The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How We Can Move from Crisis to Calm with Debra Woog | PPP #73

Episode Date: April 11, 2021

Sharing Debra Woog's (like "Vogue") over 30 years of experience as a leadership researcher, executive, advisor and now "Crisis Navigation Partner" as the Founder of Connect 2.

Do you want to know how to develop stress hardiness? Are you preparing for crisis by building up your capacity, your community, and your communication skills? Well, you've come to the right podcast. On episode 73, From Crisis to Calm with Debra Vogue, we talked to Debra, who's a crisis navigation partner, who's going to share with you all, as she did with me, these skills where we can all help develop our strengths,

look at what's good, what's great, what glitches we have and what goals we want to achieve. So thanks for coming in and we'll see you in a second. These silencer cell phones hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum and we will get started with People Process Progress in three, two, one. Hey everybody, thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress podcast from crisis to calm with Debra Vogue. Debra is a crisis navigation partner and the owner of Connect2. And today we're going to learn a bit about her. We're also going to learn how we can prepare for crisis, how we can develop stress hardiness,

as she's explained in Forbes magazine and CNN and other places and learn a lot more about her and just how we can navigate crisis. And I think it's really timely both. I think, you know, the name of the episode, which I got from Connect2 from Crisis is Calm, given the past year where we've all been in crisis, where some of us still are, and hopefully looking to work toward collectively toward calm. So, Deborah, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited, as you you know as I think we all do these days we went back and forth with appointments and things like that so good we

had time to make it work and balance family time and I hope your your family's doing well. Thank you they are. Good deal. Yeah so let's let's share with the listeners a bit about yourself. I know I've done we've spoken a bit I've done some research but I'm interested for folks to hear about kind of where you come from and and kind of how you how you got to where you are now. Oh, gosh. OK, well, let's see. Going way back to where I come from. My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. My dad was a manufacturing manager and then executive for AT&T. So we lived everywhere in the United States where there was a cable and wire plant. And our last stop together, I'm the oldest child, so my last

stop with them was Columbia, South Carolina for high school. And then I came up to Boston, where I still live now, to attend Wellesley College where I majored in psychology and American Studies and my senior year I took a class that just rocked my world in a great way it was it was called problem-solving and organizations and it was really where psychology and business intersect and I was fascinated I was like this is what I really want to study, what I really want to talk about. I just love that course so much. And so I decided that when I graduated, I would try to do work in organizational change. Took me a little while

because nobody's really looking for a 22 yearyear-old self-proclaimed expert in organizational development. But I found a job that I loved, and I got to do research there for this training and consulting firm. And after about a year, I had my first experience of being laid off. It was 1990, and in Boston, we have a lot of the economy here is professional services firms. And almost all the professional services firms struggled and laid people off. And so I really had to for the first time, figure out my own way of generating income. And so for two years, that was the first time I started my own business it was called Vogue Research Consulting and I subcontracted research and writing projects from other

organizational change consultants that I'd gotten to know in the process of working at the first firm and networking to find that job in the first firm and one of the projects I worked on in those first two years was with a professor at Harvard Business School in the Organizational Behavior Department. And after doing a project with him, he had me come on full time to work on a research project with him. This was Professor David Thomas and his research partner at the time was Professor Jack Gaborow. And I joined them and we studied. We did a whole research study that resulted in the book Breaking Through the Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America. Oh, wow.

And it was so fascinating. I loved doing the qualitative research. And from there, I went to business school and got my MBA at MIT Sloan, still really interested in where psychology and business come together. Also had realized education was a key interest for me. And also technology that furthers productivity or connection, or efficiency, productivity and connection. Those are the kind of technologies that really interest me. And so did some more consulting when I graduated from business school. And through that experience of consulting during that time,

one of my close friends from high school was ill. He got very rapidly ill and uh he passed away four months later and so we were 30 years old at the time and unfortunately i got to spend quite a bit of time with him in his last four months but i realized my whole life could change four months from now could be completely different and what do i most want to be doing if I only have four months left on this earth? It's not working for this particular consulting firm I'm working for right now at age 30. And so I'd always wanted to start my own business. That's what I had written about in my business school application.

And by the time that I was in school, I learned about coaching as well as consulting and didn't really feel ready to start my own business, but also knew that I had to kind of carpe diem, given that I realized life could be kind of fragile. And so I started Connect2 Corporation 22 years ago in March. I just had our anniversary. And it's evolved over the years. I've done a lot of work in leadership and career coaching as well as organizational change consulting. And then about two years ago, I decided it was time for my business to evolve. And apologies, this is a long story. I'm trying to give you 50 years of life in a couple of minutes.

But from there, I thought about how I liked the work that I had been doing as a leadership and career coach. But something wasn't speaking to me the way that it was I wasn't feeling as on purpose as I used to I was feeling a little bit bored in a way with what I was doing and now I've been in business long enough that I realized you know every seven eight nine years or so I need to evolve what I'm doing and take it to the next level even though it's still my business and as I did a lot of reflection I realized there had been this through line of my life and career from moving around when I was a child to all kinds of things that I had gone through for myself and then

with clients that I had worked with and with friends and family, the through line was crisis. And that part of the reason that I'd become a little bit bored was because I was working with kind of ordinary situations. And the people that I was working with hadn't been through things that were as intense as what I have faced in crises in my own life and what I helped some of my particular clients face. And I realized that I wanted to focus my whole business in on helping individuals navigate crisis so that they can move from feeling overwhelmed and on their own to feeling supported and strengthened so that they could go back to leading strategically to their best possible outcome. And that's what I've been focused on now for two years. Never thought when I decided to

