podcast

The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

2023-01-20 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

The Exhaustion Gap for Women with Kayla Osterhoff

I’m excited to welcome Kayla Osterhoff, MPH, PHDc to today’s show. Kayla is a neuropsychophysiologist and women’s health expert whose research is revolutionizing the field of women’s health. Her scientific discoveries about women’s biology are the basis for the Her Biorhythm program and Her Biorhythm Certification for doctors, practitioners, and coaches. Kayla is a true pioneer in her field whose novel research and innovations are changing the landscape of feminine health. Her knowledge and expertise lend important insights to the workplace and its challenges.

As a woman in a male-dominant field of work, Kayla often found that she had to work in a masculine way that taxed her physical and mental health. Later she discovered that working in this way was not only taxing, but it was unnatural and harmful for her feminine biology.

Through her research, Kayla discovered a blind spot in the understanding of female health and biology – a result of the long-standing gender gap in scientific research. She discovered that women have a very different biological rhythm than men, requiring different support and day-to-day operations in order to thrive. This discovery became the focus of her passion, research, and career.

Kayla has now dedicated her career to empowering women around the world and teaching the science of feminine biology. She believes that women are the greatest untapped resource in modern society and that it is our responsibility as a society to research and support women better.

On today’s show, we talk about the science of feminine biology and how that affects our work performance, as well as how it can actually become a superpower under the right conditions.

Learn more about Kayla’s work at https://www.herbiorhythm.com/ or connect with her on Instagram.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

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Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:06):

I’m very excited to have a special guest with me here today. Kayla Osterhoff is a neurophysiologist and women’s health expert whose research is revolutionizing the field of women’s health. Her scientific discoveries about women’s biology are the basis for the Her BioRhythm program and her BioRhythm certification for doctors, practitioners and coaches. And Kayla, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to finally get to meet with you. This is really exciting.

Kayla (00:38):

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on, and I’m really excited to talk about my favorite topic, which is Women <laugh>.

Monica (00:46):

I’m excited too. As I mentioned before we got on the podcast today. I actually was introduced to your work through your interview on Gaia tv, and your interview with Regina Meredith. And one of the reasons I was so excited to talk with you today is because what you were kind of revealing and sharing about women’s biology helped make a lot of things make sense to me about why it was such a challenge to kind of fit into the corporate world, even though I was there for more than 20 years. And so I think this topic is really gonna resonate with my listeners here today. So I’m very excited to have you here. So maybe we can just start off by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and how you got started.

Kayla (01:41):

Yeah. Well, again, thank you for having me on. This is an exciting topic that I love to dive into. Well, I got into the field of particularly women’s health research because obviously as a woman I had a particular interest in my own biology and physiology. And unfortunately right now in the world, there is very limited information out there about the female biology and how it is different in its operation than the male biology. And this is kind of a roadblock that I kept hitting within my career and also within my personal health. I spent several years as a health scientist working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while I was there, I noticed that our medical protocols and the public health policies that were created at CDC that are supposed to serve, you know, the, the public, not only the national public, but the global public, including men and women was created and derived based on very male-centric data.

Kayla (02:50):

And what I mean by that is that the research that is done to study bodies and human biology and physiology and behavior is primarily done on men and women are not really included in this research. Significantly back in history, they were really not included at all. And the FDA actually had a formal ban that eliminated women from all clinical research for many, many years that wasn’t even overturned until the mid-nineties. But unfortunately, even to this day, women are still not appropriately included in the research, meaning that we have this huge information gap about women, women are very misunderstood, and as a result, women are very misguided. And the experience that you had is the same experience that I had in the corporate space especially, which is that we hit these walls, these roadblocks, and it really impacts our health and our wellbeing and our ability to perform as leaders.

Kayla (03:54):

And then we go to our doctors and say, oh, you know, I’m having brain fog, or I’m not able to sleep, or, my hormones are all messed up, or I’m really, really burnt out. And there aren’t really good solutions. And the reason being is because the education required in order to understand women and their bodies and their brains and how they operate and their cognitive health and function, all of these things is missing from the education. It’s missing from the kind of corporate and business structures in order to really understand and support women appropriately. So that’s why I switched gears and just went primarily into women’s health research. And now I study exclusively women which is a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive and costly to study women in terms of resources than it is to study men because we are a lot more complex biologically speaking. So really understanding the female biology is my passion and being able to teach people about how the female biology operates and the differences between men and women and how there are different considerations and different requirements in order for women to really thrive and be successful in their careers and their lives, and especially with their health.

Monica (05:17):

Well, that is so exciting. And my background is in healthcare as well. And when I heard your information and had kind of known that, that a lot of the drugs that have been developed are the doses, the recommendations are typically for men. Yes. But they apply that to women. And I didn’t realize it was because women were so hard to study. And yeah, you gave some reasons for that in your last interview. Can you maybe talk a little bit about why women are harder to be part of a scientific study?

Kayla (05:46):

Yeah, yeah. When the FDA banned women from clinical research way back in the seventies, it was for good reason, and it was because of these reasons that people already didn’t study women. And one is because women are risky research subjects in terms of if they are actively cycling, they can potentially become pregnant. And no researcher ethically wants to really deal with the fact that a woman can potentially become pregnant during the study. Right? So that’s one reason it’s more of an ethical reason. But the other reason is what I was mentioning before, which is that women are very difficult research subjects, meaning that it costs a lot more time, energy, money to study women. And the reason why is because women are physiologically shifting all of the time, day to day. They’re little by little changing. And so there is no normalized repeating process every day.

Kayla (06:50):

Like there is in the male biology. In the male biology, the physiology repeats on a 24-hour system, and everything is basically the same from day to day. Then you look at us ladies and things are a lot more complex. And the reason being is because we have this month long hormonal cycle with the ebb and flow of estrogen and progesterone that actually impacts our global physiology. So it’s not just about the reproductive parts, it’s about everything. Our cardiovascular system, our respiratory system, our nervous system, our brain, our immune system, our metabolism, everything is impacted by the ebb and flow of these two key biochemicals. And because of that, women are little by little changing all the time and significantly through four different hormonal signature hormonal phases over the course of a month. And that’s why I say that physiologically speaking, women are actually four different women over the course of a month.

Kayla (07:50):

So now when you translate that to research, now you have to times your participants essentially by four. So now, if you’re studying 30 women, well, 30 women times four, because you actually have to take account four how different they are physiologically in each of the four phases. And then when it comes to the statistical analysis and all of that, it becomes a huge nightmare mess. Which is something that I know intricately because it’s what I do, but I, I get it. I understand why they have been left out because it’s hard. However, it’s not ethical. We cannot just simply ignore half of the population and make assumptions that because we have the same parts, they work the same way. And we know now that that is absolutely not true. And now, you know, the scientific and medical community is trying to backtrack to fix this issue, but the gap is so vast in the information and the data that we need, that it’s gonna take a huge, huge effort and a lot of time and a lot of money to fix the problem.

Monica (08:53):

Wow. This is all just fascinating to me, and I’m so glad that you’re helping to tackle some of that gap. So one of the things that I was really curious about too is how does this affect the workplace? You know, today’s mm-hmm. <Affirmative> workplace, most people work, you know, eight to five, nine to five 40 hours a week. Yeah. You know, maybe two weeks of vacation of the year, and it’s kind of this hustle culture. So how does this difference in biology, physiology, psychology apply to the workplace for women?

Kayla (09:31):

Well, it has huge implications for the workplace, and it’s actually the reason behind these negative statistics that we see in the workplace right now. So, just for instance, in the United States in terms of the statistics around female leadership or female business ownership they’re pretty dismal. Across the board, it’s about 18% of women who are in leadership positions in organizations. So this means business owners founders, c-suite managers and supervisors. And the whole, all rest of the percentage is men. And when you look at, you know, there’s a few things going on. So one of which is there’s this pay gap, right? The pay gap between men and women who do the same jobs. Well, this, this goes back to the same problem. At the same time, we’re also dealing with an exhaustion gap. And this is disproportionately affecting women, which is something I mentioned before, that women experience burnout 200 to 300% more often than their male counterparts.

Kayla (10:45):

So obviously this is going to have a huge impact on the world of business, the corporate world, and the economy at large, if women are burning out at these alarming rates. So, again, a reason being is that we are not understanding how women need to be supported in order to thrive and be healthy and not burn out and be able to operate at their highest level. And to be able to kind of tap into their cognitive gifts as women, they have to be supported in a very specific way, which is determined by how their physiology is operating. Right? And because it’s so different through the four different phases, every woman, right, is four different women over the course of a month. Then of course, she can’t operate in this standardized, repeating environment infrastructure systems. So again, we look back at our male counterparts and what we know is their biology, their physiology is very consistent.

Kayla (11:49):

It repeats 24 hours a day. Every day is just about the same. So working a nine to five every single day, five days a week, all month long, works really well for them because that maps on perfectly with their physiology, and it’s how their biology really operates. Then we look at, for women right now, we’re looking at the same system. This nine to five repeating consistent environment, well, that may work for one version of us. So we’re talking about one week out of the whole month, we might have a infrastructure and systems in place that actually work well for us. And the other three weeks it is working against us because it is, because it is not in alignment with our basic biological needs as they change throughout the month. So for women, we need inconsistency because our biology and our physiology is inconsistent, but if you zoom out it, there is a consistency to it because it can’t just be total chaos all the time, right?

Kayla (12:52):

There is a system to it, but it’s a broader system. It’s a month long view rather than a daily 24 hour view. So for women designing a different environment in infrastructure, workflow, schedule, support systems for each week out of the month as her physiology shifts and changes, that is the key. And that’s a lot of what I do and teach in the corporate space, is I help organizations to understand how to properly support the women within their organization so that they can operate at their highest level, so that they can have more fulfillment, more success, and as a result, the overall company culture typically improves.

Monica (13:41):

Wow. I’m so excited you’re doing this work, and I wanna dive into that aspect a little bit deeper. But before we do that, can we just take a step back and have you talk about those four different stages? Yeah. And how they can actually be a benefit? A Competitive advantage if we’re able to maximize those.

Kayla (14:03):

Yeah. I always say that you know, the female, what I call the female Biorhythm, which are these four physiological phases that we go through that are set to the pace of the female hormone cycle, which is the centerpiece of it, right? So the female biological rhythm is the key to a woman’s health success, happiness, fulfillment, all of that, right? And that’s also, unfortunately, the part of us that has been ignored. And it’s the piece that’s missing from the research, from the data. So when women can understand these four different versions of themself, and they can start to align their operation, their lifestyle, their choices with that, then that’s when the magic happens. So we’ll just do like a very, very brief, super high level overview of the four different versions a woman experiences every month. And again, this is a lot more complex, but I just wanna give everyone kind of a taster of these four different women and how you might be able to start to align your lifestyle with these four different versions of you.

Kayla (15:16):

So that, like you said, you can leverage that competitive advantage that we have operating at our highest level all month long. So phase one is about the first week of the female biological rhythm and hormonally, this is marked by the lowest levels of estrogen and progesterone. So remember, estrogen and progesterone are kind of like the pacemaker of the female biological rhythm in terms of those two key hormones modulate all the other physiological systems from the brain to the musculoskeletal system, everything. So when those two key hormones are at their lowest level some kind of broad strokes of what’s happening physiologically is that there’s kind of a downshift of the metabolic and energetic activities of the female biology. What I mean by that is when those hormones are at their lowest level, it actually starts to downshift or down regulate our metabolism.

Kayla (16:21):

And what happens is the conversion of macros like food, right? Carbs, fats, and proteins through the citric acid cycle ending in ATP, which is energy for the cells, right? That whole process slows down. And so women actually have a little less physical energy during this time, and I’ll get to why that is actually not a bad thing in a moment. But alongside that, when we look at, for instance, neurological behavior and how things also downshift neurologically for women in this low hormonal state, we see that our excitatory and mood boosting neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, glutamate, all of those neurotransmitters also slow in their activity as well. So not only do we have less physical energy during this phase, but we also have a little less mental energy and a little less outward focus because we have less of those mood related neurochemicals.

Kayla (17:32):

There’s a lot of other things that shift neuro electrically in terms of how the brain areas communicate with each other which is all related to having high densities of receptors in our brain as women for estrogen and progesterone, which is something that a lot of people don’t know, and something that was only discovered a few years ago, actually. So when that happens, the whole brain structure and system kind of shifts in its operation. So when that happens, again, it’s this downshift of energy, this downshift of mood, this downshift of mental energy as well as physical energy. But there’s a benefit here, and each one of the phases has many benefits, but I’ll mention one in each one that is significant and important that women can start to leverage right away. So in phase one, the, the cognitive superpower is what I call it is actually intuitive insight.

Kayla (18:36):

So when we have studied the female brain, and when we have done cognitive skills-based testing through the different hormonal, the four different hormonal phases, what we are just now discovering as neuroscientists is that the female brain has different cognitive strengths in each hormonal phase. And in phase one, what the research or the scientific community calls cognitive empathy is a fancy scientific term for intuition. So a woman’s intuition is not only a real thing, but it’s actually something that we are now able to measure with brain imaging and cognitive skills testing, and we are starting to understand the mechanisms of it, which are related to our female hormones. So, wow, very interesting <laugh>. Yeah, and it’s so beautifully designed. The whole female biology, the female system is so beautifully designed because if you think about it, phase one, our body is literally saying, okay, we need you to go inward in order to tap into this extra cognitive ability that you have of intuitive insight, right?

Kayla (19:45):

The ability to make decisions, assessment, that type of skillset is heightened in this first phase. So what our body does is it takes our outward focused efforts, our outward focused energy, and it points us inward so that we can actually use this skill, right? It is literally slowing us down physically. It is taking that outward mental focus and turning it inward so that we can tap into this intuitive insight. So it’s all happening for us, and it’s all supposed to happen that way. However, the societal expectation is that we have to operate at the same high level all month long in the same exact way. Well, that’s not possible because that’s not how our biology works as women. However, it is possible to operate at a very high level through all four phases, but in different ways. So in phase one, this is when women should be taking a step back doing some more solo type work.

Kayla (20:50):

This is when she should be doing her assessment. This is when she should be doing her planning. This is when she should be doing her forecasting for the month. This is when she should be doing her resource allocation type activity, right? This is that, that phase going from phase one into phase two, this is marked by a steady rise in estrogen to a peak into phase three. But as estrogen rises, so does the metabolic activity. So there is this higher conversion of the ATP, there is more energy for the body, there is also more energy for the brain in terms of the brain energy metabolism, that’s ramped up as well. But also when you look at those neurochemicals, the excitatory, mood-based neurochemicals, those are also rising as estrogen rises. So when that happens, women start to have more and more energy or cognitive kind of energy focus.

