If You Lost Your Job, Would You Lose Yourself? | Dr Kat Page
Kat Page spent years justifying a job that no longer fit her, until it was taken away and she realised she'd stopped listening to her own voice.
If you have quietly built a story about why you're still here, you know exactly how it feels when that story stops holding.
Kat is an organisational psychologist and the author of Good Work. Her research on burnout has shaped World Health Organization and International Labour Organization guidance. She grew up watching her own father, a police officer, keep that identity long after he'd left the job.
She's honest that hers didn't resolve neatly. It hit as shock, then anger, then grief, before she saw it as the blessing in disguise it became. Her own verdict, looking back: work had overshadowed everything else in her life.
If work has become the only story you tell about who you are, this is the one to sit with.
Top Moments
Meet the Guests
Mark Beretta
Dr Kat Page is an organisational psychologist and the author of Good Work: Transform Your Work from the Inside Out. She holds an Adjunct Professor appointment at Swinburne University and works as a leadership partner at ByMany, and her research on burnout and workplace design has been cited in World Health Organization and International Labour Organization guidance.
She grew up the daughter of two police officers, and has spent almost two decades studying what makes work good for people rather than simply productive, taking her into settings from mining sites to hospital wards to boardrooms.
Good Work sets out a framework for redesigning work at the personal, team and organisational level, built on two decades of research and her own experience raising two young children while running a full advisory practice.
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Unknown
I think
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Unknown
we're all, myself included, in danger of over identifying with work and that there is more to life
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Unknown
than work.
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Unknown
go, yeah, I've got all the career success that I ever thought I would get,
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Unknown
I'm not getting the satisfaction that I used to
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Unknown
Women will say I'm not okay. Yeah. Men will just say, oh, it's fine. Like who cares?
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Unknown
I don't care anymore. And that's
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Unknown
cynicism, which is one of the signs of burnout.
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Unknown
if your identity becomes fuzed with your work,
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Unknown
you lose your job or
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Unknown
your role is made redundant,
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Unknown
anything happens that impacts that, you lose everything and
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Unknown
Cat page.
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Unknown
Welcome to Donna, man. Great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to have you here.
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Unknown
were introduced through a long term lister and of this podcast and a friend of mine who said, you've got to have doctor Cat John. You've got to have her book on. She's amazing.
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Unknown
So then when Dan Fleming tells me stuff, I just listened to him. So that's why you're here. Thank you. Dan. And as low as the stuff I want to jump into, our listeners are typically 40 to 60. A lot of them are in leadership roles of them have their own business. A lot of them are in career transitions where they're evaluating a lot of stuff, and that seems to all go smack back into the center of what you do.
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Unknown
So keen to delve into a lot of that. Before we jump into it, though, what do you think our audience are going to get from our conversation today? I think what people will get is the realization that work is not just something that we do for productivity and performance. I think would work can be really good for us, and we give people good work, particularly your audience, given the leadership roles that they're in, that that can actually be an incredibly powerful public health intervention.
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Unknown
But a lot of the stuff that that that might suggest it can be quite lofty. So I hope that people will walk away with something that's quite practical, thinking about themselves as humans because we're humans first, but also to see the role that they can play in, in creating a movement and sparking a movement around good work. Okay.
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Unknown
That is my hope. Before we jump into all that, you and I have a few things in common. We bought Noah Dan Fleming. We both do consulting type of work, but we also grew up in the household of the police. My dad was a detective. Your parents were both police. And that brings a particular structure and a particular learning of life through that lens.
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Unknown
How did that shape you? Yeah. That's interesting. And I actually was privileged to get to see a picture of your, your dad in your studio. So I mean it is somewhat usual to have two parents who are in the force. So
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Unknown
I didn't actually know them when they were in, in uniform. So by the time I was old enough to really have memories, they would post that period.
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Unknown
But I would say that the job did kind of change them in quite, specific ways. So both of them in different ways. So dad, dad essentially was the one, I think that was most impaired by the job. Not that he would ever have said that. So after he left the force, he wanted our family to move out to the country.
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Unknown
He wanted to have land and wanted to be on a farm. And so he transplanted our whole family, my siblings and I and mum to country Victoria, to a place called vanilla. And he was not the kind of person who would ever say that he's not fine or that the job had changed him. Whitley. Or interestingly, he actually told stories nonstop about policing, so that is more so.
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Unknown
What I remember is all the stories he told some of them 5 or 6 times, to be honest, but he would just be one of those people who would hold court at the table and tell all these yarns. And he still had his police radio that he would listen to. I don't know if your dad did that when he left the job.
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Unknown
He didn't have a radio because he didn't have radio at all, because he was in the, a detective. But he did have his police badge. And, I remember going to football games that were sold out, and he got come with me. He'd walk up and just go flash the badge. Next thing, we're going in ten years after the retired.
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Unknown
So? So he used that. He's still worked. He still worked. That's right. And then mum, you know, mom tells me more stories about. I mean, being a policewoman was a really challenging. And she was actually a policewoman before women were allowed to carry arms or guns. And so she used to work in more of a, like, almost like a community service type role, like child protection, kind of more of the human social services is what they had women in there and or they would drive the commanders around.
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Unknown
And so you can imagine all the Serbian type, various Serbian, lots of sexual harassment and just being treated as less as less than, like not equal to the men. Whereas I think dad was I think it's more with police officers. You might know it's the chronic strain of the job. It's not just the trauma. I mean the trauma they remember and they'll tell stories about, but they also have lots of stories about helping people.
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Unknown
But regardless of not remembering them in the force and having access to the stories, both of them were still really actively involved in community service. So that's really the mentality of policing. I grew up, grew up in. So the, part of a community service is what you do, the identity like, it was very much part of their identity.
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Unknown
And I look back now and think, probably for dad, you know, even when he left, he didn't give up that as the identity. And I think he lost something when he lost that identity. I'm not sure where he, he I'm not sure he actually felt separate from that identity
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Unknown
solely by nature of a place where there's got to be structured in terms of what they do, what to do it well and also to prevent any kind of bias or corruption, etc..
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Unknown
So whole lot structure around it. Yet, I think back to my dad, and I could tell by his energy and things he would do when he comes home from work or when he came home from work, what kind of shifted he had. And it could be as simple as him saying hello or not saying hello. You just get a sense.
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Unknown
Or it could be he'd go into a room and I learned later that's where he hit his gun. And therefore we didn't know that his kids, or indeed it could be. He came home and then left and went to the pub very, very quickly. What was the tale for you in terms of understanding something's going on? It was probably not what I saw so much as what I did get, which was that I essentially got silence.
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Unknown
So he would spend a lot of his time up in the shed. So it was funny, you talk about people talk about men's sheds today, because I think he spent most of my childhood up in the shed. I remember saying, mum, where's dad? He's always up in the shed and I think that's where he had his projects. And he, he was very withdrawn because even though he was very happy to talk about the job, he wouldn't talk about himself.
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Unknown
How now that you do what you do, which is look at how work is structured and the whole notion of good work, which we're going to come to with your with your recent book, the impact of watching him in the shed, has that influenced the way you think about the environment of work and what does it mean? Well, funnily enough, I ended up working in police.
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Unknown
Did you see that in my in my bio? I did see that. Yeah. So I mean, one of the best things that I've done in my career was having the opportunity to work with police officers as part of my postdoc. And interestingly, even though I hadn't known my dad in the force knowing saying to them that my parents are both being police officers, I automatically was in.