refocus that the kind of crisis I was thinking about would crop up for everyone in the world just six to nine months later when we started the pandemic. Absolutely. Yeah. And I know that that open ended question is tough. Like, hey, tell me your life story real quick. So great job. But it also, I think, is a great nugget in there. One, not great. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. But it seemed like that catalyst, that kind of prompt that it seems like folks sometimes certainly don't ask for, but it changes the direction of their life. And it seems clearly that really was a big influence for you to appreciate the time you had with that person for sure, I'm sure. And then for yourself going forward, you see that, you know, a lot of people inspired by, unfortunately, you know, even folks that say, oh, I had cancer, I had something bad happen to me. And it was actually that, you know, something that helped me change my life. I think I've even heard people say, you know, just horrible things. It's like the best thing that's happened. It totally changed their mindset.

As you, as you, you know, after you lost your friend and then you got more interested and you saw that crisis, did you, have you seen that similarly with folks that you've helped throughout the years that something has happened that actually was was a catalyst or a redirect or something similar to actually help them kind of level up in addition to, you know, helping build their skills to deal with crisis again in the future? Yes, definitely. And I've thought a lot about this, not just from the perspective of what I can tell my clients, but also what I can tell my children who are now 16 and 18 years old about dealing with difficult circumstances in life. And what I've learned to say is that crisis is inevitable in our lives, these big challenges that come up that we're not expecting. But how we handle them can be up to us, and can really shape us for the future, as well. So few people would say, this thing happened that I wasn't expecting in my my life and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And, you know, and mean it literally.

Thank goodness that I got cancer. Right. People do say it changed my perspective and it made me realize something was far more important than I'd been giving it credit for. That's definitely the experience that I had at age 30 and I've had it since then there's things that happen that you never think is are going to be I think of the world as like kind of divided into clubs somehow people are in clubs that I never wanted to be in I never wanted to be in the divorced people club I mean nobody gets married thinking that one day they're going to be in the divorced people club. Nobody gets married thinking that one day they're going to be in the divorced people club. I've learned a ton being in the divorced people club and having that experience. And part of who I am and who I was able want to overlook the opportunities for growth that came as a result of facing that challenge.

That's a great perspective. And, you know, it is interesting. And, you know, we've talked and a lot of folks listening out there, parents as well. And it's always interesting, too, when, you know, we have the life experience we try to impart to our kids, but then our kids think they already have the experience. You know what I mean? It's just a parenting thing. And they're like, you don't know. And I'm like, okay.

Just even that. But, yeah, it's a great perspective to look at how does the strength I developed, the crisis navigation ability, how can I help you do this so that you don't, you know, you can learn the same or avoid or, you know, whatever happens with the kids down the road. I think that's, you know, to your point, which is great to hear you say that a great example that we can do as parents of imparting those lessons learned so they can, you know, try not to hit the same speed bumps or if they do have the tools to deal with them, like we may not have. I think that's a great thing. And you mentioned too, interest in education and you got your MBA from MIT. So I'm interested too, because, you know, academia is a high stress area, particularly people, you know, if you are working plus getting your MBA, but in general,

getting your MBA, particularly from an MIT, I imagine is pretty stressful. Did you see a lot of folks in the academic environment facing kind of their own crisis as well with the pressure on whether they were just, you know, in school full-time or working in school or just that higher level of education? Yes, I've seen that a few times. So when I was a research associate at Harvard Business School, I got to watch a lot of faculty members, men and women, as they were progressing from being, you know, young junior professors through being full faculty members. And at least at Harvard Business School, a lot of universities are like this. It's an up or out environment. So you either after a few years, you get promoted or you go find another job somewhere. Incredibly stressful experience. And I had thought at that time,

again, I was in my mid-20s then, early to mid-20s, I thought that I might like to become a professor of organizational behavior. And I looked at some of the women at the time, this was the early 1990s, none of them on the faculty, none of them had children. And I thought, this is something I see for myself in the future. At the time, I didn't even know the person who later became my husband. who teaches. Later, some of those same women, later in the 90s and after that, did have children and their lives changed and they were able to maintain their positions as faculty members. And eventually, junior women faculty at Harvard Business School were able to have children and get promoted. But it wasn't always like that there. And then as a student at MIT Sloan, I was under stress. I saw a lot of people under incredible stress who were also students. And then later the staff there too not just the stress on the

students and the faculty but also on the staff in the organization too work is much more stressful now than I think it ever was before especially post-pandemic but even pre pandemic, I think the stress that we deal with at work is so much more than what the level was 30 years ago, 50 years ago for people at work. What do you what do you see as some some factors in that? Is it kind of the you know, it just seems like the pace of our society is, you know, instant gratification. We have connect, we've connected just to everything you could imagine. Do you, do you think that just the system's just moving faster? So the output has to be more and more from everybody that's kind of in the system or something fascinating? Cause you know, I think about this all the time. I have this washing machine and it washes my clothes for me. And so I think, gosh, shouldn't things go be slower?

