Finding Brave 166: Remote Work, Rising Stress & The Critical Need for Connection, with Mike Stallard

Hello, Kathy Caprino here. I'm really excited to share with you that on March 17th at noon Eastern I am giving a 90 minute free webinar training all about how to successfully manage your job search and your career growth in uncertain times. I am going to tell you everything I know that I can share in 90 minutes about interview prep, how to identify jobs that you want, how to vet work cultures that you'll be a great fit, fit in, how to use LinkedIn, how to network, how to build a personal brand. So if you are considering job search or in the middle of it or you want to build a happier, better, more rewarding career, I hope you'll join me. It's free. Nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Check the link below and do sign up soon because there's a limited number of live slots. So I'll see you there. Thank you. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. Kathy Caprino here. I am so excited to be with our guest today. So excited. You know, I love to tell little stories about how I've met the wonderful guests I have on. And our guest today, Michael Stallard. First of all, thank you for taking the time in your beautiful home in Connecticut. I know you're crashingly busy, Mike, but I want to tell everybody just how we met. And you know, sometimes the way you meet someone and their generosity and kindness and openness just stays with you forever. And that is Mike to me. So we were talking, Mike, a little earlier, I think it might be even 10 years ago that a wonderful co friend of ours introduced us. And I didn't have anything going on at that point, really. I think I said I'm a coach, but I had just left being a therapist and I wrote you and you said, come on down, let's have coffee at a Starbucks in Connecticut. And you know, I'll never forget that your generosity and this is the way you are taking time for people. And it seems to me you're, you're never looking at what you can get back. You're just giving. Is that how you describe it, Mike? You just give?

Well, you know, there's a joy in giving, I think. And I heard good things about you from this friend and you know, a trusted friend. So I knew you were special, Kathy. And it was just really, it was, our conversation was nice and I think you, I think you had a book published already.

Did I? Okay, so that would have been 2008 breakdown, breakthrough.

Okay. Right. Yeah, it was around that time. So, yeah, so I guess I had.

Something going on well, I'm just so, so grateful. And your advice and your continual support, it means the world to me. Thank you. So that's my little story, but I want to tell you about Mike. And we are talking about remote work, rising stress, and the critical need for connection. And just before we came on, Mike was sharing some, some things I think we all need to understand about what to today and the stresses that we have and the isolation and the depression, what it really does to us. And you know, the antidote to that is connection. But a lot of us don't know how to build it and how to foster it. So that's where Mike comes in. So let me tell you about Mike. Michael. I need my glasses. Michael Stallard is an author, keynote speaker, workshop leader on how leaders create and maintain cultures of connection that help individuals, teams and organizations thrive for a sustained period of time. He's the co founder and president of the Connection Culture Group, a leadership training and consulting firm. And Michael's recent clients, I had not known this until I read this list have included Costco, Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Turner Construction, Qualcomm, US Air Force, and the Yale New Haven Health Organization. Texas Christian University founded the TCU center for Connection Culture based on Michael's work. Wow. And Mike is the primary author of the Connection Culture, which is a book you just don't want to miss. And it's now in its second edition along with Fired up and Burnt Out. Your second book, Connection Culture was recently named the best of the best books at Get Abstract. That's a high praise, isn't it? And Mike recently launched a popular online course with LinkedIn learning titled Create Creating a Connection Culture. And we're going to link to all of these things because they're really not to be missed. But Mike, it's like, I have you over for dinner. I want to pick your prodigious brain and ask a lot about. Let's start here. Obviously, we're in a world today where things are so uncertain. We're scared for our health, we're scared for our loved ones. We're remote working. But can you talk about what this stress and anxiety and exhaustion, what it really means in our lives? What's going on here? Tell us more so we can understand it from a deeper level.

Yeah, I think, Kathy, that, you know, we're all feeling it. One effect is just exhaustion. Our environment has changed and you know, those positive interactions we had when we were out in the community, we didn't have to wear face Masks those actually. Barbara Fredrickson's research at the University of North Carolina. Broaden and Build, it's called. It shows that those little interactions really have an effect on our resilience, on our attitude, on our future joy and happiness. So we're missing a lot of those things right now and we feel it. I know oftentimes by the afternoon I'm exhausted and I need to take a little nap. Now I'm a little older.

So I hear you right there with you.

