Secrets From a Coach - Debbie Green & Laura Thomson's Podcast

270. From Chaos to Calm: Creating Space for What Matters

• Season 22 • Episode 270

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In the second episode of our 4-part Fresh Starts mini-series, we explore how to navigate the setbacks, incidents, challenges and never-ending task lists that can, at times, tip us into overwhelm and reactivity.

We share simple but powerful principles for restoring calm: learning to pause, shrinking your horizon when everything feels too much, and grounding yourself in your body rather than getting swept up in the story and drama of the moment.

Debs offers practical guidance on how managers can help a team member shift from overwhelm to clarity, using a thoughtful 'go-to' question bank. Drawing inspiration from courtrooms - where questions must not lead the witness,  we explore how the same principle can be used for good in leadership conversations, helping others think clearly rather than feel pushed or fixed.

Laura introduces the STEADY framework for creating space for what truly matters; a practical tool for self-regulation that’s equally powerful to share with a colleague or friend who might be spinning out with life's demands. 

A calm, reassuring episode for anyone craving a little more space, steadiness and perspective when life feels loud and the workload is building. 

SPEAKER_00:

Coming up on this week's Secrets from a Coach.

SPEAKER_01:

Calmness starts with interrupting the chaos. So if you can, you're in it sometimes, but if you can just pause, we would talk about being able to stop on purpose. And I know we do that every day, but to consciously breathe, and one of the things that does work is if you just place your hand on your chest and actually take a breath. So it's the conscious effort of, oh, and then Joein, okay, that's fine. I've just interrupted that chaoticness that's surrounding me.

SPEAKER_00:

Secrets from a coach. Thrive and maximise your potential in the evolving workplace. Your weekly podcast with Debbie Green of Wishfish and Laura Thompson Stavely of Phenomenal Training. Devs. Lau, you alright? Yeah. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Alright, thank you. I think out of interest, this topic that we're going to talk about has just been played out before we recorded this, hasn't it, Laura?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it certainly has. There's nothing like having a persistent dialing noise coming from your mobile phone when you've just hit record. Yeah. And uh, and then that moment of, do I ignore it and just keep cracking on? Or is this actually something that demands my attention?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And Debs, we couldn't have planned a better kind of mini setback as we embark on our second in this four-part focus that we called Fresh Start. Where last week's episode was focusing on setting intentions rather than resolutions. Now, I don't know about you, but I have had a number of people message me saying, Yeah, just even seeing that podcast, that episode title, just took them back from uh, you know, just to just uh to recenter because there's just almost something on a good day, it invigorates you that sense of goals and visions. But you might wake up one or two days later just thinking, it's too much.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So um it was really cool. Yeah, because I think like we were saying, weren't we? I know I shared it with our Slimming World because our Slimming World group is a fab group, seven o'clock on a Saturday, amazing group of people that go there, and they were talking, we were talking about goal setting. And I just said, Um, well, actually, funny you say that, Laura and I did our podcast around this fresh start and not setting goals and resolutions, but setting intentions, and you could see the penny drop, and somebody went, Oh my god, that's such a kind way of doing it. So, yeah, so obviously they um they were up for it and it had created a good amount of conversation for sure. What about you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, I've had it's it's been an interesting week. So at the time of recording, we're at the start