Stoic Resilience

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to JLC Media focusing on everyday leadership conversations. We're going to have an everyday leadership conversation today. Grateful that you took some of your asset of time to be with us. And I want to make sure you know that this episode and all the other ones have come from our clients. They are asking us questions about resiliency, leading teams, how do I help teams be successful? This is not just something we thought about that we thought you'd like. The folks that we interact with on a regular basis have actually driven this. We're going to talk about resiliency, everyday leadership conversation and the JLC practices and how they connect to the ability to develop resiliency. At the end of this particular podcast, I think that each of you will have a simple set of steps, three steps that you could follow when faced with a significant life event. So this work today is all about working toward that ability to respond well to significant life events. So in order to check ourselves in, I'll have each of my gang identify themselves as they check in. But you already know who they are. Colleen, Vince and Julie. But you'll know who's talking so they'll say who they are so you recognize their voice. I was thinking a lot about the check in today, and as I'm working on myself and trying to develop myself, I really think a lot about how do I open myself, open myself to anything, To a grandchild knocking on the door a few minutes ago, to a phone call that had some serious implications. And do my best to stay open and not restricted. Because if I can stay open, I can learn. And learning is change. We've chatted about that before. So I really want to do my best right now with you, to do the same thing, to be open with you so that I can learn. So what is a personal mantra, a personal thought that you create inside yourself? When we do this work, we do this stuff together, right? What do you do so that you can be with me and be present in this conversation? What do you do to open yourself? I mean, you all have great stuff to tell me, but we learn more from each other in this than we share with you. So I really want you to just tell me what is something that you personally do to open yourself so that the old narratives don't keep crashing in on you and constrict you from hearing something new. What do you do? There's even some content in that. I know of those of you that are listening how important that is. So what do you do personally to stay open and not Restricted in this environment of learning that we. That I really enjoy doing with you. And I'm so grateful for the three of you. So what do you do personally to get yourself open and ready?

Okay, so I'll start. This is Vince. So, you know, one of the things. There was an old movie, and Kevin Costner was in this movie. He was a baseball player. He was really, really good. And in this movie, I don't know the name of it, but he would always. He would step up to the plate to bat, and he would tell himself to clear the mechanism. And by clearing the mechanism, it's like everything else has kind of blotted itself out. And he was able to focus on him, the pitcher and the ball and what he had to do. And so that resonated with me years ago. And so one of the things I typically do when I go into our meetings and engagement, when I'm talking to other people, there's something that I need to kind of focus on. I will really just tell myself before I get on the phone call as I'm dialing to Vince, clear the mechanism. And then it just helps me consciously pull all the distractions away and I'm able to focus in. And with that, I'm in.

That is really good. Thank you, Vince. Can I handle it, Elaine or Julie?

Okay, so this is Julie. And it's difficult because at different times, I have a tendency to close. And if we're just focusing on the four of us, I always. Look, the terms I use are I get to. I get to meet with my colleagues, who I always tend to look out and think that everyone else knows more. And then I stay open to what you bring out in me. And then I'm like, oh, my gosh, I am smart. I did know something. I have something to share, too. I'm not just an empty mind here. So it's a little bit that I'm always expecting everyone to have a lot more information than I do. And then I'm usually very surprised to find that I have something to share with everyone else. But it's an I get to versus I have to with our conversation. And I'm in.

Welcome, welcome. Thank you.

Nice. So Colleen here and what I'm hearing Julie say is focusing on kind of her self talk. And the other piece that I really liked about what Vince mentioned was this intentionality. I'm distracted because I'm trying to figure out that damn movie because I know I watched it. Wasn't Susan Farandin in it as well?

Yes.

Okay. It'll Come to me. But anyway, so I love that intentionality piece. I think that that's really important, and that's one of the things I do in the second piece. And right when you said this, right, this surfaced with me was danger, danger, danger. Because in my mind, the other thing besides that intentionality is that I'm constantly checking myself. Am I judging? Am I waiting to jump in? Am I really suspending my own certainty and keeping myself open? Because as we know, you shift, right? You know, Vince probably cleared his mechanism, and now he might be over there already back in a space where it's all junked up, right? So how can we. Recognizing that we process information very differently and that we're constantly kind of. Our mind is wandering. So once you're intentional, when you see yourself wander, right, Bring yourself back. But the other pieces that I always do is, am I staying out of judgment? So that's a big piece in my mind. It's danger, danger, And I'm in.