But you know, when you get deeper into what's actually happening from a biology standpoint, it really comes down to three factors. Number one, stress is high. And the data shows us that the American Psychological association has done some good research recently, and it shows that 80% of American adults report that they're feeling a lot of stress from the pandemic. Just fear of contracting Covid so that those are very high numbers. So stress is high and it was already high before the pandemic for different reasons, but it's even higher now. And then secondly, loneliness was high before the pandemic. The most recent research I've seen came from Cigna, the insurance company, and they found that 61%, three out of five American adults, so the majority of adults test out as lonely. Oh, wow. And then we have the social isolation from the pandemic to prevent the transmission of the virus. And so those three things, stress, loneliness, social isolation. Now loneliness means feeling alone. Social isolation means you are alone, you're not around people, so they're different. But that combination, it triggers a response in our body that we feel threatened and it triggers what's called the stress response. Short term stress response can be good because it protects us, it gives us a boost of energy, adrenaline. But if we're stuck in that state, we can burn out and we don't feel as well. Actually jotted down some of the research I wanted to share just briefly, that chronic stress response, it triggers seven responses. Number one, it makes us feel more helpless and threatened. Number two, it reduces sleep quality and self control. Self control. It affects our ability to eat healthy, to exercise, to be active. Number three, it impairs our judgment and cognitive function. So we don't think clearly when we're in that stress response and we're lonely, it narrows our perspective so that we're less creative and we're less open minded. As a result, it makes people antisocial, so we're more likely to snap. If somebody says something, I'm laughing because.

I just snapped last night. I'm like, what is coming out of my mouth. Who took Kathy and replaced her with this person?

It's hard to control when we feel more stress and we're lonely. And then also, groups that are disconnected are 80%, that show an 80% decline in trust and cooperation. So you can imagine the effect that would have on our work if we're.

This is what loneliness does. Or stress.

Combination of loneliness and stress.

Loneliness and stress.

Definitely loneliness. But stress is an aggregating factor.

A reduction in trust.

Trust and cooperation. 80% reduction. Yeah. This is from Karen Sobel Lodjeski's research.

Great. We'll share that.

Work on. And then finally, and this is very relevant right now, I just did an interview for one of the big radio stations in New York on this, that we're more susceptible to the angry rants of demagogues and charlatans and conmen who are. They're demonizing an out group and connecting a group of people who together are demonizing an out group. And when they do that, they create this community. It provides several benefits to the people who are part of it. It's not healthy because, you know, it's creating adversaries that, you know, could also, you know, they could be hostile back, of course, but it. It brings a sense of meaning. If they're, you know, fighting these people they believe are truly out for them. It creates a sense of community because they're posting on Facebook about it. And when they.

Togetherness, right.

They get 50 likes and people are sharing and people are writing comments on their posts that give them a sense of community. It also when they strike out verbally or physically, you think of the people breaking into the capitol recently. And just if you see more and more videos that are coming out, just how violent they were and smashing windows and smashing down doors, that. That reduces stress on their part. Stress. They're very. They tend to be lonely, very stressed individuals. And so in striking out, it reduces their stress. And that's, you know, so there's a positive emotional benefit to them, but it's not healthy because it's creating a hate group that over time, you know, hate groups don't survive long term. They eventually implode.

And why is that?

Well, it's for several reasons. Sometimes it's because the people there demonizing strike back and conquer them. In some cases, historically. In other cases, it's because there is a failure of trust and safety for people to speak the truth to the leader who doesn't want to hear it. They have a way. They see the world. They don't want to hear truth, and it causes them to make bad decisions. I think of it as, you know, I call it knowledge traps. When you have that building up in an organization where all the leaders don't want to hear truth, they just want to hear what they want to hear, and it's not safe to share the truth with them. And it's like cholesterol building up on the human body. In the human body, it eventually leads to a heart attack. But in business, we call it. Or in organizations, we call it managerial failure.

That's a nice way to put it, isn't it? Excuse me, Platitude.

A good example, current example is just how the pandemic has been handled in the US Is an example of managerial failure. We know our president wasn't very open minded in wanting to hear people who didn't toe the party line. And so as a result, truth and fact and reality didn't get to him so that he can make the best decisions. And as a result, you know, we see it's. We're projected to have probably 500,000 people.

