Creating a BETTER Work CULTURE Starts with YOU | Jeanette Bronée

And I wrote the book, The Self-Care Mindset, to help people understand that our relationships at work has a lot to do with our relationship with ourselves. I think is really what self-care is all about is to get us, get to know ourselves. And so I started looking completely differently at how do we support ourselves being better at what we want to do in the world? How do we reclaim agency over our lives? And over the course of that, I've been coaching people for 15 years. That we don't learn how to communicate how we feel, what we're going through, and we learn to ask for what we need. We kind of learn to suck it up and do it ourselves.

Could you tell everybody a little bit about the importance of pausing and why you like to talk about that?

Yes. Number one—

Jonette, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling today?

I'm feeling great, and I hope you are too, since we're going to have a conversation together that I hope we'll inspire many.

I think so too. We're going to focus today's conversation on action, and hopefully everybody can walk out of today's podcast interview with some things that they can try out to improve their lives. So before we jump into some of our questions, I'd love to have you introduce yourself to everybody. Tell them a little bit about who you are, why you decided to write this book, and what they can expect to learn from it.

Sure. So I'm Danish originally, so that, that's a big part of who I am. And I think part of what happened when I came to the US was I saw this disconnect between what it means to be human and what it means to succeed at work. And I fell into that loop as well when I entered the fashion industry and just worked, worked, worked, worked to try to achieve and, you know, reach my goals and so on and so forth from that sort of very mental perspective of more, more, more, more. And of course, I burned out. And then after I lost both my parents to cancer a year apart, I realized something had to change because work was supposed to be something that I enjoyed and helped me grow as a person. It wasn't about the job growing, it was about me growing. And so I started looking completely differently at how do we support ourselves being better at what we want to do in the world? How do we reclaim agency over our lives? And over the course of that, I've been coaching people for 15 years. So I left the fashion industry as a burned-out fashion executive and moved completely into coaching and health and wellbeing. And for the past 6 years or so, I've been doing keynotes around the world and consulting with leaders who wanna understand how to create a healthier culture by cultivating better relationships between individuals on the team. And I wrote the book, The Self-Care Mindset, to help people understand that our relationships at work has a lot to do with our relationship with ourselves.

I think your story is just incredibly inspiring. Um, I did, I did a deep dive kind of on researching you, and I found out a lot about your parents and your mother. And I'm so curious as to— and this might be a good way to kind of give a background story on yourself— but you said that your mother struggled with bipolar disorder and she actually had a couple suicide attempts, and that she also like blamed them on you. And what I'm so curious about is how did you, as a child, how did you deal with that as a child? And then how did you bring that into your life as an adult? Because it seems like you, you, you talk with your parents with such respect, and many people would see their parents, if they had the same kind of upbringing, they would see their parents in a completely different light. So I'm curious as to how you cultivated that mindset over the years to have a positive look at them. Hmm.

Yeah, I think the relationship I had with my mom as a teenager was I was angry with her, right? I was angry because I felt that she was expecting me to understand what she needed. She expected me to read her mind. And there are some parts there where I think that's my realization later on that we don't learn how to communicate how we feel, what we're going through, and we don't learn to ask for what we need. We kind of learn to suck it up and do it ourselves. And it causes so much harm. learned that too, because I learned that by default from my mother, right? And so it wasn't until after she passed very suddenly, and I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, that I realized that our relationship had been so difficult because we couldn't talk to each other. And what really woke me up to that was that I talked to my grandmother about her relationship with my mother. And I said, well, my mother didn't really have such a great childhood because she didn't know her dad. It was kind of like a mistake on a Saturday night kind of thing because that was the story my mother told me. And then my grandmother looked at me, she goes, what are you talking about? I was in love with that man. I wanted to marry him. We wanted to have this child together, but I wasn't allowed to marry him because he was too old for me. So I was sent away. to give birth in shame and adopt her away. And I begged to keep her. And I realized in that moment that my mother, her entire life, had lived with a relationship with herself that said, I don't matter. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not wanted. But really what the story was, was she was a love child. Somebody fought for her. And I just think that so often We get a little stuck in the relationship we have with ourselves based on our experiences, but we don't pause for long enough to ask more questions about, is that really true? And even if it is, what do I need so that I can gain more confidence and actually move through this by being more a friend to myself, for lack of a better word? And so I was curious about this as a younger person and as a child. And then when I started coaching, I realized So many people struggle so much with the relationship they have with themselves based on stories that they learned about themselves as a kid, and they're probably a little distorted as we have grown up because we build on them, and then they become the truth that we see the world with rather than coming back home and finding our own truth, which I think is really what self-care is all about, is to get us— get to know ourselves. And so my mother inspired me partly because she died and I didn't get a chance to heal my relationship with her. She inspired me to look deeper at myself and how I had responded and reacted in those moments.

