#89 - My secret program to save the world (and you) - Find meaning at work while transforming the world

Hello there, fellow world-changer! Are you feeling like something's not quite right in the world of work? Like maybe you're not finding the meaning, impact, and balance that you crave? I hear you, and I'm here to tell you that you're not alone.

But, my friend, there's hope on the horizon. It's time to wave goodbye to the old way of working that's been leaving us feeling unfulfilled and burnt out. It's time to usher in a new era of work that's better for us, our organizations, and the planet we call home.

In this podcast episode, I share my secret program to save the world (and you!). I'll take you on a journey through the evolution of work and how it's negatively impacting us and the world around us. But, more importantly, I'll share practical tips and strategies that you can use to transform yourself and your organization.

We're in this together, my friend. And I'm here to offer empathy, support, and inspiration to help you make a real difference. So, grab a cup of tea, sit back, and let's explore how we can make the world of work a better, brighter, and more fulfilling place for all. Let's start a movement to change the world, one person, and one organization at a time.

Go to https://www.qileader.com/ for more resources
Go to https://www.qileader.com/events to start a 5-day challenge to slow down your life for more impact
Go to https://www.qileader.com/offers/transform-yourself if you're actually ready to transform and help us tip the balance towards a more meaningful world

How adapted are you to the fast & busy times? Do our 5-min assessment: https://www.qileader.com/content/fast-times-quiz

Go to https://www.qileader.com/ to start your transformation journey as well.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muriellemachiels/

