Having a bird’s eye view across sectors, regions, disciplines and levels of management in my work is amazing. Over the years I have grown to appreciate the passion, commitment and dedication that people show regardless of which sector they work in. It turns out that no sector has a monopoly on passion or commitment. It is also evident that no sector has managed to crack the ever-elusive goal of work life balance. In fact, it is becoming clear that despite all this passion, people’s energy reserves are running at an all-time low. As such and without being an alarmist, this blog is diverting from the accepted approach of talking about what we do and is going to look at how we do it.
 
Regardless of the dedication and our ability to work ‘smarter’, without looking more deeply at how we look after ourselves, we end up running on a wet marble floor, it looks fancy at the start but eventually you’ll slip and fall.
 
But how do we grab hold of something that can be so personally confronting and a minefield of strict regimes, New Year resolutions and battles of will? It makes little sense that self care can be turned into a battle or dogma, after all its self-care. Yet for some reason we can replace beating ourselves up with work, with beating ourselves up about our diet or lifestyle choices. 

Self care, isn't a chore, it's a daily choice, NOT making the choice to self care is what turns life into a chore.  It becomes a leak in the boat, that make it run slower and less able to move through the water. If we can see we have a hole in our boat, we have choices, fix it, patch over it or buy a bigger bilge pump and wonder why we are wasting so much fuel and money on pumps.

For some reason, most of us do the last two. In fact we have gotten so good at patching over things or spending money on 'bilge pumps' our view of what is normal has shifted over time.
 
For example, it is now ‘normal’ to have work emails ping into the home through smart phones, to the point that we never really turn off. It is now ‘normal’ to walk around with a take away coffee cup, in fact not only normal, it is a social ritual. This was not the norm 10 years ago so how does it become normal?
 
The reason these things become ‘normal’ is that we are very clever at finding ways to cope with the next level of stress/distress being presented. We are incredibly skilled at offsetting stress and pressure with supplementary fuels like sugar, alcohol, caffeine, over or under exercising, getting lost in movies/books/TV/ computers or creating energy through emotional drama. 

This approach is the equivalent of patching over the issue or buying a bigger bilge pump. We ending up spending lots of time and money on these things but they never actually plug the whole. In fact, sometimes they add more holes to the bottom of the boat.

What gets tricky is working out if what we are doing if supporting us or masking the issue. Try this exercise, choose one of the supplements you use and imagine if you only used that one all of the time, in fact what if you increased the ‘dose’ to make up for not using the others. How long before your body said ‘something’s not working here’? Would your body still say having that supplement is a good thing?

We seem to have an innate ability to know how much of each supplement to use so as to not trigger a response from our body that might suggest that chosen supplement is not the best for us.  Indeed we are resilient and smart we are able to hide a deeper question  -

“Is how I live/work really normal or is it just something we have gotten used to?”
 
The simplest cross chek we use, is to look around and see how others are doing. If most people have an energy drop in the afternoon, it must be normal, if most people use supplementary fuels, it must be normal. But by using this approach, we can all incrementally keep dropping our vitality and increasing our suppliments.
 
What is societies current sense of normal achieving in terms of vitality and well-being?
 
Since 1980, there has been a fourfold increase in the number of people with diabetes[1]. In fact lifestyle diseases are now the number one cause of death globally[2]. When the number one cause of death gloabbly are preventable lifestyle choices, surely the question needs to be asked, how has this become normal?
 
It seems that we are becoming so good at ‘coping’ that we are masking a broader decline in our well-being.
 
Maybe we need to reset the benchmark for vitality?

• Is it possible to consider getting everything done in a day/week and not rely on caffeine, alcohol or refined sugars etc.? Is it possible to get to the end of the day/week and not want to hide away in a book, screen, bottle of wine or sporting contest?
• Is there a normal level of vitality that we had as children but have long forgotten?

This is not about suggesting a life of abstinence, but rather an honesty about why and how we choose to do what we do. Because without this honesty we progressively and ever so incrementally spiral down into 'new normals' without really clocking the overall change. We can then find ourselves justifying, defending or being critical of any suggestion that life was anything but normal.
 
In recent years, there has been a wonderful mental health campaign called R U Ok day, where people are encouraged to show they care enough to ask people they know if they are okay.

So for this month, take a moment and ask yourself,

• Is your current vitality ‘normal’ or something you have gotten used to?
• Are you  ‘solutions’ and something makes you feel better or do they contribute to a self sustianing vitality?

​If you feel better ask yourself “better compared to what?”


[1]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-07/australia-urged-to-consider-sugar-tax-amid-grim-diabetes-stats/7305804
[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-28/lifestyle-diseases-the-worlds-biggest-killer/2695712

I have been fortunate enough to recently make another trip to the UN in Bangkok. As with my previous trip it is amazing to see people from around the world, working towards cracking some of the tough issues we all face as a global community.
                    
I also noted with interest that the challenges people working with the UN face are no different to others I work with. From organisations to countries the same dynamic is at play … what defines us, divides us.
 
Day to day in all sectors you can see ‘talks breaking down’, not because there is anything overly wrong with the content but because of a ‘personality’ issue. It is endemic that people become invested in a role, job or title and begin to see any change as a threat to that investment … it seems what defines, us divides us.
 
Interestingly enough, this is also seen on a community, national and international level, where people become overly invested in a certain national or cultural identity and the result is either a willingness to ‘tolerate’ others, a desire to change them or an outright protectionist approach… again what defines us, divides us.
 
Throw in a crisis or natural disaster and for the most part, these constructed barriers get dropped and some truly amazing things get achieved. But give us time and space to ‘think’ about it and how we look becomes more important that what we achieve.
 