Have died from COVID Oh, this is also important. And I love your perspective. Can I throw it might sound trivial, but I want to share this. When you were talking about stress, loneliness, and social isolation, I think there's another thing that is impacting people that you don't hear much about. And I know it's really impacting me. So because I do a lot of zoom work, I don't feel. I feel connected, but I don't physically get the embraces and the hugs. And I saw some research recently that moms in particular are needing more physical touch. They're not getting what they want, need. But I think another thing that contributes to our feeling off balance and depressed is that all our lives, most of us have had experiences that punctuate the year. So it's the holidays, and when I do Christmas, this happens. It's. I'm in a singing group, for instance. When we have our concerts, we come together, we rehearse, and we sing. And a lot of these ways we punctuate the year define who we are. And for most of us, all of those have disappeared. Like, oh, every year I go to Florida with my friends who I've gone to college with 20 years ago. And I think that that has set us adrift, that we don't really understand ourselves the way we used to and we don't understand the passage of time the way we used to. What do you think about that, Mike?

Well, I think that's you know, it's another form of connection. You know, certainly singing is a huge form of connection. Right. It's just. It's a joy in your life. My wife Katie, who's not far from us, is in a women's a cappella group, and Katie's been in it for 20 years now.

Oh. So you all know what it feels like to be a part of a group like this.

Yeah. And friendships that are made. So I think all those things add up, and we. Those in those small things research shows that those small things make a difference. We know the cashier at the grocery store's name, or we even just recognize them and interact with them. You know, around here, where you and I live, we live not too far from each other. You know, a lot of people don't even make eye contact with cashiers at the store. And if you were doing that all day, you really just develop. It becomes a culture of indifference. So Katie and I are both really try to be intentional about just reaching out and connecting with people wherever we are. You know, whenever we're in their presence, they don't feel we're indifferent to them, and it makes a difference. And I. One of the things I love about being. Having been in this town for 20 years is everywhere I go, I know people, and I really love that. And the research shows that does make a difference.

I love that. I love it. All right, now, let's do the flip side here. Let's say we're running. We're leaders, we're managers. We're running our zoom meetings. We're doing our best. We're on slack, writing to everybody. What do we do here? Mike, you talk about three relational cultures, but tell us what we can do concretely. I know you'll give us the deeper look instead of kind of the silly platitudes we read.

Yeah. So we found there are three types of cultures, very simple. One is the culture of control. That's what demagogues and charlatans tend to want, is they want to be the boss and they want to control everything. And then there's the culture of indifference, where people are just so busy with tasks, they don't take time to connect, and that. That's not healthy either. And then there's the culture of connection and what we've seen. Kathy. And it's so fascinating to just see this in different contexts. You know, we start the book with the story of Lin Manuel Miranda and the team that developed the musical Hamilton. And it's such a wonderful story of, you know, we Go back to his growing up and how that affected him and how he became. He was very much loved by people, his family and his community. So it's natural for him. It's easy for him to love other people. And he just attracts talented people who want to be part of his team, his creative team that ultimately ended up producing Hamilton. So the pattern we see is we've boiled it down to pretty simple idea that when leaders communicate a vision that unites people, when they care for people as individuals and when they give them a voice, vision, value, voice, when you find that pattern. So here's a quick example. One of my favorite stores is Costco. And the people are so nice at Costco. I really love Costco.

Wow.

Of course, I can wander around there for hours.

I'm a. Didn't know that.

So Costco. I remember I was talking to Jim Senegal, who's one of the co founders, and Jim's retired now, but I said, jim, how do you describe your culture? And he said, oh, easy. It's do the right thing. I was like, what? What does that mean? And he said, well, it means we obey the law, we take care of our members, we take care of our employees, we respect our suppliers, and if we do all those, we reward our shareholders.

Okay. Sounds straightforward, doesn't it?