I'll let you go, Nick. Sorry. But before Nick talks, I just want to say thank you for sharing that. I'm getting a little bit— you can't really see it through the screen, but I'm getting a little teary-eyed because as someone who has grown up with a specific story that I've been telling myself for years, it's been very difficult for me to get out of that. And sorry, I didn't know we're gonna go, gonna go here. But, um, it's just, it's, it's always so inspiring to talk to somebody like you who grew up in a kind of a difficult situation you had with your mother and everything else. And you were still able to overcome that. And that's just, again, super inspiring. But Nick, I'll kick it over to you.

Thank you. And can I just pause and say thank you for sharing that, Luke, because I think so many of us walk around with stories that We have just adopted because of an experience that, yes, was traumatic because it was our experience. But we have sort of gotten a little stuck in replaying that and believing it rather than questioning it. And even if it is true, I want to say this, even when people are traumatized, it's important that we look at what do we need so we can heal that and start having a healthy relationship with ourselves again. Because I don't want to dismiss that our stories can feel very real to us as well.

Well, I'm happy that Luke shared that vulnerability here as well. I think adding Luke to the podcast maybe a year ago as a co-host added a dimension of emotion that sometimes I don't display, and it doesn't happen as fast for me. I'm more on the logical side. Luke's more on the emotional side. So it's fun to get both perspectives. And you had just mentioned something that I thought was really interesting and maybe a fun transition to a technique. You mentioned many people don't pause to reflect on their stories. Now, power pausing is a technique that you teach early in the book. You talk a little bit about some studies of like what your brain looks like if it's not pausing and it overheats and stuff like that. So, could you tell everybody a little bit about the importance of pausing and why you like to talk about that?

Yes. Number one, we need to stop running on survival mode because that is our social construct. Our social construct says, work harder, do more, run faster, hustle more, and you will achieve, right? That's part of that whole construct. And I think that part of that is true. We are pushing ourselves, but it's not really sustainable. And it's not really necessarily how we achieve what it is we're trying to achieve. So that pause can have us stop for a moment and pause and say, Is this really what I'm— is this really what I care about? Is this really what I'm trying to achieve? Is this really what matters? Does this— is this really where I'm trying to go? And that way we can redirect ourselves as we go along. I was somebody who just pushed harder and kept going, and it wasn't until I got a smack in the face and fell on my buttocks, to use a proper word here, you know, that I realized I might have just been pushing harder for the wrong thing for too long and not actually listening to myself and saying, this isn't feeling right. And so a lot of times that's what the pause is really for, is to connect with ourselves. But I talk about 3 pauses. I talk about the physical pause, which is really just calming our nervous system down so we can allow the cortisol to lower, and then our serotonin can start rising, which is where we start connecting with other people, start feeling better about ourselves. in relationship, and then we can move into the growth mindset where we start solving problems better. So those 3 pauses are kind of like 3 stages of how our mind shifts into what we pay attention to. And so when we're running on survival mode and cortisol is high, what happens is that we're basically just running on fight and flight. We do what we've always done. We get stuck on repeat. We views about the, you know, 95% of automatic habits. And it's really hard for us to tap into that small part of the growth mindset, which is maybe 5% of our mind that actually pauses and said, how, what do I actually need here so I can achieve what it is I'm trying to achieve and be more intentional and mindful about it? So that survival mode is what we see most of the time at work. We see people just doing what they're doing robotically and so on and so forth. And Part of that is what I said, the social construct of work as well. We hadn't really been looking at rethinking work since what, the Industrial Revolution, where work was about keeping up with the machines. But that is not what work is about today. Work today is about connection. It's about building relationships. And we need to pause to be able to actually connect with ourselves, engage with others, communicate with some sense of intention. and then collaborate and make more constructive, creative, and innovative solutions to the problems that we are trying to solve. And that's the other part of the pauses, the 3 pauses, that moves from a me mindset to an us mindset, and then to a we mindset. So that's really what happens with these pauses is the more we learn to pause and not just calm the nervous system down, that's the first step. Without it, There's that exhale and landing and feeling our feet on the ground. Without that, we're not even shifting into the next level where we can connect, ask better questions, and then start solving problems together that really creates impact in the world.