of the new calendar year, and um, so what that tends to bring is as you see, everyone's starting to wake up and get into new year mode, your inbox suddenly then tips over. And I was speaking to one of my best friends last night who's in um startup mode um and uh uh from a business perspective, and she said that her to-do list was um busting the seams of the A4 bit of paper. She was turning over the page and you know, and writing more. And her only way that she could see through it was just to sit there and do late-night working, just to crack through it. And it was an interesting uh take on well, where's that sweet spot then between being able to handle the chaos that life brings you, the machine of life, but being able to create that calm approach to be able to handle that? So if life is a machine, your body's a temple, what does that then mean? To take practical steps to create space for what matters. So, between us, then we've got some things in our professional network where we can see this is a relevant topic. But Debs, tell us a bit more about why this is really connecting with you on a personal level, this ability to create calm from chaos.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, you know, some of you people listening may already know my mum went into hospital just before Christmas with a mini stroke, and so she's recovering at the moment back home. But the chaos that it causes, it is just mind-blowing. Now we have cares helping her, so but it's that morning, midday, evening, having to plan around what her needs are and what we can do to support her. It's making sense of the chaos because if I didn't stop and think, right, what is the plan and who can I ask to help? I'd just be, I think I'll be flat on the floor by now, Laura. So the ability to sort of take a moment, and I suppose for me it was pausing and going, right, this is what I'm being faced with. It's a lot, as well as working and doing everything that we do. So, how do I come up with a way of working that's going to create a level of calmness and peace? I think Lynn's our colleague always says, when the pressure and stress is on, you've got to up your self-care. And I've definitely done that. So I've been consciously bringing it to the now, breathing, doing meditation, just sitting quietly, really quietly in the mornings, a sort of bringing into the now and just take a breath and go, right, I can do one thing at a time. What's the first thing that's important? And creating that calmness, if you like, out of the chaos that is around me. But to cut through it with peace and calm and tranquility, it takes a lot of me to make that happen. So the pausing, making sure I'm just sort of focusing on the bits, I'm not holding on to everything because I think that would just be madness, and making sure I'm sort of grounding in my body, as we call it. And that was my word from our team day on Monday was grounded. It's made a huge difference this week to be able to be do that and do it well. But I hadn't probably appreciated after our session last week about fresh approach and then the intention, and that's what I've carried through. What's my intention amongst all this chaos to create calm? That's my intention.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And Debs, you know, it's it's uh it's always an inspiration watching you work and being able to get a peek behind the scenes of the sort of realities of it. And I think that's often why people, you know, appreciate when they are on sessions or in workshops, when you know that per the person who's sharing content is doing it from a genuine perspective of I get it, you know, I'd far rather be on a time management course that's delivered by someone who isn't naturally gifted at time management. Because if you've had to consciously learn how to do something and it's not a natural gift or disposition, then you have to really understand the steps to then take. Yeah, which is why we thought um this would be a really good focus to do on well, what are some general principles picked up from the everyday hurly burly of life? And then specifically, what does that mean if you are managing a team formally or informally?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