Kayla (21:55):

And in addition, they start to feel more and more outward focused, more social, and have more of a higher mood, right? And again, these are just a few examples, but as that happens, when we study the cognitive skills based testing to see what’s going on with a woman’s cognitive ability during this phase, we see that a woman’s navigational ability is heightened as well as strategic thinking, strategic action, which is actually pretty cool because if you go to phase one, you are doing your decision making, you are doing your assessment, you are doing your resource allocation. Now you take that information that you are able to make those decisions with a higher level of intelligence in acuity to really understand how to do that in the most beneficial way. Now you’re taking that information and you’re running with it, you’re able to navigate with that information.

Kayla (22:54):

Not only that, because you have these increase in these neurochemicals, you’re also able to interact and communicate with your teams better. And so your leadership abilities increase. And interestingly, a woman’s level of compassion and emotional intelligence increases as estrogen rises. So this is when we should be interacting with and doing our teamwork, team leadership, these types of things. Then going into phase three, which is more of a phase shift than a phase in and of itself, because it’s really short. So phases one and two, that’s weeks one and two, just about phase three is between one and three days. It’s the ovulatory phase. And this is marked by the peak in estrogen, alongside the peak in luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. When we have all of these juicy hormones in our body this, a few really cool things happen, including this peak in those excitatory and mood neurotransmitters, this peak in metabolism, energetic output.

Kayla (24:02):

We also have a peak in our power, strength, and endurance physically and mentally. We can work longer days, we have more stamina, we have more focus and kind of drive and motivation during this time, and the peak in emotional intelligence as well. So the cognitive superpower during this phase is this charismatic quality that women have. Interesting women are more influential during this phase. So this is when we should be doing our strategic partnership, our networking, our pitches, anything where we need to have more influence within our positions. This is the, the fruitful time to do this. Then going from that phase into the final phase, which is the longest, it is called ludial phase hormonally, but in the female biological rhythm, of course, there’s a much broader repercussions for this. And this is the final two weeks. It’s the whole back half of the female biological rhythm.

Kayla (25:07):

And it is marked by a different hormonal shift, because estrogen is now coming down the other side of the peak, right? It peaked at ovulation, and now it’s kind of coming down the other side. There’s a little bit of a boost in the middle there, but what’s significant is that progesterone becomes the star player of the show. Now, progesterone as this important biochemical and neurochemical rises to a peak. It does some really cool things to the female physiology, but especially the female neurology. I actually call this the grow phase because this is a time when women have an increased capacity to grow, to learn and adapt because of these neurological shifts that happen with this rise to a peak and progesterone. So one cool thing that happens is that, you know how I mentioned before, the excitatory, mood based neurotransmitters kind of rise and fall with estrogen.

Kayla (26:04):

Well, that is the case here as well. Those neurochemicals are slowly kind of declining down the whole back half of the two weeks. So the first week you still have high concentrations, and then the final week, you’re starting to get pretty low with those again, or to the lowest point again as you come back around. But as progesterone rises to a peak, it increases the activity of our down regulatory neurotransmitter, which is GABA. Now, GABA is really important for neurological health and wellbeing. It’s tied in with the down regulation of the nervous system. It’s also tied in with the melatonin process, which is the hormone that is is the regulatory ho hormone for sleep in our circadian rhythm. And so GABA helps to regulate that melatonin sleep circadian rhythm system. It also helps with the health of the brain because it helps us to get more restful sleep and aids in memory consolidation.

Kayla (27:12):

So alongside that, there’s another cool neurological thing that happens that I wanna mention because it’s just so cool. And that is that brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF also peaks at the same time as progesterone. And so when that happens, women get increased neuroplasticity and increased neurogenesis. So what that means is that the moldability of our brain, right, the neural pathways and how we behave, how we learn, how we grow is enhance during that time with neuroplasticity. But also the turnover rate or the reproduction of new neurons in the brain is also heightened at the same time. So not only is our ability to learn and grow heightened during this time, but our brain is physically growing at a higher rate during this phase. So that’s why I call it the grow phase or the brainy phase. And our cognitive superpower is, is this acuity, this verbal acuity, this mental acuity, but really this heightened ability to learn and grow and adapt.

Monica (28:23):

Wow, very interesting. So that last stage sounds like it would be a good time to learn new information as well as to articulate it.

Kayla (28:32):

Yes,

Monica (28:33):

Absolutely. So how could absolutely tapping into these different phases and kind of the, the benefits of each really be a competitive advantage when we start to look at the workplace?

Kayla (28:46):

Yeah. So as you start to understand how the physiology shifts in each four phases, but also our cognitive capacities and how they are changing, right? So we have certain physical benefits and limitations in each phase, and we have certain cognitive skills or capacities that are heightened in each phase that women really should be leveraging, right? So now you start to apply this, right? You start to align your workflow with these cognitive advantages that women have so that they can get more done in less time, be more effective, be better leaders, have better communication, and also state their needs and set boundaries appropriately, right? So just for instance, in phase one, because of how the physiology has this downshift, you don’t wanna be pushing yourself to the limits in terms of working really long hours. And if you can avoid it, you want to limit your more social based interactions during this time, because that’s gonna take a lot of energy of which you have less of.

Kayla (29:57):

So it’s really about resource allocation, understanding what resources you have in each phase, and then learning how to allocate them very smartly so that you don’t run out so you can keep your steady level of energy, your high level of performance, right? So in phase one, what you really wanna do again, is you want to maybe decrease your working hours. Maybe if you’re like a 10 hour a day person, maybe you wanna scale it back to eight or so, if you usually have 10 meetings a day, maybe you wanna limit those to the ones that you just need to be there for, and then delegate to other pe other people on your team or communicate in more of a more of a solo fashion where you can kind of make the decisions by yourself. You have some time to kind of tune into your own thoughts, your own processes, because remember, you have this enhanced intuitive, inside this enhanced ability to assess and make decisions.

Kayla (31:00):

So that’s the type of work that you really should lean into in phase one. And again, each phase has its own types of benefits in phase two and three, go for it work those long hours, you have the stamina, you have the endurance to do it. You can work with teams, you can take all the meetings, you can do all of that stuff. And then you have to understand that things are gonna shift again when you go into the last phase. And you really wanna align your workflow with your abilities and having an understanding of what are those physical limitations and how do I align with those so that they actually aren’t limitations, so that they are actually benefits superpowers.

Monica (31:44):

Wow. And so it seems like if we don’t make these adjustments, we are also losing some of the benefits. Like I think about phase one, you know, we’re kind of taught what, you know, you’re low energy and you’re not feeling maybe as energetic, but you need to just power through. But if you are just powering through and forcing yourself to work the longer hours and trying to be high energy, it seems like you’re losing out on the benefits of that increased intuition. 100%. Yeah. Yeah,

Kayla (32:14):

Yeah. So that, I mean, you’re spot on. And this is the reason why we are seeing these huge levels of burnout for women because not only are they burning out their adrenals, right, they are also burning out their female hormones, which as we know from this conversation, play a huge role in our overall physiology, health and function. It’s not just about the reproductive parts. So when women don’t understand how, what their, where their resources are, how they’re shifting and changing over the course of the month, and how to utilize them in a smart way, they’re burning through them because they’re just pushing through and they’re forcing the square peg into the round hole. And it’s never gonna work out long term, right? You might be able to do it for a while, but eventually it’s gonna catch up to you because it is just not naturally how your body operates, and it never will be, because you don’t have the same biological rhythm as your male counterparts who are a 24-hour repeating steady system, right?

Kayla (33:17):

So instead of, you know, drinking all the coffee <laugh>, extra cups of coffee in phase one and burning out your adrenals and burning out your hormones, and then dealing with the repercussions later, maybe you allow yourself to have a little less energy during that phase, and you lean into that and you say, actually, this is a good thing because I really need to go inward and I need to do some assessment, and I need to do some better resource allocation, and I need to listen to my body and give myself a little more support during this phase so that I can still do my job, do my work and operate. But things need to shift a little bit.

Monica (33:51):

Very interesting. I wonder if this is one of the reasons that women have been a little bit slower to return to the workforce, and have been more interested in remote work because it gives them more of an ability to regulate their energy levels and their workflows than they have.

Kayla (34:11):

Oh, absolutely. Pandemic, yes. Absolutely. And like, like I said, a woman’s intuition is a real thing, right? It’s in women, even though they don’t know all of this that we’re talking about, they intuitively know that the workflow and the infrastructure and the environment in the corporate space does not work for them. It doesn’t align for them. It makes them feel bad. And what they do know is when they get more flexibility and they can kind of do things on their own terms, they feel way better. Well, that’s because they are actually leaning into and tuning into what’s going on with their body and having an ebb and flow in their workflow, just like the ebb and flow in their physiology.

Monica (34:53):

Oh, that, that makes so much sense to me. So the question I have is like, how do we begin to bring this into the workplace? So my husband manages a team, and so I had him watch the episode on Gaia, and he was very supportive, and he’s open, you know, to the concept, but his question was like, as a manager, how do I implement that? Do I need to have different standards for men and women? You know, are we gonna have different assignments for somebody because she’s ovulating and I don’t wanna know that about my employee? Yes. Like, how do we begin to work through this in the workplace?

Kayla (35:31):

Yes. So the way you start to work through this in the workplace, which is something I am doing with big Fortune 500 companies, who are really opening their minds to the solutions, to some of these big, big societal problems we have around women and women’s leadership and women in the workplace. These are something that everyone is acknowledging these are problems and we’re looking for solutions. Well, now here’s a scientific, a solution that is proven to work once you get an understanding of the female biology and physiology, right? So the way you implement this, there are several ways, and how I do this with each company is very dependent on what their needs are, what their infrastructures look like, what kind of systems they have in place, what kind of processes they use, their company culture. So everything is tailored to the specific needs of the organization.

Kayla (36:28):

But there is one really common, simple, simple step that has to happen as step one, that is giving women permission and flexibility to do things differently. Now, that is fully inclusive of everyone, right? If you start to allow the freedom to develop a schedule and a workflow that is not time-based, but performance based, now you have something that works for everybody. And it doesn’t have to be men versus women. You just have to be inclusive of the female physiology, which right now is not happening. It doesn’t have to say, okay, this is how the women in the company work, and this is how the men in the company work. No, you create systems and structures that actually work for either men or women, but right now what we have in place is something that just works for men.

Monica (37:28):

Interesting. And so I’m excited to hear that you’re working with some Fortune 500 companies and that people are open to making some of these changes. Have you seen any great results or success stories with organizations that have began to move in this direction?

Kayla (37:46):

Oh, absolutely. And t always kind of starts with the information flow opening, the flow of that information that’s missing, right? And people start to feel empowered and people start to feel seen and heard and understood, which has immediate positive repercussions for the entire organization. Even an acknowledgement of, Hey, you know what? We maybe haven’t been doing things that are appropriately supportive for you. And we’re changing that, and we’re learning, we’re trying to understand that immediately has positive impacts. Then when you start to change the infrastructure and the systems to be more inclusive and have more equity for women and men in the company, now you start to see a moving up of the bottom line, which is what everybody wants to see, right? In the end, it’s about how profitable are we and how are we leveraging our resources to their highest level? Well, human resources are the most valuable resources within any organization. And if you have any women within your organization and you are not operating in an inclusive way, and you are not understanding this about women, then you are not utilizing that valuable resource to its highest potential, and that’s the language that everybody speaks.

Monica (39:10):

I agree completely. That makes so much sense as well. And really, when you’re able to tap into these benefits for women one of the things I’ve heard you talk about in the past is that women have a real kind of innate ability to be exceptional leaders. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about that?

Kayla (39:31):

Yeah, sure. So there’s a lot of things that go into this, but one of the major components of what makes women such a great leader is this are these neurological differences, and the fact that the female brain is modulated by the female hormones which makes the female brain this cyclic organism. And because of that and how the neurochemical and neural electrical activity of the female brain changes, it creates these cognitive strengths that are superior versus their male counterparts. And all of those cognitive strengths just so happen to be great leadership qualities like emotional intelligence, like the ability to communicate effectively, like the ability to make decisions like the ability to consider others and have higher compassion for others. All of these are superior leadership qualities that women have that men have as well, but that are more prominent in the, the female cognitive toolkit you could say.

Kayla (40:44):

The other thing is, is a psychological aspect of, of feminine leadership. And that is that, again, one of the great qualities of leadership is the ability to think for the collective meaning about you. When you are a great leader, you are not thinking of yourself first. You are thinking of kind of everyone else first. Now for women, there, women have a psychological predisposition for this because over many, many, many, many generations since the beginning of time women have taken on a caretaker role in society. So over generations pass down epigenetically through all these generations of caretakers is this psychological propensity to think for the collective or kind of put others first. So that can be a limitation in a lot of ways for personal development. You know, climbing the ladder, getting what you need, communicating your needs as a woman, which are challenges that women face.

Kayla (41:52):

But in terms of a leadership quality, it is the most important and most superior leadership quality to be able to think about the collective impact of decisions before the decisions are made. So that’s kind of that other psychological leadership superpower that women have. But it’s also one that women have to be aware of. It’s this subconscious programming that is always operating in the background, that if we’re not aware of it, then it can show up in negative ways in our life in terms of we may harm ourselves, harm our health, use up all our resources trying to do everything for everybody else before we take care of our own selves. And of course that is not necessarily a great leadership quality because you have to be healthy and functioning at your highest level and in order to be a great leader. So there’s a, there’s a fine line that has to be walked in terms of embracing this collective thinking as part of your leadership quality and skillset, and also understanding that you have to take care of yourself first before you can lead others and be a good example for others. So towing that line is pretty difficult, especially when you don’t know it’s there.

Monica (43:19):

That makes sense. So it sounds like having healthy boundaries and really good self-care is also really key here.

Kayla (43:28):

Yeah.

Monica (43:28):

I wonder if you might share an example, you said one of the first things that an organization can do is to move to more of a performance-based system. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, how do you do that when there are like hard deadlines that need to happen, and then what could that look like?