I can only hope your listeners own Costco stock, because it has been one of the best performing stocks in the entire stock market and wildly successful. But what you see is there's a sense of pride at Costco that they do the right thing. And so when they've discovered vendors who don't meet their standards, and if they can't find someone who does, they'll build their own because they feel like, you know, we have our reputation as we take care of our members, we care, you know, we protect them, we make sure that our products are safe, our food products, et cetera, they're really a trustworthy company. And so there's a sense of pride in the organization that they will do the right thing. Second, they value people. And you definitely just see that in the way the leaders like Jim Senegal and others, how they interact with people wherever they are in the organization. You know, it's a apprenticeship type culture where people who have more responsibility are mentoring and apprenticing people who are younger and have less responsibilities so they can learn and grow. And, you know, Wall Street's always giving Costco a hard time. They, you know, Wall street feels like they pay their employees too much and they're too generous with benefits, but they have a 95% retention rate, which is multiples of some people in the industry. I mean, it's the envy of all their competitor. They attract people and keep them for a long time, including their managers. And, you know, they have high level of employee engagement. I remember the third part, the voice part I saw. I was speaking at their annual managers meeting where they had all their warehouse managers from all around the world into Seattle speaking at the big convention center downtown. And I was there during the morning before I spoke. And they played all these little videos, Kathy, of people all around the world who had come up with an idea to improve their service to the members, to employees, to improve their efficiency, whatever it was some way to improve the organization. They captured it in a video and they showed it to all their managers worldwide. And they showed video after video after.

Video of the new idea being implemented.

Well, it was just a short. A short summary of the idea presented by the person who came up with the idea and an estimate of the impact. And so it gave. You know, they were sharing all these ideas and they were giving people a voice and celebrating people expressing their opinions and ideas that made a difference in the organization. And so it just shows. It's no surprise that, you know, year after year, they're one of the top rated large company employers in the US and they just have a culture that I remember the head of leadership training said, well, you know, connection. That is our culture at Costco. It just defines who we are.

I've got to ask a question here. I'm dying to know, you know, everything you just described, there's a million words for it. There's heart, there's empathy, there's respect, there's trust that who I have hired has great ideas, there's openness to listen. It's just the most beautiful, you know, signs of great leadership. When you talk about this individual who, you know, you were just mentioning and interviewed, do you think great leaders are born? Do you think. Do you think he was a leader from, you know, age six when he was at a lemonade stand selling. What do you think? Because you've worked with so many leaders who need work and so many leaders who are just inspirations. What do you think?

I think it's. It's largely shaped through their experiences in life. But, you know, there is, there is research that shows we do, we do inherit some of our, you know, personality attributes, including how social our parents and grandparents were. If they were lonely, we would inherit some of that. So whether we live our lives in ways that are connected or Disconnected. That's going to affect our children, too, and grandchildren is what the research shows. But far and away, I would say it's those. And you ask a really interesting question, because it's one that I've been asking more leaders to go deeper with me and just share what were some of the things that really tell me the events and the people in your life who affected your ability to care for others and lead so effectively. And, you know, and to be honest, they're able to love other people. And you see that in Jim Senegal. So, for example, I asked him that question and he told me about his father, who was a coal miner and a steel worker who had been hurt in, you know, in his work and had to find another occupation because of that. And just how much he. His dad's, you know, care for the family affected him. And then he told this wonderful story about he had move from the Pittsburgh area to San Diego to take a job on his uncle's fishing boat. But he had problems with seasickness, so that didn't work out so well.

That was rather short lived.

Yeah, yeah, he didn't. It didn't go so well. So he. A buddy told him about a job unloading mattresses at a new store called Fed Mart. And the founder of fedmart was a Jewish attorney from Brooklyn who had relocated to the west coast. And he saw, you know, he kind of pulled Jim under his wing after seeing his work ethic. And Jim was going to night school to get his degree. And this guy mentored him for many, many years. In fact, Jim was with him, just had had dinner with him just a few days before he passed away in his 90s. And one of my favorite stories Jim told me was that they were expanding into Jim's in his 80s. Now, this was quite a few years ago that this story happened. They were expanding into fedmart, into Dallas. And they were on the phone, Jim Senegal and this guy, Saul Price, Katie's reminding me. Thanks, Katie. And they were on the phone and the architect said, you know, guys, we got a problem here. You haven't designed bathrooms for. We need two sets of bathrooms, some for whites and some for colored people is what the guy said. And Saul went ballistic. He said, no effing way are we going to have separate bathrooms. And Jim said, what year was this?

Was this in the 60s?

It probably was probably around the time of the Voting Rights Act.

Wow.

And Jim said, well, first of all, we were all in shock, but, you.

Know, to hear Saul go.

Hear Saul.

Yeah, there you go.

