***The following transcript has been automatically generated and is presented here unchecked***
LinkedIn Live How to be even more resilient in 2021
Thu, 8/18 [8:55]PM • [1:06:10]
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, resilience, jenny, resilient, good, nadine, sarah, bubbles, day, feel, children, thought, talking, voices, important, listening, social capital, walk, accomplishment, mistakes
SPEAKERS
Nadine Powrie
Nadine Powrie [00:00]
And it’s show time a very good evening. Well, a very good afternoon. It’s five o’clock to you all from London from the UK when I am. I’m Nadine Powrie, Executive and leadership coach, and I’m a workplace mediator, also learning designer. And Jenny Ling is with me today. Hi, Jenny.
I’m Nadine. My name is Jenny Ling. Every time we have these discussions, we stumble over what it is we do. And I’m quite interested to hear, Nadine, that you’ve kind of been given a lot more detail about what you do. Because I think we both work as independent consultants in all sorts of different areas. So so my area of expertise is probably around sort of people in leadership development. I’ve worked primarily in education. And what I do is I work alongside teams, or individuals or organizations and help develop their leadership skills.
Nadine Powrie [00:55]
And we’ve and we’ve known each other for a very long time, I’ve been traveling the world as well together for for work,
always, always for work. But we managed to squeeze in a few little Johnson as well, don’t we?
Nadine Powrie [01:10]
We do. Yeah. So Jenny, today we’re going to be it’s just the two of us today, Jan Danes and Nick Sharif will be will be with us next week. And hello to them if they are if they are listening. But today, we’re going to be looking again, at resilience. And the focus is how to be even more resilient in 2021. And I want to give a little bit of a background as to why we decided to talk again, about resilience, because I think it was the LinkedIn live number four that we did probably in December, when we did one on resilience. And it was very, very successful. We did this one with John Danes and Nick sheriff. And it was very successful, we had over 700 people listening. And 2500 people downloaded the PDF without 10 bubbles and 10 strategies about resilience. And we saw that it was an unfinished job. There is always more to say. And clearly with what’s happening at the moment, there is a lot to say. And this week, I was reading a story on LinkedIn. That made me quite emotional. And this is a story and I’ve got two screens. So forgive me if I’m not looking at this one. I’m going to be looking at my other screen. This is the story. Well, actually, this is a post from Sarah Aldred and Sarah roads. Can my team survive lockdown? Three? To be honest, I don’t know. But what I will do everything in my power to ensure that it does I have element team members out of 16 homeschooling? Is everyone coping? Definitely not? And no, would I, but I will flex my service to ensure I look after each and every one of them. What am I what am I without my team? Absolutely nothing. And I then responded to a post and I said don’t forget to look after yourself. Because it’s easy to give, give gave and the but as we took you on a journey being quite anti. And then Sarah and I got to talk and I said to Sarah, well, I will talk to Jenny, and we will continue to do our discussion on resilience. Because behind the background, I think it would be fair to say that you and I Jenny we’re working on on the leadership models with change model, and we’re looking at resilience as well. So that’s kind of giving us the background as to why we are talking again about resilience. And I said everything here, Jenny? I think
that the only bit that I would add is these bubbles are little little summaries of all if you haven’t seen us before, Nadine keeps a summary of our discussions. So these bubbles, which we’re going to share with you today are actually a their original that we’ve we’ve we’ve invented or we’ve discussed, the four of us and these bubbles are a result of that. And so what we’re going to do today is taking the discussions that we had in these 10 Bubbles, we’re going to ask some questions around those bubbles. And this is not a theoretical, what is resilience? What does it look like? It’s very much what can you do to build your resilience? And I mean, I was talking very much about jumpstarting, perhaps not a skill that the younger generation have nowadays, but I’m sure if you’re of my sort of era you will remember jumpstart in the car in the winter And I think that it’s when the battery’s flat, we need a jumpstart, where do you go to, to boost that, and I think that we feel at the moment that people’s resilience pots are so low, that they actually haven’t got time to, to devote themselves to build up their resilience. So what we wanted to do today was just give you lots of little ideas, little things that perhaps you can do that might just help. And please contribute to the chat on the side. You know, if you’ve got any ideas or questions, I’ll monitor that, and we’ll bring them into the conversation.
Nadine Powrie [05:36]
Can you see, Jenny after a while you were sharing? Just shared the 10 Bubbles? Can you see them? Yes, yes, I can see all the 10 Bubbles, okay. Okay. And for anybody who is watching that, you have to apologize, my skills on streaming out. But I, we were rehearsing with Jenny just before starting. And it’s a little bit fiddly actually, to use a PowerPoint and to have to share my screen and you have to see everything that is on my screen. So if there is anybody out there who knows a better way of doing it, please let me know. And I will use, I will borrow your skill for that. So we’ve back in December, we shared those 10 bubbles, and over 2500 people downloaded those bubbles. And we thought we would relook at each one of them and take you through a journey. And this is by no mean a lecture search. It’s just combining ideas that Jenny and I we we are having when we are talking with our our clients. So just before we start, I’m going to make that kind of booklet available on my website. And I will mention at the end of this presentation, while it’s conversation, I will mention to you where to go and find it. And there will be some instruction as to how you can use the booklet because you can actually annotate online, you don’t have to print it, you know, we want to preserve the environment. So there will be some little little help to watch to help you just use it online. So the first the first of our bubble, and I think we are going to be spending about five minutes on each slide. The first of our bubble was this one, listen to positive voices. And we thought it was really important to start with this one, because a lot of what our clients are telling us is that when your resilience is being tested, you’ve got all kinds of voices, you’ve got the negative and you’ve got the positive one. And what we’re saying here is well listen to the positive, it’s easy to say, but then, you know, who are your positive voices? Jenny, do you want to add something here? Sure.