I can easily tune into what you just actually all three of you. So I don't know how much time you guys spend in meditation or prayer or personal reflection. It has become for me, a daily practice. And, you know, so that I do my deep breath, I sit still, I start to get myself ready to meditate. And there's some guided thought they asked me to have. And then all this other stuff, the monkey mind, kicks in. Now I have all this other stuff happening inside of me. And one of my meditation teachers, which I've really, really enjoyed tremendously, is, stop getting in judgment of yourself because you wandered. Just notice that you wandered and come back. So you think about the people that we coach. When they're holding a meeting, they have an outcome in mind. And if the meeting begins to divert in their minds away from the outcome, they interject, they tell Pete, wait, wait, wait, no, no, we got to be talking about this. This is not. That's not the right thing. It's like an immediate shift, which I believe comes from fear. And in my meditation, when I'm not focused, I used to say, what is wrong with me? And I guess I'm just not smart enough to meditate, or I'm not, you know, and if I can just recognize it as part of who I am, just part of who I am, and just come back. So resiliency is truly about just coming back. So I'm going to read you a thing that one of our colleagues just gave me. I really like it a lot. It is a definition of resiliency. And Joe Marshall is the guy who sent it to us, and he knows we're doing the podcast, and he said, I haven't seen this before. This is pretty interesting. And so here it is. There's quotes. By being transparent, by being compassionate, by showing grief leadership, what you're doing is building a sense that we are in this together and we're going to get through it together. Now, that, for me, is probably one of the most powerful phrases I've heard in a while. We're in it together, and we're going to get through it together. Even this conversation. We are in it together, and we're going to get through it together. What resonates with you when I say that definition and say that to you?

I like that you had the little sound effects there. That's definitely bumping our podcast up.

I enjoyed that. That's me now. I'm going to be resilient and turn off my phone.

Talk about intentionality.

That's right.

All right. I think that's actually being vulnerable, isn't it? Yeah, I really messed that up. Sorry. What else are you thinking, Jules?

Go ahead, Vince.

So I will tell you what was resonating with me when you read the definition. I was just thinking about times when I was in that leadership role, in that position, and the interactions that you have with your people. And so I'd always known from a very intangible things that were handed down that, hey, these are the things that are important. Taking care of your people and making sure your people know that you care about them and that you're engaged. But I didn't really fully understand that what I was doing in demonstrating those behaviors was actually a demonstration of resilience. So for me, it's a connecting the dots. What you read was very familiar in action, but I didn't have a name or clear understanding of what I was actually doing. And so I enjoy seeing the dots being connected. Yeah, so that resonated with me.

Me, too. There's a piece here about connectivity. So in order to be creative and to connect the dots, I need to be vulnerable enough to say, yeah, my phone rang, sorry. And also go back to listening and recognizing that in the best leadership moments of my life, I probably was modeling resilience, because by modeling vulnerability and the potentiality of that, that is a resilient behavior. That's really excellent. Thank you. Colleen, what landed on you?

Yeah, I think I'm going back to this sense of modeling resilience. And to be honest, I'm thinking about Vince's story. I could just See you, Vin. You're out there walking the halls, you know, pressing flesh with sailors, shaking their hand, checking in with people. And I think, you know, perhaps at that point in time, you were just doing what you do because you're all about the relationships, and yet you're modeling resiliency and helping those sailors and even the officers really develop their resiliency because you're making them feel relevant and connected to something. And I just go back to when you're connected, you don't feel like you're alone. And sometimes you can be in a room full of others or on a ship surrounded by hundreds of other people and still feel alone. So this sense of reaching out and that connecting. I think that you modeled resiliency, even though you mentioned you didn't know you were doing it. But it has this way of helping people not feel alone, but feel connected to something else. And once we have that feeling, we sure look at the world and move around in a different way.