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Unknown
Yeah, even as like a 22 year old or 23 year old, like they just automatically accepted me because they got it. Like I sort of just understood the even just the way they talk. It was very similar, like, righto. Or you know, my dad would talk like he was still on the CB radio. So I kind of understood the working conditions and the structure, but, I mean, that stuff takes a long time to learn, though I often say that if you're not kind of embarrassed about who you were in years past, you're probably not growing as quickly.
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Unknown
Maybe not who you are, but what you could do. So I've learned so much over 20 years that I didn't know then. Yeah, as that young whippersnapper. Yeah, I get because now I realized I am middle aged. You are welcome to it. Yeah, it's a great phase of life to be in and the second half is better in the first half.
00:07:44:13 - 00:08:03:24
Unknown
I believe it's why we're here. Talk to me about the notion of love. Live to work versus work to live, because that's that goes to a crux of what you're talking about. Yeah, it's a good one because I think sometimes it's presented as a bit of a false choice or a false dichotomy. I mean, I hope that we can have both, but maybe you just can't have them both at once.
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Unknown
I mean, I recognize now looking back at my career, and my life, that my work was the thing that I threw myself into that gave me a sense of purpose, and that helped me to probably cope and respond to some of the things, you know, that I it experiences a as a young person, but I think there's a trap in that as well, that if your identity becomes fuzed with your work, if you lose your job or your role is made redundant, or anything happens that impacts that, you lose everything and it then and it shouldn't be that way.
00:08:32:20 - 00:08:55:01
Unknown
But equally, I don't I wouldn't want to ever be in a position where I'm where my job is just a job. Interestingly, you would have probably seen this in your own research, but Amy Winehouse's become across her work. Yeah. No, she has found that we fall into, roughly equal thirds people who, who work because it's a job, people who work because it's a career, and people who work because it's a calling.
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Unknown
So I fall in the calling category, but I think it would be idealistic and naive to think that everybody is in that category. Did you always want to? I'm thinking I was, I was I both read your book, but I also listened to it on audible when I was out walking today. And the story you tell of, oh, I'm think I'm about to be made redundant.
00:09:13:15 - 00:09:36:14
Unknown
Oh, I'm walking into he is, I am and you tell that story. I felt really honestly from your perspective, but having been in that room at many people of my career, you tell a very, very realistically in the sense of it came as a bit of a shock. Then it came as anger and came as grief. And it was only later you started realizing, I can do something with this.
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Unknown
And so given what you said about, you know, I get called to do particular piece of work. Was that the case then, or did that event help you figure that out? That's such a good question. So I think I very early saw workers are calling like right from a young person doing my PhD and my research because it's awesome place to be in.
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Unknown
Once I got into out into the real world, I started climbing, I think, a different ladder, and it became more about what society expected and and moving up sort of the corporate ranks, which is all very well. But I think when you make a series of choices, they're really small at the time. Eventually you look back and think, I don't recognize my life.
00:10:15:03 - 00:10:33:21
Unknown
And I think I'd completely lost and moved away from my purpose. And I think on reflection, that was what shocked me most about that moment is that I realized that I'd been happy for years, but I had been creating this internal narrative around why it was the right choice for now. You know, being a mum, having young kids, the security, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
00:10:33:22 - 00:10:53:08
Unknown
I'd created this whole frame and story around it, and then I realized that could be gone in a moment, and I'd actually stopped listening to my own voice, and I'd lost my purpose. And so losing it. What does that mean you were doing? I think I just had a career, okay. I think I'd gone away from work as a calling, or I had to work harder to find it, to find the joy.
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Unknown
Okay, so after I was three options. I'm quite. I need a paycheck. I got a career. I'm calling you going into the middle option there phase and sometimes also job. Yeah, so I definitely wasn't in calling, but I think that I'd moved into actually at that stage I probably was it probably was a job. Okay. Actually. And in my, my other corporate jobs had probably been a career, I think that things had been had sort of whittled away to a point where I stayed in a job because it was secure.
00:11:17:17 - 00:11:35:10
Unknown
Yeah, joke's on me about that one. And because I could balance it with other things. But I'd made that choice thinking that was the only choice and it wasn't. So in hindsight then, that opportunity where someone said, hey, Euro is now gone and you're we are making you redundant from this organization. That was a blessing in disguise in reality, wasn't it?
00:11:35:11 - 00:11:54:09
Unknown
Absolutely. Yeah. Because I don't know that I would have left otherwise. I was talking to someone this morning who I haven't seen a couple of years. I caught up in a coffee with him and in many aspects of his life, he's doing fantastically well and he says he's doing fantastic. Well. He's probably the healthiest has ever been. His relationship with his family is in a great place.
00:11:54:09 - 00:12:11:23
Unknown
He's he's doing a lot of great stuff. He's absolutely stuck in his career and maybe an hour and a half into a coffee meeting, it became really evident, like he's not quite hating himself in the process, but he's hating everything about it. Yes. And he and I just had a chat about, you know, what are you going to do with this?
00:12:11:23 - 00:12:32:18
Unknown
But what what the conversation went to was him realizing the fact that he's stuck in his career allowed him to take interest elsewhere, which was his health, his relationships and everything else. So he's put them into a great footing, which he may not have done had he been in a career that was all consuming. And he goes, you know what?
00:12:32:21 - 00:12:53:01
Unknown
Now I'm ready to go and develop my career in a different way or find a, you know, follow a purpose in a way I hadn't done before. But the fact that I was stuck here gave me space to do all this. And I think a lot of men, particularly because we are so achievement and work oriented, the identity of work often overshadows other aspects of our life.
00:12:53:03 - 00:13:09:13
Unknown
And if you take stock for a little while, you can go, actually, I can do it all. It's not all the same time, and therefore I can play with that. Yeah, it's funny, I recognize that a little bit in in my husband as well because he, he was promoted recently into a really senior job. And it's, it's not an easy job.
00:13:09:14 - 00:13:28:18
Unknown
But for him I can tell it's work in his family. He doesn't really give himself much space to do anything outside of that. Whereas I think women have more so had opportunities through maternity leave and flexible work and, often now the career portfolio to realize you can piece together a career. Yeah, but I could without him saying it.
00:13:28:20 - 00:13:48:15
Unknown
I think he feels that pressure to be consistent, but also like, what would it what would it mean and what would it say about him if he was to work less than full time, would not be in the office every single day? Yeah. Like I think he does have more. I think men have more pressure to be in the office, whereas women, it's not as much of a pressure that we feel.
00:13:48:16 - 00:14:07:22
Unknown
I agree with you, and I don't know whether that's seven post or whether it's society imposed or I don't quite know. Certainly I never did. Sorry. I only ever did face to face consulting for 20 years. I refused to do this because I then Covid kicked in and I had to relearn the whole way to do it.
00:14:07:22 - 00:14:26:05
Unknown
And now I rarely do it. So, you know, kind of going a whole 180, but certainly my own thinking about how I do my working life was always face to face in an office somewhere. And I found it very hard to detangle from. Yes, it was like those internal beliefs. And those stories can sometimes have a hold of us.
00:14:26:06 - 00:14:29:07
Unknown
Yeah. For sure. Can I use that as a Segway?
00:14:29:09 - 00:14:32:09
Unknown
You talk about the third space,
00:14:32:11 - 00:14:35:01
Unknown
which I really like the way you describe that, and
00:14:35:03 - 00:14:38:15
Unknown
you talk about how leaders can use a third space to gain perspective.