Shouldn't I have a lot more free time than if I live like in the 1800s and I wash my clothes with a rock on the river somewhere? coming at us at all times, thanks to information technology, that even though we have technology that makes things faster, like washing the dishes and washing the clothes, all this time gets filled up with expectations that we are in communication so much more with each other and not only receiving the information, but processing so much more information at all times. I think that I could stay awake. I mean, if my body was capable of me being awake 24-7, I still don't know if I'd ever catch up with email. There's so much coming in all the time. Yeah, it's a challenge to disconnect. But I think something that's good that I've mentioned that I try to do in practice is even during the day, avoiding lunchtime meetings and then

disconnecting at a reasonable time in the evening. Again, sometimes you've got to put extra time in, but with every, especially they existed before, but with the emphasis of the past little over a year now, everyone who's working from home has probably multiple communication avenues, you know, products and then the same thing on their phone.

So even though you might leave your home office area or your kitchen table where you're working from, your phone has all the apps so you can get messages and calls. And, yeah, it's hard to disconnect. It seems like we need to make a conscious decision when we can to kind of do that. I imagine that could probably decrease the level of mental stress that could kind of lead us toward crisis if we can kind of cut the cord at a certain time each day or as often as we can. Yeah, everyone's got to kind of work out their own systems. I was talking to a client today who asked me if I had read a piece in the New York Times this weekend, which I hadn't, but now I've opened it up and I plan to read it today. But the title of it is, We Have All Hit a Wall, Confronting Late-Stage Pandemic Burnout with Everything from Edibles to Exodus. So that came out April 3rd, a couple days ago. I'm looking forward to reading it, but I can relate to that wall piece.

We've all been really taxed and stretched from working from home, if we were even able to work from home. And then people who are not able to work from home, being out in an environment that's more dangerous than ever is another kind of stress. Yeah. And, you know, that's what I'm hoping with the vaccine rollout, you know, with just, you know, trends going down, something like that, it can get back to people being used to being near people, you know, being, I don't know, you know, I think that medium of getting back to where we were over a year ago, I think will be really helpful. And just, you know, our kids had a hybrid, you know, some days at school, some days home, and now they're back more and you can just immediately see the difference in being able to interact, you know, with other humans as opposed to through electronics. So I'm grateful for that and look forward to, you know, society as a whole

doing more of that. You know, which makes me think doing more of that. Um, you know, which makes me, makes me think of one thing that I saw that you've spoken about before that, you know, if we could talk about as we've, you know, we are hitting the way, you know, you feel it, you're tired, you're just on calls constantly, your eyes, my eyes getting sore. I started wearing glasses a little over a year ago. And of course, looking at monitors all day isn't helpful for that. But, um, but, but building up stress hardiness you've spoken of before, and it seems like hopefully we've been able to do that some over the past year, but it seems like, you know, as we do maybe hit a wall like that New York Times piece speaks to, what are some tips?

And I want to definitely touch on kind of the three C's that you have to prepare and then the success. But for stress hardiness, what are some things, and they may include some of those, that we could be thinking of or maybe take away from this past year to help us build our own stress hardiness? That's a great question. So before the pandemic started and I was thinking about what kinds of crises I could help people through. I was thinking about much more local crises and not so much global crises. I was thinking about someone going through a divorce or a diagnosis or some sort of dispute, you know, things that were happening to maybe just them and a few other people or maybe just to them. And I reflected on what I had learned over the years going through my own crises and working with other people through their crises and came up with these three keys to getting through a crisis.

And so I'd be interested to tell if you tell me what you think. I think that these are still relevant in the global crisis of the pandemic, even though I thought about them before. So the three keys to getting through a crisis are one is communication, two is capacity and three is community. And I can talk a little bit about each one of those for communication. I feel like we need to, in order to prepare for crisis or to get through crisis, we need to build up our muscles in each of these, our proverbial muscles in each of these areas. So communication is the ability to say what's important to us, even when it's uncomfortable. And I think that learning to have difficult conversations is a skill set that we're not all well trained for. So I work with my clients a lot on that. I teach a course on how to win-win any difficult conversation. But also through my

one-on-one consulting, I spend a lot of time helping leaders figure out what's the message that they want to be giving at this difficult time and how to get it out there so that people can hear it. That's information or support or maybe you need to negotiate for what you need or. Yeah, or you need to tell people what what you need from them or what you want from them as well. So communication is one big piece. The other piece is building up your capacity. And capacity is how much time do you have, but also how much energy do you have, and making strategic choices, given how much that is, you know, if you're in the middle of an illness, you probably have a lot less energy than you're used to having. If you are suddenly working extremely long hours, you probably have a lot less energy than you're used to having. If you are suddenly working extremely long hours, you probably have less time personally than you did before, and you have to reallocate those resources. So some ways to build up capacity that I teach about are, one is do you have contingency plans in place and you're you're an expert in this from

what you've studied and what you've worked on but as you know if you have a plan that you've made in advance and you can turn to it even if you're modifying the plan in real time while you're executing it you're going to be farther down the road than if you try to make up a plan right on the spot. So I advocate for everyone to have their own contingency plans and their own emergency plans for their business as well as for themselves personally, especially people like me who own their own business and the whole business is them. If something happens to me tomorrow unexpectedly, who's going to tell my clients that I'm not showing up to see them? And who's going to know who my clients are? How's that going to work? So I think it's important about how can you create more time? So you can do that by letting go of some of your commitments and obligations that are no longer at the top of your list in hook for certain commitments. You can delegate some of what you have to other people. Those are two ways to kind of expand time. Another is to add more self-care into your life, which sounds counterintuitive. And I know I have fought against at times, you know, when one of my kids was diagnosed with type one diabetes eight years ago, and everything was new, and everything was urgent.