Yeah, I think so. So much of what you said matched one of our previous podcasts where we talked about a condition necessary for resilience is relationships, networks. People that I know care about me. They could even be mad at me. I remember one kid came in my office one time. He said, I think I'm going to quit the team. I said, why? He said, the coach always yelling at me. I said, that means he notices you. I don't think this means he doesn't like you. He wants you to do something different to have a bigger impact on the team. But his first response to me was, well, no, I must. I need to quit. I don't want him to yell at me anymore. And it was really interesting. He sat there silently. I swear it was 10 seconds. Then he started to laugh. He goes, is that what that means? I go, yeah. I said, when will you be in trouble? Oh, I think I'll be in trouble if he stops yelling at me. I said, exactly. He doesn't notice you anymore. It's like a missed opportunity. I can't tell you how many times I had conversations like that, in one form or another, with folks that I was either coaching myself or people that I had the privilege of taking care of that were dealing with, speaking in ways that make somebody feel like they're yelling at me. Well, I would rather them yell at you than not. So what are you thinking about, Julie?

I'm thinking about the way that we set it up with JLC and we teach this or model this or explain it to our clients, and it's our three question, after we have an event or after we have a coaching, the expectation between our team is that we contact someone, someone and have an evaluative conversation to say what went well? What did you learn and what will you do differently? And I never put it in this idea of resilience, but it does definitely help us get out of our head when we're focused on the one thing that went wrong because we're focused on a whole bunch of other things that are going right. And I think that a lot of times people avoid having evaluative conversations because they try and make it into this PowerPoint, into this one hour conversation that only happens once every six months or whatever. But imagine if you would change that to an everyday leadership conversation and as you're walking around the hallways or you're even sports, and after the game's over or at halftime or whatever you say, so what's going well? What are we learning? What are we going to do differently? Those three questions really help us move in this resiliency focus to how we can improve versus oh my gosh, I'm bad. I did horrible. I'm getting yelled at.

The narrative. Oh my God, that's great, Julie. Yeah. Otherwise we begin to create this other defeating narrative inside of ourselves and we end up in a strange spot. You know, I learned recently that some of the founders of our country were stoic people. They practiced stoicism. And I think part of our work today will be to surface what? Well, I'll do it with you guys. But right now, those of you that are listening, think what it means to practice stoicism, what it means to be stoic. Because I think there are some really interesting conceptions and misconceptions about the practice of stoicism in the work of resiliency. This is about being able to tap into the interesting philosophy of stoicism. So with that said, let me kind of get your take on this. So I'll start with you, Colleen. What does it mean in your mind, what does it mean to be stoic or to practice stoicism? And then the other guys, you just pick up on what she said.

Sure. Well, I think off the top of my head, it reminds me of a couple times when I would call you, I'd be so excited. I'm like, okay, I'm going to share this information with Ray because I just kicked ass in this. I got all this great feedback and I call him up and he's like, that's nice. And I'm like, hello, could you be A little bit more excited about me. And you were like, well, I am. What did you say? You call it? Neutral, Like a mild neutral or something. I forget. But to me, in my mind, I think that's that sense of. I wouldn't say unflappable, but perhaps that's.

A part of it.

But it is a mild neutral to positive. Right. Not over the top. Not having these emotions that swing, you know, because I've been called. I've called you before where I was in tears. Right. So both of those things have happened where I've been at both ends of that spectrum. So I think it's almost like trying to keep those emotions in check and kind of be neutral to how you say warm. Warm. Positive might be my.

I get you. Yeah, it is. Part of the practice is to recognize an event as an event. And those of you that are listening, if you haven't listened to the part of. We did one called A Horse of Another Color, which is really a great little podcast about this, about how an event is an event and can we assign any emotion to that event? Because we typically do. And when we do, something unusual happens inside of us and our self talk begins to shift and change. That was really beautiful. Thank you. So, Julie, what are you thinking about this idea of to be stoic or to practice stoicism? How does that land on you?

Well, listening to what Colleen said and also thinking and adding to that about this idea of being comfortable, being uncomfortable. And so the before that Colleen was celebrating was the fact that she knew she was taking risks, that she was going in and she was, you know, stretching herself, and it was uncertain. And that's when you're in, from what I understand, stoicism, that's a characteristic to continue to have a discipline of. And if you're in that state and you're uncomfortable and you're taking risks, things probably aren't going to go as well. But that's how you learn. And then you can either just celebrate it as an event, either way that Colleen went. So I'm sort of talking about the before part of stoicism that Colleen wasn't talking about.