00:14:38:17 - 00:14:42:01
Unknown
And you also allude to you
00:14:42:03 - 00:14:46:18
Unknown
been helped by you engaging with that third space when your son Alfie was quite ill.
00:14:46:20 - 00:15:09:10
Unknown
Can I start there and then jump to how you see other people using it? So your son was sick as an infant? Yeah, he was in hospital very early in his life. That's always very hard for any parent, particularly any young parent. And you describe in the book how you created a third space, a physical third space to allow you to detach from that whole experience of being in the hospital.
00:15:09:13 - 00:15:30:04
Unknown
Now, I used to run intensive care units, so I'm in my early career, so I'm very I'm very under. I really understand the intensity that family members have when their loved one is sick and it's hyper intense. Talk to me about what you did and how you found that useful for you. So perhaps I'll start by explaining what the third space is for your listeners.
00:15:30:04 - 00:15:44:14
Unknown
So the third space, is a phrase or a term or a concept that was coined by Doctor Adam Fraser, who was a friend of mine, a colleague in, in Sydney. But the idea is, I suppose, in some shape or form, been around for a while.
00:15:44:19 - 00:15:53:10
Unknown
It's this idea that that, that as we move from one moment to the next, there is a space that can exist between that.
00:15:53:11 - 00:16:13:00
Unknown
So it can be the space between, you know, one meeting and the next. It can be the space between, home and work or work and home, which is, is during Covid that that space kind of felt like it disappeared. You know, when you work in the office, there's an obvious space, like whether it's the train or or the trip home.
00:16:13:02 - 00:16:46:19
Unknown
So it's how we actually use that space in a mindful way to be able to process what was in that moment and what's important about that moment, to take a moment to just kind of rest, recover and just get present with yourself and then think about what is the next moment. What is that asking of me? So in that scenario that you refer to, you know, I was a first time mum and I knew when my, when my son was still in Europe that there was an issue, but I never because I hadn't didn't have kids, I'd never had anything overly medical experience.
00:16:46:19 - 00:17:07:18
Unknown
I hadn't quite appreciated how hard it would be because also hormonally, as a new mum, that was really hard, and I'd never actually experienced the love that you experienced when you have a child. Like that was a whole thing. It was overwhelming and the terror that I may not have that anymore. So I had those two feelings occurring at once, which was really, really hard.
00:17:07:20 - 00:17:33:14
Unknown
And so I knew from from my training that I needed to look after myself in that moment. And I felt pressure to sort of stay by his bedside in the beeping, loud fluorescent environment that is an ICU. But I quite deliberately cultivated that third space and which was physically leave the hospital, which sounds easy, but it's really, really hard to do that and take myself and my husband as well, out into a different space.
00:17:33:14 - 00:17:49:20
Unknown
So luckily we're at the Royal Children's Hospital, this beautiful parkland near there. We would spend time just sitting in there, walking, trying to count our blessings, like even the tiniest things, like managing to find a car park in the morning or the smell of the coffee like there wasn't a huge amount to be grateful for in those moments.
00:17:49:20 - 00:18:16:03
Unknown
But physically creating that third space and then using it in a way that was very intentional, knowing that it was about recovering our resources so that we could then show back up in that environment in a better shape. Can I just go a little deeper and you've said two really important things, or I think I'd love to click on you counted your blessings and you went to a third space.
00:18:16:04 - 00:18:37:04
Unknown
Was that was that in the same location? Yes. So you were anchoring this notion of feeling grateful whenever you went to that green space? Yeah. We had someone you probably know doctor mentor Imber. Yes. On here a few weeks ago who's just released a really cool book. But she was talking about a version of Counting Your Blessings at the end of nighttime, where it's here's one grateful for.
00:18:37:09 - 00:19:05:04
Unknown
And good thing that's what I was doing. Three. Good. Three. Great. Yeah. But you. But you did it in a space that allowed you to be calm, grateful, and for a disconnected from all of the drama that's happening elsewhere. Yeah. What did I give you? I think clarity in presence of mind. Because when you're in a hospital so loud, you know, it's it's stimulating in every way you can think of in terms of the bright lights, the action, the noise, like all of that.
00:19:05:05 - 00:19:26:19
Unknown
So I think it just gave me the opportunity to, to think about who was I outside of being a mum and actually get a hold of some of my thoughts, because when you're in those environments, your mind is raising your imagining the worst case scenario. But then other moments, like oddly, it was kind of normal, like because because we were there for so long, we had to adapt and humans can adapt to some pretty terrible things.
00:19:26:19 - 00:19:45:15
Unknown
So I would chat to the other mums, on the floor. I would chat a lot to the staff, so you probably wouldn't be surprised to know that I started analyzing the entire dynamics of the work environment, and then the staff would come in and I could feel when something had happened outside the root, like in terms of the doctors or the nurses and the staff.
00:19:45:15 - 00:19:58:18
Unknown
I was like, I can tell that something's just happened then like what happened? And they're like, oh, sorry, you shouldn't be able to notice that. I was like, no, no, it's just I'm literally watching you. I don't have anything else to watch. What just happened there. And she's like, well, actually. So I kind of became part of that.
00:19:58:20 - 00:20:24:05
Unknown
Just some of that. Some of them would have loved that. Yes. They're like, this is odd. Who was this woman? Yeah, yeah. But it just was distracting me as well from and give me a sense of control and purpose in what was a really quite a tough situation. How do you encourage your leaders to cultivate this? So I think, the third space is it works really well when you think about specific moments.
00:20:24:07 - 00:20:47:14
Unknown
So if we if we think about the fact that our emotions that occur in one moment can essentially leak into another moment, once we start to realize that that happens and that we kind of drag the emotional climate from one meeting into the next. Firstly is about noticing that that happens because I think most of us get to the end of the day or end of a week, and it's it feels like the week and the work has happened to us.
00:20:47:16 - 00:20:56:09
Unknown
And maybe even without realizing that other people have felt the energy that you've brought in from other meetings. And it's a very human thing to do.
00:20:56:11 - 00:21:14:22
Unknown
So firstly, it's about supporting those moments, like, what are the moments where you're feeling something quite intensely from one meeting or one situation, and to actually get present to that and just notice that and be intentional about trying to let that go and think about what the next person needs from you.
00:21:15:02 - 00:21:28:06
Unknown
So I just think it's not just as simple as we as we. It's not necessarily as a cultivate a practice of skill. It's what I've learned over time. Another of years ago, I was involved in a piece of leadership research, which we call the Daily Habits of Exceptional Leaders.
00:21:28:06 - 00:21:51:10
Unknown
And we went to a particular leadership assessment tool company who later bought my business. That's a different story. And when we know your tools really good, can we access the top one percentile of your database? Because by nature everyone else is rated them. You've done a whole global comparison. So they are exceptional relative to your database, which at the time was 1.5 million people.
00:21:51:10 - 00:22:14:24
Unknown
So it's pretty big. And the hypothesis was these leaders are doing something different at home before and after they come to work. That allows them to show up. So that was the hypothesis. But to go to your point, what they were in, we ended up following 35l over a six week period with daily diaries for six weeks and interviews either end.
00:22:15:04 - 00:22:37:03
Unknown
But the habit that they had all cultivated and they were across six different countries, different size organizations, 60% women, 4% men, so a whole range of ages. So it wasn't by any means a single industry learned. It was leadership, learned they had all cultivated practice of in the morning, looking ahead of the day and go, how do I need to be in that meeting?