Yeah, I think I think we all have these voices. And I find personally, when I’m least resilient, it’s the negative voices that come to the fore. And I think it’s almost human nature to tune into the negativity rather than the positivity. And I think that sometimes you actually have to positively flip those negative voices. It could be that their comment that oh, you know, why are they saying that? And perhaps you’re not looking at where that person is, in terms of what they’re saying to you. So I think part of it is about flipping the negative to a positive but also you know yourself who your positive voices are. Nadine and I spent many hours just chatting, informally and formally, and I think it was me who said to Nadine or it could have been Nadine, who said to me, I can’t know which way around it was You are my resilience. And I think that through this time, through this isolation that if you have somebody who you trust, and who you can communicate with be it on Zoom, be it through text, it doesn’t matter. But those are the people that you need to keep tuned into and plugged into. And I think that I mean Nadine is definitely one for me. And the other one is max PT, as I call him, I don’t know whether he’s listening to this, but he’s my personal trainer who has a very difficult job with me because I’m quite resistant to doing things I’m not comfortable with and being dis Praxic going to a gym is is is almost impossible, but he also he feeds things back so he asked me questions. And I think that these two are very strong positive voices for me. And I hope I am for them as well because I think it’s about using your positive voice to help support others as well, isn’t it?
Nadine Powrie [09:54]
Yeah, it’s interesting what you’ve said about friends and and family. We Because hear it’s about, it’s the who isn’t it? It’s about identifying the person, that voice who is going to make a little bit of a difference. And yes, it can be somebody from your family can be a friend, I mean, Jenny and I were friends. So you know, we are, we are supporting one another a lot. But it could equally and I was thinking about that he could equally be a song. You know, I mean, I, I don’t know about you, Jenny. But certainly, during COVID-19, I’ve had plenty of time to listen to song. And there are some artists actually, whose voices really have a positive impact on me. So, or it could be a musical instrument, because that can be it’s not so much a voice, but it’s, it’s a sound element. And again, that can be quite calming for people. And when I was talking to a client of mine this week, she said to me, she said, Well, actually, just listening to the waves, you know, you go on the beach, and you’ll just listening to the waves. And she said, that was really quite consulting for me. So it doesn’t always have to be a human being. You know, you can have an iPhone and plug in your iTunes and, or it can be you are in the nature, and you’re listening to different sounds be resolved. The wind to see anything that can have a positive impact on the way you feel.
Yeah, I think I think you’re absolutely right about music, I think. I mean, there are certain songs that I listened to, and some will make me cry. And some will make you very, very happy. And I remember at the beginning of lockdown, we were trying to get this sort of keep fit going. And we decided to make up our own routine. And we played The Proclaimers I will walk 5000 miles and stomped around the room singing at the top of our voice. And that it makes it I mean, you know, I wouldn’t do it publicly, obviously. But I think that for me, that got me moving, which makes you feel more positive. That got me listening to some music that I found very uplifting. I think you’re absolutely right about sound, be waves, be it the sound of somebody who loves voice. I think there are all sorts of ways that you can interpret this positive voice. And it’s for each and every one out there to identify who the who or what are the positive voices,
Nadine Powrie [12:42]
because it makes you it makes you think about something else doesn’t teach any, because you’re focusing on to listening, and therefore you’re not focusing on whatever is troubling you or, you know, making you feel quite down so well, that’s the first kind of little little insight of what we can do. Then Then comes the second one, which is the personal mantra, and the one I’ve put there, everything happens for good reason is actually mine, I’ve used it, I always use it. And you could argue that it’s a little bit feeling like accepting, you know, you’re accepting the reality when you have to, I mean, I feel that there’s no point, feeling frustrated by COVID, or whatever. Because really, you know, this is in our face, we have to, we have to go with it. But everything happens for a good reason, is a way for me as a personal mantra to cope. So it’s making me cope, it’s making me accept. So I’m not debating or not fighting, I’m fully accepting. And it’s kind of bringing a little bit of peace in myself, because I draw on to my values, my own values, and it’s giving me a reason to keep going. So I keep going because I relate that to my own values and to being present in the moment, I’m finding that I can focus on the positive. And really, really focus instead of fighting.
And I think that’s, I think it’s the fighting if you’re fighting against something that’s the negative coming in, isn’t it? Yeah, I think I think my take on this is Plan B is usually the best. And if not Plan B then plan C. Well, and I mean, I’ll give you an example of when I found I needed to be resilient and those of you who know me and have been through this journey with me will understand when I was in education, and I got my first deputy, the deputy headship first one I applied for so I thought you know, I’m a bit of alright here and then I I was into my 2020 interviews for headships. And actually at about 25, I think I lost count. And I remember somebody saying to me, you know, are you sure this is the right path for you? Because there’s rejection was a lot of rejection here. And I thought, well, yes, I’m pretty sure it is the right class for me. And sure enough, eventually, and I can’t I can’t even tell you how many interviews it was, but it’s over 25 I got a headship. And I think that all the 25 before the match with the score wasn’t as good as the match with the one that I got. So when you’re going for a job interview, and you don’t get it, and you think, Oh, well, you know, I was the best I had the best qualifications, or I knew more about this than anybody else. I think that it’s just because the job’s not right for you. And I think it took me I mean, we talked about resilience being the ability to bounce back, don’t we? Yeah. And I would hear in the evening that I hadn’t got it, you know, you wait for that phone call, you haven’t got it. And then, by break time, coffee time, the next day, I was looking at the time said, to sleep to look for new. So you know, my resilience made me carry on, it could have been seen as stubbornness. But it was that ability to put something that is disturbing or distressing, or that you don’t want behind you and moving on. And I think what we’re talking about Nadine, are the same things, but from a slightly different perspective. And other people will have other other perspectives. But I think the question is, what is your good reason kind of dig a little bit deeper? What is your good reason for what what is your good reason for being resilient? What is your good reason for carrying on? Well, I think you owe it to yourself, don’t you to keep going, your good reason for keep going might be for your children, it might be for your husband, it might be for your work colleagues. But there’s always people around to support and care for you. And I think that being there for them is that good reason.