And we were constantly having to make decisions about how much to eat and how much insulin to treat with and how much sugar to give now. And it was just so complicated. People were telling me that expression that I kind of hate. Deborah, you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help others. And I know that is true, like in a plane crash, you have to do that. But not every life challenge or crisis is like a plane crash. A plane crash happens very quickly. Or a plane, you know, coming out of a potential plane crash happens very quickly. Dealing with a chronic illness is slow and long. And so I wrote a whole blog post about that because I thought so much about that years ago.

But I learned over time that when I was able to add self-care into my days and into my weeks routinely, each moment of that would kind of make time expand a little bit for me. And whether that was time to meditate or get a massage or go for a walk in nature, when I would come back, I would feel under less pressure than I did when I left. So that's important. Similarly, adding emotional support to your life, whether that's professional or personal, having time for therapy or making time to have a cup of coffee with a friend, even if it's just on Zoom, that similarly can make time feel like it expanded for you. And the most basic one is breathing. Just adding time to stop and breathe. Yes, we're doing it unconsciously, but I don't know about you. I hold my breath when I'm stressed and I don't even notice that I'm not taking in full breath. So remembering to do that slows me down and sometimes expands time as well.

Did those hold up in the pandemic? Yeah, I was going to say, I think just breathing alone is great. Like for, you know, for, for whether you're exercising, whether like I do jujitsu, so you're exhausted and you breathe, so you don't freak out and, you know, kind of lose it when you're grappling, but, but breathing for stress control, like, you know, we mentioned imparting wisdom to my kids, you know, when they're hurt or they're upset, it's like, okay, take your deep breaths and focus. And it's just, you know, that oxygen you get in there and enrich, it just, it makes a huge difference. And, um, yeah, the, you know, the capacity, uh, community communications, they, they definitely, you know, on,

on here and my distilled kind of processes from emergency management and incident management project management is these foundational five things, um,, which are you take a leader's intent, you make objectives, you put an org chart or organization together, you get some resources. And the last one is communicate only just, you know, because it ties the other ones together, not because it's the least important. So, yeah, I'm 100% on board. Communication in many different forms. You know, it used to be for me, communication was what radio channel are we on so we can all talk to each other if we're on a scene and something. Both when good stuff happens, we can just order lunch or bad stuff happens when someone drives the car comes on the course. Right. So, or it could be as simple as to your point. I want to have, you know,

I need to, you know, there's crucial conversations you mentioned. You're right. Whether it's, you know, on the street or in the business world or between family and friends, honestly, you know, cause not everybody communicates well, whether you're great friends and family, you may talk around things or not. Certainly in the business world, folks may not talk direct to me comfortable. And that's, that's a hard thing for, you know thing for me as a project manager is facilitating that and making people comfortable

with just kind of being objective without making them feel like they're throwing someone under the bus. You know what I mean? So it's a conversation that's going to help everyone. I've certainly not and am not perfect with that all the time either. And it's a hard thing to do, you know, when you're either evaluating someone or you're just having a discussion, you're just keeping it really honest. And, you know, the practical is everybody have the same kind of common operating picture or the objectives of the project or whatever it is. It all comes back to did we communicate it in the various, you know, in the ideal world, face to face and meetings when we're in kind of normal times, if you will. Now, did we send the email, the chat, the Zoom call, the phone

call, whatever. And I think now instead of, you know, it used to be where we were, for those of us that worked in either offices or close to other people, you know, let me just get up and come talk to you, could help close the loop. Yeah, I remember those days. Yeah, when there'd be a communication gap, now it's like, hey, can we jump on a Teams call or a Zoom call, you know, because or just a cell phone call directly. But even that, you know, some folks get stuck on, well, I sent three emails. You're like, well, just call the, you know, close the loop by kind of pushing a little bit more. And I know that that varies by people, but yeah, communications is huge and capacity. Um, um, you know, me personally, and I've seen and learned from others is, is huge to your point. You go for a walk, you stretch, you meditate, you do something. I'm a get up early and exercise kind of guy for a few years now. And when I don't do

it, I feel definitely, I don't have the capacity and sharpness. And after I do usually, of course, I'm tired, but, um, it's worth it.'s worth it because you feel you're just more invigorated. And it's just good for you, right? So you're a little more tired in the evening. So, yeah, there's – I really like – and I looked into this. I think we saw it on Amazon, but it's like the Miracle Morning. Oh, yeah. How Elrod.

Yeah. So that was probably three weeks ago. So I've tried that a few times. It's really neat to kind of pack, you know, those, those different things in, you know, where you do some, um, affirmations and you visualize and you exercise and exercise is one of the key things. I think exercise to me, which is like part of the capacity that you mentioned in whatever fashion it is, whether it's a walk or yoga or lifting weights or whatever, uh, it seems to be on many lists or guidance or whatever for success for dealing with stress for crisis. Like, so it seems to be a common thread and honestly, you know, for us after this past year, I think hopefully is something that more and more people

embrace because it makes our bodies stronger to fend off stuff. You know, in addition to the mental aspect, which for me is as big or bigger physical. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's huge to, to be able to start and, you know, if you went for a walk, you did something hard that morning and then you're in a meeting later that day, the, the day is just easier because you've already made yourself do something hard. And think that's a balance too that that probably and i'm sure you've talked to folks about is some folks um feel like especially now as we're either going to the gym or getting out or doing something folks you know maybe getting more active of you know being nervous