Kayla (43:48):

Sure. So again, this looks many different ways, and the way that this is implemented in each organization can be very complex depending on how their organization works. So that’s something that I do in consulting with businesses and helping and organizations and helping them to set up these systems and processes. But just at a very high level example of this, for women who, you know, may be the leader of an organization or a leader within their organization is zoom out, right? Don’t be so acutely focused and so daily focused goals and deadlines and all of that have to be met. But if you plan appropriately with enough lead time, then you can absolutely organize all of those things so that everything gets done more effectively, more efficiently than if you are trying to put it into this acute structure that doesn’t work.

Kayla (44:58):

So it’s more of zoom out, allow policies to be put in place that allow for flexibility, put in policies in place that allow for performance, performance-based work. That way the company is protected, right? Because the performance is going to remain at a higher level. And honestly, it’s always a way higher level of performance when these changes are made and the health of, and the, and the performance of the woman is also protected and elevated by creating these new structures. So again, I, I know that was like a really kind of broad watered down example, but that’s really the only way to give an example that could apply to anyone.

Monica (45:44):

Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. So it’s being more intentional and planning out ahead and actually ending up with higher productivity and less burnout overall, which is gonna increase productivity as well of here. People aren’t burned out, it seems like.

Kayla (46:02):

Yeah. Well, and more satisfaction if, if all of your women who have worked so hard to get into those leadership positions, they’re burned out, they’re not gonna stay there, they’re gonna leave. Yeah. And they’re gonna look for opportunities to do something that allows them to feel healthy and satisfied and not burned out. So, you know, if we want to close this exhaustion gap that women are experiencing in the corporate space, if we want to really support women’s health and stop this toxic cycle of burnout, then we have to make these changes. And I’m not saying it’s easy, cuz it’s not simple. Sure. Easy. No, no, not easy, but it’s going to require a systemic level of change in order to see that the results that we want to see, this is going to continue to get worse and worse and worse until we decide, okay, we know it’s not gonna be easy, but it’s time to make a change. So how do we do it? And you have to do it in a evidence-based step-wise, really organized way. Otherwise you kind of, you, you lose, you lose your, you lose your footing.

Monica (47:16):

Sure, sure. That makes a lot of sense in taking that approach. Yeah. And that kind of leads me to my next question. So what is your vision for the future of work? You know, if we can begin to implement these flexible workplaces and adapt the workplace to work for both men and women, what would that look like? And, and maybe what would that feel like?

Kayla (47:38):

Yeah. In my utopian world I would see an equal balance of masculine and feminine leadership because both masculine and feminine leadership have different qualities that are beneficial and very synergistic right now, when we look into the world because of the way that things are structured in the expectations of operating in this really consistent way we only see really good examples of masculine leadership, even from our female leaders. And that’s because it’s that kind of, you know, push through. A lot of times it’s about, you know, dominating winning, get the win and it’s very also dopamine driven, reward, neurochemically driven. And that just doesn’t resonate with the female biology. Because we’re the way that we operate and how we’re rewarded, neurochemically is totally different. But anyway, so masculine leadership that’s absolutely necessary and needed and super duper important in our world.

Kayla (48:43):

And we have really, really excellent strong examples of that. We do not have good examples of healthy feminine leadership in this world, even from our female leaders who are trying to lead from a very masculine way that is out of alignment with their physiology. So if we can have healthy men and women leaders and healthy examples of masculine and feminine leadership that really merge together, the world will change. I always say that women, because right now it’s disproportionately affecting women, right? I always say that women are the greatest untapped resource in modern society that will be able to create massive evolution in our world and in our society. And the reason being is because they are just so misunderstood, so misguided. They are burned out. They are not operating at their highest level. But imagine if they were, then you have the other half of the population really thriving and stepping into those leadership positions that they’re well designed for.

Monica (49:56):

Oh, that’s so great. I love that. So it’s really embracing feminine qualities and feminine leadership style without discounting the male side either this isn’t anti men in any way, but no making it a as valuable for women leadership traits as well as male. So I love that. So Kayla, tell me, what are you most excited about right now?

Kayla (50:22):

Oh, so many things. But I, I’m really excited because there is a, a tide change that is happening societally and not, not even just in the United States but really globally, which is acknowledgement of this issue, this, this gap in the health science research and this gap in the information. And an acknowledgement that you know, we have really misunderstood and misguided women for a long time and we wanna do things differently. And that’s happening across the globe. There’s, there’s publications coming out every day, really highlighting the problem. What I’m excited about is that there is a solution and it is working and people are now open-minded enough to actually embrace these solutions and put them in place. So personally what I’m really excited about right now is being able to work with more and more organizations who have massive impact on so many women and families and communities that can start to put these different structures in place and support, you know, thousands if not millions of women.

Kayla (51:40):

But I’m also really excited about training any professionals who work with women in the science of the female biology or the women’s neuro psychophysiology. And to that end, I have an online certification that I offer for any professionals who work with women, whether they be doctors, coaches, business coaches, health coaches anything like that. If you work with women, you really wanna understand what’s going on with them and how to properly support them and educate them and guide them. And so I offer that, which is kind of like this women’s biology 101 women’s neuro Psychophysiology 101, which is the, just the basic level of understanding that all people really need to have in order to properly understand, support and guide women. So if anybody is interested in that, we are actually starting our next cohort of students for the spring semester on January 30th. And we go for 12 weeks. It’s a 12 week professional training with 30 34 hours of continuing professional development that comes with the certification. And again, it’s like this basic level of understanding about all everything we talked about and the science behind the female biology physiology, and how to really understand and guide and support women. Well, I’m really excited about that. Yeah,

Monica (53:13):

<Laugh>, I see why you’re so excited about that. That sounds like a great opportunity and we’ve covered so much ground today and I really, I could just talk with you all day about this topic because it’s so fascinating for me, me. But what is kind of one key takeaway you want our leave our listeners to leave with?

Kayla (53:32):

Yeah. the biggest key takeaway that I want all people to hear and be able to start to understand and operate from is that women need acknowledgement that they are different, that they need to operate differently, that they have different needs, that they have basic, different basic biological needs. Just acknowledgement of that makes a huge difference. And then if you wanna take it one step further, allow the flexibility for the women in your life, including yourself if you are a woman to do things differently, right. We understand Step one is just the, the self-awareness. It’s understanding, okay, I’m different, I need to do things different. Step two, allow the flexibility so that you can start to actually do things differently.

Monica (54:27):

Wow, that seems like a real game changer. I love that takeaway. So if people are interested in learning more about the program that you just mentioned or mm-hmm. <Affirmative> connecting with you and your consulting services or just following you on social media, where are the best places to connect with you?

Kayla (54:45):

Sure. the best place to connect with me find more information get free resources is Herbiorhythm.com. And then from there you can navigate to you can put in a request for consulting or booking for an event or anything like that. But also the certification program is there and there’s also an individual women’s program for any woman who just wants to learn about her own unique female biology and physiology that’s there as well. And then on social media my handle is @BioCurious_Kayla. And I’m always posting fun things there about female neuroscience and physiology and health optimization and biohacking and all of those fun things. So I would love to connect with all of you there as well.

Monica (55:43):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today. I learned so much just from today’s conversation and look forward to learning more about your work. So I appreciate you being here. Thank

Kayla (55:55):

You. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was super fun.

Monica (55:59):

Thank you.

Why Work with Peter Merry – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 5

2022-12-20 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

I’m excited to welcome Dr. Peter Merry to today’s show.

Peter is a co-founder of Ubiquity University, the Center for Human Emergence in the Netherlands, and other social enterprises. He also supporting other leaders and their organizations, developing new philosophies, trying to communicate what he sees through books, talks and courses, applying some of the latest consciousness and energetics practices, to attempting to live as balanced a life as possible with his family and friends – it’s an unfolding story of trying to be fully human at this time.

Join us for this episode for our lively discussion about Peter’s book, Why Work? We dive into why people are experiencing higher rates of burnout and dissatisfaction today. He also shares how we can begin to transition to a more fulfilling workplace.

We also discuss Peter’s work with Ubiquity University, the Center for Human Emergence, Volution Theory, and the Wyrd initiative at Broughton Hall Estate.

You can contact Peter and learn more through his website: Peter Merry, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and on YouTube. His book Why Work? is available on Bookshop.org (preferred), as well as Amazon and other retailers.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

***

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:05):

Okay, I’m so excited to have a very special guest here with me today. I have Dr. Peter Merry, who leads social enterprises. He’s the author of several books. He’s also a speaker and well-known teacher. And in his description he said he’s applying some of the latest consciousness and energetic practices to attempt to live as balanced a life as possible with my family and friends. He said it’s an unfolding story of trying to be fully human at this time. So thank you for joining us here today, Peter. I really appreciate it.

Peter Merry (00:42):

You’re welcome. Thanks for the invitation, Monica.

Monica (00:45):

So maybe just to get us started, we could start by having you tell us your story. What do you do and why?

Peter Merry (00:53):

Oh, wow. Well I guess as the son of a Quaker Children’s nurse on the one hand and a Royal Naval mechanical engineer on the other have always been a combination of the kind of visionary social change thing, but I quick get fairly irritated fairly quickly if we can’t actually do something about it. So that’s the engineering side. So I’m always yeah, looking for, you know, the social innovations and the possibilities, but fairly quickly want to actually operationalize it and not just hang around too long in the vision. So that’s kind of, I guess, you know, led my life a bit. I actually was in the arts originally; languages and theater. Spent a lot of time in theater improvisational theater as well, which I found very useful for life. And moved through being a kind of activist in the green movement, getting into green politics, which is where I got interested in economics actually in this whole work theme.

Peter Merry (02:00):

And, and then I wanted to understand the corporate sector because I felt they needed to be part of the solution somewhere. So I started doing consulting in an organizational change and things. I wrote a book called Evolutionary Leadership back in 2003 that then kind of, I guess, led me to be doing public speaking and that kind of thing. You know, for a few years I worked in the corporate sector doing consulting and basically proved if you took an integral approach that includes the human being, you can affect change fairly effectively and fairly quickly. So having kind of understood that went back to looking at some of these more complex problems that we’re facing, multi-stakeholder issues, and how do you actually work collaboratively with people from many different backgrounds, organizations from different backgrounds and to try to solve some of the major challenges we’re facing together.

Peter Merry (02:57):

That was together with the Center for Human Emergence, which was an organization I set up over here, particularly with people who were informed by an integral approach, like Ken Wilber’s work and the developmental psychology, such as the spiral dynamics model and things. And then I got a PhD focused on understanding why energy work seems to work. Having done a vocational training myself in not so much one-on-one energy stuff. So I’ve never been into the one-on-one coaching or one-on-one healing, but how you use energy work to affect large-scale systems like organizations and large pieces of land. And then I did a PhD looking at how our understanding of reality needs to evolve to be able to explain how these kind of approaches and why these approaches work. I ended up calling Volution Theory.

Peter Merry (03:52):

And then around that time where, this was around 2012, just when I completed that, I was doing my PhD at what was then Wisdom University. And at some point, the conversation started about how we might scale what we were doing there with a new online technologies. And that’s what gave birth to Ubiquity University which I co-founded and I’m still in the leadership team, which was really focused on how do we equip people with the mindset tools and skillset to make a positive difference in the world given the challenges we’re facing. And then as part of that, more recently, I’ve been doing more leadership work at the international level. So through the World Bank’s global financing facility, working with ministers of health and the top civil servants in developing countries and their stakeholders to look at what we call transformative leadership. So how do you lead and organize differently to deal with highly complex and rapidly changing environments, Which means of course, you’ve gotta do a lot of the inner work as well. So that kind of brings in a whole integral approach. And then applying some of the energetic work now to states in the UK. Wow. Yeah.

Monica (05:12):

That’s quite the journey. Yeah. <Laugh>, we should also tell our listeners where you were located.

Peter Merry (05:19):

Well, I live in the Netherlands actually in an ecological neighborhood of a town called Kubo. The town is about 25,000, and the neighborhood’s about 400 households just designed using common sense really, you know, where all the cars have to park on the perimeter. There’s a big car sharing scheme. You have your own garden, but there’s a shared garden and pizza ovens and stuff like this. So lots of edible trees around, water catchments, solar panels, you know, solar heating of the water and things. So it’s what you would do if you just stopped and thought for a minute, you know, how should we really design our communities and neighborhoods? So <laugh>, wow, it’s a great place to live. Great for the kids to grow up in as well.

Monica (06:04):

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Is that fairly common in the Netherlands, or is this kind of an emerging concept that you’re seeing?

Peter Merry (06:12):

This was I guess this was 20 years ago when this was built and there have been more since then. We actually get international groups coming around and looking at it. So it is one of the international best practices here. But it’s still not the standard and, you know, whereas it obviously should be <laugh>. But there are increasing experiments of these kinds of neighborhoods being developed more in this way. Yeah.

Monica (06:38):

Yeah. Wonderful. It’s amazing. Well, quite the journey and I’ve been following your work recently with Ubiquity University. It sounds like a necessary and very timely organization bringing a lot of transformational leadership skills to people, so very exciting.

Peter Merry (07:00):

Yeah.

Monica (07:00):

I actually became familiar with your work through the Center for Human Emergence. Initially when I was writing my book, the Change Code, your name came up a lot with regard to that center and your work with Spiral Dynamics and taking that to the next level. Peter actually reviewed my book in the early days, which I really appreciated as well. So that’s kind of how that connection formed. And then I’ve been following your career since and just continued to be amazed. One of the reasons that I reached out as well is because you also wrote a book called Why Work. So maybe tell us a little bit about that and what do you see the purpose of work being?

Peter Merry (07:50):

Yeah, so that actually came out of my master’s research that I did while back now in 2000, No, and we think 1994 and five or something. It was back at Edinburgh University at the Center for Human Ecology. Then, and at that point I was also thinking for myself, So what am I going to do for work? Like, how am I going to make money and earn a living and didn’t like this idea of going into an organization, you know, where somebody else was telling me to do things that I didn’t believe in. And so that fueled this inquiry that became my master’s thesis and eventually turned into the book. There are two parts to it, really. One is, so how would we need to change policy at national, potentially international level to create meaningful work?