Nadine Powrie [17:12]
Yeah, I think it’s really a good point that you’re making that, you know, you you owe it to yourself, and there is a there is always a good reason to keep going. Right? And the resilience, I mean, we’re talking about mental resilience and emotional resilience, but there is also the physical resilience, because it’s actually quite tiring to try to be resilient when you have a lot of adversity in front of you. And this is why we are saying, you know, go into your social resilience and, and tap into your friendship and your family. Because actually, those people know you very well. And if you just discuss with them, you know, you’re good reason to keep going, then they might, they might actually give you a few more ideas that you might have not thought about so
heavily. Yes, I think that’s hard when people are isolated. And I think that, you know, I think a lot of people, be they furloughed. Maybe they’ve lost a job they may have, they may well be be grieving. Somebody who they love has died. And I think that finding your good reason to carry on when you’re facing that level of adversity is for some people almost impossible. And what we hope to say today is that if if you are feeling like that, that you have got no good reason, and then maybe now’s the time to actually think about the good reasons that you have got. We’re not professional counselors, we’re not Grief counselors, and we wouldn’t really want to be going into that area, because that’s not why we’re here. But we just hope that if you feel you have no good reason, then talk to somebody about that.
Nadine Powrie [19:10]
Yes, and we will put a list as well of organizations that can who can help people we will put a list with the contact details. Now, it could be building on from that. And you’ve just said it’s quite easy, you know, to to look at the glass is half empty. However, creating a healthy mindset for yourself care is quite critical, but it’s for me, this is this is a habit building. It’s not something that you just do one day and then you abandon. So it’s about finding your daily routines that are going to be You’re shooting who you are. Now, before you do that, you need to establish what actually, you know, what’s my house mindset? How do I, you know, what does it look like for me? And what would I if I had a blank piece of paper? What would I What would I write in it? You know, because there is the mindset, and there is the healthy mindset. So, for me, for example, it might be, well, it’s my meditation in the morning, five minutes, I can’t do more than five minutes, because I get distracted quite quickly. You will have any minutes for me, he’s quite an off. But I do eat several times a day. That’s really important. It’s, it’s my, it’s my yoga when my body let me do the yoga. But it’s also other things like cooking, I love cooking. And while I’m cooking, I don’t think I I focus on the, you know, the making the food, it’s also playing my music. I mean, I was saying earlier on that iTunes has become so important for me, and even more. So now. It’s also you know, walking in the nature. I mean, every day, no matter what the weather, is, like, I think it’s really important to go out and to have some fresh air. And it’s also about reading because when you if you are on the move all the time, it’s a very busy mindset. So I think it’s good to have a good balance between a movement, and also resting. And the final thing, talking with your friends, you know, I mean, we all have our best friends, Jenny and I, I think we talk almost every day, Jenny’s. I mean, Guilford. So you know, we’re quite far away. But We frequently talk. And I think that’s kept us going on many occasions where things were pretty challenging. So, yeah, so let’s not
talk to text. Yeah. Oh, where are you?
Nadine Powrie [22:18]
Thank you. Thank you to the technology. Yeah, yeah,
I think I think we, interestingly, we’re very different. And we both acknowledge that. And we celebrated each other’s differences. But I think that for me, it’s about much more giving myself permission. And I can’t remember whether that comes as a later bubble. But that, for me, a healthy mindset is about not feeling guilty about not doing something or not feeling guilty about doing something. So I think that within locked down, there are so many things that we can’t do that I think that if we want to do things that we wouldn’t normally do, then just do it. And you know, don’t beat yourself up over the things that you’re going to feel guilty about. I mean, music again, I think is a great thing reading. I mean, for me, reading is, is it a luxury, I’m not sure when I’m on holiday, I always read a lot, but I always seem to think that you can only read in the evenings. So one of the things that I’ve done in this lockdowns, actually, I allow myself in the afternoons to sit down and read a book. And for me that really it it, it calms me, it takes me out of myself, I, the novels that I read, and I get involved in what’s happening. And I think all of us have got different things that we do to create that healthy mindset. And none of us can tell you what will work for you. Yeah, it’s so very personal, isn’t it?
Nadine Powrie [23:50]
It is it is. And it can be quite daunting. Actually, if you say to somebody, well take a blank piece of paper, and what would it look like? You may wonder, well, I have no idea what it would look like I need to think about it. So it’s may not be something that you create straightaway. It’s a it’s a live document you can add every day. And there is no order, there is no ranking. And you can also try and if you don’t like it, you can abandon it, you can tweak. So it’s not set in stone, but it’s really personalized to you. And that’s it’s it’s really important. Jenny, do we have any questions coming in?