Whoa. And it really touched the nerve. But he also said, you know, Saul just. He had a strong moral confidence about what was right and wrong, and that's why. Do the right thing. Do the right thing actually came from Saul Price. And then Jim paused and said, how lucky was I to work for a guy like that?

Moral. What was the word used? Moral confidence.

Kind of a moral confidence that Saul had, you know, and Saul was a tough character, too, as a businessman, I think. But Saul really cared about people. He cared about people, and he cared about doing the right thing. And that had such an impact on Jim Sinegal that it's really become Saul's ideas, created the culture that Jim Senegal led that has produced this wild success at Costco.

So we are shaped. We're shaped by what happens to us. We're shaped by our capacity to be loved and to give love. We're shaped by an openness to learning. Obviously, Jim was very open. He was like a sponge, it seems.

Like a sponge.

Like a sponge. Oh, I love it. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

So just a quick one to mention is I was speaking at Lockheed Martin Aerospace, and the former. A former Vice Admiral of the Navy came up to me and said, I want to introduce you the former Chief of the Navy, Vern Clark, because he did what you're talking about, and we saw the impact it had. And so he introduced me to Emil Clark, who kind of kept a distance at first. You know, I don't think he, you know, he didn't like to have the spotlight shown on him. And he kind of knew I was looking to describe his leadership. But I remember I went down to the Navy Yard in D.C. and I met Vern and his wife Connie for dinner at the Navy Yard. How interesting, just seeing Admiral Clark interact with the young Marines who guard the Navy Yard. You know, you can just tell he loves sailors and their families and young people who serve a cause greater than self. There's a love he has there for them. He wants the best for them in their career in the Navy. And the things he did really changed the Navy's culture to become more connected and to value enlisted sailors. And they saw first term reenlistment rise from under 20% at times all the way up to almost 60% in 18 months. So almost tripling first term enlistment in a short time because these enlisted sailors started to feel like the Navy cared for them.

I have so much to ask. How come we have so little time? Let me ask one thing about that, and then I want to talk about what you can teach at such a high level, how do we assess connection and what do we concretely do? But here's my question. How would I put this? I think love from the heart is at the core of most interactions and experiences that help people thrive. And, you know, we can define love a million ways, but caring for someone with. With the depth of feeling and emotion and expressing it and wanting others to thrive, not being overly narcissistically worried about yourself and how you look, all of it, all of it, it goes on and on and on. Here's my question. And this is not scripted, so Mike's gonna give me his honest opinion. I think there's quite a few differences between men and women at work, men and women in general, men and women as leaders. I think that if I were to say to a group of a thousand women, female leaders, love is at the heart of connection, every head would nod. If I said that to a group of a thousand men, I don't think every head would nod for a number of reasons. But you work with a lot of top male leaders. I work with a lot of female leaders. What do you think about that statement? Would you agree with me or push back on me?

No, I think that's true. I think a lot of men squirm when the word love is brought into the workplace. And I remember the first time that I heard love uttered by a man. And it was the vice admiral that I mentioned, Willie Moore is his name. And I was speaking at this off site that his group of leaders was doing for Lockheed Aerospace. And I remember when he talked about, he described his grandmother, how she was really connected to her church community. And he said, you know, a lot of people today don't have that. And you, as their leader, may be the most important person in their life. And you have to learn how to love them. I was like, I couldn't believe it. Now this guy, Kathy, you know, vice.

Admirable, admirable vice admiral. Oh, my goodness.

So this isn't the one who was the chief of the Navy that I introduced. So there's Vern Clark, and this is Willie Moore. But, you know, Willie Moore had been the oldest Navy flyer. So this is a guy who was, you know, spent years like, you know, landing aircraft on aircraft carriers, you know, and when the aircraft carriers pitching at sea. So this guy, he spoke from, I wouldn't say he projected a strong masculinity, but everybody knew he was awesome, right? Everybody knew that. And for him to say that, you really have to love the people you lead, people. They heard that they heard it right.