Peter Merry (08:46):

And I’ll say a bit more about what I mean by that. And then what can we actually do ourselves in our local communities to put in place the conditions at the local economic level that would enable people to do work that’s meaningful for them and useful for the community and earn whatever currency they need to be able to meet their basic needs, essentially. So when I stop to think about, you know, what work did I want to do when I was back there as a master’s student, it was, well, it obviously needs to be something that’s useful for the world at the moment. And of course, you need to have an insight into what’s actually going on to, too <laugh> to have a picture of what that useful is. But by then I was pretty awake in terms of an understanding of both the ecological social challenges and things we were facing and the need to do something that was contributing positively.

Peter Merry (09:49):

So obviously that’s the kind of work that needs to be done, but then how do I know what my piece is that connects to that? And it was an Aristotle quote, I think I came across that I use a lot in talks now, which is, “Where your purpose meets a need in the world, therein lies your vocation.” So your vocation or your calling, you know, when there’s this match between what you feel your call to do and a need in the world, that’s the place, that’s the kind of interface. That’s the sweet spot. I love that. Yeah. So it’s really about how you know, and then when I look around, I see one, there’s so much destructive work going on and, you know, things that aren’t really useful that could be done much more better.

Peter Merry (10:39):

I mean, you sometimes get so depressed just walking into the supermarket and you see this massive waste of stuff that’s really not good for anybody or <laugh> anywhere and all the packaging and everything else. And you’re kind of, how have we come so far that we, that we’re doing all these things that are actually not healthy for us and not healthy for the world around us. So the question, and a lot of individuals I think feel that they know whether we’re doing something that’s really useful for the world or whether we’re just doing it because it’s paying our way and we don’t actually really believe in it. So the Why Work book was an attempt to say, Well, what do we need to do to put in place the conditions where people can do things that are meaningful and help them to be fully human and are good for the planet as a whole, really. And then both at the policy level as well as the kind of hands on local level,

Monica (11:37):

Such an interesting discussion. And I think it goes right along with some of the things that we’re seeing here in the US. There’s discontent and we’re starting to see a lot of burnout with jobs. And this thing that we’re hearing a lot about here right now is called “quiet quitting”, where people are not actually quitting their jobs, but they’re doing the bare minimum so that they can keep their jobs while they’re starting to pursue outside interests and create some boundaries around work. So how do you feel like some of those kind of emerging trends here in the US fit in with some of the concepts you were just discussing?

Peter Merry (12:20):

That’s really interesting. Cause you also mentioned spiral dynamics and this understanding of human development over time. And the key concept behind that is about how our coping mechanisms as humans fit the life conditions around us, Right? So a value system that emerges is an attempt for the human mind and heart to find a way to deal with the world that we’re experiencing around us. So it’s that match between life conditions and coping mechanisms. And the point that you get stress and burnout is when you get a misfit between the value systems and the life conditions and the world around us. So what I think we’re seeing with the burnout and the quiet quitting that you were talking about is people realizing that there’s a misalignment between who they are and what they want to be doing and what the world is asking of them.

Peter Merry (13:17):

And either you kind of quit quietly, which is a way to cope, I guess, and start to develop other things maybe on the side a bit. Or if you don’t either have that insight yourself or the conditions you’re in don’t allow you to do it, that builds up stress in your system. And that’s what will leads to burnout. I mean, biologically every organism needs to feel that it’s contributing somehow to the ecology that it’s a part of. And if we feel even subconsciously that we’re in a work environment or in a situation where one, not only not contributing positively, but we may be even contributing negatively to our ecology, then our body literally biologically winds us down because we are not a useful element of the ecology that we’re a part of. And so that’s what is burnout is when we, when it basically kind of drains the battery so that we can’t be any more destructive to our environment and forces us to evolve ourselves to find a next level of thickness with the environment that we’re in.

Peter Merry (14:33):

So to find a way to be able to contribute positively. And that’s when we start to get energy again. And our biological system starts to kind of wake us up again and feed us again, as it were with energy. So I think the fact that we’re in a time where our societies are structured in such a way that they’re very ill-equipped to deal with the real challenges of the world, and that most of the jobs are therefore still in that old system, that it’s no wonder that people are either burning out or quietly quitting because they, they have a feeling that it’s just, you know it just doesn’t fit anymore that the system is dead. I often say that the current system, the current mainstream system is dead but not buried, and it is dead, which means it’s no life force in it anymore.

Peter Merry (15:23):

There’s no joy, there’s no life force, there’s no energy. And it, which means when you are in that system, it drains your energy from you like a vampire. It’s like an energy vampire. But we haven’t collectively consciously recognized that or made the conscious decision to move to something else, which means we haven’t had the ritual burial of the old system and put it to sleep, which means it’s haunting. It’s still around, right? It’s dead. Yeah. But it’s trapped between worlds, right? And so, like a vampire, it’s kind of hanging around and sucking energy out of us and the world until we actually consciously go, Guys, this is old and it’s finished and it’s past, its sell by date. We need to bury it collectively and consciously decide we’re gonna move to something else. So I think that’s why we’re seeing a lot of the kind of trends that you described because that’s going on and people’s biology is literally telling them that they’re not contributing anymore to the ecology around them. And by ecology, I mean in the broadest sense, right? The human ecology as well as the natural ecology,

Monica (16:26):

Right? Yeah. Oh, I love your description of what’s happening and agree completely. And I also agree that people know there’s something wrong, but it’s hard to put words to it. There’s just kind of this unspoken feeling that, you know, things aren’t working right with our systems. I’ve done a lot of work in the healthcare system and we see that right now we see, you know, high burnout rates and physicians leaving the the field of medicine and staffing shortages. And, you know, people want change, but they’re not really sure what to do because they have to fit within the current system. And so what do you see as some ways to make the workplace better? Because it, at this point, it’s more than just doing some small tweaks.

Peter Merry (17:18):

I think there’s, there’s maybe three parts to the strategy. One is that we have to help the old system to die gracefully. So in the current workplaces of the old system, we have to help them to let go of the things that everybody knows aren’t working anymore, and make those explicit and have those conversations. Because the moment that you name the truth that everybody knows, there’s a big sigh of relief and everybody goes, Well, yeah, that’s actually true. And then to accept that they don’t necessarily know therefore what they have to do next. But that not knowing is okay, <laugh>, the first thing is the recognition of, okay, if we can just recognize together it’s not working and agree on that and kind of close down and stop doing the stuff we know is not working, it will create space for new things to emerge and come in.

Peter Merry (18:21):

But that’s very hard to do when you’re tired and kind of burned out by the old system. So it does require, I think in the old systems at the moment, really honest conversations, the shutting down of the stuff that we know doesn’t work and the creating space and the asking questions and the not knowing for what might emerge next. Now at the same time, and these suit different personality types, I believe you know, Buckminster Fuller’s quote is very inspirational, which is, “Don’t try to change the old system but build a new system that makes the old one obsolete.”

Monica (19:01):

I have that on my wall right here, in fact, Oh, there you go. You can’t see it. But

Peter Merry (19:05):

As well as helping to curate to what I would say hospice, the old systems, right? We have to help them die in such a way that the best of them is carried forward that they’re acknowledged for the contribution they have made. That we don’t chop their heads off in an unfeeling way because then they’ll toxify the soil rather than fertilize it moving forward. So we have to help hospice the old systems gracefully, but at the same time we need to be prototyping new ways of doing things like radical R and D in all different sectors. And so if that’s more your personality type, cause obviously it’s a more entrepreneurial innovative thing and risk taking cuz none of us really know exactly what the right solutions are moving forward. And we’ll only find out by testing things out and experimenting and failing and learning and trying.

Peter Merry (20:08):

Again. That’s the nature of these non-linear change moments because we can’t see what the future’s gonna look like from our old mindset. It will emerge and reveal itself to us. That means that we can’t know where we have to go and predict and control our way towards it. You know, we have to put in place the conditions for that new system to emerge, which means radical experimentation and learning and fast iteration cycles in a kind of entrepreneurial way in all sectors. And then to be learning from each other as we go along. It’s like the imaginal cells in the butterfly scenario where the caterpillar hangs itself up in its cocoon, you know, after it’s bloated and over eaten stuff. And in the body of the caterpillar, these new cells start to emerge, right?

Peter Merry (21:04):

The biologists call imaginal cells, right? Because they are imagining the future form of the caterpillar, which is the butterfly. Now the caterpillar first sees them as alien bodies and so attacks them, their immune system attacks these new cells. And what happens is it’s only when the cells start to connect up that the caterpillar’s immune system surrenders and the caterpillar literally dissolves. And the fuel and that kind of mush that’s left feeds the imaginal cells for the butterfly. The butterfly’s formed and the butterfly passed the first bang its wings against the shell of the old system, as it were to build its strength and then yeah, break through and get out. So I think that’s in this kind of experimenting and prototyping, we’ve got lots of people who are trying out new things at the moment, the cultural creatives, but a lot of them feel alone. Yeah. We have to do is, is connect them so that they can learn from each other and accelerate and amplify the impact that they’re having.

Monica (22:08):

That’s kind of what you’re doing with Ubiquity University.

Peter Merry (22:11):

Yeah. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, facilitate that as well as reconnect people to the deeper kind of trauma inside of what we have done <laugh>, you know, to each other and to the earth because if we run off trying to create new things without having reconnected to the earth fundamentally, then it’ll all be out of our rational mind and not guided by a more natural intelligence that I think is present when we when remember that we are actually the earth rather than something separate from it <laugh>, which is a kind of crazy thing to think, but <laugh>,

Monica (22:49):

Absolutely. I wanna come back to your next points about what needs to happen, but I wanna dive into this one just a little bit more because I think that that is so true and a lot of my kind of colleagues and acquaintance acquaintances here in the US are experiencing that same thing where they’re trying to create change and they’re trying to make systems better, but they’re feeling really alone and frustrated and like you know, trying to move this behemoth elephant somewhere. It’s just very frustrating. Do you have any advice for people who are trying to create change? Yeah. You know, just in the world in general and specifically within the workplace?

Peter Merry (23:31):

It may sound counterintuitive, but my main advice would be stop trying so hard <laugh>. And the reason is like when we remember that we are the earth, right? So we’re something Yeah. You know, really you and I at the moment are the earth talking to itself, right? Right. We’re the earth trying to work out how do we continue this experiment of self-awareness, which is the human being that the earth has created. Right now, most people don’t live from that perspective, right? We still live in our heads and moving around as if everything is separate from everything else. The moment that we remember that and to properly remember, that means also facing the pain of the split that we’ve created in ourselves between us and the rest of life and all the pain that we’ve caused to the rest of life and other people, which is not a small thing, even though I say it quite glibly in a way.

Peter Merry (24:36):

Once we reconnect to that, we reconnect to the source of life and then we find that it reveals to us what we need to do next. So we don’t need to think it up rationally because there’s a natural intelligence of life as a whole that knows what needs to happen next. When we understand that we are part of a dynamic system that’s evolving as a whole, that, you know, if we try to think it up on our own, we’re creating it out of a place of separation. Whereas from the moment that we literally remember that, it means to put back together to remember something, when we put all the members back together again, <laugh>. Yeah. Then we get guided for what’s next and all we need to know.

Peter Merry (25:35):

We need to feel that intuitive impulse to act next, act fully and then stop and sense again what that action has led to and therefore what the next action needs to be. So it’s much less of a linear process than most of us have been educated to work and you know, we think we’re gonna change the world, you know, even if it’s a positive thing. Right? Right. Okay. This is the plan. We need to achieve this. How are we gonna get there? Okay, we’re gonna start, we’re gonna take these steps and we’re gonna get there. The problem is you take the first step and the world has changed, particularly at the moment. So your plan is out of date. So you spend the rest of time of your time stressing, trying to force your plan to fit reality, whereas reality’s changed <laugh>. So what you have to do is keep yourself as close as possible to the present moment with your intention.

Peter Merry (26:22):

Clear, but let life inform you about what the next step is and your role in that next step. So for a lot of activists today, I think the trick is literally to try less hard. Cuz when we are trying, we’re attached to something. Right? And whether you’re attached to a vision of the future, that’s the same effect as being attached to something in the past. You know, we’re all talking about, Oh, we should let go and not be so attached to stuff in the past. Sure. You shouldn’t be attached to something in the future either because it means you’re not present. Right? Yeah. It’s only now in the present that the information is there that will guide us to the next step. And it’s much more of an intuitive knowing than it is a rational understanding. So when we are led by the intuitive knowing, that’s more of a heart knowing than a head knowing, then we can bring all the head skills and the cognitive capacities to help, you know, start to execute that.

Peter Merry (27:22):

But the head shouldn’t be in the lead cause it’s by definition connected to the past because all we have, all the thoughts we have, are all thoughts that have been defined by our past experiences. Whereas it’s the right brain or and the heart that are sensing the future. More so, and it’s when I realize that, and you know, I was for a long time in this kind of actor change, Well how are we gonna do it? Big plans then it was a big relief. Yeah. Because suddenly you realize you don’t need to know it all. You don’t need to have worked it all out <laugh>. Yeah. You don’t need to have a plan. You just need to have a clear intention and open heart and be present to, you know, what’s wanting to happen next and just take that next step and that’s it.

Monica (28:10):

I love that. That’s such a great way to look at life and I couldn’t be more in agreement. I try to live that way myself, but I also find that sometimes I slip back into the let’s do this, let’s, you know, push. And that’s usually when I get frustrated and I get stuck. And so it’s kind of constantly coming back to that place. I’m still working on it. <Laugh>.

Peter Merry (28:37):

Oh, I think we all are and I think we always will be. Know just that. I always remind myself of that saying that you can’t push the river.

Monica (28:47):

I love that <laugh>

Peter Merry (28:48):

Don’t push. You can surf the river, right? Yeah. And you can navigate and white raft it and stuff, but you can’t push it. Yeah.

Monica (28:54):

Yeah. That’s good advice. And so I wanted to come back too, cuz you mentioned that there were kind of three things that we needed to do and you covered the first one. Or should we move on?

Peter Merry (29:05):

Well, no one was hospicing the old system. Yeah. And helping you die if you’re in the system. The second was to create the new. Through this radical innovation and experimentation. Yeah. And the third is to become a storytelling role, which is to show the bridge from the old to the new. Okay. So to basically say, Look, somebody has tried doing this, it works. You know, you now have a conscious choice as to whether do you wanna do things the old way or do things the new way. So to provide that bridge and to make people aware of the new things that have been discovered and seem to be working so that they realize that we can channel energy and resources into the new things. So those are the kind of three classic roles in these non-linear transitions, helping the old system die gracefully, experimenting to create the new, and telling the story to help people make a conscious choice.