Nothing? No, nobody’s nobody’s said anything yet. So can we just say to people listening, please just either say hello. Or maybe you’ve got an idea about what what would help you make a healthy mindset or contribute to this? The idea is that we include the chat in our conversations, we can’t reply to the chat typing but we can in our discussions so if you’ve got anything to say, please do. So I stopped this one. Yes.
Nadine Powrie [24:59]
I was gonna say yeah, Yeah, I think doing something different
every day can be a huge challenge, because you’ve got so much and so many people out there have got so many demands on their time, that actually this could seem like a huge luxury. And I can think of, of people who are, who are single parents who are at home, who are homeschooling, who may have children with all sorts of challenges, who may have lost their job who may be furloughed. There are so many challenges around at the minute that to say something like this could sound a little trite. And it’s actually not meant to sound like that. It’s just meant to say, try and create however you do it that five minutes or that 10 minutes for you. It’s classically, it used to be for me when my children were young is, is have a bath and lock the door and put some music on. So I couldn’t hear nothing infuriated me more than when they came banging on the door. And I just thought, you have to build that, that time for yourself. And I know it’s easier said than done. But actually, it’s going back to what we were saying about building your resilience. And if you don’t look after yourself, and you’ve got so many pressures on you, then you, I’m not saying you’re letting people down, but it becomes more challenging to be resilient if you don’t take care of yourself. And I think the classic example that I’ve I always uses putting the oxygen mask on first, if you’re on a plane, you put the oxygen mask on you first. And I remember when I was in these sorts of situations, obviously, you know, when I was working full time the kids were at home, I remember thinking I can’t afford to be ill I can’t afford to, I can’t do this, I can’t do anything for myself. Because all my time was taken for, for my job or for my family. And during those years and years and years, I never got that plan to do something for myself. So I would just say grab five minutes as and when you can.
Nadine Powrie [27:08]
Yeah, and I think it’s also something that you can do with your children as well, you know, you can you can sit around the table and say, Well, you know, how about we all do something different? We will do one thing different today? You know, you can you can discuss it with your children, what would you like to do? And what can I do to enable you to do that? And one of them may say, well, actually, I’d quite like to paint, you know, I quite like to cook, or I quite like to I don’t know, Hoover. So I think it’s it can be it can be done through a discussion with whoever with whomever is living with you. It doesn’t have to be necessarily you make the decision. It’s like, you know, when you have children all day, and I was talking to a client today, she was telling me that she was traveling to speak with me next because she’s got her own daughter. And it was quite difficult to find a moment. And I totally understand that having brought up four children, I get that. And this is why I think it can be quite challenging when you have children to plan something for yourself. So I’d encourage you to have a discussion if of course your children are old enough to discuss, you know, to talk, but actually to say, you know, what, what is it that you would like to do? And how can we facilitate that so that everybody’s happy today, we will all have done one thing that we all wanted to do. And that was different from yesterday. And actually, it doesn’t have to be planned in advance either. You know, you don’t have to it’s not like a development plan where you’ve done that over the next 30 days, it can be something that every day, you know, you you discuss them. And that can make you a little bit more curious. Because then if you say well tried to do something every day, it’s actually quite a challenge, right? When you’ve got some very sick routines, it’s quite challenged to do something different every day. And routines are great. Don’t get me wrong, but I think I think it’s worth a try, actually, you know, see how you feel.
It’s also handing control over children, which is always a good thing to do within parameters. I mean, my two was seven years apart and very, very different. And it was very difficult to get activities that would suit both of them both developmentally and in any other way. But it’s about it’s about creating those that meeting halfway, isn’t it? Yeah, and getting something that everybody would like to do. Yeah,
Nadine Powrie [29:45]
I love that picture of that little one little boy waiting at the bottom of the stairs, you know, be realistic about what you can do. I think It’s quite interesting, isn’t it to be realistic about what you can do? Because I always feel that I, I mean, I don’t know, I’ve got it in me that I can do almost everything I want if I really want to. And it’s probably because I’m solution focused, and I try to remove the barriers. And I think that again, you know, if you talk with whoever you live ways that you want to do a specific thing. Then if you really want to do it, you can do it. I think I think in English, you say where there is a will there is a way
I I’m not I don’t feel like that. That’s interesting, because I don’t feel that I can do everything. And I if I set my mind to something, I could probably do most things. But I’m I am limited. If I I mean, if Max might pte is listening, he’ll laugh because he knows never to make me run. Because if I run my my trainers can act as breaks. And I actually tore my hamstring trying to run. So and I’m looking at those stairs, and I’m thinking to myself, can I run up and run down those stairs? And I couldn’t, I could go up fairly carefully. But if there’s no handrail, and I mean, I’m not, I’m not. I’m not a very old old pensioner. But nevertheless, if there’s not a handrail, and there’s lots of lots of steps like that, I find that really quite disconcerting. So I think physically, I certainly have limitations at what I can’t do. But what I, what I can do is start to chip away. So if I feel I can’t climb those stairs, because there’s no handrail, I could do five or 10. So it’s about eating the elephant, isn’t it in small pieces. And I think that most things that you can do, you can, if you break them down into small enough chunks, you can do it. But I think being realistic about what you can’t do is also being realistic about what people in your family can’t do. And I think that, I mean, my daughter, who I’ve spoken about before, you know has various issues. And for her walking in the countryside is quite challenging. She falls over quite a lot, she has to hang on to you. But we take her out Nevertheless, because she would say, Oh, I can’t do that. So I think it’s about building confidence in other people to be realistic, what they can’t, can’t do. And I see that Sarah has come in and said, My Time to think is walking the dogs. I don’t worry about things that I can’t control at. Yeah, and that’s going back to your point in the dean, isn’t it about going out and walking in nature and taking the taking dogs out? I mean, dogs are just the most wonderful thing for building resilience and for mental well being and all sorts. I met Yeah, our dog died recently. And I must say, I do miss him.