Yes. And you just connected it to our check in also, because when I notice my response to something that is an opportunity for awareness, not to fix it, to simply recognize. This has been my response to this particular event. And we're going to get real down and dirty on this in a few seconds. But that's beautiful. Stoicism, Stoic. Vince, what do you think of when you hear that?

So I'M glad my colleagues defined what it was and shared their thoughts first because when you first said that, I was thinking to myself, what the hell, I don't know. But as I listen, you know, it left me with thoughts of just being non committed and you know, so when I looked at leaders who would just you know, not show a lot of emotion, agreement or disagreement, they were just very receptive to information and so you just didn't know what people are really thinking. So I don't know. Stoic personality traits don't necessarily resonate with me. My personality, I like to get some type of feedback from a leader and some type of engagement interaction to help me understand, engage my direction and, and how my self talk serves. So that's my interpretation and that's my build upon what my colleagues said.

Yeah, I like it a lot. And I think that the three of you have pretty well characterized what most people think of when you say stoicism and what it truly is. It's an operating system for dealing with high stress events or environments. It's a way of. And as a military man, you know this, as a mom, as a spouse, we enter in and out of high stress environments all the time. So resiliency, stoicism is actually the practice of resiliency is not to emote on a particular situation. And my learning on this was listening to a woman who lost her child and it was bereavement of a child is probably in all of the psychological studies I've ever looked at it is number one, the one thing that all of us cringe, you know, and how can you even imagine that? I don't think that I can. And the sense of the operating system is that resilient people recognize that shit happens, it's real. And Julie, you're the poster child for that this year. You were resilient all through that. And Colleen, thinking about the boys and what you dealt with them heading away. Vince, the stories you've told me as a leader of commanding and inactivity, stuff happened. So right now I'd like each of you as much as you're willing to be vulnerable and heartful is just give me one event that represents the fact that stuff happens. And we didn't design it, we didn't plan happens. You got one for me, Vince? You start us off?

Yeah. So in my command tour I lost my director of nursing services. Great guy. I'd known him for many years. He was a single dad of two teenage boys and he was out on a moped one night at 2 in the morning, going across the circle, and I had a tragic accident and died on the scene. So in a small community, you know, living abroad, you know, it touches base because you can't move away from folks. And it was probably one of the toughest experiences I had because the emotions in the organization was raw, and to go and communicate to the team what transpired, what we knew, and then to deal with the family dynamics and bringing over brothers and sisters and siblings and things like that. But I will tell you that my team, we exercised resiliency. I did not have the answers. I could not explain it all away. What I had to do is to depend on my leaders and my team and just be present, and to be present and to be vulnerable. Let the folks know that it wasn't me leading them through something per se. It was us working through something that was very, very tragic, collectively, together. And at the end of the day, we were able to help that family have as much closure as possible in as much of a dignified manner as possible. And we sent the shipmate home with a great sense of pride. So very, very tough. But the resiliency and all the characteristics that we're talking about is absolutely what it took collectively to get through that scenario.

So, ladies and gentlemen that are listening, step one is to recognize and embrace the event. And you have seen this a thousand times. I've done it to myself, why me? Why did this happen to me? Why? Why, why, why? And that is the failure to recognize that bad things do happen. And if we sit in that space of, oh, my God, this is so. And I can't, buddy, I don't know. Wish I could hug you right now. I think that comes back and it's real again immediately. And you begin to take in your pictures of all the things that happened, the people you hugged, the people that cried, your tears, all of that is real. And if we're not careful, we will not follow that first, very important stoic statement. Bad stuff happens, and the only way out is through. So I think this is just incredibly important, and I thank you for your story. Colleen, what are you thinking and feeling right this second?