Monica (30:00):

Wonderful. I love that. Yeah. Helping people see that there are other options and other ways of being and doing wonderful. Are you starting to see some emerging practices out there or kind of ways of working?

Peter Merry (30:16):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think it was a friend of mine who said recently, things are getting worse and worse, better and better, faster and faster <laugh>, which I thought was a really good summary. That is great. And that’s the nature, right, of these times, of these kind of chaos points as it were, where the old is breaking down and the new is emerging. So yeah, I mean, I’m seeing an acceleration of both. And there’s lots of examples in all the different sectors. One in education here in the Netherlands, there’s a whole new school system emerging called Argo. They’ve got no lessons, no teachers, no grades, no homework. It’s all coaching based. So the students have coaches, they have a permanent working place that they’re allowed to decorate, like bridge the home school gap. And they work on projects and challenges and they learn about the topics as they go along. So if the learner is put at the center of the process, and rather than everybody having to move through the same sausage factory like educational process. The kids take responsibility themselves for that learning journey. And the coaches help them see things that they might otherwise not be aware of. So those, you know, there’s now 15 of those schools. We brought the second one I helped to set up here where I live so that my sons got a decent education <laugh>. Wow.

Peter Merry (31:40):

And the now there’s 15 in the Netherlands. So I think the healthcare, you know, we’re seeing a lot more understanding of a holistic healthcare approach and the integration and people are choosing consciously for a more holistic approach. The problem is that our healthcare systems and the insurance companies and everything don’t always recognize that, but that’s part of the transition. There’s lots of new modalities. And I think one of the most interesting things that’s emerging really fast right now is the whole world of psychedelics and the impact that that’s having on people. Because what it’s ultimately doing is it’s fast tracking, you know, a meditation experience. So it’s helping you shift your state of consciousness to be able to see a level of interconnectedness that is there and that, you know, sages have always talked about.

Peter Merry (32:34):

And in seeing that, it does that remembering for us. So it helps put things back together again and help us see a bigger context. Now, it does mean then that, you know, we then need to go back and do our work to our stage development as it were to reflect what we’ve seen in that peak state experience. But that, but that is taking off so much at the moment and all the plant medicines and things that are teaching people reminding us of, you know, of our place on the earth basically. And our place embedded in the bigger ecology. So, and it won’t, can’t be long before that becomes more integrated into the healthcare system because they’re finding it helps with addiction helps with all sorts of things. Yeah. And then I think we’re seeing a lot more impact focused businesses.

Peter Merry (33:30):

So the impact hub network, for example, which is in over a hundred countries around the world of social hubs, of social entrepreneurs developing new products and things, products and services, all that are sustainability based. So there’s an enormous amount I think going on. And the question is, you know, what do we choose to see? Or what do our media choose to see and show the world? And normally the media is full of gloom and doom and the breaking down of the system, Right. It’s very little profiling of the breaking through, which is actually going on just at the same intensity as the breakdown. I mean, it’s like the light and the shadow going hand in hand. Yeah. So, yeah, enormous. Then this whole blockchain for example, it’s creating the conditions for a lot more decentralization where we’re less dependent on central government. It enables, for example, more local community economies to develop and be more sustainable with their own currencies. And those currencies could potentially be exchangeable with other currencies. So, you know, it’s a very rich time in terms of innovation at the moment that I’m seeing. And at the same time, there’s a lot of pain and suffering as the old system breaks down. So it’s kind of hand in hand.

Monica (34:48):

Yeah. It’s definitely an interesting time to be alive. Yeah. One of the books I just read recently is by Jane McGonigal, who’s a futurist. And one of the concepts she was discussing in the book that I found fascinating was that Covid might actually increase the speed of change because we all across the world essentially shared this collective trauma. And that apparently the 10 years following some type of trauma, you see an increased rate of change. And so I’m wondering what your thoughts are, Do you feel like that actually kind of sped up the rate of change or set us back a little bit?

Peter Merry (35:33):

No, no. I mean, I think it will ultimately speed things up. It’s like Dr. Don Beck, who was one of my mentors used to talk about <laugh> a tear in the fabric of reality. As being a tear in the fabric of reality that enables you to see down through to some of the underlying dynamics and patterns. And I think that’s what something like Covid does. You know, it forced us a lot of people to slow down to stop and think about things more. And through that process, I think will feed an acceleration of the breakthrough. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I expect that.

Monica (36:11):

So do you feel like you’re optimistic about the future still, even though it is a challenging time?

Peter Merry (36:18):

You know, I’m kind of optimistic or pessimistic as a framing tends not to work for me somehow because ultimately we don’t know what’s gonna happen. Right? We don’t know if humanity will still be here in a few hundred years. We’ve no idea. We don’t know whether we’re going to evolve and learn quickly enough to be able to keep this experiment of the earth going. And once I think we accept that, then again, that releases any attachment to a future outcome. Yeah. So, optimism or the moment that you’re one is optimistic, there’s some, it’s very hard to be optimistic without some kind of sense of attachment or something into the future. And then pessimistic of the same really. So it’s more the way I see it myself as it’s more a trust in that life will somehow work it out.

Peter Merry (37:23):

Yeah. And to remember that one humanity as a whole is just one small part of life and should the human experiment not succeed, then life on earth will, will start again exploring for another way to kind of express self-awareness and self-consciousness. So it would be a shame, I think, because millions and millions of years have gone into, you know, this experiment. And I somehow, I know that humans have the capacity to get through this and to actually change really fast if we want to. Cause at least I can see it in people. The question is where collectively we get to that critical mass on time and that we just don’t know, and we’ll never know. That’s also the nature of these nonlinear change moments. You don’t know when the tipping point is going to come but suddenly one day it’s there and everybody’s kind of saying, Yeah, I always thought like that actually, but I never never told you. And suddenly everything moves fast. Right. So, so we’ll see. But I kind of encourage people, It’s interesting, you know, do you know Margaret Wheatley’s work? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> Well once we were in a circle with Meg one day, and she made us go around this circle and start every sentence with “without hope” or “having no hope or something”. And the first couple of rounds we were a bit depressing.

Monica (38:54):

Yeah.

Peter Merry (38:55):

And then actually it became very empowering because we realized that hope was an attachment to something.

Monica (39:05):

Ah,

Peter Merry (39:05):

And to her it was to actually taking us out of the present. So we realized that actually living without hope, I think was how she made us start each center. That living without hope brought you back to the present and made us a lot more grounded. And that’s where I moved from hope to trust actually.

Monica (39:23):

Yeah. I love that term.

Peter Merry (39:24):

This is an important shift. So yeah. I dunno why, where that bit came from, but

Monica (39:31):

No, that was a great example and I love the term trust too.

Peter Merry (39:36):

Yeah.

Monica (39:38):

So tell us, what are you most excited about right now?

Peter Merry (39:44):

The project that I’m most excited about is a you know, if we take this, my fundamental assumption as well, that what’s at the cause of our challenges at the moment is this forgetting of our interconnectedness, Right? Fundamentally, that if we were aware of the nature of our interconnectedness, there’s no way we could do the things that we’re doing that are damaging the world around us and damaging other people. So there’s no way we could consume, go and buy things and consume things that we knew were damaging the whole that we are a part of, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So things would very quickly switch around. And that we’ve had that experience of interconnectedness in a pre-cognitive stage when we were more in a kind of tribal environment. We didn’t sit around talking about it as interconnectedness, but we had this kind of instinctive feeling of being part of a bigger whole. And then for some reason, when the sense of separate self-emerged the ego as it were, we’ve forgot, so we kind of separated, like Ken Wilbur would say, when you move from one stage to another stage, the differentiation is important, like to differentiate between the old and the new. But if you disassociate

Monica (40:59):

Right,

Peter Merry (41:00):

Then you cut yourself off from that pathway that you’ve walked. So some are aware along the line humanity disassociated from its Prego sense of just being in an interconnected world. So we need to reawaken and reconnect to that. So this project that I’m involved in is based on 28 years of research at Princeton University, at their engineering school where they were doing research into how the human mind affects the world around them. Because they were building on some Stanford research, but they also picked up that that pilots in the cockpits of fighter aircraft, when they got stressed, seemed to be influencing the instruments on the dashboard. Wow. So this was obviously a serious problem, but it was also an engineering challenge. So it was the school of engineering set up this thing called the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which was things that don’t fit our current understanding, things we have no explanation for in our current world of physics and science.

Peter Merry (42:04):

Yeah. And they researched for 28 years how the inner state of the human affects the world around us using mechanical devices, but then also digital random event generators. And essentially to cut a long story short, they prove beyond statistical doubt that our mind influences the world around us in a small but consistent way. And it was one in a billion as the statistical chance of what they found was chance. So basically they’d proven it beyond statistical doubt. Now the lab closed in 2007. I got to know Brenda Dunn, who was the woman who ran the lab together with the engineering as the dean of the School of engineering, Bob Allen. And I was talking to Brenda a few years ago, and she was telling me that all this equipment that they’d had and all the books and the research papers and everything at Princeton was stuck into in storage and costing them a fortune.

Peter Merry (43:00):

And she said, Can you do anything with it <laugh>? Wow. So I said, Well, actually, I’ve just got to know this guy on an estate in England with 3000 acres who’s wanting to turn it into a place of transformation. Maybe we could create a public experience space where people could walk in and just immediately experience their mind influencing these different machines. Wow. Because it would have this psychoactive effect on people of reminding them of the nature of their interconnectedness that actually their being extends beyond the physical boundaries of their body. And so she thought that was a great idea. Luckily, this guy Roger Tempus, who’s the 32nd generation on this estate, thought it would be a great idea. And so we shipped all of this equipment from Princeton to Yorkshire in the UK and set up what we called the Wyrd Experience. Yeah.

Peter Merry (43:50):

W Y R D because weird was the Anglo-Saxon term for interconnectedness, the interconnected web of everything that generated all life, which we buried very deeply in our North European culture. And instead we imported chi and everything from the east. Right. But we actually have an indigenous concept for this interconnected energy, which was weird, the weird <laugh>. And so one thing is setting up this space, which we are nearly complete with the first version of, and we’ll be opening at the Science and Consciousness Conference in the UK and the 31st of October this year. But we’re also part of what they did at Princeton. A little spinoff they created was a company that built these mind lamps, which were lamps you could influence the color of through your intention. Wow. And anyway, that business never really took off, but we’re starting a new business that will use the technology developed at Princeton to create artifacts that people can influence with their minds without any physical connection, including one that will sit in the middle of groups and as the group becomes more coherent and aligned the lamp will glow more.

Peter Merry (45:03):

Wow. And that they become less coherent. It’ll kind of dim down more. So it’ll provide what I call socio feedback instead of biofeedback on our individual self. It’ll be feedback on collective. So that’s the thing I’m most excited about because I think it could spread Yeah. As a little meme. Yeah. And it’ll constantly remind people of the nature of our interconnectedness, which I think is the most important thing. Wow.

Peter Merry (45:31):

That’s what I’m most excited about

Monica (45:32):

<Laugh>. That is exciting. What a great opportunity. And you mentioned that people could enroll to participate at Wyrd.

Peter Merry (45:40):

Yeah. If they get a Wyrdexperience.org, there is a sign-up form where we keep people posted on the developments and information on the conference as well.

Monica (45:55):

Awesome. I’ll sign up for that as well. And I’ll put an a link to that in the show notes.

Peter Merry (46:00):

Great. We’ve got some really cool merch actually coming out. Some t-shirts we’ve had created. Do you know a Rupert Sheldrake and his work on?

Monica (46:07):

Yes. I love Rupurt.

Peter Merry (46:09):

Yeah. So Rupert was one of the first to visit the lab and we’ve got a T-shirt that says on the back, Make me look, Stare here, <laugh>. Now he has this book and research he did called the feeling of being stared at. So we’re kind of playing with this whole idea, because everybody knows that you get this feeling when somebody’s looking at me and you,

Monica (46:35):

Oh yeah, I just had that happen last night, <laugh>,

Peter Merry (46:38):

There you go. Yeah.

Monica (46:40):

Oh, that’s fascinating.

Peter Merry (46:41):

So it’s things like that to try to get this, the Wyrd meme as it were out there and people kind of proud to be Wyrd, you know, or proud to weirdo or

Monica (46:52):

How exciting.

Peter Merry (46:54):

Yeah. So that’s that

Monica (46:56):

I see why you’re excited about that. That’s what an amazing opportunity to benefit from all of that great research as well. Yeah.

Peter Merry (47:02):

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Monica (47:05):

So, Peter, what is one kind of key takeaway? We’ve had a wonderful conversation and you’ve shared some great concepts with us, but what’s one key takeaway that you’d like our listeners to go away with today?

Peter Merry (47:21):

I’d go back to the Aristotle quote, I think, which is, “Find where your passion meets a need in the world.” Yeah. And like, follow your heart into that because even if we don’t know how on earth we’re going to make a living doing this thing we’re passionate about that we feel there’s a need for. Right. If we, if we take that step and make that commitment, the world will start to move around us and we’ll be shown how to do that. It’s like a leap of faith. I often show people this clip from an Indiana Jones video where he has to cross this chasm and apparently there’s a bridge. Yeah. Remember, it’s like there’s an invisible bridge. Yeah. Yeah. But it only crystallized, he only sees it once his foot actually lands. He has to step into the chasm and trusts the bridges there. Right. That’s the kind of trust we have to have when we have this feeling that this is what I have to contribute to the world and I really feels like the world needs it, but I don’t know how on earth I’m gonna make it happen. Don’t worry about how it’s gonna happen. If you’ve got that clear intention and you make that step, it’ll show itself to you. You need to just pay attention then to how life will support you to manifest it.

Monica (48:33):

Such good advice. I hope people take that to heart.

Peter Merry (48:37):

Yeah. Me too. <Laugh>.

Monica (48:39):

So what is the best way for people to connect with you and kind of learn more about your work after?

Peter Merry (48:45):

The easiest thing is just to go to the website, www.PeterMerry.org.

Monica (48:49):

Okay.

Peter Merry (48:50):

It’s like I try to share as much as I can of what I’m experiencing through the blog and there’s the info about the books and a number of online courses that I’ve done that are up there as well. And just free content to explore and a newsletter if they want to make sure that they can keep finding out about what’s going on without it being filtered by social media filters.

Monica (49:15):

Wonderful. And they can also order the book Why Work from your website?