Nadine Powrie [32:57]
You know, you mentioned Jenny, that you talk about, you know, habits and but also things that we can do. But I think it’s also getting out of our comfort zone. Because Because some time when we realize the why is it actually on what is it that we can do it, you know, the argument doesn’t quite hold together. And sometimes it’s like I don’t want to do it’s not that I can’t do it, there’s a difference. There is a difference. And it’s very much around the comfort zone as well because it’s very easy to just stay where you are, and not take any risk and do everything, you know, set routines and and also to take for granted what you can do you know, because it’s not because you walk I mean, I’m trying to walk six to seven miles at the moment today, and I can make it happen. But it’s very easy to just stick to six or seven miles and to say I’ve done my target. I mean I’ve downloaded this Google App, which tells me how many steps I’ve done I mean I haven’t asked for that all I wanted was you know how many miles did I walk and so I can do six miles but actually there is nothing stopping me doing eight miles. So it sounds like
stone isn’t it? It you know your comfort zone is your small circle in the middle and your stretch zone and you can stretch that zone further and further. I think that being realistic about what you can’t do is right but within that there are there are small steps that you can take to enable you to do what you can’t do better if that makes sense. And I mean Nadine just take today for an example you know with stream yard stream yard is quite a new technology to to us. But you do all the bits and you know to get it last time we spoke you didn’t know when he could get a PowerPoint slide up on stream yard so We only practiced for about 10 minutes before we started. And there we have it. So already there, are you modeling the fact that you’re prepared to step outside your comfort zone? And to do it very publicly? Yeah,
Nadine Powrie [35:12]
yeah. I have to say, I did send an email to my accountant, when would read that. And he’s doing the LinkedIn live as well. And I was I was asking him my mood, how do you get the PowerPoint to show on stream yard? And he did respond to me very, very kindly. There it is. Yes, yes. So the what can you control and focus on what you can control? I see a lot of that at the moment. In on TV, on social media, in magazine, it seems to be that we’re all told to focus on what we can control because, of course, we can’t control what’s happening with COVID, and all the rest of it. And I get that. I mean, I’m not tired of it, but I’m seeing it a lot. And I personally don’t mind thinking about what I can’t control. I think it’s quite healthy. Because eventually, it might be something that eventually you will control, you know, once we will have the vaccine eventually, then we will control a little bit more of what we do. But I think it was important to have there, because a lot of people talk about it.
I think I think there’s a frustration as well. I think that we’ve been we haven’t been brought up as a generation to have government control, and to be told what you can and what you can’t do. And I find it surreal that I mentioned to a friend of mine yesterday, I said, you know, feel free to pop over for a legal walk. And she replied, Well, I can’t get in the car to come and see you. And I just thought, you know, even that hadn’t registered, because apparently the rules have changed. Somebody was saying sometimes the rules that lock down a change, but 147 times or something
Nadine Powrie [37:16]
4.5 times a day, apparently, it’s changing.
So I mean, I’m a law abiding citizen, although I have a rebellious soul. So I’m not trying I don’t want to rebel against what’s going on. Because I actually think that the lockdown and people not seeing each other and stuff, I think he’s right. So I have to be able to control what I you know, I control what time I get up in the morning, I control what I eat, I control whether I go for a walk or do a gym video, or, and those are the things that I have got control, so to speak, I kind of ignore the rest. And I think I mean, I appreciate that I’m not in a situation that a lot of people are in with having lost a job, you know, worrying about how I’m going to feed the children. And from that point of view, now that I’m kind of not exactly retired, but of that age anyway. I haven’t got those worries. But there are a lot of people out there who are, who spend a lot of time worrying about things that they actually can’t control. And therefore there’s no point in worrying, I think that’s what we’re trying to say is that there’s no point wasting worry time or negative emotions on something on which you’ll have no impact, or spend the time developing and focusing on the things that you can have impact on.
Nadine Powrie [38:37]
Yeah, because, you know, even if things are pretty tough. You have, you know, you have your family, you have your children, husband, wife, you have your space, where you where you live, you have the support around you. And I think that it’s really important to know where to go when you need support. And that’s something that you control, because you know who to call upon. Yeah, um, do you want me to? Yes, yeah,
I just, I’m thinking of some of my daughter’s friends, a lot of whom have a neurodiverse or autistic or have some kind of challenge. And there are a number of them who live alone. And some of them have no family. And it’s interesting to see how my daughter has created a community of support with them. And I remember after the first lockdown, one of her friends said to me, she has been an absolute lifeline. And it was just the fact that she knew she would receive a call every day at six o’clock. And sure enough, she’s on the phone every day at six o’clock to two of her friends who she knows lives on their own. So I think that The people who, who who do live on their own who are struggling, are the people perhaps who need to get that community of support round them, of somebody that they know that they can rely on to be there for them, even if it’s a text, even if it’s just a phone call. But it’s about reaching out. And yes,
Nadine Powrie [40:18]
I agree with you, Jenny. I mean, I’ll give the example of my, my daughter is a university student. So she’s my youngest one, she’s attendants. And so she live in a house with four other students. They’re all in fun in their final years. And what they have decided to do is eat all together every day, at lunchtime, and in the evening. Because that’s, you know, that’s a moment in time that they can focus on and control. So they have decided to cook all together. They’ve done a Rota, actually, at lunchtime, of who is cooking, what, and it’s a time that they share it together, it doesn’t last long, because they’ve got you know, essays to write on everything.