to do it or they're maybe going to be compared to others or be too tired and just being comfortable with like, just take a walk down your driveway and come back. Like that's a start, right? You know, it doesn't have to start with a marathon and that contributing to your capacity. But I think coming back to like how you framed it too, like making time for yourself, it is hard for sure if you're in the middle of caring for a sick family member or friend, child, something like that. But I would imagine you doing that, though, you know, you're glad you did that because it seems like it really does make a difference, even though it's hard to find time sometimes that I feel like we should push ourselves to

find that time. I agree. It's essential, really, that we do push ourselves to find that time. I agree. It's essential, really, that we do push ourselves to find that time. Because if we're constantly in service mode, if we're constantly in giving mode, we burn ourselves out, and then we have other problems to deal with. So burnout does not serve anyone well. So if we really care about making a difference, it's all the more important that we manage our capacity and that we take care of ourselves so that we can continue to serve some of the time as opposed to attempting to serve all of the time and then none of the time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, kind of my previous life in emergency management or other public safety. And sometimes we would see folks that would just try and stay on and it's in business too, but just work constantly and be,

and you know, at some point you hit critical mass anyway, you're, you're not going to make good decisions. You're going to be too tired to be effective. So I think self-managing your daily capacity and then looking, you know, even further is, is, is huge. And I think a big part and tool of that, which I think like crucial conversations, which is challenging is saying no, no, I don't need to be in every meeting for every day of every project or work or whatever, you know, folks up there are doing. Um, is that something that you talk about, you know, choosing what you want to be part of or need to be part of and kind of balancing that out as part of your capacity building. Absolutely. And that also relates to something you said earlier, you're talking about with the communication piece that

we don't want to throw each other under the bus. So I have a different bus metaphor that relates to this, which is making sure that you have the right people on the bus, the community piece. And so if you don't have the right team around you and you're not prepared with that, it is much harder to delegate or to say no or to say, hey, what a growth opportunity for this person who doesn't have so much experience in this area. You start going to those meetings and you will have the opportunity to learn something and represent us. But we have to have people with the right complementary skills to us on our team or in our personal community, too, so that we can handle what comes our way. That's a great perspective that, and I'm glad you mentioned that, is when you build others' capacity on your team and your organization, et cetera, you're really building your own capacity.

Yes. And you're kind of continuity planning, the practical piece, but you really are. And that's a great thing for folks out there, whether they're new leadership or maybe you've been in leadership for a while and you have people of being able to kind of let go, which also is a challenge for folks, right? So that could, I would imagine, lead to some of their personal crises is they just want to hold everything. Yes.

And maybe they're not delegating, like you mentioned, as much as they could or saying, hey, we have these three people covering three areas, but I'm in all of those meetings. Why don't they just cover it and then escalate? And I think the balance is the – and there's probably so many other sayings, too, and I'm sure you have some great ones. You know, trust but verify, where you trust the folks to do the work, but you'll have check-ins with the team. Or they'll have status reports, so they're not just off doing whatever. But you're not having to hover over everybody, which I would imagine just eats up people's capacity like crazy if they're doing that. Yes. And so often we can get into this mode of feeling like everything's just happening to us and at us.

And I feel like part of my role as a crisis navigation partner is to remind people if they seem to forget, you're at choice here. Yes, you can't necessarily make this disease go away or you can't necessarily be the person to put the fire out yourself because we need the firefighters to be involved with that. But you can make choices about how you are going to spend your time while this is going on. And what could be a perfectly reasonable yes, I would say yes to this 364 days out of the year, on the day that the 365th and you're in crisis mode, maybe it's time to say no. So I feel like one of the things that I do in my role with my clients is challenge them and say, is that really necessary, though? Do you actually have to go to that right now, given this thing that's going on? And sometimes people forget just temporarily. They just think

it's on my plate. It's always on my plate. It has to be on my plate. And sometimes my job is to give people little sign permission slips. My permission. Right. Deborah has given you permission to put that one down for right now. I imagine you see that the whole variation, the whole kind of gamut of folks who are like, oh yeah, you're right. And folks that just, do you run into some folks that just won't let go? Yeah. One of the things that I, one of the populations of people that particularly interest me are people who I refer to as hyper-competent, people who are so good at getting things done that it actually can work to their disadvantage. And so I try to help show people what is motivating them when they're functioning as a hyper-competent person. And there's really three underlying motivations that keep people

overdoing it. And sometimes in order to get someone kind of unstuck or to allow themselves to get unstuck when they just feel like, but I have to, I have to, but, but, but, but, but, is to talk about where's the area where you're trying to please other people where's the area that where you secretly feel like you're not quite good enough and you have something to prove and that's why you must keep going where is the area where you feel like you haven't you haven't demonstrated something to somebody and that you're trying to prove something, not just like an actual qualification, but I can handle it. I can take it. So sometimes we get in there at the underlying reason. So I made this quiz that

it's called, are you hyper-confident? And it's on my connect to.com website if anybody wants to go take it it's completely free and it kind of diagnoses you from 10 questions and then it tells you if you're one of these types of hyper competent or if you are highly functioning as a competent person and you've managed things well and for each one it gives you some steps on what you might want to work on next to keep on building that capacity. That's great. And you said connect to with the number two dot com. Actually, it's the name of my business is connect with the number two. But I couldn't get that URL way back when. So all my social media handles and my website is

connect to W.com. Gotcha. Good. Yeah. Good clarification. The other thing, you mentioned a blog post about dealing with chronic illness and the balance of self-care. Is that also on there?

