audiences this from time to time. They always have the right answer. It's not even a second before they use they say it. Things are either growing or they're, and they know that intuitively we're growing or dying, and we seek growth. It's it's the way a a plant is always moving toward the sun, and a plant in your home is always leaning toward where the sunlight is. We're the same exact way. So again, I so appreciate everything that you shared today. I think there's a lot to take away from this conversation. I'm personally taking away a couple of things that that I I think are are really important. that I'm gonna focus on. And facilitating the learning journey is one of them. This idea of how we encourage collaboration and really what can be done to do that, to accomplish that. That is not necessarily easy. But to win in the world at any time has not been easy. And to win in the world, a world that is changing so rapidly right now for leaders that are listening to this, it might just not be as easy as it was. and to long for it to be easier or to have it go back to as easy as it might have been previous to this, you're setting yourself up for failure and others around you. To set yourself up for success, I think we have to recognize that in the midst of difficulty, we have to transcend that difficulty. We have to have the energy to do that. And one of the things that I think we take away from this conversation is that to transcend that, we can be more committed to facilitating the learning journey. We can commit to finding ways to collaborate more effectively. And everything else that you've said today, I think, is, is really phenomenal. So I just wanna thank you again so much, Nikki, for your time, for your insights today. My last question, and, and it'll be a short one, but I, is there something that you do? Because when we think about essential skills, what people might have called soft skills and maybe still do, but those life skills, you mentioned one early at the very beginning about resiliency. Is there one thing that you do on a daily basis that helps you to cultivate your resilience or strengthen your resilience? Can you think of anything as where, like, a ritual or a practice that you've got?

It's difficult to think of, of something concrete, but if it sounds like a chore, but what I do with my children in the morning— I have 2 young children, and the morning routine is that ritual of make use of the time that we've got together in the morning. So my daughter will be practicing her piano. My son will be doing some of his Lego building. It's that momentum in the morning to get us started. And I hate to use Arnold Schwarzenegger's phrase here, but it's that sort of being useful and using every moment of the day to learn and to grow and to do something of significance and to start the day with that. So I wish I could say that I woke up At 5 o'clock in the morning, and I weight trained every morning. I try and keep myself healthy in every way, but that, that ritual just, it's, it sounds like it's a kind of a bog standard routine, a dull routine, but actually I find that invigorating and I find that sort of, that starts me up and it starts us up as a unit. So I, I, that kind of sets that mode of resiliency from the morning. And anything else is perhaps not as challenging as getting the kids up and getting them to do Totally.

Yeah. I, I think we just queued the Rolling Stones song Start Me Up. Forget Arnold, we'll go with Mick Jagger instead. All right. He's from the UK anyway, so I think it's more appropriate, right? Don't you think? Listen, Nikki, thank you again. To our listeners out there, if you've got comments or questions for Nikki or myself, please, you just go to adamarkel.com/podcast, leave your comment or question there. Again, we so appreciate so many of you have taken the moment And maybe it's more than a moment to provide a rating for the podcast, a review of some kind. Five stars is great, but whatever is true for you, we appreciate that feedback as well. And what that does is it helps the algorithm. We all know that algorithms control so much of what's going on, and certainly what content we see. So if this is content that you think would be valuable to other people, and you provide it with a a review, then other people will get it. And of course, if you share it with friends, family, colleagues, that's also super helpful. And we appreciate your help as our. community continues to grow. So thank you all so very much. And Nikki, thank you again. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

Thanks so much, Adam. Thanks for having me.

That tracked so many important places for me today. Where the breadcrumbs led us was just beautiful. Love speaking with Nikki. I think she's got really, really valuable and unique insights around things. And I would say that, that for me personally, just this, the idea of how it is that we facilitate the learning journey of people in our world whether they're our family, our friends, people at work, those that we, that we lead and those that lead us. How is it that we can facilitate the learning journey is a wonderful question that I'm taking away from this conversation. We talked about collaboration in the context of some of the greater challenges that organizations face today, including the return to work, the return to office controversy that, that is just sort of cross borders. Globally today. We talked about authenticity and ownership culture and smashing conventions. We talked about essential skills such as resiliency and how it is that we create cultures that where people recognize that, that there's support, that they can feel that support, a got-your-back culture, if you will, versus a watch-your-back culture, which we see so often in the world today. We, we talked about resilience and, and the sisterhood, as she called it. We talked about learning through osmosis and how that in many ways is, is a methodology or something that we can count on as a way to continue to mentor people and, and for there to be continuous learning in the workplace, whether that's virtual or hybrid or, or in person. We talked about life experiences and how essentially those life experiences, the things that we learn from, from our past, from our own personal histories, are the things that can not only teach us as we move forward toward growth, toward consistent and ever-present growth. But these life experiences become our greatest offering to the world, to others, for learnings that we, that we all can share and places that we can relate to others. And, and certainly, I think all these things dovetail with our conversation about how we create environments of belonging. And looking at, at what has emerged out of the pandemic, sort of the butterfly that, that has emerged from the cocoon and not, not wanting to see, sort of trying to go back to something from the past, trying to force that butterfly back, back into its, its caterpillar state is just not the thing that is going to get us growth, which is what we all crave personally and professionally speaking. So I, I love this conversation. I hope you did as well. And of course, we'd ask if you did, and you do, share it with a friend, a family member, a colleague, as it were. And as I said, it's super helpful to us when you will do that because it helps to spread the word, spread the message, and get this podcast in front of more and more people. And our community is growing. Our podcast grew by more than double last year, meaning the number of people listening and subscribing, et cetera. And that's because of all of you. That's because of your willingness to not just listen and take something of value, hopefully from the conversations, but that you're sharing that value with others by whether it's reviewing on Spotify or in Apple or wherever it is that you're consuming this podcast by giving it a 5-star rating or rating it in some way that makes sense to you. And also by sharing it with, with those that you care about. Our offering to you at this moment is to, to seek out, help you to seek greater understanding of your own personal resiliency mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually speaking. You know, how are you doing right now? And we have a very simple tool that can help you to, to to get a snapshot of how you are in fact doing at this moment. Uh, it— by that I mean just 3 minutes. Uh, go to rankmyresilience.com, rankmyresilience.com, and 3 minutes is all it takes for you to get your own personal assessment established and maybe re-established if you've taken it in the past and find out how you're doing in those 4 specific zones of resilience. Of course, it's entirely our gift to you. It's free, and resources that come with it, insights, The report, all of that is is yours as well, just for being a part of this community. So again, once again, thank you so much for for joining us today, and we hope you continue to tune in and that you love these these conversations. For now, I will just say ciao.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple. Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.