Transcript

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Hello there and welcome in this 89th episode of rebel leader with a heart. Today, I wanted to share a secrets and to talk about my secret programme to save the world and you, in this podcast, I'm going to talk about how the world has changed, what the impact is on you, your organisation and the world, what you can do to still have an impact without the hard work and exhaustion, and then what my secret programme is to save the world. So the world has changed, and especially the world of work. And the biggest change that is happening is the pace of change that has accelerated. And the problem with that is that most of the techniques and habits that we use today, were invented in slow times, but don't work anymore in fast times. So the big difference between slow times and Fast Times is of course, the speed of change, that is generating a lot more opportunities and threats, the fact that tasks are less limited than before. So before for instance, if you would make a brochure you knew when you started it and when it's ended. Today, when you building a website for your product, instead of a brochure, it is unlimited, you can always improve it improve the design, we think about the texts, the customer journey, and so the tasks are less limited than before. Then you also get requests from many more channels than before, not only at work during meetings, but also through emails, chats, WhatsApp linked in, and also from different people. In slow times, the work time was also more limited today, you can work 24/7. And after the pandemic, there was really a shift from working from the office to this hybrid way of working. And for most people, the boundaries between work and their private life has completely disappeared. And so a lot of us don't have any structure anymore. We don't know the difference between a week day and a week evening, between the work day and the weekends. And so that is creating also more work for everyone. And then in slower times, many jobs were simpler. But in Fast Times, all the jobs are interconnected with each other within a company, and also between companies. And so when you want to change something, or to move a project forward, it has become way more complex, because you also have to align with many more people. So the jobs are complex, or you have this 24/7 connection, you get requests for many more channels, and many more people than in slow times, you have less than limited tasks and a high speed of change. And in slow times, we use techniques like looking for competitive advantage, making detailed plans and budgets, organise ourselves around functions are marketing, sales, production, etc. centralised decisions to benefit from economies of scale. And we were very profit driven. And with those techniques, we had some habits that worked very well. So we have been educated to try and deliver everything that is expected of us. And so that means saying yes to things. We're very action oriented when we see an opportunity and a threat. And there are lots of them right now, we want to do something about it. Because we all have so many things to do, we learn to manage our time very well. We work hard, and we have been conditioned for working hard or believe that hard work will lead also to great impact. And we've been educated to be rational and pretty much ego driven, you have to be strong to know things. Those were the habits of slow times. And there was nothing wrong with the techniques and the habits of slow times. But to problem arise when you use these habits and techniques of slow times. In Fast Times. That's when you get too many things to do and the lack of priority. The plans that change all the time. And then because you need to align with all your colleague around every new topic. Well, you haven't finished aligning around one topic that the next one is there and the next one, and so you spend more time in meetings than doing your actual jobs. And that's when you get collaboration issues and silo thinking and then the centralise decisions by the time a decision reached the decision organ, if it ever does that a decision is made and communicated. It has become sometimes a slow or a stupid decision, because things have changed in the meantime, or you have people waiting for decisions that never come. And then this profit driven focus in a world that is being disrupted, which is what we're going through with this hype speed of change. Well, when you are very much focused on short term profit, well, your growth will be slower, and you have a higher risk of being disrupted. And then, with your habits of slow times, where you try to deliver everything to be action oriented, to manage your time to be rational to work hard. Well, you end up working very hard and running a lot for too little impact. You exhaust yourself, you get stressed, you start losing your motivation. We have disengagement in organisations, people start sacrificing important things for them. And at some point, you can even wonder, for the sake of what am I working this hard and running all the time. And that's when you lose your sense of purpose, or when we have the great resignation that we're witnessing. And all that is simply because you're using techniques and habits of slow times in Fast Times. Now, I'd like to come back on the workload, because it's very ironic that with all the technology that is there, out there, all the automation and AI, that helps us win time, we've never worked as hard. And so that is because with these fast times, we have a boost in opportunities and threats, less the limited tasks, so you can work on these tasks, as long as you want. And especially if you're a perfectionist, you can lose a lot of time trying to deliver every task perfectly well, they're not delimited anymore, you have all these requests coming from everywhere, you could work 24/7 And the complexity of jobs have increased. And all that is leading to an explosion of the workload worldwide. Willie, it has become impossible to deliver everything that comes on your plate. But the problem is that you have been educated like Pavlov has trained his dogs to deliver everything of you. So I don't know if you know Pavlov he was a psychologist in the early 20th century. And he trained his dogs with a little bell. Every time he was going to give them food, he would ring a bell, they would salivate and they would get the reward foods. But at some point, he noticed that even when he didn't give food to these dogs, and only rang the bell, they started salivating. And that is the conditioning that was created. The dogs didn't even knew they were salivating. They rang a bell, they were salivating whether they received the food or not. And that is how we conditioned people. And why am I saying this? I'm telling you this because you have been conditioned from a very young age, in school. And then in your career, probably as well in the slow times to deliver every request that was a way to good grades, you have been taught to only relax once work is finished, to control everything, to not make any mistakes. So to be perfect. And if you did all that you were worth it, and you got good grades. On the other hand, if you don't deliver every request, especially in school, if you relax, well work isn't finished. If you're not in control, and if you make mistakes, you are worthless, you suck. You are a bad students. And most of you have unconsciously linked your core identity to delivering to working hard to