00:22:37:04 - 00:23:02:14
Unknown
Yes. Versus this meeting versus this place, and ensuring that they change the diaries to allow them ten minutes in between meetings to reassess that original decision they made in the morning time, which meant that the emotion of anger or whatever it was, frustration that they invariably felt in a meeting, they allowed her to dissipate. Yes. And then they realized what they had planned to.
00:23:02:20 - 00:23:35:00
Unknown
It was extraordinary. They didn't always get it right, but it was extraordinary good at cultivating their effectiveness over time, because the person in meeting three had no idea what happened in meeting one, all they knew was, well, leader Cat has shown up and she's very present, as she always is. Right. And I think that that ability to use a third space, be it a psychological third space or a practice of and give myself 12 minutes every morning, which is what these guys are doing in eight minutes at night time.
00:23:35:00 - 00:23:36:01
Unknown
So 20 minutes a day.
00:23:36:01 - 00:23:56:24
Unknown
The question that I found that these specific leaders consistently used, he didn't even like in the diaries, the words were different, but the question was the same question, which was, how do I not be the bottleneck for my team or my organization or whatever it was? And if you think about that question, it forces them to go, where am I making decisions?
00:23:56:24 - 00:24:15:01
Unknown
Where am I not making decisions? Where am I slowing down decisions? Who am I not cultivating? And if you get that question right on a regular basis, it really forced you to go, how do I me as a way to optimize my leadership? And that's a very powerful way. Yes. And how do I get out of my own way in many cases?
00:24:15:01 - 00:24:39:10
Unknown
Because I think this population that we're talking about then no longer leaders of teams, the leaders of leaders of teams. That's right. And that is a tougher thing, because often the way that we get our joy from work is actually giving us feelings of certainty and control and competence and achievement, but we're actually depriving of people of those feelings in order to, to get that need medals.
00:24:39:14 - 00:25:03:04
Unknown
So I think we have to redefine what success looks like in these roles. Which leads me to your book, Good Work Transform Your Work from the Inside Out. A lovely segue, I really I really enjoyed reading it and I really enjoyed the, all the research you have put the accessibility through your own stories. The first is you can see I've got a lot of notes here, which is which means I've read it, which I, which I love.
00:25:03:04 - 00:25:23:05
Unknown
we had Andrew Marr on the show recently. Andrew, who is a brilliant, brilliant performance, intelligent experts, mindset coach for the Wallabies who are really on the up and up at the moment. And he said something that I really love. He said we don't have a burnout issue. We we have a unable to recover issue. Right. And you have a lovely framework called the Effort Recovery Framework.
00:25:23:07 - 00:25:27:17
Unknown
In your book here we talked about blocked recovery and success recovery.
00:25:27:19 - 00:25:42:21
Unknown
So for the listener leading or the leader who might be a listener or any kind of listener who's listening to this right now, who feels I'm I'm tired and I'm putting a lot of effort in. It doesn't seem to be getting the outcomes I want. Talk to me about how what you see in this regard.
00:25:42:22 - 00:26:01:15
Unknown
Yes. And then I want to talk about the the Andrew Bay observation. Can we come back to that? So if I talk about recovery model, sadly this is not my model either. But I think it's one that I've very much fallen in love with. So the idea it came from, I think, a German professor by the name of Sabine Sontag.
00:26:01:21 - 00:26:24:05
Unknown
So essentially what, what the research was looking at around about this time is this idea that work can deplete people's resources for home, which is kind of that traditional idea. But more and more, what we've come to realize is that that it can go it's much more complicated than that. So home can also deplete resources for for work and also work can actually benefit home and home can benefit work.
00:26:24:05 - 00:26:44:19
Unknown
So there's a whole bunch of relationships that happen. The idea of the effort recovery model is that naturally when we go about our day, we put in effort. So cognitive demand switching these days it's much more knowledge and cognitive work. And then at the end of the day, naturally, because we've been striving for goals and we've been using up those resources, we've become tired and fatigued.
00:26:44:21 - 00:27:08:13
Unknown
And they actually also used experience sampling methodology and daily diary studies to track what people did when they got to the end of their workdays so they could see that they were fatigued. And the question then was, you know, what are they doing in their evenings? So firstly, we'll track that and then when they come back into their work environment, the next day will measure them again and see whether they've been able to recover or replenish those resources.
00:27:08:15 - 00:27:29:08
Unknown
And interestingly, what they found is that how people spent their leisure time in the evenings or after, after work was really important. So you would think in those scenarios that what we should do is sit on the couch and watch TV, like every part of us sometimes is yearning for this. Just I just want to sit. But actually, those people would come back to work the next day and they were in the same psychological state.
00:27:29:13 - 00:28:07:20
Unknown
What we need to be doing in our leisure time to recover those resources is activities that cause psychological detachment, absorption. So my my my jokes about reorganizing my kitchen cupboard, what that gives me is control. That's another component of effective recovery. So psychological detachment, control mastery, positive emotion and purpose. They've more recently added if you engage in activities like this in between your work shifts or after hours quite quickly, you can replenish the resources psychologically, socially and physiologically that have been depleted during the day.
00:28:07:20 - 00:28:26:00
Unknown
And we can engage in much faster recovery. Even if you only have half an hour. Listen to a podcast. Learn something new gives you mastery. You're not thinking about work. Your system will then recover. It's like a factory. It's like that. You know the like doing a factory reset on your brain. You know, the old power on, power off.
00:28:26:01 - 00:28:46:23
Unknown
Yeah. That's essentially what what that does, I tell I struck when I was reading this because there's five aspects to this is detachment, relaxation, mastery, control. And then as you said more recently, meaning what was added to it. When I read the piece about detachment, what I recognized about myself is I have always found it really hard to compartmentalize.
00:28:47:00 - 00:29:07:11
Unknown
I just don't do it. I've tried. I've been around people who do it brilliant. My wife doesn't fabulously well. I am not able to do it, and so trying to do that just doesn't work for me. But what I have noticed is don't worry about that. Go and do something else. Yes. And so go and go to gigs.
00:29:07:12 - 00:29:35:06
Unknown
I got a lot of kids got into the podcast and I love Nordic fictional drama. So watch, you know, Finland TV and read the subtitles. In your case, you reorganize your cupboards and I found that that works. So I don't know whether it's a distraction or whether it just turns a different part of my mind on. I'm not sure, but the idea of detaching from the from the whatever the anxiety is, I've I've never succeeded with that.
00:29:35:07 - 00:29:52:09
Unknown
No, I'm the same. I mean, the only way that I can do that is by absorbing myself completely in something else, right? So, I mean, I'm not actually even sure what compartmentalizing is. Like I said before, my colleague said that he has the ability to just change the channel so he can feel when he's getting a bit worked up.
00:29:52:10 - 00:30:10:11
Unknown
Yeah, and just switches the channel. But how? Yeah, he's like, I don't know. Yes I do my, my my my steam colleague Greg and my wife Carol both do that brilliantly. And they will say, well, there's no point in thinking about it until X or Y happens. I go, well, I can't stop thinking about it. That's that's my problem.
00:30:10:12 - 00:30:35:18
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So you have to actually you have to trick your brain into forgetting. So tell me about you organizing your cupboard. So, you know, 8:00 at night time, you get a frenzy going on. What happens? It's funny, because even as a young girl, I remember getting in what my mum would call tidy moods. And I thought that was just a fun little quirk of my personality, which potentially it was and still is, but just that I would get hyper fixated on organizing stuff.