So can you. We're going to talk about, And I know you can talk about how to deal with people when they're expressing hostility, you know, about politics. But I really want to go with this, if you don't mind. If love is at the core, I want to show you that I respect you, care for you, want the best for you. What do we actually have to do differently? Pretend we're talking now to, you know, 3,000 leaders around the world. I, you know, if they're listening to this podcast, this is no finding Brave. This is this. You know, knowing that we need to access more love and demonstrate it is not going to be a big shock to this audience. But can you tell us how can you help us? I mean, I'm guessing it's an internal job first. I mean, I knew as a therapist, if you don't love yourself, forget it. You can't. You can't love others. It's. It's a mirror, but it's, in my view, it's an internal job first, and then it. It's an external job. It's what you say. It's how you look at people. It's. It's the words you use. It's the feeling. Maya Angelou saying, people will forget what you said, forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. Can you tell us what you think about? How do we do this, Mike? How do we show it?

Well, it's, you know, it's hard to. I think what you said, Kathy, is right. It starts with an attitude, and it also, you have to have been loved to love others. So you can't fake that.

So what if someone's listening, saying, but I didn't. I had an unhappy childhood, a narcissistic parent. What would you suggest? I'm sure you've worked with countless leaders who say, I wish I could do what you're doing, Megan, but I can't. What do you tell them?

Well, and to be loved, you have to love others so you can take the initiative to show you care for people. You can do that.

In other words, fill the void of your heart by how you behave to others, even though you didn't have a role model for that.

Yeah. You can still develop that. And, you know, there are leaders. I know very senior leaders in organizations who became involved in volunteer activities where they were out serving, you know, the poor, serving through their church, and it became a way for them to get comfortable serving others and expressing appreciation and interacting with people who you know, they wouldn't normally interact with and it started to really develop their heart.

Did you suggest that for them or.

They knew I suggested that before? Yeah, I didn't. In the particular instances I'm thinking about, yeah, I didn't suggest it to them. Someone else did. But I know the effect it had. So, you know, when we love others, we'll be loved back and over time and as you know, that does. It affects our. It affects our heart rhythm even and how we sync in terms of heart rhythms with other people. Though, there is some biology behind all this. It's not just fuzzy, right? Happy talk, happy talk. So as we learn to think the best of others, when we learn to become comfortable affirming them, when we become comfortable looking for ways to serve them, then they respond and that connects us. And that's when people want to follow you as leader. Now, they want to see that you're competent, too. But when you have the competence and that character, those connecting character strengths that unite you with other people, that's when they want to follow you because they know that you want. That you're for them.

Oh, beautiful. I do want to say, you know, sometimes what pops into my head is what I think some listeners might say that pushes against what we're saying. And that's great because then I get to say it and I hear what you think. But what I do want to emphasize here is when we say love, when we say connection, we don't mean weak. We don't mean necessarily soft. We don't mean we're a pushover. We don't mean we don't speak powerfully and confidently. We don't mean that. I don't mean that. Anyway. So, for instance, you know, I have a wonderful team of four. And one of my, one of my beloved tech manager said, you know, I would do anything for you. She said, and that doesn't mean I'm all sweetness and a, you know, little fuzzy rabbit. Sometimes, Sometimes I have to say I have to push. I have to push deadlines. I have to say, hey, this fell down. And I really want to understand what we can do. So I want people not to think, you know, I can't be soft like that. What do you think, Mike?

When I say, well, that's, that's what I, you know, I love about the connection Culture book. This sounds self promotional, but is, you know, writing the stories of people like Lin Manuel Miranda who have such a high expectation for perfection and Tom Kail, the director, you know, they have very, very high standards or the rock group U2, or Oprah, who we profile, or Angela Merkel, who has a phenomenal story of connection that most people don't know about, or Steph Curry. So these are not. These are super high achievers, but they're also phenomenal connectors.

There we go. So you would agree that, you know, if people push back listening to this, you know, definitely read this book. All of those people you mentioned are performing and functioning in an incredibly high level. And softness might not be a word anyone would think of any of those people. You know, soft in that way of weakness, vulnerable, although vulnerability is an important part of connecting, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, I think they care for people and they care for results because their work is affecting people. It's like Admiral Clark, you know, his attitude was, you know, the Navy is not going to fail on my watch. You know, there's a toughness there.

There's a mental and emotional fortitude.

There was a saying in the Navy, you know, is this fun yet? Like, somebody would come up aircraft, you know, landing aircraft on aircraft carrier when it's pitching at sea, and they would say, hey, you having fun yet? And Admiral Clark says, I don't want to ever hear that again. He kind of told the whole Navy it was a part of their culture where people were sharing that all the time. He said, we don't. What we do isn't fun per se. It's. What we do is important. We're defending freedom and the greatest country in the world. It's, you know, we spend months away from our loved ones.