Yeah. My blog is on my website and I just have to like search for it. You can search for oxygen mask or something and I bet it'll come right up. Oh, good. Good. Yeah. That seemed like a neat thing to read. So hopefully folks will go check that out and we'll circle back. Of course, all your connections and stuff, but, um, wanted to, wanted to mention that again. So, so for some of those factors, um, the three keys,

capacity, community, communication skills, um, is great. And then there's another area that you talk about and it's an acronym. I love acronyms coming from, you know, been in government services, acronym, alphabet soup, right? Is success, right? And kind of a breakdown of a focus. And is this part of kind of what if folks can focus on these things that'll help us build kind of our stress hardiness and kind of align things that maybe even contributes to our own capacity as well? So when I think about success, I think about how everyone's definition is different and it changes at different phases of life. You know, what I think of as success, what I thought of as success when I had young children at home is different than

what I thought of as success when I had no children you know I find it differently but you mentioned acronyms are you thinking of success that's an acronym for something that I don't know um I am um yeah I was thinking of um the first where um we we focused on the spouse or significant other. Shoot. Oh, an investment or education, your current income, children, equity ownership, which was, I think, a focus on there and then security and kind of strength or health. Are you thinking about one of my tools about priorities? Oh, OK. I didn't recognize the success acronym acronym i don't think i ever thought of that so that was somebody put it together someone put it together that way and i didn't know cool so yes so think about what your main priorities are at this phase of life and work and factor

that into your definition of success you know for someone who's not married spouse may not be the biggest thing on their list but maybe if they're really want to find a partner, maybe it is high on their list. You really you cannot focus on all of those things at once. You can't focus on 10 things at once. You really can only focus on maybe three, five max. So what's most important to you at this phase of life? Is it like you said, current income? Is it furthering your education? Is it making sure that you have time with particular people? Is it working on your health? And for me, when I was really in the thick of it, having both of my kids having different health needs that really required a lot of attention and advocacy and involvement on my part. What was most important to me was through my work, maintaining the flexibility I needed so that I could drop everything to show up as a parent when I was needed. And for a long time, I just organized all my work around the possibility of the option to have flexibility

if I needed to make a last minute change. And my clients understood if I said, oh, someone's blood sugar alarm is going off and it's been going off for too long and I need to put the phone down or pause the Zoom and go help. People understood. So part of it was surrounding myself with people and the kinds of clients who were willing to value what my priorities were. Yeah, that's a great thing. And yeah, sorry for the surprise question there. But that's a great standpoint of or viewpoint, especially with whether it's a personal crisis professional, which I would imagine there's there's often crossover there of pressure either at home for success or at work for success or lack of or, you know, whatever variation, which there's probably so many of those and then folks sitting down, which I think with this, you know, these folks

did of looking at, you know, what does this look like for me? Is it the next title? Is it more money? Is it that I can have the flexibility in my work to actually be with, you know, my child that needs me to do that or, you know, which is, you know, a successful thing. So it's, it is a great viewpoint to look at that. And, you know, when you're helping folks, have you found people, you know, that work-life balance and the expectation at the office and the expectations at home where they kind of diverge there? Have you found that that happens often with folks that you're working with? Yes, especially in the beginning before we have navigated dealing with that. And a lot of people have ended up changing employers, changing jobs,

changing their business so that they could integrate work and life more. Interestingly, you know, through the pandemic, I think American work culture, at least in professional environments, has changed so much and sped that up, both for better and for worse. But companies that would never before have let people have a work-from-home day, you know, some of them have had no choice but letting people have a work-from-home year. And now that that can work. Yeah, I was going to say now, I mean, some huge companies have shifted completely. They're like, hey, we're going to let you work from home forever, which is pretty amazing, which I guess could, you know, could have its own challenges, too, of, you know, and I don't know if I don't know how the kind of the, you know, ERP system at companies work.

If, you know, someone needs help or there's resources or things like that, you know, where when you're when you're at work, folks can see you more. And through Zoom, you can kind of see people's tiredness and things like that. Have you seen a difference in people reaching out to help navigate crisis like with you in the past year verse when folks, you know, traditional kind of working folks were going to the office or had more exposure even at home, maybe they were working from home or staying at home. Um, but there were just more folks around them to observe them in person versus the, you know, teleconferencing? That's a great question. I'm thinking. So it just so happened that I reorganized, refocused my business and decided to do it in the summer of 2019 and really, you know, got things off the ground in the fall.

So I definitely had this increase in people coming to me in crisis that started in the late fall and really went straight up for the next six months. Part of that was because how I was marketing my business was new and how I was expressing to people who I was was new. And part of it was because the whole world was changing in that same period of time. So it's a little bit hard for me to sort out. I just feel that people who tend to come to me are ones who really feel like, for whatever reason, like I'm on my own out here. I'm in charge of this firm. I run this division at the hospital. I have my own small business. I'm a single parent. Different circumstances where they feel like they have so much responsibility on their shoulders. And there's not someone who will turn to them and say, you know, Kevin, you know, I have to be honest with you.

You look kind of tired. Like when is the last time that you took a break for yourself? Right. People maybe aren't willing to talk to them that way, or maybe they're actually not surrounded by other people and they come to the realization on their own that they need additional support. So I guess I wasn't focusing on this business long enough before the pandemic to know the real answer to your question, but it's an interesting one. No, it's a good reminder. Thanks for that on the timing. And to your point, right, that's another crucial conversation is taking that step to say, huh, I notice maybe you're a little more upset easier these days, you know, on a call or something like that. And actually then reaching out to someone to help them with that, you know, is, is I think a step for all of us. Hopefully we can take more of.