Yeah, I mean, I'm still, you know, just sadness around that story. And I think what I heard Vince talk about and what you're saying is you first, you recognize it, and then Vince made a choice, right? He could have been passive. He could have let himself be absorbed in sadness. He could have sat there and said, you know, that family, they need time to grieve. He could have said, you know, what my command, they're good, they're strong. And he made a choice not to be passive. And I think that is what's resonating with me because I've seen other people choose to be passive and do nothing. Right. Bad things happen. And to your point, the only way out is through. But I can choose to get lost and not to push my way through by shifting my behavior and what I heard. And I just can't even imagine that it's so difficult to go, yes, this sucks. And I don't want to go out there and I don't want to go talk to that family because this is very difficult. And yet I'm recognizing I need to embrace this event and make a choice to move forward.

Beautiful. A choice to move forward. A choice to. So I don't know if I. I know I told you this story, Colleen, because the person that taught it to me was a gentleman teaching us about dialogue. And he was, he was at the Katrina event in New Orleans and they were in all those make believe shelters. And this one man who lost his family sat down in the middle of one of the shelters and wouldn't move, wouldn't talk to anybody and was there for almost two days, just immobile. And they asked this guy to help out. He went over there, introduced himself. The guy didn't say anything. He just sat down next to him and sat there for 24 hours. Sat there next to him for 24 hours, no words spoken, sat there. At the end of that 24, 25th hour, the guy stood up and he said, I'm kind of hungry, you want to get something to eat? And they walked off together. We process these events in very, very different ways. And the recognition and the biggest recognition he taught me in telling me that story. And Vince, you just did it. Too bad. Stuff happens. I'm part of it. I didn't make it happen. I'm not going to spend my time going, why me? It happened. I'm going to do something about it. Step one is recognition. Stuff happens. Jules, what's your thinking? Feeling?

I'm thinking about how we are resilient when the stuff happens and crucible events and learning that it builds on what Colleen said and it also builds on what Vin says. That yes, we were sad and we were proud and how that marbles together. You know, I'm not a big emotional person to begin with, but we can have two extreme emotions at the same time and recognizing that, you know. And I'm thinking through my life when my mom got cancer, sad but Grateful that I know that she's going to die sooner rather than later. And now we can enhance our relationship. Early screenings, and then I get breast cancer. But I know that because it was early, I'm grateful, and I'm going to be healed, and I'm in really good hands. So that you're constantly having. Stuff will happen. And the power of. And. And what is the opportunity here?

Oh, my God, Julie. And. And the power of. And those of you listening, step one is to recognize bad stuff happens, and we need to go through it. And if it happens to someone else that's in our world, we go through it with them. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes standing next to somebody gives someone incredible power. Number one, recognize that it happens. Number two. And I'm going to stick with you, Julie, this time. So this part, I think, was really interesting to me because you modeled this through your breast cancer world. In the world of stoicism and in the world of resilience, we can control our response. We cannot control all these other things that are floating around. So recognizing that distinction, what can I personally. What can I control versus all this other stuff that is truly outside of my control? Speak to that a little bit, Julie, because I watched you go through that. I listened to you chat with me as we went through this together.

Yeah. I'm thinking about all of these different things that have happened in my life and how I was resilient or not, and how that really stretched things out. And I think one point is we're in it together that we've been talking about. And knowing that I was surrounded by people who understood this, that you were with me, you were supporting me, and we were moving forward, that really helped me show up differently. Whereas earlier in my life, when I went through. Had my first child, and I was. I didn't want to go back to school. I wanted to be a mother. But everyone around me. I was in the best school district. I was a really good teacher. They didn't support that decision. So I went back to school. 9, 11 happened. I couldn't get Skylar in the daycare because I was responsible for my kids. She was sick. It was a miserable year, but I was at school. Nobody was supporting this idea of, you know what, Julie? Maybe you need to do something else. This isn't working for you. And that really made it longer. So when I look at my breast cancer journey, all of you were supportive. You were listening to understand. You weren't giving me judgment or expectation. And then that just allowed me to show up and say, okay, we're going to handle this. And if there's something I can handle, there's other people that I can talk to about it, but they seem to be okay. So if they're okay about it, then I'm okay about it and we're just going to continue. And I think that's, that's a really. I will take a little bit of credit. Yes. Because I don't like to get emotional and you know, that have all of those feelings. I like to stay on the positive end and always feel like there's a reason for it. But I also feel like I need to give everyone else around me credit because everyone was like, this is early. You got this. You're at the great hands Johns Hopkins and we're going to be here and do whatever you need, whether it's meals, whether it's covering your clients, whether it's whatever. We got your back.