00:30:35:20 - 00:30:57:03
Unknown
And I think what I've learned now as an adult, what is actually happening when I'm doing that is, is I'm feeling out of control in some aspect of my life, and I'm using that as a way of getting control and that sense of mastery over your external environment, which then feels like you've mentally tidied up your brain. I also like to reorganize my cupboard in color coded.
00:30:57:05 - 00:31:21:20
Unknown
Color coded? Yep. Color code, color code. And yeah, mostly color coding. I do also sort of think about sort of the winter versus summer, but color coding, some people color code their bookcases. I've also done that. I'd love to get out the vacuum cleaner. So it's usually happens as a reaction to anxiety or just feeling out of control, because there's a lot of in our life that we can't control.
00:31:21:22 - 00:31:44:08
Unknown
You won't come and do other people's houses. I only there's only one person who I would and she loves it. She she would let me vacuum her house. Would there ever be a cat page version of the Japanese shows in terms of how the tidy your house. Is that a thing? I think that is this book because it's like the because I have spoken to women who are like, oh, I do that.
00:31:44:10 - 00:32:05:23
Unknown
And I wondered why I, I do that and you feel better afterwards. Yeah. All right. And there's science to it. Mine's gone to a gig, so I'll take that. Well, the one the other property of an effective recovery activity is positive emotion as well. So that's what you're getting. Like you're probably in in flow music obviously gives you joy and positive emotion.
00:32:05:24 - 00:32:30:01
Unknown
Yeah. So the trick here is for anyone listening who's I'm putting more and more effort. I'm getting more and more tired. The trick is a don't sit in the couch, do something. Yeah, and experience something else as a way to do it. Another word that I use sometimes is active recovery as opposed to effort recovery. Because if you think about, you know, for those of you listeners who are runners, you don't go for a run and then just stop.
00:32:30:03 - 00:32:52:07
Unknown
Like that actually would, would jar your body. It's similar with our work that when we've been really, really engaged in something for a long period of time, you can't just stop. You need to warm down or walk or do something else that's kind of easing that transition period. And just recognizing that that's how our minds work. It doesn't mean we can't rest, you know, we absolutely must rest.
00:32:52:08 - 00:33:11:13
Unknown
It's just that there are different forms of rest, and we need to be intentional and and strategic. The other thing I will say is that the activity that you choose to deplete those resources needs to be different to what you've been doing during the day. Yeah. So if you're a computer programmer at work, got online to do computer program at nighttime may not be the best thing for gaming.
00:33:11:15 - 00:33:23:08
Unknown
Whereas going out and having a social conversation. And if you think about it, sometimes we have to trick ourselves into doing things because you don't feel like socializing. But then once you go out and do it, do you feel better?
00:33:23:10 - 00:33:27:01
Unknown
Can I read you something from this book I have in front of me? Your book? Absolutely.
00:33:27:03 - 00:33:35:07
Unknown
So longitudinal studies have shown that people who report the highest levels of life satisfaction tend to prioritize not pleasure, but fulfillment.
00:33:35:12 - 00:34:06:02
Unknown
But to get there requires growth. We flourish when we stretch into new challenges, develop mastery, and expand into our potential. So it's less about avoiding struggle and more about how we use potential to become more for women to be. And your reference, Professor Carl Reef, who has a six factor well-being framework, which is personal growth as one of the six essential dimensions of good life alongside purpose, autonomy, close relationships, self-acceptance, and mastery of our environment.
00:34:06:08 - 00:34:25:13
Unknown
And you quote David White, who I know really well. He causes the process of moving just beyond yourself, which is what he would say. His mother and my mother grew in the same town. That's exactly what my mother would say. He is amazing. You got to move just beyond yourself. For someone who is not offered with this kind of of of science, what does this all mean?
00:34:25:15 - 00:34:46:24
Unknown
And in the context of that versus eudaimonia, can you explain those two things? I think are really important things. So what are things going on in that paragraph? Hearing. Hearing that back to me is a little bit of empirical evidence, a nod to one of the most important, founding kind of thinkers in wellbeing and a poet.
00:34:47:01 - 00:35:10:14
Unknown
But David White is phenomenal, isn't he? He is a good guy. He is incredible. I love that you know him. You're very connected. So this is something that I've been fascinated with my whole career. So essentially, the heroic account of wellbeing is this idea that that that happiness is really about, a life that is satisfying to you in, in whatever that looks like.
00:35:10:18 - 00:35:34:15
Unknown
Some people interpret it as the pursuit of sort of pleasure over pain or contentment or life satisfaction. You know, just feeling like, like things are going generally well. So life satisfaction often falls into the camp of measurement for that approach. I've always felt more aligned to the demonic approach, which is how I had a great conversation with your with your friend Dan.
00:35:34:21 - 00:35:57:20
Unknown
But this is more about wellbeing as the pursuit of a good life and good meaning. Not just pleasurable or high status, but good in in the way that I think of good work. So it's good as in it's good for people. You're realizing your values. There's a sense of contribution, a sense of service, a sense of maybe growing yourself and getting better.
00:35:57:22 - 00:36:22:19
Unknown
And if you think about it, oftentimes if you look back on the periods of your life where you've felt most engaged and most connected to your purpose at the time, they're often not the periods of your life where you've felt happiest in the former sense, in that kind of, you know, maybe you were stressed or, felt like like you were actually going through something quite arduous and quite tough.
00:36:22:21 - 00:36:49:13
Unknown
But in the pursuit of that tough goal, you've grown and you look back and you feel fulfilled as a result of that. And if we live a life where we avoid all challenge, that is really, I think, a pathway towards languishing, which which I'm sure we'll get to is it's just complacency or apathy. It feels like a good place to be, but when you're actually in it, you want to be anywhere but there.
00:36:49:14 - 00:37:19:03
Unknown
You don't feel absorbed. You're not living an engaging life. You don't feel like you're making a difference. You're just treading water. Yeah. So to me, this goes to the whole reason for this podcast. And the podcast is we have a choice, whether it's obvious to us or not, at whatever we decide midlife is. I mean, statistically it's 40, but whatever that means to us and to me, what that means is, and I think you referenced David Brooks in his Two Mountains, which is which I, I really like that whole idea.
00:37:19:04 - 00:37:36:18
Unknown
There's there's an early part of life. And this is really, really true for men. And I don't think it's I don't think it's untrue for women. It's definitely very true for men, which is get on the career. There's an achievement piece. There might even be a provider of family type role. You know, our partner is having our child.
00:37:36:18 - 00:37:57:15
Unknown
So therefore I got to go and go back to work. Therefore, hey, we got less income coming through. I need to go and get a promotion to help that deficit. So there's all of that pursuit, and we get really, tangled up in that, particularly 35 to 45, because that's the age where we're on a career ladder and we have young children, all of that.
00:37:57:15 - 00:38:20:09
Unknown
Right? So we're pursue stuff. And so the the pay rise, the new title, they're really important because it brings material income that we might find useful for the family or for the status that I'm now suddenly find myself in. But then the enjoyment of that just stops or goes away or, we have to work harder and harder and harder to get the same kind of satisfaction.
00:38:20:09 - 00:38:44:07
Unknown
There's a diminishing return. Yeah. And David Brooks talk to this notion of then you suddenly get a second mountain appearing to you go, yeah, I've got all the career success that I ever thought I would get, and I'm not getting the satisfaction that I used to are something else over here. And what I love about that is, is, we have a choice because it requires us to actively choose.