Yeah. Cause we're all, I mean, even though we're on zoom, maybe more than we want to be on zoom and some of our jobs, people are more isolated in so many ways too. And I know that somebody calling me, I don't know about you, but somebody calling me or texting me or Zooming me and saying, hey, how are you? And really meaning it and wanting to know. That's a special treat. And I appreciate it very much. And we cannot overlook the importance of checking in on people especially um i heard this talk uh

and then i think i think it was the fall of 2019 actually where this woman was talking about her own experience but she had a repeating theme in her talk repeating line she kept saying check on your strong friends she had been that strong friend who everybody was used to handling everything but so many things happened layer after layer became too much and people didn't know to check on her they're just like oh michelle she's got this she's always got it and what's especially important that we check on our strong friends and our strong colleagues and the people who we look up to because they may be shouldering even more than is reasonable for them, even though that they are so capable usually. That's a great, great perspective because you're right. Those are

the ones that won't ask for help as much either, right? So, you know, they may be the strongest, they may be leaders of teams, they may not be, they might just be the one that we know they trudge through, but it's a great perspective that in particular, keep them on our radar to check on them and see how they're going. And, you know, with that perspective and, you know, with what we've talked about so far, how can folks go about checking on others? I mean, we talked about kind of phone calls. What are some maybe some some things, too? And I guess maybe I'll kind of switch my question in motion.

You know, as you're helping folks as a crisis navigation partners, you're helping people get through their own crises. What have you found that's helped them get to you? And then, you know, has it been others that have prompted them or themselves realizing it? And then, you know, what have they said that's really kind of helped them the most when someone else did reach out to them? So for me, I have had most of my clients come to me, and this is always true in my 22 years of business, but especially continues to be true in the last year and a half as I've been a crisis navigation partner. Most of my clients come to me either because they were already in my community and something reminds them of me and they reach out to me or they've worked with me in the past and they send somebody else to me so repeat business and word of mouth are the biggies for me so i historically have done a lot of speaking to grow my community and also blogging. I write blog posts and then I send them out to my email newsletter.

And I find that that helps people just kind of remember that I'm out there as someone that they've known in the past. Sure. And that will often get them to reach out to me. So I wrote a blog post last week that was and then emailed out to my email list, that was in part written because one of my clients wrote a letter to someone else advising them. And she had forwarded the letter to me saying a lot of what I put in here came from my work with what I learned from you, Debra. I found it so powerful. And I said, can I share this with my community? Would you be okay with that?

There's just such good messages in here. And there's things in here that I forgot about. And so anyway, that's my most recent blog post on my website, if anyone wants to see it. But I had taught her this tool that I learned a long time ago called the 4 G's. And so that's written about in there. The four G's are good, grateful, glitch and goal.

And so one practice is that every day you take some time to journal for yourself. What's good that's happening right now? What am I grateful for? What's a glitch in my day that's not working so well that I wish was different? And what's my goal? What am I going to do next? We can ask other people all four of those questions or even just one of those questions, just reaching out to somebody and say, hey, how's your day going? What's been good today? Hey, how's your day going? Like what's been today? Hey, how's your day going? Like, what's been a glitch?

What's something that hasn't worked out the way that you were expecting? Hey, what's the goal that you're working on right now? I like those as even, you know, I facilitate meetings a lot. And, you know, at the beginning of a meeting, sometimes it's crickets and everybody's waiting for it to start. And there's maybe not a lot of chit chat. And those are an easy way, you know, when it's you and the other early person or you and chit chat and those are an easy way you know when it's you and the other early person or you and a couple to throw those out there let alone combine them to your point so that's a great thing uh they are even even if you are going to be the one that reaches out to someone to check on them using one of those to ask to start because you know again if

you're you're making that that uncomfortable call because you just you know it is hard to to reach out to someone you know is having a problem and then listen to their problems without trying to jump and solve them. But also because it's – some people's problems are uncomfortable. So folks reaching out to them and then that's a great thing. So what's good that happened or what's a glitch I can help with or Or that's just a great, you know, quick one liner, it seems like to get in there and also a reasonable, you know, you mentioned journaling and like capacity and self-care and meditation things is also, I think, another great best practice that that is really I actually have like three different journals now, one for myself, for jujitsu, which I do, and then for this podcast. And it's great to, to just, you know, write stuff down, especially in the age where we're typing on phones and computers so much, it's, it's neat. The difference of pen to paper instead of.

Yeah. Is that, do you know if it's something that maybe, uh, you know, how science seem getting, but you know, the, the act of writing, why that's so helpful for us verse, if I pulled up like a word document and started typing, do you know the benefit of that? Like what the difference is? Why, why one is, I think more helpful than the other, as far as like writing with a pen and paper. I don't know from a research perspective, but one thing I've learned about over the years through the like therapy i've done and at courses i've done is that this have you ever heard of this left hand versus right hand writing i don't think so no so okay so you take your dominant hand which in my case is my right

hand and i write just everything that's on my mind. It could be writing in the format of the four G's or, you know, this is what's happened to me today or whatever. And then I switch hands to my non-dominant hand and I can ask a question like, what would you have me know? Or what do you wish I knew? Or, you know, how can I make a difference or just ask yourself some other question and when you write with your non-dominant hand you can get what was subconscious to you to become conscious something about writing with your non-dominant hand which is harder it gets your brain to think differently and you can access different parts of yourself that some people refer to as your inner child.