An excellent juxtaposition of two stories. One in which you control that which was in your control. And the other one, that's a sadder story is you attempted to please someone else and accepted their idea of what it looks like for you to control your situation. Julie, that was magnificent. Vince, what you thinking and learning?

Yes, I'm thinking about just the importance being vulnerable. That's a key component to me because when you are vulnerable, you allow others from the outside to do the things that the team really wants to do. You know, people don't care how much you know, man. Til they know how much you care. And so I just. That's what I picked up on. You know, Julia is a strong person and probably expressing vulnerability is not something that she's necessarily very good at.

She doesn't love it, does she?

But, you know, I think that she realized when she did that and allowed herself to be vulnerable, boy, the team really just rallied behind. And that collective energy on both sides is really what we're here talking about. The power of resilience. Rest in those characteristics and qualities.

It truly is. And notice how both of you have played beautifully into when you were. When you dealt with that death at that activity. There were some things Vince could control. You controlled whether or not you're going to show up. You controlled whether or not you were going to engage the command to deal with the GR that occurred. There were lots of other options that were pretty much outside of your control. You could control Vince's behavior. Julie could control Julie's behavior and response. Colleen, what are you thinking right this second?

Yeah, no, I like the only thing you can control is Your response. And I think it's. Sometimes when you are having those types of situations, it's difficult to remember that, and it's difficult. So I think it's. It's helping stay focused on. My mom would always say, you know, you've got a hula hoop around you, and everything inside the hula hoop is really what you can't control, and that's you. And everything outside, there's really nothing you can do. And we said this before, you know, control is an illusion. If I really think that I'm controlling that stuff outside of my hula hoop, I'm telling my. Myself probably a story that I'm going to be battling. So I think that sense of just focusing on yourself in those situations and how you're going to show up and how you're going to behave is critically important to this whole spirit of resilience.

Okay, so absolutely gorgeous. I love the hula hoop metaphor. That makes sense to me. I can even visualize trying to do that for myself. I violate that all the time. I step into spaces I shouldn't be in. Right. And. And so the first one, bad stuff happens. Two, when it happens, I can control the things I can control. The idea of controlling someone else, controlling another, that's an illusion. The only thing I can control is my response. And you guys have alluded to this a couple of times. So I'm going to get to the third one, and then there's just three that I'm playing with. There's lots of people, lots of videos about, here's what you should do when bad things happen. Here's what it looks like. I thought these three resonated the most with me from a couple of different readings and a couple of different podcasts and stuff that I read. This is a hard one. You almost have to ask yourself a very simple question. Is what I'm doing right now helping me to deal with this or hurting me? Is it helping me or hurting me? I have too many examples of not asking myself that question and not thinking about staying in a space of victim. I'm a victim. I didn't get what I wanted, didn't get my job, didn't win the game, didn't. You know, you can pick them. And is what I'm thinking and doing helping me or hurting me slowing me down? I'll start with you this time, Colleen.

No, I like that. I mean, it's almost the definition of insanity, right? Is you need to do the same thing and expecting a different response. I think I taught my son that when he was like five. Because it's true many times, I think. And it goes back to the self awareness piece. I mean, so much of this folds onto themselves, right, Julie? But I think that it's that sense of taking time to pause and reflect. Is what I am doing moving me towards where I want to go, or is it slowing me down and keeping stuck in this space that I'm in? And so I think the invitation here is to really continue to practice self awareness and to pause, reflect, and ask yourself those questions consistently. Not just a one and done, but consistently as you're continuing to move forward, you know, throughout the global pandemic, throughout perhaps some of the trials and tribulations, personally as well as professionally.

Oh, I love that. And there's your recognition that I can choose which way to go forward once I take a minute to reflect. Okay, here's what's occurred. Here's what's continuing to occur for me. I need to reflect on that. I am reacting. I'm angry, upset, sad, grieving. Reflect, reflect, reflect. Recover myself and then figure out how to respond. Boy, is that a different way of showing up. So is what I'm doing a response or just a reaction that's continuing to keep me in that space? Julie, what you thinking right now?