We stop making the barometer of success. I mean, we should enjoy it and love it and be rewarded and. Of course. But, yeah, are we having fun? Is. Is a little bit the wrong focus, isn't it?

Yeah, it was. You know, we're. We're doing important work, and there's a joy in doing important work together when we respect each other and support each other. And we. We. You know, he had a real sense of pride that, you know, we're leading the best Navy in the history of humankind. You know, we can project power to any corner of the world in a very short time. Very few navies could do that. And so he transformed the Navy. It's phenomenal what he accomplished, but I wouldn't call him. He definitely loves sailors and their families, but he was not going to let the Navy fail on his, you know, some of the, like Don Rumsfeld, who's a pretty tough character, if you remember him, you know, praised Admiral Clark as having a huge impact on the Navy that'll last for years and decades to come because he wanted the Navy to be its very best. And he knew that to bring out the best in the Navy, you have to bring out the best in every sailor.

All right, give us, I know I've kept you way too long. Maybe this is a two part series, but one more question, Mike, what else? We're all, we're not maybe running the Navy, but we're running our small organization or our small team. And it's all fractured and you know that people are struggling. Give us one more strategy, a specific tactic or approach. What can we do?

Well, I think right now in this environment we're in, and it looks like from the research, Kathy, that I'm seeing that we're going to be in this pandemic environment through most of this year. And probably toward the end, you know, as the vaccine gets out, it's going to take time. And so just a few things that I've been sharing with people is, number one, you can't give what you don't have. So you have to take care of yourself, number one. Because if you're exhausted, you're not going to be good at connecting with people. You're going to be short and cranky, right? You're going to have a short.

Do I know what you mean?

And you'll be cranky. And so, number one, we have to take care of ourselves. Never worry alone. It's really important when we worry and ruminate and lose sleep over things. It, you know, it can put our body in that stress response state. And so all we have to do is have someone that we can share our highs and lows with every day or we can talk through our worries with. And that has the effect of shifting brain activity to the cortex where we make rational decisions. And it quiets the amygdala where we process threats. So it makes us feel better and it helps us make better decisions when we don't worry alone. So that's a very important one. And the third one is to serve is to live. When we look for ways to help other people, you know, whether it's our family members, our neighbors, people in the workplace in ways that are we're really giving to them, not looking for something in return that that produces helpers high, which boosts our positive emotions and makes us more resilient. So those are three simple things that we can do right now in this pandemic that will help all of us get through it.

Oh, I love your tips. I could listen to you for an hour. You have such a soothe 10 hours, such a soothing way about you. And you really do embody this, Mike. I know you do. You're not just, you know, sharing some nice tips. You live this and I'm so grateful for your time. So where do people buy the book? Your second edition, the best of the best book and learn all about you. Watch your LinkedIn learning. Where do we send people?

Yeah, they could go to connectionculture.com great.

That's it. It's all there.

That's it.

Fantastic. I can't thank you enough for what you're doing.

Always a joy to be with you. Thank you.

I can't wait till we can all have lunch. You're only like five minutes away from me now. Oh, I love it. Thank you again and thank you, Katie, for being in the corner there in your chair.

She's waving.

All right, everybody, I'm hoping that this not only resonates but it brings up questions. Like I'm going to leave you with one if you are worrying alone, you know, okay. He says I shouldn't, but I don't have anybody, you know, reach out. Let, let us give you some resources there, there are things you can do, community you can join whether they're, you know, church or other volunteer things that are happening that, that will help you find your tribe, you know, so if you're thinking, I know what, what they're saying is right, but I, I don't quite get how. We would love to hear from you. And Mike, I know you're so responsive. Can people write on LinkedIn after they see this posted? And actually this is coming out March 11, I believe. But can you. If people write questions and they need a little more resources, would you join me in responding there? Would that be.

Absolutely. They could post on LinkedIn or write me@mikeonnectionculture.com how can you beat that?

We'd love to hear from you. These are tough times, let's face it. Even when we are surrounded by people, we love and feel full. It's a rough time here and we recognize that and we're sending our love to you and we hope to hear from you. All right, so everyone, thank you. Thanks again, Mike. And have an incredibly love filled, service filled week and a finding brave time in your life. I hope. See you next time.