I love the framework of better questions. It's something that really stood out to me. You've— I've also heard you talk about like the difference between why questions and asking the right questions. Can you maybe explain to our listeners like how we can go about asking ourselves better questions because so we can get better results.

Oh, yes. I love that because, because it's so simple, but it's not easy. And so because when we're running on survival mode, we automatically look for danger, which means we're looking for why something is not working. And when I was learning hypnotherapy, not so much that I could put people in trance, even though right now you have no clue what's going on. You're in total trance. Just kidding. So even though I wanted to understand, and this is part of my relationship with my mother, right? Because my job as a kid was to distract her from what was not working because she could really get stuck there and it would become a really dark hole. Because the question in her head, in our head as human beings, when we are under stress, we will say, why is this not working? Why am I not able to do this? Why am I not? Why can I not? Why not? And so when we ask these why not questions, what I call we become why notters. We're stuck in the pothole. We are stuck in that problem because the only thing the brain is looking for is the answer to the question we ask. That's how the brain works. And so that's also why it's so important in conversations to ask questions to cultivate interaction, right? And so when we can pause for a moment and say, oh my God, I'm a why notter now. I'm stuck in the pothole of what's not working. We can pause for that moment. Bring our attention back and then reshift it and say, okay, what do I need so I can go over here? Why does it matter? Now I understand some of the steps. And when we ask a question, what do I need so that I can, we're looking for more questions. We might look for more questions that then leads us to the answer. And so we can build on it that way. So when we shift the question, we not only shift the connection and engagement with each other, But we also shift how do we solve the problems. And it's such a simple tool, but it's extremely powerful. And so, for example, when I wrote the book, I had 72 days to write that book. And it's a big book.

Yeah.

Granted, it's my work of many years, so it wasn't hard for me to figure out what to write. But every time I started getting stuck in that inner critic of, oh my God, I don't think I can do this. Why am I not like, why am I, You know, why not? I was like, all right, I'm a why-notter now. Let me pull that back and ask, what do I need so that I can figure out this chapter or so that I can harness this story? Or what do I need? So I started focusing on the details of what I was trying to achieve. And then it starts coming to us because that's the way the mind works. It's a brilliant little trick and it's extremely powerful. And it's also, as I said, it's how we connect better and engage in better conversations. Because if I ask you something, You're not going to not answer that question.

It's true.

Yeah.

Wow.

And it almost gives you more control over the situation too, because if you, if you sit there and just say, oh, why not? Why can't I? Why can't I? Like, there's no, there's no power in that. You can't do anything about that. I have found myself many times in those questions, just stuck in the rut of those questions. And, um, yeah, it just doesn't give you the control. So I loved, I love that answer. Thank you for expounding upon that. I think, Nick, unless you have any questions, I want to, because it's going in a kind of different direction here, but—

Well, shout out to Michael Thompson for helping you get the book done in 72 days.

72 days.

Wow.

I know. In the acknowledgments. I've got a few thoughts, but Luke, why don't you kick it to your next question?

Yeah. So I'm just so curious, you know, you moved to the US when you were 26 years old.

Yeah.