be imperfect to controlling everything. And so why am I saying that this is unconscious, it's exactly like these dogs that were salivating wants to bellowing and so what happens to you is that if you don't work hard if you don't deliver everything if you make mistakes, if you're not in control of everything. You start feeling being worthless, feeling guilty, that you can't handle things that you're a bad person, you're not good enough. And this happens unconsciously, or your body starts to be very uncomfortable. Because of course, we are not only our mind, we are also our emotions and our body. And so we find ourselves in a catch 22, where on one side, we have an explosion of workloads that is impossible to deliver coming from these fast times from today. And on the other hand, you feel worthless if you don't deliver everything. Or if you pass well, you still have some things on your to do list. And so what do most people do, and what is the impact on you on your organisation and the world of this conditioning on one side, and how the world has evolved on the other side? Well, most of you will then work harder and run faster, you have this feeling that if you do that, then you will get the results that you want and feel better. And also, what happens is that your impact decreases. Because if you're running all the time, if you're working way too hard, you start to exhaust yourself. And with that exhaustion, you start making mistakes, or not being as creative. And so your results decrease, you start losing your motivation, your sense of purpose, some might compensate by drinking to relax a bit by gaming, by scrolling on social media, by buying stuff or binge watching Netflix. You are also a lot of us are not present enough anymore for the people we care about. And when I'm saying not present enough, I'm not only talking about physically, but also mentally you're there. But you don't really pay attention to the needs of your partner or your children or your parents or your loved ones, then you can spend a lot of time in meetings also. Because you start letting life taking over instead of you being in charge of the life that you have. You don't take care of yourself anymore. Because you want to deliver your conditioning is there you want to deliver, you want to work hard, you don't, you can't stop anymore. And so you start sacrificing sleep, exercising, eating healthy. And then what also happens a lot is that you numb yourself to continue delivering. So instead of listening to your body, listening to your emotions, that are telling you that maybe something is wrong, you try to put a lid, a lid on it and not feel anything so that you can continue delivering. And what happens then when you stop feeling when you stop allowing yourself to feel that's also when you tend to overthink things your way too much in your head, your thoughts take over. And sometimes you would even like to have a holiday from your own thoughts. You thinking you're thinking all the time. So that's the impact on you. And when we looked at when we looked in on the world level, what we see in statistics that, for instance, 44% of the workers are in psychological distress, burnouts have increased 100% between 2021. And 2020 19% of sick leave is linked to psychological causes. 44% of the people feel stressed because of their workloads. So just look at yourself, is this something that you recognise in yourself, or in orders, because maybe you have already found a way to deal with that. But you can still see that a lot of people around you are still running all the time. And for what sometimes I like to imagine that aliens are coming on Earth and they're seeing us working all day behind a computer, not even talking or paying attention to each other and running all the time. Well, we have all these beautiful things around us. And they might wonder what a strange population but it also has an impact on organisations because with those habits with those techniques of slow times that you're using and fast times. What happens also is that organisations don't adapt fast enough. And then of course your profit starts to decrease. But unfortunately, this way of working is all So leading to us destroying our planet, because we aren't acting in line with our values with what we truly want, and our actions are not sustainable enough. And so what can you do then to still have an impact without the hard work and the exhaustion. When I was the CEO of an educational publishing company, I was facing all these issues internally within my company. But also for me, personally, Willie, I found myself at some point working very hard at the verge of burning out. And I was wondering, What can I do about that, because I could feel that if I would continue working like this, I would burn out, like a lot of people around me. And unfortunately, people in my organisation were starting to burn out. And I could change jobs. But I noticed that it was pretty much the same everywhere in the organization's, so I decided to find a way to deal with it. And so the first thing I did, because I'm a very rational person, was to implement the techniques of fast times instead of the ones of slow times. So instead of looking for a competitive advantage, I focused on increasing the customers experience by building new business models and new ecosystems. Instead of being profit driven, I started to develop values and a wonderful purpose and profits followed the purpose. Instead of making detailed plans and budgets, I worked in iterations or agile. Instead of being organised around functions, I changed the organisational structure and cross functional teams organised around the customer. And instead of centralising decisions to benefit from economies of scale, we increased empowerment to increase speed in the organisation. And so I know that out there, a lot of organisations are already implementing these techniques. But the problem is that we had even more issues with these techniques at first. And not because those were not the right or the appropriate techniques. But because these techniques will only work with a new culture with a new organisational culture. And culture is the sum of the habits within an organisation. And so my habits that had served me very well in the past that had made me become the CEO of this organisation, we're now standing in the way of the success of the organisation, but also standing in the way of my own happiness, and even health and the happiness and health of my family. And so I had to change my habits. And so when I started this mission of CEO, my revenues were declining, the profits was declining. My shareholders, they had bought us five years ago, so they wanted to sell there were private equity shareholders, only driven by short term profits they wanted to sell so they were not ready to invest anymore in the organisation. And my market was going to be disrupted by digitalization. Emma, the people in my organisation were working really hard and the workload was very high. And so I found myself in that situation, and I felt, how can I solve this? How can I prepare my organisation for the future, while I still have to deliver profit and increase profits immediately? Well, the people are working already very hard. How and we can't invest more, how will I solve this puzzle? And the only thing I could do there was to focus. And focus means saying no to things, but to know what to focus on. I first had to know what I want it, what I wanted for the organisation, what I wanted for my