But but it’s coming together, though, isn’t it?
Nadine Powrie [41:11]
The coming together that is that has become actually a daily habit that is making them survive what’s happening, because you know, they’re stuck in a house, and they can’t really do anything else other than have their live lecture and write down essays, which is not at all what they had planned. And for that amount of the population, it’s really testing them. Very, yeah. So I guess, we’re all trying to find ways of how we can survive, and it’s tapping into what you can control. And really appreciate that, you know, being the moment, I talk a lot about being in the moment with my clients. Because we all want to make plan for the future on the holidays and traveling again. And you know, what, what is the first thing that you’re going to do when locked down is coming to an end? I think at the moment many people prefer to focus on Okay, let’s just get through. And, you know, in the best possible way. For us, Jenny, do you want to start us off on this one?
Sure. Audit, that’s a word you don’t like, isn’t it? It’s looking at your social capital, your social capital, being your your community, really the people and the things that are around you. And I think that it’s something that perhaps we don’t all, necessarily look at. And I think that the question, what does your shirt social capital look like would be for you to start filling in the people or the things that are around you that you can actually call on. And linking it back to the previous thing, the things that you can’t control and the social capital, one of them is your is what’s going on in your head. And I think that I’m, I’m a terrific dreamer. And going out, when I’m out walking, I’m planning and plotting and dreaming. And I’m watching all these programs about house in the sun and escaped to the country in all these things, things that I would love to do. And a lot of a lot of what I’m doing is actually it isn’t planning, it’s just kind of dreaming, and it’s harmless. And so I think part of the social capital that you have is also about yourself, and looking to what it is within yourself that you can support and help. Because ultimately, resilience is about you. And what we’re trying to do here is to bring all sorts of ways of sort of jump starting or filling up your resilience pot. But ultimately, it’s only you who can do it. So I think it’s about recognizing who you can call on and what your social capital is, and everybody will have something. And I think it’s about perhaps being creative, and maybe sharing this with people. And I think that Sarah is just coming in again. Yeah. She’s set up a carers group at work for those, those of us who have caring responsibility, where we have a safe space to whinge moan and share experiences. And that is, that is so important, Sarah, I really, I really get that I when, when my daughter was young, I set up a dyspraxic Action Group, which was a group of parents who all had dyspraxia children, and we went out for a play and tea, and there were about 15 children there. And there were two that were just going zum zum zum and all the others were very introverted. And I I asked myself the question, this was a long time ago, so it’s very early days. Why are they all introverted? And To one of which was mine is going zum zum zum. And of course, later on, we got an ADHD diagnosis. But I think that having that that group of parents who understood what it was like to be in a situation or caring situation, or having a child who didn’t conform to all the the norms, the social norms, the fiscal norms, I think, I think the carers group, I think that’s, that’s a wonderful idea, Sarah, I think it’s that in itself will help hugely build the resilience of the people who you’re, you’re in the group with.
Nadine Powrie [45:34]
So yeah, I want to say something on that. I think it’s a fabulous idea. And Sarah, I hope we get to meet you some time. I can’t see your photo on LinkedIn, Sarah, but I’d love to, to, to meet up with you and to talk. I think setting up those group for parents are absolutely key. But I was talking and I was talking with, with a friend of mine who has the same facility at at work. And she said to me, it’s great, because we’re all you know, in a safe place, Will sharing adversity really, you know, some, sometime you cry, because it’s kind of good to cry. And, and you feel a little bit better after because you feel that those people in that group understand where you’re coming from. It’s a place where you can be very vulnerable, you’re not judge. And that’s really important. And I think what sort of the good sometime, is, if you can have somebody to come in the group, who doesn’t know the group, but who can come and give something to the group. You know, it’s a bit like what you were talking about Jenny, the oxygen mask, right, the oxygen because the the limit of those groups, and I’m not trying to put my black hats on here, I’m talking with, you know, what I have seen over the 25 years, working in education, Jenny and I are both excellent teachers. The danger is that it’s quite negative and draining and you know, so Jenny, and I were very interested in bringing back hope, right? Because people have to leave with some kind of hope. And so, I mean, what I’m saying if is that, if there are groups where people, you know, do want to open the door to somebody who can come in and, you know, give a little something. And that’s the other part of the argument that you were making, Jenny, like, what can you give to people? I think it’s fantastic to have that occasionally. Because it gives a good balance to the health of the group. And it can it can put people back on track.
Yeah, I think there’s two sides to that, I think. And thinking back to the dyspraxic Action Group, as I called it. One of the sides is what Sarah says about that, about that ability to open up and not and to show your vulnerability. But I think the others, the other side is about learning about things. And we used to have people who came into the group, who would help us develop our understanding of the people who were caring for. Yeah, and of course, the other side of all this is we’ve been talking about this from an adult to a child point of view, but you’ve also got the child carers, and the people that the young people who are caring for people within their home, and how incredibly challenging that must be at the moment, because I think we’ve underestimated the impact that schools have. And I think that the young people who have lost that ability to relate to their peer group in the, in the casual and informal ways that they have been doing and I think that must be particularly challenging for young carers.