And Denmark has such a different culture. Like, it's, at least from my understanding of it, it seems like it's a lot more I don't know, connected. Like, it seems like connected to people, like the people are kinder to each other. And then in America, it's very much focused on the individual. So I guess it's kind of a 2-part question. Number one, like, why did you come here? And then number 2, like, why did you decide to stay and not go back to that?

Well, you did want to get into my personal relationships, huh?

A little bit. Maybe a little bit.

Oh, you know, I've always been up for adventure. I always wanted to travel. I did not think I was going to move America, but I fell in love with somebody who was American and who wanted to go home. So, we went, we moved to New York. The relationship did not work out. Within 9 months, I was single again and wondering, what am I doing with myself? I had lost my career. It was really, really challenging. And you can argue that this is why I started on a long path for mindfulness, self-reflection, learning about myself, understanding myself better. I do think that started earlier on because my dad was very that person. He was very much of that mindset, power of the will, and understanding ourselves better kind of human. So I kind of grew up with that, and I grew up with a lot of the questions that I still use today because he used them on me as a kid. It's a great way to get your kids to do what you want them to do. Anyway, and so coming here, I felt embarrassed to go back home after that fell apart, and I had nothing to go home to. So I said, okay, well, let me figure out how to stay here and do something with that. And I seem to have started a new business on a regular basis. Every single time there's a challenge and something falls apart, I'm like, what's the next challenge I can take? Which really comes from what's the next problem I can solve? And so that's why I came here. I was shook up when I came here because Seeing how different the culture is here in terms of supporting people, caring about people, let alone not caring for people, but not even caring about people. I was so shook by that. And it's actually something that has affected my nervous system to a point where I am still really challenged with this idea of survival fear. And I have to constantly pay attention to that. I never used to have that in Denmark. I was full of courage and confidence and the whole thing because I felt that if something fails, something has my back. I don't feel that I have that here. So it's a real shift in how your nervous system is triggered every day, which affects your confidence. And it also affects your well-being. But growing up in a well-being culture where Connection and collaboration and community is essential. Yes, we have hygge, right? Hygge means that we get together. Not always, we can do it on our own too, but it's about coming together and having a conversation over tea or whatever. Going for a walk can be that way too, sitting in front of the fire on a cold night. So being together has always been part of my culture as part of this support system. And this collective mindset, because it's a socially democratic country where our safety net is that everybody chips in and everybody gets what they need, more or less. I'm not saying it's— it's not an equal system. It's more of an equity system so that those who need more actually have access. So that's, that's not something that we have talked about until maybe now. in this country. So I think my vision for a healthy culture is part of what I grew up with. I'm not saying we are not burning out in Denmark because we also need the tools to not worry all the time. And, you know, it's not just working too much, it's also worrying too much that burns us out. And we still worry in Denmark too, but it's a different type of worry, the worry that comes from what we care about, not just from our basic survival.

Well, I've spent the last 2 summers traveling through Europe a little bit, and it does seem like the pace of life in most European countries is a bit slower, a bit more connected. It's not uncommon to see somebody hanging out in the middle of the day enjoying a coffee or reading a book in a park. And in the United States, especially in bigger cities, that's not common. You don't see that. Everybody's pressured and the hustle culture prevails, it seems, a lot of the times, which stinks.

Yeah.

And a lot of what you teach, it seems like, well, let me tie it back to something you said earlier. You said that we haven't updated our view of work or professionalism since the Industrial Revolution, and we're not competing with machines anymore. It seems like the education in the United States could also use a little bit of an update. We haven't updated that since maybe before the Industrial Revolution. And the subjects that you talk about in your book, self-care as a whole, I mean, why is that not a subject being taught in school? Why aren't we learning how to connect with other people? Why aren't we learning to ask better questions and have better internal dialogue? I mean, I was essentially a college graduate by the time that I had these conversations for the first time, and I had to go out and buy the books myself. Nobody recommended them. So it just seems kind of backwards.