00:38:44:07 - 00:39:06:03
Unknown
I might need to leave my career. I might want to pursue something less. I may want to suddenly do a marathon for the first time in my life, or I may want to do something very, very different. And that requires growth. That requires effort, but requires choice. But as you said, the the the enjoyment comes not necessarily in the achievement of that outcome, but actually the journey of arduous effort to get to it.
00:39:06:04 - 00:39:25:17
Unknown
Yes. And looking back on it, the, the the pride that you have from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I, I use this idea, this concept of the second mountain a lot because it's a beautiful metaphor really for, I think, a feeling that people have. I've coached a lot of people in my career, and I imagine you would have as well, who had have reached the pinnacle of their career.
00:39:25:19 - 00:39:50:00
Unknown
You know, they've got the beautiful house, the beautiful cars. There's the whole thing around watches that I wouldn't even pretend to really understand. The kids are in fancy schools, but often they're now trapped in a lifestyle, and it's really hard to change at that point without disappointing everyone. So it's no longer about disappointing yourself. In fact, that's probably the easier option is to disappoint yourself.
00:39:50:02 - 00:40:10:07
Unknown
I'm increasingly now finding that I'm coaching men who are younger who are reaching that point. That's right. Which is really interesting. So previously they'd be in their 60s. Now I'm seeing them in their 30s. So they might have got there faster or else, for whatever reason, they've just pause and thought, this can't be it. Is this it? And there's a lovely article in, I think.
00:40:10:11 - 00:40:34:12
Unknown
New York Times. I think it was about a year ago saying, what is midlife in terms of what is the age? And the article was suggesting he used to be 40 ish and I was 29, which goes to what you've just said. Particularly folks who are in tech industries, because the financial success in the tech industry can come very, very quickly depending where you are in that industry.
00:40:34:14 - 00:40:53:09
Unknown
And if you're in a startup that grows fast, you get the career ladder success very, very early. Just because you're part of the rising tide, you're going to be cute, wave and, the kind of status from a society perspective. Oh, you're involved in a startup now look at you. That comes very, very early. Yes. And so go now what?
00:40:53:10 - 00:41:13:04
Unknown
I've just given like 90 hours a week for that. I don't have the energy to keep doing that forever. So what does that mean? Yeah. And at what cost? What cost? Especially with the AI boom. Now like, I think a lot of these people are being offered million dollar plus salaries. And society question around is there a value in what we're doing where they are.
00:41:13:05 - 00:41:30:10
Unknown
Right. Absolutely. I mean, I also liken it to this idea of wanting to eat sugar versus something that feels a bit more nourishing. Yeah. Like everything feels like my kids are obsessed with sugar, much to my annoyance. But it doesn't actually give you the same the same feeling over time. Yeah, that's right, we call it the head on treadmill.
00:41:30:12 - 00:41:55:21
Unknown
That is the head on treadmill, that kind of racing, and I. I can't actually get to the feeling that it is that I'm searching for. Yeah. So you mentioned the word languishing. It was a great essay. I'm sure you know it. Adam. Adam Grant essay on languishing is the, the word of the decade or word of the year was a Covid based phrase.
00:41:55:23 - 00:42:14:09
Unknown
I had never I'd come across word languishing a couple of years earlier when I was doing some studies. And it was it was really opened my eyes to, there's a word to describe a version of apathy, but it's not apathy, it's a version of that. And there's an opposite word which describes flourishing, which, again, was another word I hadn't fully come across.
00:42:14:15 - 00:42:33:15
Unknown
And a lot of people listening to this, I think, are listening to this in order to avoid languishing, but don't quite know how to get a flourishing. Talk to me about what that means. Yes, well, if we can start with languishing because Adam Grant has a different had a different spin on it to say, Corey Keyes, who was one of the earlier thinkers.
00:42:33:16 - 00:42:58:19
Unknown
I mean, some would argue that Aristotle was probably one of the earliest thinkers, but it's this idea of, of, of wellbeing and illness are not necessarily highly correlated. So you can be free of illness but not actually be high in positive mental health in the sense that you're flourishing. So languishing is that kind of middle point, which is that I'm not unwell, but I'm not well.
00:42:58:20 - 00:43:19:20
Unknown
I have like an absence. There's a feeling of lack. I'm lacking something. I'm lacking vitality. I'm lacking a sense that my life has purpose. I don't feel connected. And that, I think, was really brought to life by Covid because a lot of us lost access to the things that gave us joy. We couldn't go out and pursue any.
00:43:19:22 - 00:43:44:01
Unknown
So language is really the lack of that. So flourishing then is really then the presence of positive feelings and positive functioning, so positive feelings being that on average you would be feeling more things like joy, happiness, contentment, vitality, energy. So there is, there is that aspect to it. But perhaps even more importantly, flourishing is more around the sense of realization, self-realization.
00:43:44:01 - 00:44:10:20
Unknown
So, Carol, rift domains that you talked about before would be will be present. So, a sense that I like a sense of self acceptance and self-worth, positive relationships, sense of growth, sense of competence, feel like I'm in control of my environment. Those feelings and that sense of functioning well in society, on average, is is flourishing, which is the opposite to loneliness as well, isn't it?
00:44:10:22 - 00:44:33:04
Unknown
And that's become a big, subject that matters a lot in society is a notion of loneliness, which involves very akin to, to to languishing. Yeah. For the person listening, going, that sounds like a nirvana relative to where I am now. What have you noticed as being some of the early first steps or the first thinking processes to move towards that?
00:44:33:05 - 00:44:41:02
Unknown
Yeah. Well, I think firstly, it's about it's not something you find. I think it's something you build and it has to be cultivated.
00:44:41:04 - 00:44:48:24
Unknown
I think it is about about figuring out what actually gives you joy, even just the smallest spark of joy, and to follow that.
00:44:49:02 - 00:45:16:13
Unknown
So even just making early inroads towards what's something that I'm doing just for the pursuit of enjoyment or mastery, something that I want to learn. Maybe you always wanted to learn the piano, or you wanted to learn another language, and then that creates an energy that then makes you want to go out and search for it more. That intrinsic motivation, that sense of joy that you get from challenging yourself and achieving something and getting better because that never ends, that sense of growth and and learning.
00:45:16:15 - 00:45:33:16
Unknown
And then I think something that involves giving to other people. So I'm a big believer that if you feel something is lacking in yourself, often the best way to combat that is to go out and think about how can I give to others? And we no longer start to think about ourselves and actually the act of giving to others.
00:45:33:20 - 00:45:52:15
Unknown
Some have said, is like the most selfish thing you could do. Which I disagree with the idea, but the idea is it gives us as much, if not more as it gives to to other people. I think that last point I think is really important. As you know, in our organization here, we have we talk about positive aging and we have eight pillars of it and getting involved in communities.
00:45:52:15 - 00:46:22:14
Unknown
One aspect of philanthropy is another aspect, and certainly my own life, but also all the research I've been involved with are just folks are who are going through a tough stage of life or indeed lonely. And I'm thinking of two people in particular who or who have no money. If they're suddenly going through a phrase of I've lost my money on going through a divorce and I'm losing whatever, whatever it is, because there was a phase of life where the life I used to lead, I can't lead it any longer.
00:46:22:16 - 00:46:40:21
Unknown
And the folks who have jumped into instead of going out on a Saturday night because I can't, I'm going to volunteer necessarily. Not because that will distract me from the fact that I can't and I'm not at home by myself. I'm doing something. But a few weeks later they'll tell you it's my favorite Saturday night. I'm I'm having fun.