Nadine Powrie [49:10]
Yeah, yeah. Now moving on, we’ve got about 10 minutes left, we’ve got about four slides, you know, four points that we’d like to keep talking about. We talked about learning from our mistakes and to anybody that tells us that they don’t make mistake, I think they don’t exist. We we we all make mistakes. And sometimes it’s not only about making a mistake, it’s about mask making an assumption or, or having a specific fear that is completely irrational. So I think it’s really important to reflect I mean, I reflect every day I had a coach, when I was working in education in the rose. I interviewed her last Friday. And she would make me reflect every day. I mean, she would make me I chose to be clear. But every day, I was reflecting on what had gone wrong. And the mistakes that I had made, the assumptions I had made, the fear I’ve had. And actually, I felt that that was really healthy for me to do at the end of the day, it wouldn’t take long, you know, I was journaling few things, she’d actually sent me some kind of post it notes. So I, you know, it was like three stars and two things I could change, and then you know, a mistake. So it was just reflecting on one mistake of the day. And sometime, it was a mistake that I had made some time, it was a mistake in my way of thinking. It could be related to skills, or to one of my competency just depended. But I saw that that was really good to keep me grow, and to also focus my mindset, and to forgive myself as well. Because I’m a, I’m a high achiever, I like everything to be almost perfect, right? And it’s very difficult to do that. So it’s giving yourself permission to think well, actually, it’s fine. It’s not the end of the world, right?
And failure, isn’t it? Yes. Yeah. And I think that I think part of the problem is that mistakes are seen as failure. And it’s about flipping the narrative, isn’t it? Again, as I was saying, Before, if you see mistakes as failure, then that’s a negative emotion. If you see mistakes as learning, then it’s positive emotion. And as a as a former primary teacher, there was no point in I used to think particularly in maths and I mean, we’re talking a long time ago, when, you know, parents evening was coming in the children’s maths books had to have lots of tics. And I just thought this is this isn’t demonstrating learning. And I’ve, for a long, long time, I felt that learning comes from mistakes. And without mistakes, learning can’t happen the same way? Because if you’re doing and I’ll use the some that pages and pages of Psalms. And they’re all right. What are you learning? If you’ve got three songs, and they’re all wrong? What are you learning? And I think that it’s that it’s linking mistakes to negativity. That is, that is the problem. And I think that as a as a professional, you if you make mistakes, they can have consequences. And I think it’s about managing the consequences, and also being confident and having made that mistake, so that you’re not covering it up necessarily. Yes, I have. But I’ve learned.
Nadine Powrie [53:14]
Yeah, yeah. One of the one of the question that Lindley, my coach would ask me, was, well, what opportunities is giving you? And then when you look at it like that, you think, yeah, actually, let’s focus on what the opportunity and and now my children ask me? Well, I’ve trained them well, actually. And we’re moving on to accomplishments, because, you know, it’s easy at the moment to forget what we are accomplishing. If there is one thing in common that a lot of us have improved on. It’s the use of technology. I think we all deserve a medal as to how to navigate zoom and MS teams. And I mean, you and I, we were we’re working in remotely with the Middle East, in spring, summer, Jenny, in the middle of the night. And we were on navigating all kinds of system, Google, you name it, we were just navigating them all. And sometimes we take it for granted that we can do things or we don’t remember we forget right. And it’s so important to actually make the least and you know, pose press stop pose and celebrate.
Yeah, I think that picture there. I just think is is wonderful. And I think it’s I think I think as a as a as a nationality, British people are very reserved and not very good at singing their own praises or pride is seen as a as a again as a negative thing, and I think sometimes, you know, in business, you get 360 degree feedback. So you get lots of people feeding back their vision, their version vision of how they see you. And I found getting 360 degree feedback was really encouraging, because they’d seen things that I hadn’t seen. So enjoying your accomplishments. And being proud is actually something that if you’re feeling down, and you’re feeling you need your resilience pot, filling up, start thinking positively about some of the things that you might have achieved. I mean, just the fact that you get out of bed and sort, sort out, whatever needs to be sorted out and get to the end of the day and go to bed, again, is an accomplishment. And at the moment, I think people aren’t accomplishing as much as they will have done in previous years. So I think enjoying accomplishments that you may not have previously thought of, as an accomplishment. Yes.
Nadine Powrie [55:57]
And it’s not the quantity easy journey. We’re not saying you need a list longer things, right. I mean, I like the number one, I have to say, you know, I’ll have one. And just one accomplishment per day is fabulous, right? It’s not a competition. It’s not a list long of a world. But it’s just one thing that you think I’ve done really great job today.
I’m gonna say something,
Nadine Powrie [56:23]
I’m sorry, go. No go.
I really tried to because this was my accomplishment yesterday, and I was so pleased with it. I felt I had to go and show it to the rest of my family. Because I had burned a ceramic dish so badly in the oven pan, I put it on grill instead of oven. I’m not a very good cook. Anyway, I burned on black on this dish. And over the period of yesterday, I’ve used baking powder, I use Jeff I use scrubbers I use soaking, I used every possible way and gradually chipping away at it, I got it clean. Now, I’m not a domestic goddess, but just the fact that this pan had taken a whole day to get clean, made me feel really quite proud of what I’ve done. And I mean, it’s a stupid thing. And it’s not important, and it doesn’t make any impact on the world. But it was something that I’d accomplished yesterday that I was strangely proud of. So we’re not when we’re talking about accomplishments, we don’t mean necessarily big things. No
Nadine Powrie [57:25]
small one. One thing, one. Yeah. And then there’s another. Yes. Go
there. I was just saying there’s another nice picture that looks like Dubai, nearly grow your optimistic perception. Yeah, it’s the same thing. Set in a different way, isn’t it? You know, and it’s about being the optimist rather than the pessimist. And I think that feeling optimistic is has been a challenge. And I think it’s always about looking for that optimism, because sometimes it’s buried. And sometimes you might I mean, yesterday, I think was it was it quite a momentous day. I don’t know if you’ve watched the inauguration. Yes. But I didn’t see the little girl who was the poet who everybody’s talking about, but I saw Kamala Harris being sworn in. And that woman has got the most beautiful smile of anybody I think I’ve ever seen. And to me, that face alone makes me feel more optimistic than anything I’ve seen. I said she was she she had her mask on. And she was you could see she was smiling. And I said to my daughter, I said, Look at her. She’s beaming away their responses. So she’s my daughter said to me, who’s who is on the autistic spectrum. How can you tell she’s got her face covered. But she was smiling so much that her eyes smiled, just her eyes. So I think seeing people like that coming to the fore with with with the sort of personality that she appears to have makes me feel really optimistic. And I think it’s looking for those little kernels of optimism that you can hang on to, and perhaps plowing through the pessimism. Yeah, I think.