Yeah, I do think it is interesting because lately I've been looking a little bit at how self-care fits into maybe a school system, right? And I think one of the things that I see, yes, in Europe and Scandinavia especially, is that there's a 15-minute break between every 45-minute session. question, where kids go out and they play. And one of the things that's really important about play is it gives us agency. Play teaches us to solve problems, right? And so, again, in our social construct here in America, it's about achieving a score on a test versus learning how to navigate challenges that come up, right? And so, I remember my dad when I was growing up, he would always say, Don't be book smart. Use the books to learn the knowledge, but learn the wisdom from life. And I always think that that's what kids are missing, right? We have book knowledge, but what about life wisdom? And that comes from play. It comes from interaction, and it comes from these tools about working better with our mind. And I do think some schools are starting to bring mindfulness into it, But that's just to calm the nerves. It's not actually to learn how to harness the mindset. And in colleges, you see mental health issues all the time because the pressure is so high. And there's not many programs that help college students, and especially not athletes in colleges, to take better care of their mind.

Luke is a parent. He has a few kids. I'm wondering, could you, could you give a suggestion maybe for a parent listening to today's podcast? Something that they could do with their children to encourage a little bit more self-care and mindfulness?

Yes. I, I love that. Um, pausing. Pause with your kids. Pause with your kids. Like, teach them, hey, I'm just gonna pause here before I'm answering you because if not, I'm a little upset with you right now. So I'm just gonna, like, allow that to land so I can actually engage with you the way you deserve. That alone is a— we're, we're actually sharing. We're being transparent in how we're sharing.

Right?

I need a moment to collect my thoughts. I encourage people to do that in meetings who are also parents perhaps, but, you know, people at work, I encourage them to say, I just need a pause right now so I can answer this in a way that it deserves to be answered. So responding to kids, we teach them to pause first, right? We can teach them to take more breaks by doing breaks with them. We can take for a walk and call it a pause. And we can say, this is a good time to notice your feet on the ground. Just notice what's around here and take a moment to not talk. And then we have other moments where we actually talk intentionally, where we're sitting in front of each other and pay attention while we're having a conversation. The other thing we can do is pause just before we start eating. I learned how to pause together before we start a meal. Nobody started before others. We waited for each other and then we started. And then We paused before we left the table again. It's just a way to allow a little bit of space and grace to land in our lives in small ways that also creates a more respectful and mindful relationship within the family dynamics. And then you can do the tricks that my dad always said. He was— we would ask me, okay, so what do you need so you can do that? And then I had to figure it out. And that is like, it's a great question for leaders to ask their team, what do you need so you can figure that out? But ask it of kids. It's the same framework. So basically the self-care mindset is not just for ourselves, it's for each other and learning how to have that relationship. Because one of the things that's important about self-care is that our relationship with others affects us more than we realize. The relationship we have with others in, in, at work, in our lives, in our families, are a much greater both level of stress, but also sense of care and belonging and seeing how we matter, seeing our value. All of that is in relationship with each other. It's not just something we're running around doing on our own.

Well, thanks for that. Something that I need to do a better job with my kids for sure is, is pause. You know, since they were young, we, we have tried— both my wife and I have tried to, at the very least, talk about our feelings. And it's amazing just to see that difference. Like, you know, I've told my kids before, hey, I'm feeling stressed out right now because of this, this, and this, and I need— I just need some space. And now they'll come to me if they see me in a mood or whatever, they're like, Dad, you're just a little stressed out right now, aren't you? It's okay, it's okay, I'm here for you later. And that— it's just— it's the cutest thing. And it's like just integrating that simple practice into their lives has been really, really big. And I think even this, this pause, because Especially here in America, our lives are just like one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. And we just, we never just take that, that moment, that moment in time. And I was just thinking about dinner last night and we just like jumped into it really quickly because it was like, oh, we got to do this and we got to do that. And don't even take that moment for ourselves to just be like, okay, we can be grateful for this. We can just sit here in silence for a moment and appreciate what we have. And I think, man, I'm definitely going to be integrating that into our daily lives now for sure. So I appreciate that.