I find it interesting that you bring that up because when I was getting my PhD, I was going through struggles with my girls and everyone else because I was outside of my hula hoop and I was trying to help Skylar and help Caitlin and help Fred and help the dogs and do all of this sort of stuff. And then I would scream and yell and be all emotional because I wasn't in my hula hoop trying to get my things done. And so the question that I started to do was is this, I really asked that question. Is what I am going to do for Skylar, is that helpful or is that hurtful? And I did it both for her and for me, knowing that they need to grow up and mature. Am I hurting them by waiting till she cries at 10 o' clock at night and sweeping in and writing the paper? Okay, you just tell me what you want and I will write it. See, this is the reason why I tell you I want to work on this earlier because it's 10 o'.

Clock.

I haven't even written my paper yet. Do you see how this goes? Right. I have no practice in any of this.

That's amazing. It's great. Keep going.

So I just had to have those conversations with them, though, I think just shutting it down and Saying, okay, I'm going to ask those questions in my head. But you also have to let people know that the interaction is going to change. And I say, this is what I'm asking myself. It changes. To me, it seems like it's going to be harmful if you continue to rely on me to swoop in and save you at 10 o' clock at night. So in the future, if you want something, I can be helpful up to nine. But at nine o' clock, I am done.

The no help sign goes out at Julie's house.

I'm done. No, that's. Oh, Julie, that's so good.

That's one of the questions that I ask myself with my kids.

So is this helping or hurting? And who is it helping or hurting? So I can't tell you how many science fairs I was asked to judge as a school principal. The kids never did any of them. And then I'd come in there and they. And the. And they would be upset. The kids wouldn't be upset. The parents would be because I didn't give them the highest grade for their damn. Anyway, this is just an incredible generational issue about people swooping in to take care of the kid. Vince, what are you thinking?

Man, that was hard to follow, except I would love to be a fly on the wall in Julie's household, man, for about a week.

Look for the sign. Kitchen is closed.

So for me, I was thinking about just myself, man. I made a transition and I made some decisions to change the way that I live. I went from organizational guy working 9 to 5, 1 o', clock, 24, 7, to more of a entrepreneurial kind of approach to my life and to operate with different parameters, so new environment. And I have to ask myself often because I still get phone calls from people, hey, we could use you here. Would you come here? And so, you know, I'm like this money thing here, this predictability vice, this non predictability. And so I'm always kind of, you know, asking myself, preoccupied. I do. I called Colleen just this past week going, hey, let me run something by, you know. So I'm always thinking and asking myself, you know, hey, the decisions that I made, is this helping me? Because it's giving me a quality of life that I want. It's giving me a different opportunity. Is my self reflective, my time important? So what's important, what's not? And I have to. It's not a one and done. I just have these ongoing conversations as things evolve. And I have to recognize that that's something I do intentionally because I want to make sure that the path that I'm going to is a good path for me and is a good path for my family.

I love it. Look for the good things in whatever decision that you make once you come through those first two steps. So that was magnificent. So we were actually working today on stoicism and how its connection to resiliency is very powerful. And I like the one definition I shared with you about stoicism is an operating system for dealing with high stress issues or problems or events. And that's what we were doing here, demonstrating what it could look like. But I wanted to review the three steps and we'll do a checkout in a moment. Step one, recognition. Big recognition and awareness that bad stuff's going to happen. Now, it's our judgment that it's bad, but it's going to happen to us. And the gang has given you wonderful examples of that. So it's not like spending all my time as the victim, why did this happen to me? But clear recognition that these things will happen in our lives. Two, to really practice that ability to decide, what can I control? And, you know, the work we do here in JLC is all about trying to control other people or other things is an illusion. The only thing I can control is my response. So what can I control? Let me get inside my hula hoop sphere and figure out what is it that I can control in this environment. And the third one to be reflective is what I'm doing and thinking. Notice doing and thinking, is it helping me or is it hurting me? Is it moving me forward or holding me still or falling back? These three steps are very much stoic steps, but they are also easy to follow steps when you are faced with a very difficult, stressful, surprising event. The pandemic is a great example. 911 was another that Julie used. So was your surgery. Vince gave a terrible situation where he lost a colleague. Colleen talked about her mom multiple times and she will continue because she has people that love her and it's safe to talk about that. We will all go through this. This isn't as though, oh, now we know what it is and now everything is going to be fine. No, we have some disciplined steps that we can take. Stuff happens. Bad stuff happens. What can I control? Is what I'm doing and thinking helping me or hurting me? What resonated most with you today, team? Let's do this as a checkout. What? Really? Wow, that surprised me. Or that's something I hadn't thought of because I think you've all experienced this work before and stuff has happened to all of us. And as we started this thing opening up to learning, what is something that opened up for you today that surprised you? Who'd like to go.