Peter Merry (49:20):

Sure, Sure. They can do that through the site. Yeah. And I’d encourage people, certainly if they’re in in the states to use www.Bookshop.com rather than Amazon. Cause they give money to the local bookstores. But yeah.

Monica (49:34):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Peter Merry (49:40):

Thank you for asking all those great questions. Monica <laugh>.

Monica (49:44):

Thank you all.

Creating a More Compassionate Workplace with Kami Norland, MA, ATR – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 2

2022-11-20 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

Creating a More Compassionate Workplace with Kami Norland

Episode trigger warning: brief mention of the loss of a child.

Kami Norland is not only a dear friend and former colleague, but she’s also an amazing national and international speaker and facilitator with over 20 years of experience in healthcare, specifically rural and mental health. After years of traveling across the US working with state and federal governments, small rural hospitals, rural health clinics and networks, and numerous community-led initiatives on needs assessments, strategic planning, and policy development/translation, Kami identified a systemic need to prioritize mental wellbeing and resilience practices into organizational cultures as she observed too many people compromising their health for their job. The need was so strong, Kami founded Integrative Re-Sources, LLC combining her expertise in strategic planning and community development with her knowledge and education of resilience, positive psychology and mind-body medicine. She also co-founded the global Elevate Compassion Coalition.

Kami joins us on The New Future of Work (TM) Podcast today to talk about creating a more compassionate workplace. We discuss her journey as a therapist and then working in rural healthcare, and now as a leader in creating compassionate communities of care. Kami shares an especially compelling story of a mother who lost a child at birth and how her employer created a compassionate network to support her through her time of loss.

To learn more about Kami’s work, visit ResiliencySource.org, or ElevateCompassion.org, and on LinkedIn.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

***

Show Transcript (Transcribed using AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:04):

Okay, thanks for being here today Kami. I wanted to just take a moment to introduce a very special guest that we have with us here today. My dear friend and colleague Kami Norland, she is the compassionate experiences organizer of Integrative Resources, LLC. And is the co-founder of the global Elevate Compassion Coalition. Kami has stood on many international stages, delivering dynamic keynote presentations and facilitating workshops that are uplifting, insightful and affirming. With more than 20 years of experience, working in healthcare at local state national and international levels from direct care to administrator to trusted advisor, Kami is recognized as a thought leader who is passionate about helping individuals, organizations, and communities recognize their own resilience and co-create a culture of mental wellbeing. Audiences love how she weaves the latest scientific research into relatable stories and practical tips that help reframe rediscover and redesign quality of life and workplace experiences. So awesome. Kami, I’m so glad that you’re here today and your background is such an ideal fit for talking about the new future of work and some of the changes that are happening and need to happen within the workplace. So maybe to get us started, you mind just telling little bit about your background

Kami (01:45):

Monica, thank you for the opportunity to connect with this group. It’s such a dynamic and game changing group of folks that are around us. So thanks.

Monica (01:58):

Thank you.

Kami (01:59):

Glad you’re here. Yeah, a little bit about myself and how I came to be in this position. I started off my career at an outpatient mental health center working as a psychotherapist, and I started to identify some of the dysfunctions that were happening organizationally, where there was a lot at the time we didn’t have the name for it, but now we know it as burnout, right? Not just individual burnout, but that cultural burnout. Yeah. And how that created an environment of us versus them being, you know, just creating that dysfunctional dynamic with the individuals that we were seeing. And I was at a cocktail party one night and I got on my soapbox about the injustices of the medical care system, which then led me into a role working nationally in rural healthcare.

Kami (03:09):

And that took me on the road. I was on the road for 12 years, traveling across the country, working with state offices of rural health hospitals, clinics, EMS departments rural health networks and their communities. So what I learned from that extensive travel was that what I experienced in my days, working at the outpatient mental health clinic was not the anomaly. It was more than norm. Wow. And that people were willing to sacrifice their health for their job. And I also saw that organizations were failing and supporting their team’s mental wellbeing. And now that again, this is particularly in medical care healthcare settings, but they were failing to support that mental wellbeing aspect, both individually and culturally. And what resulted is this lost productivity, you know, increased errors, low morale absenteeism you, I saw loads of poor internal communication that burnout, and of course, all of that leads to illness and turnover.

Kami (04:32):

And so I thought there needs to be a better way of addressing the way that medical care is delivered both externally and internally, because so I created and founded integrative resources, which is an organization that does just that we address common workplace issues. And we had developed an approach towards doing business based on how we as humans are wired neurologically and what makes us flourish. So now we’ve had some success in implementing this program and co-creating with various organizations and it’s been a lot of fun and I’m learning a ton.

Monica (05:21):

That’s amazing. And, and what a journey. And it’s so interesting that you see that culture in healthcare and I’ve seen the same thing kind of in my experience, working in healthcare, where the people that are charged with helping to heal us and make us well, the culture that they work in daily is very toxic and unhealthy. It’s hard to be a healer and a caregiver it seems like in that type of environment.

Kami (05:50):

Yeah, it is. So it takes it a tremendous amount of internal tenacity to keep going day after day hour, after hour when you’re experiencing the extreme highs and lows in medical care. And you can, individually, you can have that support, but if you don’t have the team support and the organizational cultural support to do that the culture will eat you metaphorically, right? And you will succumb because we are social creatures and our survival is based on being collaborative and we want to belong. And so it’s inevitable that we will succumb to the culture of the organization, regardless of how mindful and intentional we are as individuals.

Monica (06:43):

Yeah. Culture is definitely key, isn’t it? It such a huge difference. So what do you see, you know, with healthcare right now, we’re hearing so much about the increase in burnout and people are having a hard time recruiting and retaining employees, and there’s just a lot of challenges. What, what do you see kind of as the, as the biggest challenges facing healthcare and just the workplace in general today?

Kami (07:13):

I think it is the lack of prioritizing mental wellbeing. Interesting. When you have an environment that does support you as an individual and not just as the robot or the cog in the machine of which you were designed, the position was designed that creates this environment that is so typical. Like we often design businesses for profit and process, which our lag indicators, but when we pivot our approach and we prioritize people for most that and, and when you prioritize their wellbeing, particularly their mental wellbeing, because when you do that, then people feel like they belong. They feel like they’re a part of the system. They’re part of the, the mission that is greater than themselves. And everybody works more collectively, more collaboratively, and that piece is lacking today. And that’s why we’re seeing what is deemed, you know, the quote great resignation, I think. Yeah. It’s indicative of how people are tired of not being seen as individuals. They have been perceived as cogs in the machine because we’re coming out of this industrial revolution. Yeah. And so now we are working into this next phase of transformation and what a beautiful opportunity that we have to now co-create design and prioritize our own wellbeing while we are in the work that we’re doing. So we can work more effectively and more collaboratively

Monica (09:14):

Amazing. That, that sounds just wonderful. And I agree, I think we have this tremendous opportunity, but I think we’re also in a place where employers really have to change. There’s just so much kind of pushback and just changes within the workforce to even be able to hire employees that employers need to make some changes. So you talk about designing and creating this workplace that prioritizes mental wellbeing. Can you kind of share with us, like, what does that look like? And have you seen any examples or kind emerging systems or stories that are starting to move in this direction?

Kami (09:59):

Hmm. Well, I have a fun story that I could share with you that really demonstrates an example of an organization that prioritizes mental wellbeing. Oh, so I was working with a group this, that provides social work services. And one of the women there was so excited that she was having her first child. And she was so well loved by all of her colleagues. It still is still well loved by our colleagues and they threw her this beautiful baby shower and gave her some very sentimental gifts. And when she went on maternity leave a couple of weeks prior to her anticipated delivery date, every day, she’d get a call from her colleagues. So excited for the welcoming of her new family member. Oh, have you had baby? We had the baby and she, and they were so excited and so supportive.

Kami (11:01):

And then she did, she had the baby and she, however, did not pick up the phone for a week after her colleagues had tried calling and they were getting concerned because she didn’t call because she had lost the child in child and was grieving this loss and wanted the time to grieve the loss. And also had so many questions, you know, these are quest questions logistics, like, do I still get maternity leave? Do I, in the employee handbook? It says, you know, funeral leave, you get sometimes one day, right, right. A family. But there’s nothing that we’d have in most. And frankly in all of our employee handbooks, that address grief, that address the loss, the loss of a family member, mm-hmm, <affirmative> that’s special to us. And so the, her, her the CEO of the organization reached out looking for some support.

Kami (12:21):

And what we did was we established a care team for her because she was in the field of social work, where she would meet with new families that had young babies. And we know that grief does not hit just on that one day of funeral, leave that grief. Right. <Laugh>, it’s something that we sometimes we live with for a lifetime and we have to adapt to that grief. So noting this particularly at when grief was so active we connected with her two best friends peers, and we connected with the HR director and the CEO. And so these individuals created this care team. So her two best friends would when grief hit. And sometimes you don’t even know when grief is going to hit. Right. Absolutely. And she, these friends had the autonomy to, you know support her, go out for a cup of tea, go for a walk and process those emotions.

Kami (13:32):

And they would while the other one picked up these the work. Wow. And then these two best friends that were sup providing both the emotional and the, the physical burden, you know, physical workload burden of her work. Yeah. They needed the support as well. So then the other two individuals, the HR director and the, and the executive director, they provided the support of the overload for them as well as the emotional support for them to help carry that. The, you know, I I’m using air quotes like the, yeah. The <inaudible> <laugh> yeah. Of holding all of this grief for, for their beloved colleague. So having those supports in, in place and establishing a system before an event happens, because we know that death is inevitable and we know that it’s going to occur in all of our families. And so how can we best prepare and provide that support when we’re experiencing these types of losses in life? The, the typical response that people have when they are actively grieving is to dive into work as a distraction. Right. And they, they double down, they triple down, I, I know this because I did this myself. Yeah. I, you know, classic overachiever, I joined every single board I could before, you know, now I’m on 12 different boards working full time.

Monica (15:14):

<Laugh> yeah, I can. Really,

Kami (15:16):

Exactly. And what I was trying to do in hindsight was fill that void that I had of the loss, but it, of course, you know, work and work relationships can’t feel the loss of the death of an individual or, you know, or the relationship that you had. Right. So my recommendation, when we see and hear that our colleagues are experiencing these types of losses is to automatically dial back their workload. So they have that time to prioritize themselves to be kind to themselves. So you don’t push them into that zone where they are overextending themselves, where they are, overcommitting where errors occur, where mistakes happen, you know, so you, this is a way to prevent those process breakdowns that happen naturally they happen at a higher volume when we’re experiencing high levels of stress, adversities, and losses

Monica (16:42):

Interesting. And what a tremendous story and just caring work environment. And what I hear too, is that there is a lot of trust of the employees that are involved, that, you know, they’re not gonna abuse this, that they’re going to kind of help this employee make it through it. And also a lot of autonomy, because it’s hard to create just hard and fast rules about how that’s gonna look. Exactly. Yeah. So can you maybe speak to that a little bit more about, like, how do you create that type of work environment?

Kami (17:19):

So this begins with lots of conversations. We begin by doing key informant interviews and with the leadership team identifying what are those values that you want to, to have in your organization? And not every organization creates a list of mission, vision values, but so much of it is lip service, right. Because where we fail is identifying how we are demonstrating these values. Like, for instance, I can’t tell you how many times a medical care institution said, we provide compassionate care. Right. Fantastic. Yeah. Like I I’m in the field of compassion, right? Yeah. and when, and when I inquire, how are you providing compassionate care? The definition is always, oh, well we have nurses on staff.

Monica (18:22):

Right?

Kami (18:22):

Correct. That’s a role, but it’s start explaining how so when you start to have these conversations, that seems so simple. But they can be really challenging. Because we put up a mirror to say, how are you going to demonstrate these values? Because when you start to prioritize those values that you have, as that you all agree on as an organization and you outline what it means to live those values, that becomes you create these micro moments where those micro moments add up to create that culture.

Monica (19:04):

Wow. I love that. And that is so true. Like so many organizations have just these wonderful mission statements and values, but creating that alignment with the day to day work and, and actually thinking about how is that expressed, how does the patient or customer feel that, you know, how do we know when we’re in alignment with our values and having some of those discussions, because otherwise it’s easy to just have it be some statement in a binder that goes up on the shelf.

Kami (19:34):

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve participated in thousands of board meetings where and I even facilitated, you know, where you facilitated in every, and these re these retreats are great. They’re so inspiring, but what, yeah. Again, we fail to cascade that information and get everybody involved in, in those conversations. And so you know, depending upon the size of your organization, that can be challenging. So then it becomes a process of how can we educate people to have these conversations within their teams. So, you know, we connect with mid-level managers because mid-level managers are the, the conduit between leadership and the folks that are connecting directly with the customers or the patients. And so they often get forgotten in strategic planning sessions. Yeah. Historically, yeah. So providing that education on how to have those conversations and also listen is a lot of listening skills. So listening to what works, what is best for that, you know, best for that organization, based on the culture of not only the organization, but then looking at the, the heritage and the cultural nuances within your, the demographics that you’re serving.

Monica (21:11):

Yeah. Such great points. And, and I’ve seen that as well, that a lot of times the middle management gets left out of actually helping to create strategy and planning, but then they’re charged with implementing it. They’re also often left out of like development opportunities and those types of things as well. So I think that was a, a really good tip to help carry that throughout the organization. I just love this whole concept of bringing more compassion into the workplace. And I know that’s a lot of what you do with integrative resources. Do you have any other tips or examples for leaders who are listening to today’s podcast on how they could start to bring compassion into their workplace?

Kami (22:01):

I would echo that it be that it begins by listening and also having courage to have challenging conversations, that conversations about loss, about grief about traumas that are historically and not spoken about within our organizations, because it puts us in this space of feeling vulnerable. And, and frankly, there’s a lot of, some of these subjects are also taboo culturally to as Americans. It’s very taboo to be speaking about death openly, but it, you know, with my background in healthcare, death is an active part of the work environment. So how can we have the respect and start having these conversations. So it’s a series of conversation tools that we, that we utilize to help educate individuals to facilitate these conversations, and to also listen with intention. Sometimes as leaders, we have agendas in mind when we have conversations and we, we just wanna get our point across. And so we can move on with our busy day, so we can go through our task list, but when we make the time and we are intentional about having these conversations and making real connections with the people that we work with, because, you know, we who you spend your time with, like your boss has a greater impact on your health than your primary care provider.

Monica (24:01):

Wow.