What does that mean to create some space in your everyday interactions with your team to bring a sense of calmness? And then we'll look at, well, what about ourselves? Because managers are humans too. Or maybe you're not in a management position or you don't define yourself as a manager. So what does that mean to be able to steady yourself, to be able to continue to thrive, even if there are lots of things that are driving and demanding your attention?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, nice. Oh, yes. Shall we explore law?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, let's. I mean, she's only 28. I wish. She's had a she's had a tough paper round.

SPEAKER_01:

Those Saturday morning early jobs don't work, really.

SPEAKER_00:

So um, in all of your experience, professional and personal, um, whether that is insights you've gathered from all the hundreds, thousands of people you've sort of worked with over the years and including yourself, what for you are some general principles that if someone is starting to feel an overwhelm because the capacity is uh outweighed by the demands, what would be some general principles that can really help that we can either use right now, because that might be the headspace we're in, or we can save in our toolkit to either help ourselves or help someone else when the heat is on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, love that. So I've I've tried to do it in three for you, Law, because I know you love threes. So thank you. You're welcome. So my first was I suppose the pause in the moment, the pause in the moment, because calmness starts with interrupting the chaos. So if you can, you're in it sometimes, but if you can just pause, we would talk about being able to stop on purpose. So just stop, take a breath. And I know we do that every day, but to consciously breathe, and one of the things that does work is if you just place your hand on your chest and actually take a breath. So it's the conscious effort of and then doing okay, that's fine. I've just interrupted that chaoticness that's surrounding me, so my brain can take a moment to sort of play catch up, if you like, and then I can be calmer in approaching. So, what's the very next step? And that might happen in a nanosecond, it might happen in a minute, it doesn't matter. But the fact you've calmed it by pausing, and it could be 30 seconds, 60 seconds, it doesn't matter, but that interrupting the calm is what can help stop any chaos, keep going. And the other one is as we said earlier, shrinking the horizon, which is something we do when we try and hold on to everything, it's just too big, there's too much out there. So if we can come to say, okay, ask ourselves a question: what's the one most useful thing I could do right now that would help it? Because that small action brings, if you like, a whole nervous system back into Kilter, so it's not rocky, and it feels safer because we are taking back the control. When we aren't holding on to everything, we're trying to just take one thing that we can do in that moment, and it's asking, you know, what's the very next thing, useful thing that I can do to help me to get through this next moment, five minutes, ten minutes, or something. And as I said earlier, grounding your body, not the story, so not getting caught up in the drama of it or the uh the speed of it, um, or picking up on somebody else's feelings or emotions about it. It's just grounding yourself in it. And we always love that technique where we you know it's the five, four, three, two, one you can do where you go, okay, let me let me name or see five things, name five things that I can actually see around me. You can say three, you know, four things that what can I actually feel. You might have one thing or two things, three things that I can hear around me, two things I might be able to just taste or see. And then the one is, you know, what's my what's what's the smells? Can I smell anything? So the grounding brings us to the now, right in the present moment. And that can really make a difference to ensure that you know we are looking after ourselves through this, and it's just saying it's not about being perfect in that moment, it's just being calm enough to be able to take the next step.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Debs, love that. So the first tip then of your magic three is pause.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and that bit about putting your hand on your chest.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess this is a self-tool, not one that you would do with a team member.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm right, I think no, avoid that doing it with a team. I'm just gonna calm you down, team member, and put your hands on their chest. Do not do that.

SPEAKER_00:

No, this is not the 90s, Debs. It's not. Um, and then shrink horizon. Now, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. So I have discovered over the last couple of years that what helps me deal with what feels like an overwhelming list of things to do is to number them in order. Yeah. So I have I write it all down and then I number them in order. What needs to come first? And I think there's almost it's a little bit, I think it's the same psychology that is like when I do a hit exercise.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Where the countdown's gonna go for 40 seconds, like it or not, once you start, you might as well keep going to the 40th second. Um, because there's almost a familiarity of counting. Yeah. And I have found that it's one of my little things that just helps me to be able to stay on top of stuff. And I don't mean the stuff that is unplanned, I mean when there are things that uh need to be done, and you know, you've just got a list that you're compiling. So it's been quite interesting how there must have been something from school or just the years that we've spent putting things in a numerical order, is almost quite soothing and comforting because once you get going, you know you're gonna keep going as well. Yeah. Do you know? I remember there was a parenting handbook and it was called the magic power of the five-second countdown. Oh, okay. So it was something around if you've got a toddler that is not doing what you need that toddler to do, yeah, to then give the countdown of okay, that needs to be done, we're gonna start counting five, four, yeah. Just the the magic power of this five-second countdown. So um, yeah, maybe it's just the issue of that. I think it is. You know, if you were right from the start as a kid, if you were taught that is the order of what you do, or you need to get this thing done in a certain amount of time, yeah. There's almost like this kind of reassuring familiarity of actually if there's an overwhelming, chaotic list of things to do, yeah, put them in a numerical order. You've been there before, it's a familiar pattern, so you know you can do it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's such a good point. I never thought about that. And you just made me think of other people do an A, B, C list. And I'm thinking how you because that's how you're taught, isn't it? The out the alphabet, you they don't start teaching you it from M, they start teaching you it from A. So we automatically fall into that rhythm of A, B, C, D. And people can use your numbering in the same way, and they they might put a number, a letter against it. So, yeah, it probably is ingrained within us. You know, get that done in three seconds, you know, count down to three. If it's not done, three, two, one, and then then what? Umbreak those. Yeah, literally chaos ensues, but um, I suppose, yeah, we do. We pass that on to yeah, if we got children or those who've been around children, or you know, that's why you see some people using an ABC list, yeah, because it's that's how we've learned, I suppose. Good point. I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Because the comfort is you absolutely know that after you've got one, two, three, there's gonna be a four and there's gonna be a five. So it almost weird, yes, it always enables you to feel safe because you know what's coming next. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, yeah, that's very true. Rather than go, and that's when chaos ensues when you go from A to Z to D to J, that's when chaos is because there's no order to it. And we like order, don't we? Yeah, clarity.