00:46:40:23 - 00:46:58:00
Unknown
Be I'm talking to people and we're doing stuff together. I'm seeing people who are worse off than me, which I never thought they were, but I'm not realizing they are worse off than me. And and I'm feeling good. And so why would I not want to do that more often? I feel good by doing this. And in fact, Saturday night is now my favorite night of the week.
00:46:58:02 - 00:47:14:06
Unknown
Yes. Yeah, often it's the first step. I think that's the hardest. And then once you get going, the the joy that it produces creates its own kind of energy that pulls you back into it. Yeah. But that first bit, I think you're right. Is that this very hard first step to make, especially if you're feeling a bit down?
00:47:14:07 - 00:47:46:11
Unknown
Yeah. You talk about tracking your sparks, which I love this idea. I've got a love hate relationship with the notion of find your purpose. And I love it because I know how, how energetic it is and how it pulls people forward and gives direction and and a sense of progress and achievement. If you're doing something that you feel very purposefully aligned to this podcast being one of those, I have a hate relationship with it because it seems to be dumbed down to, hey, I can't do anything until I find my purpose and I'm just going to sit here and wait for inspiration till it comes.
00:47:46:14 - 00:48:06:08
Unknown
Yes. Which I don't believe in. And so when I read you saying track your sparks or write it down and test it out loud. What are lovely? There's a process here that gets you moving, not waiting. Yes, talk to that. It's interesting because in a lot of the programs we we do, we talk about purpose. And I think some audiences really gravitate to it.
00:48:06:08 - 00:48:27:12
Unknown
And they love the idea of going off and doing reflection and thinking about it and looking back over their life. But that process doesn't work for everyone, and sometimes it can feel heavy or lofty or, you know, something that only certain types of people get to do. People who do good work, like noble work or volunteering or Oz harvest or like work in a hospital.
00:48:27:14 - 00:49:01:06
Unknown
But I think at the end of the day, it often comes down to people. It's usually something to do with people or, or service of some, some kind. And it doesn't have to be this huge thing where you're curing cancer that often it is just finding the moments where you go, oh, I actually felt something then in that interaction we were just having or that that bit of advice I gave you, or when I picked up a paintbrush and did this, or when I read about that concept and went off and read a bit more about it, I felt something happened within me that is worth noticing.
00:49:01:08 - 00:49:28:09
Unknown
So there's a beautiful story in my book of a man named David who that's how he kind of found his purpose. It came often. It comes from from your darkest hour, actually, that when you hit rock bottom, which he did. He then was forced to really change his life and therefore got exposed to different environments and different people and was open to really spotting it and noticing it, because we're not always open to it, because I think we fear that if we find our purpose, it might take us somewhere away from money.
00:49:28:12 - 00:49:46:01
Unknown
Yeah, and that's scary. Yeah, that's exactly right. Because stay where you are as safe. Because I know what it is. What if my purpose is like doing something that's really low, low, low status or so what happens to David? Oh, he found his purpose. So he was, Well, he built I would say he built his purpose. So he was in conversation with.
00:49:46:03 - 00:49:55:19
Unknown
He was a superintendent in a mining organization. He was in a conversation with another person, and he just had this feeling of like, oh, there's something happening in this moment
00:49:55:22 - 00:50:04:18
Unknown
where something I'm saying or a space that I've created in this moment made somebody feel like they could open up. And he was like, it's that moment.
00:50:04:18 - 00:50:27:23
Unknown
It's I can't remember exactly what his purpose is. I wrote it in the book, but it was essentially around helping other people find their. Yeah, their their why helping other people see their potential. I remember they're probably the most purpose aligned leader I've ever met, in that every single day of this guy exuded what he said was the most important thing to him.
00:50:28:00 - 00:50:54:14
Unknown
And it was such an ironic purpose because he was a managing director of a in Australian based organization, which is part of a multinational. He was considered to be the most talented managing director of their. I think there were about 35 countries. And in anyone else's world, not his. He would have gone on to head of Asia Pack, head of Asia pack in Japan into a global role in New York, wherever it was.
00:50:54:20 - 00:51:17:21
Unknown
And for a range of reasons, he couldn't do that. I think his family situation meant that he was not mobile. He couldn't travel, but instead he decided, I want to make the Australian business the cultivator of global talent for the rest of business all over the world, and he became the best spotter of talent, the best cultivator, the best leader.
00:51:17:21 - 00:51:42:07
Unknown
From a talent perspective. He stood around a great business because he kept growing. Great leaders and people from all over the rest of their global business would come to Australia in order to work with this guy, because he was renowned for being. He was. He's the one who would help you get so much better. Yeah. So not only was he exporting talent from Sydney to our auto parts of the world, they were coming to a Sydney, which meant the city was just kept, got better and better.
00:51:42:09 - 00:52:06:16
Unknown
And I remember asking him, like, how did you land at this? And he said, I landed this out of pure frustration. I really want wanted to be a global leader. And I recognized that wasn't going to be possible. And I did nothing for a while. I just stuck and I suddenly realized one day I seemed to like these conversations with this young staff.
00:52:06:21 - 00:52:24:22
Unknown
I go home feeling better when I had that conversation. They tell me they go home fitting better. Maybe I could do more of that, do more of that, do more of that. Oh, I've just had three people promoted. Oh, wow. Now I can find a way. And to see him so energized and and he wasn't in any way fluffy.
00:52:24:23 - 00:52:56:03
Unknown
He was like a firm, a great leader. But if you wanted to, if you wanted to grow and if you wanted the global role, work with him. And what you're reminding me of there is that purpose is if you if you can't find your purpose, remember, it's probably not about you. It's probably about someone else. Often, if you think about it, because it's often like we're trying to find purpose so that we feel really good, that maybe that actually is sometimes the trap, because often it's more in what we can create some moment or something for other people.
00:52:56:05 - 00:53:15:05
Unknown
That's often where we're purpose lies. And the other thing I would say is that you can usually tell, like with your story there, where somebody is operating out of their purpose because they light up and people may not realize that that is their spark. So imagine if we went around telling people. Oh, I really notice you light up when you were talking about that.
00:53:15:07 - 00:53:32:04
Unknown
That sounds like it's really important to you. Yeah. People go, oh yeah, you're right. Actually. Yeah. I really notice when you lit up when you talked about that. Whereas when you were talking about this, it felt like you felt heavier or there wasn't that spark. So you can not only notice your own sparks, you can notice where something you've done is spark someone else.
00:53:32:06 - 00:53:48:24
Unknown
There could be a clue there. Or notice when other people have have sparks and you're telling them about it for no other reason, then to offer them that insight. I. Someone said to me once, if I could, if I had to, I would do this aspect of my job for free. Always because I get more than I give.
00:53:49:00 - 00:54:11:17
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, I really feel it. Particularly when I'm helping people who help people. That's where I notice it, like I that's why I think I gravitate to first responders, healthcare leaders, you know, people whose whose job it is to help people. I like to help those people. Yeah. You've worked in some extraordinary places, like in the end days, in banks, in Aussie hospitals like you.
00:54:11:17 - 00:54:30:01
Unknown
And I know Saudi Arabia universities. What was it like walking into the mining sites of the end of the first time? What does that look like, feel like? Smell like? Well, sadly, I've never been allowed into the actual mining sites, but I have had the opportunity to, I know that's not true. I have been into some mining sites.