Kami (24:02):

You’re spending 40 plus hours a week with this team of people. And if that organization, if that is if the conversation is dysfunctional, if it’s toxic, if it’s creating too much adversities for us, that, that plays out in our health you know, there’s studies that show individuals that have the lowest rank in an organization have the highest rate of heart disease.

Monica (24:38):

Wow.

Kami (24:39):

So like, if we’re, you know, you can quantify this from a financial perspective that this is not just the touchy feely type of approach, but you can connect this to real dollars. And focusing by focusing on prevention, by focusing on reducing those risks of disease in our colleagues that we spend more time with than our family. So, you know, let, let’s take care of one another we’re social creatures. And when we do that, we, we flourish and when we flourish our, or the organization flourishes because our customers and our patients, they see that they see that we’re happy. They see that we have effective communication, that we’re Fu we’re having a fun time. We’re joking around people wanna be around that that’s contagious. So when we start to live those values of creating that, that environment that we want, that feeds us, instead of drains us your finances, it, you know, word gets out there, customers wanna be around it.

Monica (25:55):

<Laugh>. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we need to really value that more and understand that connection between the bottom line and how workplace culture really connects to it. And I wanna come back to that, but I want to just go back a little bit to your recommendations. It sounds like it’s really starting to, by having authentic, real communication and relationships with your employees and your staff and your colleagues. I know a, a couple of studies that I’ve seen lately said that one in four people feel like their company doesn’t care about them. Oh. And that if an employee has a best friend at work, that the retention rate is just so much higher than if they don’t. And I think it goes back to what you’re talking about, about having those real connections and, and feeling like you’re part of something bigger than just, you know, punching a time clock.

Kami (26:59):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Creating those, those friendships and nurturing them, not just having conversations about work, but having conversations about what’s going on in your life.

Monica (27:12):

Yeah.

Kami (27:14):

And so that’s, you know, again, historically we have created a separation of work and home, and we even call it a like, Ooh, I’m trying to balance this work life balance. Yeah. I think it’s bogus, it’s work, life integration. You are not two separate beings. And that’s creating also part of this divide. And part of this resignation is because that puts us into this role of being coming a cog. And nobody likes being a cog. <Laugh>

Monica (27:44):

Exactly. I love that term work life integration. I think that that is a lot better than trying to have work life balance and yeah. I think, you know, what you’re talking about, the work life integration goes back to kind of what we’re seeing right now that a lot of women are slower in returning to the workplace. Yeah. Because they’ve been able to step back and create more of that work life integration and, and have a more fulfilling life. It’s kind of hard to go back, you know, once you’ve experienced that.

Kami (28:17):

Yeah, absolutely. It, it’s also treating employees like adults.

Monica (28:24):

Yeah. <Laugh> exactly, exactly. I’ve seen that in a lot of materials lately and I think that’s so true, like in their real life, in their day to day life, they’re able to go buy a car or buy a house, but they can’t buy a $300 chair or, you know, office supplies without getting however many signatures, you know, that’s right. Not exactly trusting their judgment.

Kami (28:51):

Yeah, exactly.

Monica (28:53):

Exactly. So what do you say to the CEO or the leader that says, you know, that just doesn’t feel comfortable providing that kind of trust because they feel like the employees will abuse it or, you know, that it will cause problems. You know, I get a lot of that when I talk about some of these concepts with leaders that are, are really afraid of letting go of some of that control,

Kami (29:21):

Then it becomes a, a convers, an individual conversation of what happened.

Monica (29:27):

Yeah. Right.

Kami (29:29):

You know, we see so many policies and regulations that are formed based on, and I’m using this word loose, but loosely, but, but traumas that we’ve experienced, you know whether it’s, we got our hands slapped and we don’t want our hands slapped at work ever again. So to prevent our that uncomfortableness of, of having our hands slapped, we are gonna create policy and we’re gonna use this baka that <laugh>, that S to that entire topic, instead of using a laser pointer to create a policy, you know, creating things more based on individual stories and perspectives and nuances, you know? Yeah. So it’s, it is a challenge of looking at things both from a, you have to expand from a micro to, to a macro, right. In a very quick way. So it’s, it’s a lot of pivoting in this type of work in, in our thinking.

Kami (30:40):

But looking at what is the root of why you want to have all of that control and why do you want to what purpose does that serve? And what if you let, let your employees grow up <laugh>, you know, and, and you provide that atmosphere of autonomy and, and respect, you know, it, it always comes back twofold, threefold, you know, when we do provide that. But it’s to our detriment when we try to controlled and domineer some of these, you know, policies and regulations that we create. So yeah, I’ll just reiterate, it becomes a, a individual conversation about what’s the root source behind that.

Monica (31:31):

Yeah. That’s such a great point. And I do think a lot of times in the corporate world, it’s easy to overreact when there’s been, you know, one issue and make it this big, broad uniform policy with all of this bureaucracy around it, instead of just addressing the, the issue or one individual who’s having a challenge. Yeah. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like if you think your employees can’t handle the responsibility or manage this, then, then they, they know that and they, they don’t step up and, and do it because, you know, they, they don’t feel like they can in the situation. And so it, it, people down

Kami (32:12):

<Laugh> absolutely, you know cultures are often created by the leader. Yeah. And the, the, you know, the top leader and, and that, and the support that reinforces those behaviors. So if you have an over reactive emotionally dysregulated leader that creates the culture of fear or creates a culture of work around and we’ve all worked with organ with individuals that are,

Monica (32:43):

We’ve seen those.

Kami (32:45):

Right. So, you know and that creates a dysfunction. So then everybody’s yeah. On edge. And so having that, taking that care team support yeah. To help regulate us when we do get triggered by a stressor, when we get triggered by our own life’s <laugh>, you know, troubles then having that sort of checks and balances of saying, okay, let’s, you know, am I off base here in my response here? So having that flexibility and that freedom to be, I’m gonna use this word hyperplastic because that’s also what’s happening within our brain neurologically is that we’re creating that hyperplastic meaning we can be more divergent in our thinking more divergent and creative in our problem solving when we take that moment to respond with intentions, as opposed to having that gut reaction and split second default mode of fight or flight,

Monica (33:57):

Such a great point. So what do you think is possible and what do you see could happen if workplaces started to be more compassionate and create these authentic trusting relationships with their employees and allow them to have some of this, this autonomy, what do you think is possible?

Kami (34:20):

Sky’s the limit, right? Yeah. Because when, when as leaders we’re able to live in that space of compassion of not getting mad, getting curious, you know, I’ve got a whole framework this five C framework of compassion, curiosity connect consistency when we’re operating in that space, then we’re able to create this culture where people respond in kind. And now we are optimizing the, our fullest potential individually and collectively, which means then, you know, you’re going to attract more patients, more customers, because you’re operating in that space. And you’re also able to navigate and pivot the challenges much more easily without the raising the red flags <laugh> that we have tendency to do. And, oh, there’s a alarm I have to you know, jump you don’t, it’s most things, even in, even in hospitals, you know, that when it is situations, when you ha, when you’re operating from this space, it becomes much more fluid. And you’re in, you’re able to innovate. And in that space of innovation comes improvement become you know, that leads to, you know a really great place to work and you’re people wanna stick around. So, you know, it’s, it’s expensive to replace employees. They say it’s about 20% of somebody’s salary just for recruiting and training. And, you know, if you’re always having to have a blind item, but in that, in your budget for that, gosh, that what a wonderful way to have those recoup, those savings.

Monica (36:27):

Absolutely. So it sounds like there’s just tremendous benefits to retention and recruitment, better customer service, more innovation to kind of creating this more compassionate, connected culture.

Kami (36:42):

So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, and you, you can also look at because of this response, when, when we are operating in that space, it is better for us physically it reduces our risk of inflammation, which in turn, reduces our risk of chronic diseases. So then you can start to, to look at our, because we spend so much money as employers on health insurance. So

Monica (37:10):

Absolutely like their biggest complaint right now for

Kami (37:14):

Employees. Exactly. <Laugh>

Monica (37:15):

Yeah.

Kami (37:16):

You can reduce that simply by creating this more collaborative work environment, what an easy win.

Monica (37:27):

Wow. So how do you recommend employers get started down this path? You mentioned earlier conversations and listening, any other kind of suggestions on, on a leader who might be listening right now and wanting to move in this direction? But’s not really sure how to get started.

Kami (37:45):

Yeah. I think it’s also taking an assessment of where are those common stressors that are occurring within the organization that are habitual and that you have control over, you know, a lot of times the organizations will parti, you know, and amusing healthcare again. Oh, we complain about health insurance. We complain about this federal policy and regulation. If you don’t have the power to change that yeah. In that environment, let it go work within that system then. And identify what are those stressors that we do have control over that we can change. And then, you know, having those conversations of how can we think, how can we think smarter about this? Because what we are doing is network what do we want to, how do we demonstrate our values and demonstrate some of these mindful mental wellbeing practices?

Kami (38:50):

How can we integrate our work as well? Because some work is inherently stressful, so how do we establish those processes? So then when you start to really dissect what those top stressors are and look at, how can you problem solve those? Yeah. And, and by, by creating this experiential design. So we go through this process of experiential design, where we look at what is the desired emotion we’re aiming for in this activity? So if the emotion, because this is where memory retention we remember things that we have an emotional connection to mm-hmm <affirmative>. So if you’re aiming to create that emotional connection emotional response of say a sense of duty within work, how do you design for that emotion? Wow. Based on the activities that you need to do. And so we’ll, we’ll walk through that this exercise of, of what that looks like, and that gets people feeling creative, it gets you’re really designing with intention.

Monica (40:13):

Wow. I love that suggestion. And it sounds like you’re really kind of advocating for starting to address the system to create those ways of being and ways of feeling that you wanna create, which is so much more, you mentioned mindfulness and being really intentional, but that goes so far above just creating a mindfulness program or a meditation program. Like I know so many employers are starting to bring those in and have brought those in, and I don’t think they’re having the desired results because if you don’t also change the system, you’re not really making anything better.

Kami (40:55):

Absolutely. It it’s about integration. Yeah. And you may be able to integrate just like, this is the same conversation of work life, right? Yeah. This is of bringing the life and bringing our, our, what makes us happy while we’re at what makes us, and what makes us happy at work is generally what makes us happy in, in life too. So you know, harness those emotions that you’re aiming to, to achieve at, through various tasks, you know? And so we, we have a, a series of experiences that we design for you know, beginning with, how do we create excitement about this task? How do we when people enter this task, how do we want them to feel? What, what about when they’re engaged, inactively in the task? How about when they’re exiting the task, and then that extension phase of what happens after they have done this task. So you’re always creating this circular thought process of trying to achieve that, make your outcomes more meaningful, really, you know, cause you are designing for those emotions that help with retention, that memory retention that help with creating those micro moments of cultural responses. That, again, lead up to the values that we had set forth and had conversations of how we want to do this.

Monica (42:31):

That is so exciting. And that’s the first time I’ve really heard about that concept of, of thinking about how you want the employees to feel during the process that they’re working on. So it sounds like you’d wanna be eliminating friction points and stressors and you know, annoying forms and, and reducing those things as well, to create that kind of joy and ease or happiness or excitement, whatever you’re trying to create in the process.

Kami (43:02):

Yeah, absolutely

Monica (43:04):

Fascinating. What a, what an exciting area to explore and to begin to bring into the workplace. And it’s something that I don’t hear talked about very much by, by leaders or workplaces yet. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. So yeah, my appreciate maybe tell us, what are you most excited about right now? What are you working on or developing that or, or seeing out there that’s really exciting.

Kami (43:32):

Ooh, well, I’ve got a special project right now that I’m so thrilled about.

Monica (43:37):

Yay.

Kami (43:38):

Yeah. It’s, it’s called journey guys, and we’ve designed this to help individuals and their care, their support networks when somebody is diagnosed with a serious or terminal illness. The traditional historical response is to as a, as a medical care team is to outline here are all of the medical approaches that we are going to offer you. And, you know, they presented this information with such beautiful confidence. However, it is only addressing the physical aspects. And right now a lot, lot of organizations, medical organizations fail to address that mental wellbeing because they are only, there’s a perception that when you are talking about mental health, it is a negative, right. It equated with, with illness. And it is something that is quote wrong with you. But they, they fail to look at the emotional responses. And so that’s really what we’re looking at, regardless of whether you have a diagnosis, you know, mental health diagnosis or not, this is the about the emotional experience.

Kami (45:09):

So how can we provide support for individuals to navigate medical decision making throughout that process? Because there’s such a, a vast array of how care can be provided. And we know that we are not just physical creatures, like, you know, as noted earlier, we spent our time with dictates our level of help. And so the, to put all this onus of responsibility on our care team, on our hospitals and our clinics is faulting, an unrealistic who we need to turn to then is our friends, our family, our community. So this is a, a program that we use to provide education to individuals on how to have those crucial conversations with that offers support, but quality of life for individuals who are diagnosed this is a personal, this is a personal journey for me, both my sister and my dad have been diagnosed with cancer. And as I’ve you know, been the family member and the, you know, some of the caregiver in that role, I had wished that their medical team had asked them about their mental health their mental wellbeing. I wish they had had conversations about quality of life. I wish they had had conversations about what is it, what path do you of treatment do you want? And so this journey guide project is really an opportunity to facilitate those conversations and help individuals and their support network navigate this process in a more holistic, intentional manner.

Monica (47:14):

Wow. What an amazing resource for someone to have if they were fighting a serious illness, I know that you’ve had some family members experiencing cancer and, and, and I was going through something similar at the same time with my mom. So I can relate very much with what you’re talking about. And, and it’s a, a really stressful and difficult time for the patient and for the family and, and those discussions often aren’t had. And so it leaves a lot of fears and unknowns and concerns about you know, what’s gonna happen and, you know, do I get to have a say in things and, you know, I try to navigate that. So that’s exciting. I’m, I’m glad that you’re working on that. And I see why you’re excited about it as well.

Kami (48:02):

Thank you. Yes. We, we hope to launch this new project in the next month or so. Wow. So we’ve got some, you know, little tweaks here before we make the official launch, but we’re getting close and we’ve got an excellent team of, of people that are both from the provider perspective and from the family perspective and the community perspective, all working towards this program. So it’s, it’s beautiful. And each time we talk about it, we always get folks wanting to learn more and you know, wanting to be a part of it. So,

Monica (48:46):

Absolutely. Well, keep us posted on that. And if, if some of our listeners want to get more information about the journey guides is there a place that they can go or that information will be shared later?