SPEAKER_00:

So what's um I I just think that's interesting. Um, just even using your own sort of like life as a bit of a a kind of a reference, but let's say you've ordered your list and you've got your A to D or whatever, or your one to five, and then your your car tire blows out on a pothole. And there could be all sorts of life equivalents of you know, a tire blows out. Yeah. So yeah, I I I just think it'd be really useful just to end this this this first bit on when the shit hits the fan and you suddenly realize you've run out of numbers and letters. Um, what are some practical things that can help in that moment?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's asking, stopping recognizing it and just asking yourself the question as to say, right, right now, what would be calm enough look like? So what would I need to do? So what would calm enough look like for me in this moment? Because if I'm losing my head because I come in screaming at my bloody car, it's not the car's fault, it's not you. Um, so it's it's that right now and saying a question to yourself, right now, what would calm enough look like for me? That's the pause moment, which you can then go, well, actually, it would be finding a garage, you know. So that again, you've created your first step. So that means I'm back to that safety of knowing what I can do next to help, um, rather than running around like a headless chicken and not knowing what to do because we're caught up in the chaos of it on the seriously moment. Um, so we just need to calm that down. Brilliant. But don't have anybody say to you, you're right, love, calm down, it'll be all right. And you want to punch their lights out. That's not what we're saying. Say it to yourself. What would be calm enough look like for me, not the person? I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

And if we take that then into the workplace, yeah, just think what benefit does that bring if you're surrounded by people that are able to have the impulse control to not mask and pretend everything all right that it's not, but to be able to manage that excess energy in that moment to shift from chaos to calm. So I'd love to get your thoughts, Debs, on what are some practical steps that a manager can do to create a shift from chaos to calm in the ways of working within their team. Cool. So, how does a manager do it? We know that the only person we can control in the whole wide world is ourself. Yes. So we can't force people to be calm. In fact, that might be the ultimate trigger conversation. Yes. But what are some things that could practically help if you're line managing formally or informally a team of people around you or a project, you need to get stuff done, but there's just lots of chaos all around. What are some simple things that can help?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my god, there's quite a few. I think the first one for any manager or seeing chaos around you is to remind yourself actually, I don't need to fix this. I just need to listen and create the space to it, be able to explore. So if that's all that's all you're there to do, is just listen and create that calm space around you. And it's about being able to I suppose reduce the overwhelm that you might be seeing in somebody. It's maybe how do I best support them in that moment? What clarity do they need? How do I bring them again back to grounding and in the present moment? And how do you sort of finish it off with a close, a calm close, so to speak, as to what's the next step going to be for? So, as managers, I think we can really help people by creating that safe calm and safety by asking if people are in a chaotic mood. You know, that check-in can really help just calm everything down. Because we carry it with us. If we've gone back to back to back-to-back meeting and we've got loads of stuff flying in, we fly in, fly out, and and that's not healthy for anybody. So asking questions like, you know, how are you arriving? Which is what we're how are you arriving today? Or you could ask them to sort of explore with you on a scale of you know, of calm to stretched, where are you today? So all these little things to help. And I love the question. What would help you feel a little bit lighter today? So by asking those questions again, automatically just brings you down rather than keep you on a high, and you have to stop and think about your response to them, which again creates more calmness within the body. We're enabling our brain to flood with whatever chemical it is so that we can start thinking rather than just be reacting in that moment. So that's something we can do, creating the calm and the safety. Managers can also do the reducing the overwhelm. So again, finding out what's going on for your team, obviously. Hopefully, you know what's going on for them. But if there's asking them, well, you know, what is really distracting you or is really what noisy, too noisy for you at the moment, and then what is the one thing that would make the biggest difference to you this week or today? And again, asking questions of your team enables them to sort of again stop and think and come back with a response. And if you've listened, you can then, if you're you're a good manager leader, um, you will ask them so what can be simplified right now for you? It's more, it's definitely from that coaching space where you're getting them to come up with the answers because we can. We all have the answers within us. We're not wanting you to fix us, you know. I don't necessarily want you to fix what's going on, the chaos with my mum, but by by you asking questions about it, it makes me stop and think, yeah, what is what's within my gift to be able to do something with that? Because you created the space for me to just, you know, go there, really, which in yeah, which I think is really key, is that you create the space.