And pausing with your kids. If you need a little space, you can say, but you're welcome to come here and sit and pause with me. You know, when I was taking care of my dad and I was so stressed running around cleaning and doing this and that, he said, I don't need you to care for me. I need you to care about me. Come here, sit down, hold my hand and have a conversation. And I think that's something we can teach our kids is when we care about them, They grow themselves up. When we ask, what do you need so you can figure that out? They learn to have agency. They learn how to navigate things. When I asked my dad, hey, can I do this? And he asked, why do you want to do it? I said, because the others can do it. It was like, that's not an answer. He wanted to know why it mattered to me, and he needed 3 reasons why it mattered to me. And so that's another way to pause and say, well, why do you want to do that? Why does it matter to you? Not why do you wanna do that, but why do you wanna do that? Why does it matter to you? What are you hoping to achieve with that? And that helps again teach our kids to be a little bit more intentional and pause before they make a decision. And that's, I think, I think is the biggest thing about power pausing is that we become more intentional in our action. It doesn't actually mean to slow down. It means to be more mindful in action.

I love that. Can you maybe explain a little bit more of that little nuance? Because you said care about and care for. So now that you've kind of explained the care about, maybe you can explain what care for is and kind of the difference between those.

Yeah. As a parent, you have to care for your children. But as a leader, you don't have to care for your employees. The company may give you access to different tools and programs and mental health programs and skills, skills building, and so on and so forth. That doesn't make somebody feel cared about. That doesn't mean that they feel they belong, and it doesn't mean they feel they matter. That's just a reward. It's just a frill. It's a nice to have.

Cool.

But if you care about someone, you're pausing with them and you're asking them questions. You're asking them what you need. You're engaging with them. But caring for people, Yes, it's important, but that doesn't build a healthy culture. A healthy culture is about relationships. It's not about benefits and perks and more access to more things. And so I think a lot of times with kids, again, I was cared for very, very well by my mother because she was OCD and everything was perfect and there was always food on the table and there was a snack when I came home from school. But I don't remember telling her about what I was feeling or what I was doing in school, nor did I tell her I was being bullied because we didn't have conversations where I felt cared about. I adopted some of the I don't matter from my mother, and that has been a challenge for me in my life is to learn to see my own value in not having to do something to gain respect. But actually just opening up who I am to cultivate these relationships where the value is who I am, not what I do.

I love that. As Luke and I continue to lead BookThinkers and the team continues to grow, I think it's important for us to care about and to show everybody that we care about them and each other and about ourselves. So that's amazing. In the interest of time, I know we're wrapping up here. Luke has sort of a famous last question that's become the endpoint to our podcast. So Luke, would you like to ask that?

I mean, yes, I would. But there's also like, I have so many more follow-up questions I want to do. But yeah, for sake of time, I will, I will ask the last question.

Next podcast.

Next podcast, we're gonna have to have a part 2 on this.

Deep dive.

Yes. Oh man. I just related so much to your story and the Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this. So this is my last question. If you were to pass away and all the information that you have shared, the books, the speaking, everything just disappears, and you could leave the world with one single piece of advice, what would it be?

Care more. Yeah. Just pause and care more. Yeah.

The world can use that.

When we look back, it's the human relationships that we've had that give us joy. Again, I saw that when I was sitting for 5 months taking care of my dad. He received so many letters from people that said, you changed my life because you had a conversation with me. And he had no clue. He had had conversations with high-level CEOs and they said, because you cared about me in that moment, you sat down and had a conversation with me, I made choices that changed the trajectory of my life. And I really appreciate you for that.

It's powerful stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for coming on today's podcast. This has been a blast. For people who want to find out a little bit more about you, where can they go and what can they do?

Jeannette Pronet. Social, LinkedIn, anywhere social, Jeannette Pronet. My website is Jeannette Pronet. And of course, find the book, The Self-Care Mindset. It's very much about me, us, and we. And so I think there's a lot for, for many people in there. And there's a lot of resources around my old website and my new website, like my old world of blogging and stuff like that is still active and somebody wants to go there for my world of health coaching. So, but Jeannette Monet, you'll find me anywhere. I think I'm the only one in the world with that name, thankfully.

Beautiful. All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you, and may the pause be with you.