Kami (49:01):

Yes. it will be live soon on the web, on my website, resiliencysource.org,

Monica (49:08):

Great resiliencysource.org. And I’ll also share that link under the show notes. So you can go there to get that link. And while we’re talking about links and resources so if people wanted to learn more about your work and your services through integrative resources, they could go to your resiliency source.org. Where, where else can they find you? Are you on LinkedIn, those types of things?

Kami (49:38):

Yes. I’m also on LinkedIn and Facebook, although I admittedly am not the most engaged with those platforms, but not to work in progress, so.

Monica (49:50):

Awesome. Okay. Yeah,

Kami (49:52):

You can definitely contact me on those on those spaces.

Monica (49:56):

Wonderful. Well, I will provide some links to those and just appreciate all the work that you’re doing to help bring compassion into the workplace and now into the caregiving process as well. So thank you for being with us here today, Kami, I really appreciate it.

Monica (50:20):

To see, so all, well, thank you so much, everyone. And for joining us today.

The New Future of Work Podcast, Welcome to the Show, Episode 0

2022-11-07 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

The New Future of Work Podcast Welcome Episode — Welcome Episode 0

Welcome to the introductory episode of The New Future of Work (TM)! This is a special interview with our Executive Producer, Neil Hughes as he interviews the podcast host, Monica Bourgeau. In this episode, we talk about why Monica created this podcast, what you can expect to get from it, as well as a sneak preview of some of her upcoming guests.

In the show, Monica mentioned her company website which is www.NewPhasePartners.com. You can also connect with Monica on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and over on Medium.com.

The first full episode of The New Future of Work (TM) Podcast will launch on November 11, 2022.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Neil Hughes (00:44):

My name is Neil C Hughes. I’m usually the host of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, but today I have the honor of introducing you to my good friend Monica, who’s gonna be the host of this podcast called The New Future of Work. And so, Monica, for people tuning into this podcast for the very first time, can I ask you to tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

Monica Bourgeau (01:09):

Sure. Thanks Neil. Well, I’m a future of work consultant and executive coach, and I work with organizations and leaders who are trying to transform their workplace culture, but they don’t know where to start. So just to step back a little bit and tell you a little bit about my background, I actually grew up in very rural Montana. I then went on to study psychology and ended up getting a master’s degree in management and organizational leadership. And after my undergraduate degree, I did what I thought we were supposed to do, right? I went and got a corporate job and thought if I could just climb the corporate ladder and become a senior executive, then everything would be okay. And so I was really committed to that, even though I had a very young daughter at the time and was really juggling a lot and had a lot on my plate.

Monica Bourgeau (01:59):

But I worked a lot and I was really kind of committed to this goal. And so I worked a lot and essentially I ended up, I did end up becoming a healthcare executive before I was 30. And once I got there, I kind of took a look around and realized, you know, I was pretty miserable. I didn’t enjoy what I was doing and working all of the long hours and stress really affected my family relationships and took a lot of time away from my daughter. And so I really started reevaluating things. And I blamed myself a lot. You know, I did a lot of looking at, you know, could I be more productive? Could I manage my time better? You know, all of these different things that we do to kind of try to make it work. I ended up leaving the corporate world and went into business for myself a few times and kind of went back and forth because I always thought that it was my fault.

Monica Bourgeau (02:57):

You know, if I could just work harder, if I could just manage my time better, if I could just do something better, then the workplace would work for me. I’ve always been somebody who enjoys working and really know that it’s part of my purpose in life is to have a career and make a difference in the workplace. And so you know, I did that a number of times and also ended up burning out at work a number of times because I worked so many hours and was kind of constantly in a state of imbalance. And so I finally left the corporate world for good back in 2020. Before that I wrote a book called The Change Code, kind of looking at some of these systems and why systems in general are struggling right now. You know, our, our work systems, our political systems, our school systems, there’s just a lot of challenges in the world right now.

Monica Bourgeau (03:52):

And so I wanted to understand that a little bit better. And I also studying to become a futurist. And so I started taking courses with an organization in Germany, actually called Futur/io and an organization in Copenhagen. And I took some classes at MIT and really started studying the future and realized this connection between kind of this lifelong love hate relationship that I had with work and trying to have a career and trying to be a mom and trying to, you know, maintain my home and my health and all of these different things that we juggle. And so as part of this process, I really started to identify new ways of working and organizations that are beginning to create the future of work today, both here in the US and also in other countries and the way other countries work as well. That became fascinating for me and is part of why I wanted to start this podcast is to share what I’ve been learning about these emerging trends and how the workplace is changing today, hopefully for the better, to make it a little bit more manageable for other people who are out there trying to just juggle it all but also really want to have a career.

Neil Hughes (05:11):

And you listed so many great reasons there. Well, I’m excited for you to launch this podcast. I’ve interviewed over 2,200 different people and people often say to me, now what have, what have everybody got in common that I’ve gone on to achieve great success? And I think we all have moments where we are challenged. We have moments where we, we are frustrated with our lives, we come across problems in the workplace, but for the most part, and I possibly include myself in this, I might complain about it and not do anything about it. But what you are doing here is you’re trying to make a difference, building a future of work and actually looking for a solution. And that is one of the things that excites me. And I suspect that so much of what you just said will resonate with people all around the world no matter what their gender is. They’ve been parents, they’re workers, they have friends they’re trying to juggle and get through life. And I cannot commend you enough for what you’re doing here. And I’d love to just expand a little more on why a podcast, What inspired you to create this? Could you expand on that for me?

Monica Bourgeau (06:16):

Sure. Well, I think part of the reason that I wanted to do a podcast is because part of my process has been connecting with all of these amazing people across the globe that are doing things differently and think really innovatively. And so I just thought, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to share these amazing stories with other people who are in similar situations and who are also trying to change their workplace? And so for me, that was why is, I was having so much fun having these conversations and I thought it would be really helpful for others to hear these discussions as well.

Neil Hughes (06:54):

I love that. And especially because I think the world has changed so much over the last three years. And I’m curious now we’ve come through remote working, hybrid working. What do you think is wrong with the traditional workplace and why do you think we need to reinvent the way we work? Because I think it’s a question that nearly everybody’s asking right now, isn’t it?

Monica Bourgeau (07:13):

Yeah, that is such a good question. You know, personally for me, I believe that the workplace is broken and I think that we’re seeing that with other people as well, with things like the great resignation. And there’s a trend here in the US that’s become a popular term, the media called quiet Quitting.

Where people are doing just the bare minimum so that they don’t get fired, but they’re not fully engaging with their companies and their work, which to me is so sad because I believe that our work is such a big part of why we’re here and our contribution during our life and to, you know, be quite quitting and disengaged and not fully committed to the work that you’re doing. You know, quite honestly it’s soul sucking. I’ve, I’ve been in in positions like that where I’ve felt that, where I just didn’t feel that engagement, you know, even though I wanted to, I just couldn’t quite get engaged with the work position.

Monica Bourgeau (08:11):

I just feel that that’s really sad and that it’s a loss for a lot of companies that have these amazing employees with these tremendous gifts and they’re not tapping into it. I believe that the workplace has changed permanently and Covid was definitely a factor in that.

In fact, I follow a, a lot of futurists, but one of them is Jane McGonigal who recently published a book called Imaginable. And one of the things that she talks about in that book is that essentially for us, covid was a shared collective trauma because everyone in the world went through this trauma at the same time, where it basically upended our entire lives and changed everything overnight. And so, you know, as a human species, we all have that in common. And one of the things that she shared that I think is really cool is that has shown that the 10 years following a major trauma in someone’s life is a period of dramatic change. And so I look at that as a huge opportunity for us as humans to reflect back at what was working and what wasn’t working before covid and design better systems and better ways of being. And so I think that right now is just a time of huge opportunity for creating positive change. For me it’s focusing on changing the workplace.

Neil Hughes (09:36):

Wow, Incredible. And I completely agree with you. And again, so much of what you just said will resonate with people around the world. Every single person listening to this needs a reason to jump out of bed in the morning, a sense of purpose and building a future of work. It’s a future of work is something that will impact every single person. So as for the podcast though, what is the new Future of Work podcast? And I know you don’t wanna reveal too much cuz we have a lot of interviews lined up, but what can we expect in your first episode?

Monica Bourgeau (10:05):

Sure. So the New Future of Work podcast for me is my way of sharing workplace trends and highlighting emerging practices and companies that are creating the future of work today. You know, this isn’t tomorrow we’re talking about there are companies both in the US and abroad that are dramatically changing the workplace. They’re bringing in flexibility, they’re looking at four-day work weeks, they’re looking at remote work situations, hybrid work situations, self-managing teams, where you start to level the hierarchy where we don’t just necessarily have this top down leadership model anymore, but we actually have teams that are able to manage themselves. And I’ve seen that happen in just the most interesting places, including at a rural hospital. I’ve done a lot of work in healthcare and there’s a rural hospital in Wisconsin actually that has a self-managing team. They might not realize that, but they were having a hard time staffing their admissions desk.

Monica Bourgeau (11:04):

And so what they ended up doing was the CEO said, Okay, here’s the criteria. This is the work that needs to be completed. These are the hours that we need someone here, you guys work amongst yourself and come up with a workable solution. And so, you know, that dramatically changed that work environment because some of the employees were having a hard time with childcare and pickup and drop off from school and all different things. They were able to work together to come up with a schedule that met the needs of the organization, but also provided some of the flexibility that the employees needed. And so that’s been a tool for them to be able to, in their staffing levels, which was a real challenge. So those are kind of the, the stories that are exciting for me that are happening out there.

Neil Hughes (11:52):

And I’m gonna push you a little bit more now and ask you who are you gonna be speaking with? Are there any teases that you can share on some of the guests that you’ve lined up or, or some of the businesses that you might be speaking with in the coming weeks?

Monica Bourgeau (12:05):

Yes. So we’ve have a lot of amazing conversations scheduled and I’m so excited. One of our first guests is Dr. Gabe Charbonneau, who’s a family practice physician, and he’s working on kind of reinventing the workplace for physicians and he’s also the founder of Medicine Forward. I’m also going to speak with a Dutch futurist, whose name is Eric Korsvik Ostergaard. And Eric is actually working in the field where he goes and works with organizations to help them create little mini experiments to change their workplace. And so he talks with us about that process and how that looks. I also have a friend and fellow author, Dr. Peter Mary, who is the co-founder of Ubiquity University, which is an online learning platform to help kind of conscious leaders work in this current environment. And he’s also the author of a book called Why Work. And so I, I speak with Dr. Peter Mary as well, and lots of exciting conversations to come.

Neil Hughes (13:08):

Oh, exciting. I’ve read that book. So that’s one I’ll be checking out for sure. And as we talk about the future of work, obviously it impacts every single person, but who would you say the podcast is aimed?

Monica Bourgeau (13:20):

Yeah, great question. Well, it’s really aimed at organizational leaders, so CEOs, human resource directors, managers, anyone who’s leading some type of department, company or organization that they’re ready to change. They know that things aren’t working the way that they are and they’re open to listening to new ideas and new possible solutions.

Neil Hughes (13:45):

Awesome. And obviously this is Episode Zero, which is almost an intro episode just to prepare people for what to expect, but as they are just about to hit the subscribe. But, and then if they’ve not done already, please, I employ you to do that. But what would you say your ultimate aim for the show is, and what would you like listeners to walk away with from each episode?

Monica Bourgeau (14:05):

I would love people to walk away from each episode feeling very inspired and excited, and I want them to be able to go back to their workplace and look at it with different eyes, you know, because a lot of times when you first hear about some of these concepts, it’s easy to say, Oh, well that couldn’t work in my industry or that couldn’t work in my company. And I hear that all the time, and once we start to dive into it a little bit, we find that a lot of these new models are possible in your industry and in your company. And so yeah, just being able to look at their organization with new eyes.

Neil Hughes (14:41):

And something that excites me about recording this episode is once people are subscribed and you’ve got 10, 15, 20 interviews out there, you’re gonna be having so many rich conversations with people, and you are, you are an absolute natural at getting these insights from your guests. But many people will start to think, But what about Monica? What does she think? What does, what excites Monica about this? So this is my opportunity to ask that question on behalf of everyone listening. So Monica, what excites you about building a new future of work?

Monica Bourgeau (15:10):

Well, I think what excites me the most is that I feel like it will really help people. You know, I think that there’s this kind of shared frustration with work right now, you know, with things like the great resignation, but also, you know, unfortunately my daughter is now working in the corporate world, or, or fortunately I guess she has a good job, but I see her facing a lot of the same struggles that I faced when I was a young mom as well. She’s also a young mom, and it’s difficult, you know, when you have a very kind of rigid corporate environment, and you want to work and you enjoy working, but you’re kind of forced to fit in this cookie cutter mold, and if it doesn’t work for you, then you know, it can be really challenging. I think that’s what I’m most excited about, is being able to change the workplace for her and, you know, hopefully for my granddaughter and future generations.

Neil Hughes (16:06):

Excellent. Well, the podcast is already live on Spotify, Apple podcast, Amazon Music, and wherever you listen to your podcast. But finally, before I let you go, Monica, when can people expect those new episodes to drop and how can they find out a little bit more information about you too?

Monica Bourgeau (16:23):

Yeah, so we plan to release new episodes every two weeks and people can learn more about me and the podcast by visiting my company’s website www.newphasepartners.com or by connecting with me over on LinkedIn or Twitter. And my username is @MonicaBourgeau on both of those platforms.

Neil Hughes (16:46):

Well, I wish you the best of look with the New Future of Work podcast. I’m fortunate to see behind the scenes that you’ve got some great interviews lined up. You’ve already got seven or eight in the bag, so I’m looking forward to seeing these go out there. But thank you, Monica, for giving everybody a scene setter for the podcast and what they can expect.

Monica Bourgeau (17:03):

Thank you, Neil, and it was great talking with you today, and thank you for lending your expertise to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the New Future of Work podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave us a review and don’t forget to subscribe so you can be sure to catch our next episode.

The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

Why Work with Peter Merry – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 5

Creating a More Compassionate Workplace with Kami Norland, MA, ATR – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 2

The New Future of Work Podcast, Welcome to the Show, Episode 0

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Latest Podcast Episodes:

The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

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Why Work with Peter Merry – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 5

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