customers, for my markets, and also for myself. And once I knew what I wanted, then that's when I could say yes or no to things. And so, what we wanted is we wanted to improve education for the teachers by decreasing their administrative burden. And by making education more fun and personalised for the pupils. That was Our goal, we wanted to improve education and make it fun again for everyone. But to focus, then I had to look at my portfolio. And I don't know if you know the Pareto rule. But the Pareto rule often says that 80%, or 80% of your revenues are of your profits is often comes often from 20% of your products. And that was approximately the case in my organisation. So I did a whole ABC activity based costing analyses. And I noticed that by stopping 70% of the products and services that we were delivering, it would only cost us 7% of our or not even, it would only cost us a little bit of revenue. But it would free a lot of time for everyone to increase the bigger products that we had. And it's way easier to increase the big products with one or 2% than to double A small product that has nothing yet or almost no revenues yet. And so that was a decision, we were going to stop 70% of the products and the projects that we were working on. But that meant I had to say no, to altars to people where it was their baby, that they had developed the product they had developed felt like their baby, it's meant I had to disappoint customers also. And so because I had to say no, and I have been conditioned to deliver everything that is requested to be perfect to do everything that it comes on my plate, my conditioning kicked in, when I had to say no and disappoint so many people, I had moments where I feel well are felt not good enough worthless, because it's not easy to say no to so many people. And that's when I noticed that when I was stressed. And when I was tired. When I didn't have any energy, it was very difficult to stick to that focus, I wasn't tempted to simply let go and say yes to everyone, it was easier. But by doing that, I would never manage to transform my organisation. And I would end up and everyone in the organisation would end up by working way too much for too little impact. And so managing my energy because became a very important job of me being a leader, because once I had energy, first of all, I could face all the challenges that were coming to me, I could go against my conditioning, learn new skills, learn to say no and stick to it. But for that I had to notice and be aware of what I wanted to be aware that I was going to say yes to somebody instead of saying no, being aware that my energy wasn't that great and that I was never having negative thoughts. And so I had to increase this awareness muscles, being aware of what's what's happening inside of me, that made me sometimes react to some behaviours or some situations instead of respond to it with the intention of reaching the objective that I want it. I also had to be aware of what I wanted, and what we wanted as an organisation. So I really had to develop this awareness. And for all that, for being aware, managing my energy, for saying no more focus being intentional. In a world that is going faster and faster, I had to learn to regularly slow down and pause. And those are the habits of fast times that will lead to getting into this effortless work. And so instead of delivering everything and saying yes to everything, we have to learn to focus by saying no. And Warren Buffett says it's very successful people say no to almost everything. Just look at yourself. How do you feel? When you want to say no, to a boss to a customer, to a project to a colleague? Does your conditioning kicks in? Do you feel guilty? Do you feel like you don't feel good enough? You might not be professional, others might think that you can't handle things. So it's very important instead of delivering everything It's going to be about focus. But for that, instead of being action oriented, you need to be intentional. First, what do you want to achieve? What is the ideal outcome you want from the next meeting, you're stepping in, what is the ideal outcome you want from your life, from your career, from what you're doing with your team and your organisation? being intentional is very, very important. But then instead of managing your time, we have to learn to manage our energy and fears first, because otherwise, there will be a lot of resistance to change, a lot of blaming, a lot of minimising things and not a lot of tackling the wheel challenges that we're facing in this world that is being disrupted. Then instead of being ego driven, strong and rational, we have to learn to be mindset driven and conscious, you have to be aware of what's happening inside of you, your thoughts, your emotions, but also how you see the world because if you don't manage to change your mindset, you won't see the actions that will deliver the results you won't, it's only with a new mindset that you will start seeing how the market is evolving. And then instead of working hard, it is about regularly pausing and slowing down. So those are the habits of Fast Times. And with those habits, you get into effortless work with big consistent impact. But also, you get to have a more meaningful career, and more balance, also in your life. And so if you're still working with the habits of slow times, that means trying to deliver everything say yes, a lot being action oriented, managing your time being very rational, hardworking, ego driven. That is when you will work hard for too little impact. And there was nothing wrong with these habits and slow times. But there is really a problem if you keep using these habits in today's fast times. So instead, you should focus by saying no being intentional, manage your energy and fears. First, manage your mindset, your emotions, your thoughts, being more conscious about what's happening inside of you your habits, and regularly pause and slow down. And so when I started to change like this, when I started to pause and slow down more, that's when I managed to change my habits. And with those new habits, I got into effortless work with a bigger impact, meaning and balance. And that's when my leadership team started to change because the best way to change other people is to change yourself. And so I changed myself and then my management team started to change. And then the whole organisation started to change and a culture shifted. That's how we could implement a new business techniques. That's how we became more performance and agile. And that's how we reached great results. And I'm talking about double digit profit growth, zero burnouts, and 50% less absenteeism. And what is then my secret programme to save the world? Well, in fact, I'm going to offer you what you need to feel better while improving your impact. And so you feel better, your impact increases, it has an impact on your family, on your children, on the loved ones. But at the same time, those habits that help you feel better and better manage in these fast times are the exact same habits that companies need to become agile, performance and impactful. So by changing your habits, the culture starts to shift in your organisation and your organisation adapts way faster to the fast times and you become more present more performance you get better results. So organisations when and when you and your organisation starts to handle from a place of love or values more than out of your unconscious fears, or old fashioned conditionings your