Looking at this, it seems that the biggest barrier to ‘changing the world’ is changing the mind set of the people. As an engagement practitioner, this phenomenon is intriguing to explore. As a member of the human race, it’s a bit more frightening!

Try this activity… think about how you introduce yourself to others.
 
Now delete any part of that introduction that refers to your social standing, profession, job title, family of origin, marital or family status, culture, hobbies etc … is there anything left?
 
If we allow ourselves to drop the external things we use to define us, it is possible to appreciate the qualities people bring to any situation, regardless of their job, hobby, family role or cultural persuasion.
 
There are people who can bring detail to life, people who can lifting things out of the detail, the fact is both are needed. People who know how to bring truth to a situation and people who can deliver that truth in a way that doesn’t hit others over the head.
 
To get past the barriers created by an externally shaped identity starts with appreciating the quality you and others bring.  It makes sense that you would feel defensive if something you have worked years to achieve is being challenged. Yet if we are appreciating your quality it is somehow less threatening.

For example, if two people are talk about a project and one says “the CEO is not going to like this”.  There is a reasonable chance that they are going to become defensive. Instead, what if the conversation went something like - “You have an amazing ability with detail and I can see the time this have taken, for the CEO sign off on what you're suggesting, we need to put it into language they will understand. Let’s work with Bob, who is great at converting detail into CEO speak.”
 
When people are appreciated for their quality it becomes less threatening to collaborate, as each contribution has a value…and the majority of times, contribution does have a value.
 
The key though is that we can’t expect others to make the first move or expect it to be there when you need it. Appreciation is something we live and also need to apply to ourselves. It is much harder if not impossible to see and appreciate these qualities in others.
 
So what do you appreciate about what you bring?
 

To name the ‘elephant in the room’ is to point out a topic that is obvious to many, but one that people find scary or unwilling to confront.

We are told that robust debate is what helps new ideas to emerge.  The debate approach is encouraged where each side need only point out the flaws in the other side’s arguments. Certainly this is the message our parliamentary system and media model. This approach suggests that it is more important to be clever with words and have a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, and less important to have something valuable to contribute. After all, it takes pressure and friction to make diamonds right!
 
There seems to be a contradiction between the need to debate, argue and ‘win the day’ and the honesty, and at times vulnerability required for deeper insights. We forget that messengers are sensitive; in fact, we rely on their sensitivity to spot the issues that need to be named.
 
The debate approach is laced with the implicit threat that if you want to name the elephant in the room, then ‘prepared to do battle’. Just because the elephant is big, we forget that it is sensitive too.
 
Leaders who encourage the debate approach risk being trapped in the rarefied air where people around you are less willing to be honest.  The result is that many leaders are like the emperor with new clothes, protected by only seeing and hearing the things they want to see and hear, yet blinded by the reality they choose not to see. Dare we suggest that leaders are sensitive too?
 
This prompts the question – with all this sensitivity, why do we promote and perpetuate conversations that shut down the deeper honesty required for meaningful exchange and change?
 
There seems to be a crazy disconnect from knowing we are all imperfect and a defensiveness that seeks to ignore this same fact. If we accept that the way we learn is from people showing us our blind spots, then the fact that someone can see and name an ‘elephant’ should be celebrated and greeted with great inquiry, rather than met with derision or challenge.
 
Could it be that pride has a deeper hold on us than we would care to admit?
 
This is something to ponder on if you have ever felt the urge to shoot, deflect or reject the messenger. The next time you feel this urge, ask yourself “what am I protecting?”
 
But responsibility is not just with the receiver. The reality is as much as we want the emperor to change first, the reality is that change often starts with the person delivering the message. 

The debate paradigm leaves everyone ‘braced for the fight’ and at times messengers lace good ideas with a tone or energy that is designed to get a defensive reaction. When someone hears you say “I’ve got an idea” but they also feel “you’re not going to like this” in your delivery, most of the time they will react to what is felt before they consider the words. 
 
I hear some of you saying, “are we all just delicate flowers and don’t we need to toughen up?”, but I would go the other way and say we ignore people’s sensitivity at our own peril, as it is a window to true insight. The problem is we have misunderstood sensitivity for niceness.
 
Being nice is actually avoiding honesty, being aware of people’s sensitivity not holding back what needs be be said but saying it with care and respect to the person inside. In fact, if we say we care about a person, a project or issue, then holding back  and being nice can be just as abusive as the person who is dismissive of new (or different) ideas.
 
Think about an insight you would like to deliver to someone …
 
1) What if you shared that insight with ZERO attachment to the other person/people liking it, accepting it or even listening? Are you clear about what you are protecting or projecting onto the other person?
 
2) What if you considered if the gap you are asking them to jump is too wide? The steps that are obvious to you, may not be so for the other person. Does it need to be broken down?
 
3) What if you then added a tone that reflected your interest in their wellbeing? (Wellbeing not comfort)
 
How have the message and/or tone changed? Its good, but of course it is not a guarantee of people agreeing with you. People have free will and some are more invested in the world being the way it is. (See #1)
 
Any reaction is essentially saying that the environment is not safe enough for the person you are talking to.  Some of it will come from the receivers’ own life experience, some of it you can control by checking your own level of defensiveness. (See #1)
 
But if you get stuck, then the brave and those who truly care, have found the REAL elephant in the room. It’s not the topic but the change/learning people are scared of. Dare go there and name that, or do we have a vested interest in NOT getting too honest? It’s a crazy concept that we can get too honest.
 
This is not about everyone becoming a psychotherapist but about fostering a greater willingness to learn from each other.
 
Doing battle and debating with our intellect might be stimulating but speaking, sharing and exploring in consideration of each other’s sensitivity can change someone’s life.