00:54:30:01 - 00:54:53:14
Unknown
Sorry. I mean, that's incredibly different is the first thing I'd say. And people you could tell the operational nature of those roles are just so different from the environments that I've grown up in. Probably one of the most interesting environments I've been in was in Saudi Arabia, actually, which was King Abdulaziz University of Science and Technology.
00:54:53:16 - 00:55:21:03
Unknown
Like anytime you go to an organization that is so different and so far removed from your own, I find that incredibly fascinating. I'm always interested to know, like, what are the jobs that aren't obvious? Jobs? Like, what do they look like? Because so many of the jobs that we have today are office jobs. So going to a mine site or going to a university that's on that is in a really unusual place and is actually, excuse me, more like a compound.
00:55:21:05 - 00:55:57:09
Unknown
Hospitals are always really interesting libraries, like just environments that are that are not corporate. I find them incredibly interesting because great work happens there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Your research has helped shape what health organization guidelines and the ILO guidelines. And at the same time, and we go back to common burnout and workplaces in some parts of the world, in some industries and in some cities, like Australian cities haven't changed an iota and some have changed dramatically.
00:55:57:15 - 00:56:05:11
Unknown
Yeah. And how do you see the landscape of work now, given all of the research and study you've done?
00:56:05:13 - 00:56:23:15
Unknown
I think in some ways you can only see the change in ten year blocks. You can't feel things changing as they changing. But the the paper that you're referring to that influenced guidelines for the World Health Organization and the ILO, that was some work that we were doing in 2014.
00:56:23:17 - 00:56:53:17
Unknown
And at the time, it felt like a somewhat of an academic idea that we were pulling together these different threads of the literature to create an integrated approach, which we found intriguing. We thought it had real world application, and we did some work to test some interventions around that. But I after that left academia, and it wasn't until really five, ten years later that that really created a boom, because in some ways it was an idea whose time hadn't yet come.
00:56:53:19 - 00:57:13:19
Unknown
And then when Covid hit, and then also when new regulations came through, suddenly that was a topic that people wanted to talk about. But if you look back, I've interviewed lots of people who have worked in this space for decades and decades. You can only really see that in hindsight that things have changed. The way that people talk about things now has changed.
00:57:13:21 - 00:57:36:16
Unknown
What people prioritize who's talking about these things, like these topics have been talked about at board level now, they're in the newspaper. Sometimes we get confused about what the concepts mean. Like when you start seeing laypeople talk about concepts, you know, some academics get annoyed because they get it wrong. But I actually see that as a real positive that people are picking up that language and the ideas and trying to apply it.
00:57:36:17 - 00:58:07:16
Unknown
And sometimes we go too far the other way. Yeah. And it's often in the nuance where the, where the real interesting pieces live. I mean, I would love if we were moving more quickly, but I would say that change is happening. If you look at it decade by decade. Are you hopeful? I'm always hopeful. I am, and I and I would say I actively choose hope because the world often doesn't feel like a place where you can have hope.
00:58:07:18 - 00:58:32:15
Unknown
And I want people to have hope because hope gives us something. Hope gives us the energy and the pathway to be able to navigate towards an uncertain future. When people don't have hope, when they become cynical, which is one of the the impacts of burnout, by the way, then people are less likely to want to put in the effort because they don't see there being a likely positive return on that effort.
00:58:32:20 - 00:58:57:10
Unknown
And then when that happens, the things that things that they believe will come true or not come true based on whether we expect them. What have I not asked you that is important for our listeners to know about. They doing good work. Are they leading good work? Well, I wanted to come back to this idea of burnout, particularly because this is a topic that is quite popularized at the moment, which is great that we're talking about this.
00:58:57:13 - 00:59:19:23
Unknown
But one of the things I wanted to point out, particularly given your audience, is that, that men experience burnout in at somewhat the same levels as women, which often we don't realize, but the way that it actually presents in men is, is quite different, the research would show. So for women, more often it will show up as exhaustion and emotional exhaustion.
00:59:19:24 - 00:59:38:22
Unknown
And Amantha herself would have talked about, about that scenario. And I think it hit women that way for lots of reasons. But that tends to be the thing that they experience the most. For men, it will less likely show up as emotional exhaustion. It tends to show up more cynicism and detachment. So that's when you start hearing men saying, you know, what's the point?
00:59:38:22 - 00:59:59:02
Unknown
Or oh, I'm fine. Like, it doesn't matter. I'm used to it. That is actually a sign of burnout manifesting more as cynicism, which is which is an interesting idea. You might not think they're burnt out. They're not saying, I'm not okay. Women will say I'm not okay. Yeah. Men will just say, oh, it's fine. Like who cares?
00:59:59:03 - 01:00:19:09
Unknown
I don't care anymore. And that's that's the cynicism, which is one of the signs of burnout. So that's why we can't just measure burnout as as a question of do you feel burnt out? Yeah. Because we have confounded that idea with the exhaustion piece. And men that, that discounts men. So we need to have a more. That's really interesting.
01:00:19:09 - 01:00:44:06
Unknown
I hadn't thought about that, but as you're talking about it, what strikes me is, exhaustion has a huge impact on the individual and definitely on their family. Yeah. Maybe less so on the workplace, because they will keep the energy going at work. But cynicism has a huge ripple effect in the workplace. Like, extraordinary. Yes. And it's insidious.
01:00:44:12 - 01:01:07:01
Unknown
Yes. It it probably has. I actually don't know if it has an equal effect as exhaustion. I don't know, on the individual, but certainly the ripple effect in organizations is huge. And I think what recovery can benefit in the short term, particularly around the emotional exhaustion, you know, you can replenish those resources. It's it's very hard to recover from cynicism.
01:01:07:03 - 01:01:30:04
Unknown
But once somebody is going down that path, it is it's quite hard to pull them back. Right. And that affects people. They become more hardened to things. And then that of course creates a ripple effect for families. So I suppose one of the ideas that I wanted to, that I hoped that I would get across today is that good work is not just about creating organizations that make more money, and it's not even necessarily about us.
01:01:30:06 - 01:01:52:24
Unknown
I think it is also about future generations and remembering that our children and our children's children's children will tell stories about about you and about the life that's been created and how the systems that they've been brought up in, whether they be family systems or work systems, there is a ripple effect of these things. So often for me, good work is about creating.
01:01:53:00 - 01:02:10:05
Unknown
I do think it's about creating a better world. And it's not just for now. It's for future, for future generations, and for families as well. Well, on that note, Doctor Paige, pleasure having you here. It's a really useful and helpful book, an individual and at a collective level. So thank you for coming to share. What is my last question for you?
01:02:10:06 - 01:02:34:06
Unknown
And you've mentioned future generations. So what were the future 75 year old version of you say to you today, if she could? Oh, I'll tell you what I think she would say, and I don't want to admit it. Well, there's two things I think she'd say. Stop being so hard on yourself. You know, you need to actually treat yourself with the same kindness that you treat others.
01:02:34:08 - 01:02:54:24
Unknown
And I suspect she would probably also say, I don't need to work so much that even though my work is incredibly purposeful to me, I think we're all, myself included, in danger of over identifying with work and that there is more to life than work. Well, you've certainly shared a lot of stuff that is more to life today.
01:02:55:00 - 01:02:57:02
Unknown
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
01:02:57:04 - 01:03:16:13
Unknown
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01:03:16:15 - 01:03:39:11
Unknown
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01:03:39:13 - 01:03:43:08
Unknown
Till next time. Don't let the old man in.