actions become more sustainable. And so diversity becomes then something logical. You start focusing on the long term ethics become empowered ortant and sustainability flow out of that state of being. And that is how you change. So I like to offer people what they want. And we all want to still have an impact to still be valued for the work we do. But at the same time, we would like to have more meaning and balance in our lives. But once you have that your organization's shifts, and our planet starts to shift. And for that, we need what I call the magic 25%. Because research has shown that that's the tipping points, once 25% of the people in your organisation start to show these new habits, these new behaviours, that is when you reach the tipping point, that's a big neutral group join these early adopters, and that's when your organisation starts to shift. And when we reach 25% of the organisations, working with this new culture that is way more human and sustainable. That is when all the other ones, join that group. And that's when our planet starts to shift. So that's my secrets programme, to change the world. And so my question to you is, are you in? Are you ready to tip the balance? Do you want to be part of these 25% of early adopters, that will not only feel better increase their impact, but help tip the balance towards a better world and a more agile organisation. And if yes, that is what I teach in my programmes. So in my programmes, you will exactly learn these habits of Fast Times, and The programme is called leading authentically in digital times. And once you have shifted and adopted these new habits, that's also when you can start redesigning your team if you're a team leader. And so you get access to the second programme as well as a bonus that is called leading to empowerment, to redesign your team for these hybrid times. So we help leaders get really into the middle of this impact, knowing what you want and reaching it, meaning knowing what your values are and being aligned with them. And balance, knowing what gives you energy and reaching a positive energy balance in your life. Because once you are in the middle of these three, you get into this flying wheel that leads to effortless work and success. And so if you'd like to start our next course will start on May 22. And you will have access to these modules. And so it's a blended course where you will do part of the things online and part of the things in group with me in Brussels, or if you want to do it 100% online, it's also possible. So you will learn the exact habits that I was talking about. And as a bonus, you will get access to the order course leading to empowerment where you'll also learn how to build an fearless team, an empowered team, and a team that is performance in remote and hybrid times. So part of the course is online self paced, and it is designed to transform busy people. It's not designed to simply give more knowledge. So you will have access to many cases, practices, ebooks, a podcast version, if you're tired of being behind a computer, a community of like minded people, it's based on the latest neuroscience and it works with the mind but also your emotions and your body. Because if we want that shift, it's not possible to have it without being aware of what's happening inside of you. So we start on May 22. That's when you have a kickoff. So like I said, if you're based in Brussels, we will have three life moments in Brussels at Solvay Brussels school because it's a course that is certified by Solvay Brussels school from the University of Brussels, then you will have access to these online modules with sharing moments in between. So you need approximately 30 slots of 30 minutes over a period of four months. But in July, August during the holidays, you only do the self paced modules and it's not that big of an investment because we want you to enjoy your holidays. So people say that This programme is a gift because you become another person at the end. Some of them their empowerment increased within their team. For others, they said, Why did I only learn this 40 Because it would have helped, it would have helped me so much sooner. In my career, for many, and this I get very often, it not only changes your work life and your career, but also your life at home with your partner with your children with your loved ones, you will see that you might have lost your motivation today, or exhaust yourself while doing the course increases your confidence and your motivation. And that's also because you better know what you want, and you also better know how to reach it. It allows you to change fundamentally and to have more impact, with less time needed to reach it. So you get a certificate from Solvay Brussels school. If you do this course, our customers are mainly people in large organisations, but we also have entrepreneurs doing the course at 83%, recommend the course to others. We've already had more than 1000 participants that have gone through the programme. So this programme is not for every leader or every organisation because you have to have this awareness, that culture mindset and leadership needs to fundamentally change. You have to have this willingness to transform yourself. And not only think that others needs to change, you need to transform yourself, you have to be willing to go deep into the latest neuroscience like emotions, the body, you have to be ready to let go of control and trust people and be open for counterintuitive techniques like slowing down, managing your energy centering, and to put your ego aside to challenge the status quo. So this programme, is pretty much different for most programmes that exist because we concentrate at the level of being we want to have a shift in your identity. Once you have that shift in your identity, it has a ripple effect on the actions and behaviours. And that's when you get great results. Most organisations, they do the exact opposite. They are too much focused on results on actions and they forget that we need to change the conditionings and the habits of the people if we want to have success. It's an original format because it combines keynotes sharing and coaching moments, workshops and micro content designed to transform your habits. Because if you're simply inspired by a course a nice workshop, and then you come back at the office, you will fall back into your old habits. That's where this online micro content that you can follow through videos or podcast version if you want to do it while walking outside for instance, that will shift your behaviours. It combines real business challenges with a way of leading that brings more impact meaning and balance. So I hope you will join us and be part of the early adopters that will contribute not only to you feeling better, but to better organisations and to transform also our planets. And that is in fact my mission. My mission is to elevate the consciousness level of the leaders out there of the organisations so that we have a positive impact on people and our planet. So I hope you'll join me in the programme. I would be really happy to see you. You can check everything on our website and don't hesitate to ask me any question. Yeah, you finished another episode of rebel leader with a heart if you want more go to rebel leader with a hard.com For show notes and past episodes. If you love the show, subscribe, leave a review and share it with a friend the more the merrier. Thanks for tuning in and have a great week you rebel leader with a hearts