Oh, go ahead, Colleen.

I was just thinking that as you went through the three things for people to consider, I think what, what really dawned on me is it's not a checklist. It's not, oh, okay. I'm in a situation where I need to practice my resilience. I'm gonna get out my notebook and do step one, you know, step two. Am I doing this? I think it's almost like a loop, right? It's this sense of you're constantly reassessing, you're constantly reflecting, you're constantly checking in with yourself. And so that's just the piece that really resonated with me. And the second thing, before I check out Bill Durham, it finally came talked about and I'm out.

I did love that movie. I'm with you 100% in that one. So, Julie, why don't you go next, have Vince play cleanup.

I have two things. The first thing was I never put reaching goals. So my goal was to try and get my dissertation finished. And in order to get my dissertation finished, I needed to stop taking care of everybody else, in essence, getting out of my hula hoop. And I never put that as reaching my goal, as also resilience. That what was is different? And asking that question of is this helpful, is this harmful for me or, you know, so. So that was the one thing. And then the second thing I think that I need to constantly be reminded is that there's there, there are always going to be things that happen to us and we're all going to die at some point. We don't know how, we don't know when. And so many times we try and do so much to avoid something and we say, why does this happen to me? And now we have a process that's sort of like the. When you start asking why, that's sort of your awareness, your self awareness to say, okay, you're asking why. So let's start with our stoic reflection as to, okay, this has happened, so what can I control? And then is this helpful or harmful to help me move through it? Get them out.

So that was really neat. And what you did beautifully, by the way, if you ask why too often and you don't shift to what can I do differently that can lead to depression. Why? Why am I such a jerk to that person? Why is that person being A jerk to me. And I stay there. And you just did it beautifully. To shift the why, recognize the why, shift to what can I do differently? What can I do differently that would be helpful in this situation? What can I do differently that would enable me to show up for someone that actually needs someone to show up? I think it was great. Thank you. All right, Clean up from Bull Durham.

So for me, man, I think that I find this dignity and simplicity and I really enjoy the way we take a subject, any subject that we talk about, and we get into the texture and the granularity of our examples to really surface the meat and the potatoes of what we're talking about. And then just to kind of close out the discussion today with the simplified version of, hey, bad things happen or things happen, there are things that we can control. And then how we ask ourselves, is this helping me to move forward, stay still, or go backwards? So just the way that I think I heard our conversation today and the way it was summarized was a very simplistic methodology that resonates with me because I like to say, hey, man, listen, I need to explain it like a 4 year old can understand it because you have different people and different kind of approaches mentally. And I just like to keep things in a very simplified fashion so that we can all understand, that we can all move forward. So I appreciated the summarization of our discussion today. I thought that was really, really a nice time. And I'm out.

To say it's a privilege and an honor to work with you is an understatement. You guys were magnificent today. I'm sure those of you that were listening were going, wow, that was pretty cool. Because I thought it was pretty cool. And I'm like the observer here. I'm sitting in the armchair asking just a few questions, what the hell do I know? And look what came out of my three colleagues. It was just unbelievable. Those of you that were listening or watching us on the YouTube channel, thank you so much for being with us here today. If you want to hear more, learn more, or talk to one of these fine people, they actually will talk to folks that call. Just give us a call or a text or an email and go to gojlc www.gojlc.com. please look for us on the podcast channels, whether you use whatever one you like to use. Fine. And this is a YouTube event also, so you can find them in a lot of places. Thank you so much, everybody. Be well, be careful and do your very best out there to take care of yourself. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast.

The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.