But you can also be to access a different form of creativity. I also have this weird trick that's just reminded me of, I have terrible handwriting. And so I usually prefer to type. But sometimes I handwrite things and then like a journal entry. And so I usually prefer to type. But sometimes I handwrite things, and then like a journal entry, and then later I go back, and then I can't read my own writing.

And the only thing that solves the problem for me is if I turn the page upside down. Oh, wow. Why? But if I look at my handwriting upside down, which I'm telling you is not legible, it spurs something in me where I remember what it was that I was trying to communicate in that moment so handwriting is powerful and just looking at things from a different perspective is powerful that is I had never heard of that before that's interesting I wonder if there's something in your brain where you're like wait that's wrong and then it comes back over and it goes oh that's that's what it is there that's I'm in that I'm on that same page my handwriting is not great which is interesting too having kids going you need to work on your handwriting.

Like, I should sit there and do worksheets with them. So my handwriting gets better, which I know is from typing all the time, but working on kind of getting it legible. But it's especially hard with meeting notes when you're like, what was that? Yeah. You have to go back and get help with your own notes, which is always interesting. I make up new abbreviations all the time while I'm taking notes with handwriting. And then later, I'm like, what is that supposed to mean? No doubt.

With reaching out and contacts, we're coming up on an hour. And I want to make sure we share all the ways folks can contact you. And I think they're great. And we'll share the outline with because I'll also also usually with the episodes, do a blog post and share links. And so we'll have these tools that you've mentioned there. Um, but then certainly, um, connect to, which we talked about, which is connect T W O, um, for the company connect number two, um, with you. So how can folks reach you? They can go to the website. What other contact methods do you have? You mentioned an email. Oh, yep. You can email me at Deborah at connect TWA.com. If you go to my website and you're

interested in the blog, there is a place there where you can sign up to get my, my blog posts emailed to you whenever I write something new, which is sadly not that often these days. So I will hard inbox. But you know, every few months, I write something and send it out. There's also on the homepage, it says something like, join my tribe or schedule a conversation. Anybody can just go to my website and schedule a time to talk with me one-on-one. And I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter.

I'm on LinkedIn. All as ConnectTWO. And lately, I've really been fascinated by Clubhouse. I don't know if you've checked this out, but I'm also on Clubhouse as ConnectTWO. Okay. Yeah, I haven't used Clubhouse. I think I've heard of it, but I'm getting to that point with technology where my kids are going to laugh at me and then they're like, oh, you don't use this or that, the latest thing or whatever. I've got kind of the big one, so to speak.

But yeah, Clubhouse, I'll have to check that out and see what that's like. Thank you so much for giving us some tools, a great talk, learning about you from crisis to calm. What is kind of some, we've talked about some tools and things as we, you know, hopefully are coming out of, you know, out of last year, essentially, and especially the pandemic piece where folks are getting more vaccinated, you know, we're building up immunity. It's hopefully cases dropping and dropping because a crisis is kind of going back to normal too, I think. What are kind of some quick closing actions that folks can take as we get ready maybe to expand our world again into the real world, less of the virtual world, that you kind of give folks as they, you know, leave or as you kind of help get them back out of crisis? What are some tips that you can give the folks that are listening now?

So one of my clients said to me last week, she said, at first, I was really anxious because COVID had started and I needed to learn everything I possibly could about COVID. And so I was reading the news all the time and I was really anxious about being home all the time. And then I was really anxious about politically what was happening in the country. And then I kind of calmed down from that. And then I got really anxious because we're all going to have to go back to work soon and in face to face. And I really related to that. So what's making us anxious has really ebbed and flowed over the past year. One thing that that made me think about is as things open up and we have more opportunities

again, still maintain conscious intention about what your priorities are now at this point and what is most important to you. There's going to be so many things you want to say yes to. Seeing all these people going to these places, just take the time to remember that you're at choice and don't let yourself get overwhelmed by saying yes to everything that sounds good. Continue to parse it through and make really intentional choices. That is one of my recommendations. That's outstanding. Thank you so much, Debra, for taking the time. Let's all make intentional choices.

Thank you all that are listening for intentionally choosing to listen to another great conversation with another really smart person that has really great tips for us to help us navigate crisis. I'm Kevin Pinnell. Please go to peopleprocessprogress.com. From there, similar

to Debra's website at Connect2, there's links to all the social media, People Process Progress, if you put that in Facebook, Instagram, all those places. We can connect. Feel free to connect on LinkedIn. That's another space I think has been great both for the podcast and in general, just meeting so many other people. I think over the past year, my network's expanded quite a bit, which is awesome. I remember, and I'm sure you probably year, my networks expanded quite a bit, which is awesome. I remember, and I'm sure you probably do, when LinkedIn first came out, it was so official, like you couldn't talk about anything except work, work, work, you know, and now it's like, oh, that's one thing I'll take away from, you know, the past year is it's kind of expanded each of our windows into each other's homes more, even though we're disconnected physically.

So LinkedIn as well. But yeah, so feel free to connect with me. I imagine if folks have questions for you, they can connect on LinkedIn as well. And thanks again so much. I really just enjoyed speaking with you. Look forward to keeping in touch. And everyone out there, if you're going through crisis, before you get in crisis, if you know someone in crisis, go to connect2two.com and connect with Debra. And stay safe out there. Wash your hands and Godspeed.