Nadine Powrie [59:20]
I mean, I think being being optimist is is also a choice. You know, you choose to look at the glass that is half empty, and you choose to look at the glass that is half full, but it’s also we can we can take it from other people. So if we can feel acoustics ourselves, we can borrow that from other people. I mean, yesterday, I was looking at that young lady who was reading the poem, Amanda Gorman, and she was totally amazing. And I thought, gosh, you know, I’d love her to be my mentor. Because of communication skills and the way she was reading a poem and the way she was presenting yourself lots of charisma, she’s only 22. You know, I wish I wish I could be like that. And that gave me a lot of hope. And I think that, I think that we can look in the generation of our children to keep the hope going. I mean, I certainly, I have drawn a lot on my four children over the last year, you know, to look at the good things that are happening and to be held by them to have a view on the world that is actually, you know, forward thinking, forward looking. Because they are the, they are the hope, you know, they are the future. So, I, I love the feeling about being optimistic, and I make sure that, you know, every day we need to, we need to look at that, and we need to save just one thing, right? Just this was one thing. So
I think it’s not just with the optimism, it’s with everything, just just just do one thing. And one of the questions we had, which I’m just going to quickly refer to was that Why are some people more optimistic than others? Is it is it something that’s innate? And I think that some people have to be more resilient than others, because some people have got a much more difficult life. And some people can be just a little bit resilient, because they haven’t they don’t face the same adversities. So I think it’s a non measurable thing. But I think it’s something that we need to be aware of, is that some for some people to be resilient, that it’s a real battle. And I think, hopefully, that just one thing that will come out of today might help.
Nadine Powrie [1:01:46]
Yeah, I agree. I think resilience. I’m not sure you’re born with resilience, actually, I think it’s something that you you are shape in your childhood, definitely nurture that old chestnut. And I think you can grow it. And I think it’s good to know the people that make you grow your resilience, because they know what to tell you when they know, you know, I would respond that. Is there another question, Jenny, that we’ve not responded? No.
Do you think it’s also about bringing up your children to be resilient? Because I think that I would hope I think both mine mine are resilient. And I would hope that part of what I’ve done in the, in the bringing up of them is to enable them to be resilient. Because I think resilience is and always has been such an important thing. And I think, you know, it’s about perhaps brushing off things and moving on and get giving them that ability to bounce back.
Nadine Powrie [1:02:47]
Yeah, I would agree with you. I mean, you know, I’ve not brought up my children, for them to have everything on the tray ready and easy. I mean, they’ve had to face adversity at point at certain points. And then, and that’s the way it goes. And I think that by experiencing adversity and fears, I think you can grow your own resilience, because you are developing some strategies that are working for you. But at a moment in time. You know, it doesn’t mean that FiVER, the same strategy would work, but I’m
becoming more
Nadine Powrie [1:03:25]
equipped with it. And then you fear less. Jenny, we’ve been speaking for over an hour. beginning we said, it’s just it’s going to be the to our students. We manage that. I have to say that while I was managing the what seems to be just a very simple PowerPoint. I could not see you at all when I do that. So it’s nice to see you back, actually. Oh, no. I
see. I could see you all the way through. So that’s
Nadine Powrie [1:03:58]
good. That’s good. We’ve answered all of the questions.
I think we have Yes, yeah. And Sarah has come in again. I feel I’ve become resilient through life experiences. And I think that’s, that’s very true. Yeah. Thank you, Sarah, for your contributions.
Nadine Powrie [1:04:17]
Yes, thank you very much, Sara. And we hope to meet up with you at some point online. And I have put on the PowerPoint, the link where people can download the booklet that Jenny and I we’ve produced so I’ll make sure that it’s in the post so that people can go and click and download and start
filling in those bubbles. With us, you know, if you feel that something, you know, share with us. Be interesting to get some feedback. Brilliant.
Nadine Powrie [1:04:51]
Okay, so Jenny, thank you very much for doing all this amazing discussion as always. So we’re gonna be back next week. With John Danes, Nick Sharif and Lisa Grace Wilson. And next Thursday is quite a special day because it’s my birthday. So I’m going to put on the table, the topic of kind leadership. I think about that on my birthday. So this is the this is the topic for for next week. Sarah, you’re very, very welcome. And thank you very much. You’re, you’re an inspiration to me.
And so that was just come in the most important skill in the time of crisis. So good. I’m glad you feel the same way we do. Yeah,
Nadine Powrie [1:05:43]
that’s good. Okay. So it’s a goodbye and it’s see you again next Thursday, same time, four o’clock between four and five o’clock and have a good week and
we will put the building that resilience.
Nadine Powrie [1:06:00]
Yes, yes. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody, and thanks for watching. Bye bye. I