SPEAKER_00:

Debs, I've just had a thought which I don't know if I've joined the dots up before. Just listening to you sharing the phenomenal power and influence that the right question can have to steer and course-correct someone's thinking pattern. I know asking questions is hugely important in the the uh the practice of of being a coach. And what it reminded me of, because I love it when you can flip things and see the sort of opposite. I don't know how familiar you are with the Elizabeth Loftus work around eyewitness testimony. Oh, okay. Go on. And it was used as evidence around how the questioning that happens in a um a court case.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you're not allowed to lead or steer by the questions that you ask because the human memory is vulnerable to revise what it's recalled by the questions that someone is asked afterwards. Oh the experiment was this. Everyone had to watch a um footage of a car crashing into another car. Right. And um they watched it first of all, and then they were asked um to estimate what was the speed of the car that was moving, and they had to estimate it.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Then what they looked at, so that was the initial memory, then that people were asked a day, two, three days after, um, to recall how how fast was the car going, but they looked at if we adjust and manipulate the wording, how does that then adjust and basically interfere with the memory? So people that were asked how fast was the speeding car travelling when it smashed into the obstacle. Right, they tended to up the miles per hour that they'd given just after having watched it. So eyewitness testimony became this thing about how human memory is notoriously fragile in that it can be manipulated afterwards by the questions that is asked. So if we know that is true in terms of your version of the truth, then it must be opposite. If I'm sitting there in front of someone, as you're saying, who's stressed and overwhelmed, and I ask, what's the gift you can give yourself, or what would help you from a calm perspective, yeah, I'm putting into your mindset, I'm interfering with it, the fact that there are things that you can do, yes, and it's in the pursuit of calm. So it just I've never really joined the dots up before about how actually, in the world of you know, eyewitness testimony and making sure you don't interfere with witnesses, you've got to be really pristine in the questions that you asked. So a lawyer would get challenged if they were asking questions that were seen to interfere with that memory. But we can we can sort of use that evidence for good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it? I've never no, I've not heard of that, but that is fascinating because it is just that, isn't it? The language we use can you know can prompt somebody to think differently. So again, being mindful of that. That is fascinating.

SPEAKER_00:

And let's shift that back into the prompt questions that you were saying from a manager point of view. If I've come into that one-to-one with you and I'm thinking I've got 70 things going round in my head at the moment, and you ask me that question of, well, what's the main thing that needs to be uh, you know, that's important to achieve this week? I'm now thinking, okay, actually, it's only about 40. Yes, that's a good idea. Which I guess is sales. I mean, in sales, if yeah, now if a customer gives you an objection, then you ask the question, well, what would help with that, rather than tell me all the reasons why you hate it. You would ask, Well, what's the one thing you do like? So you you re-steer that conversation. So I love those prompt questions, Deb.

SPEAKER_01:

Fascinating, is it? Because I suppose then what you're doing is you're starting to build some clarity for that individual and self and support because you know you're not trying to fix them in that moment, you're giving them that space. And I think also being creating clarity sometimes for people can help initially. So I think one of the things that I always loved, I had a manager that this did this all the time. She was amazing. She would say, So, what support do you need from me right now? It was my choice to ask for help and support, not her telling me what she could do for me. And I used to love that question, and I have used it since. So, what what would support would be most useful for you right now from me? And then again, you choose what how you want me to help you. Um, and then asking around where do you feel clear, where do you feel stuck, again, getting people to explore it, which is what we're looking for, because exploration is really important around this. Um, and again, that good old-fashioned one, what do you need more of? What do you need less of? So that creating the support to ask that and clarity around next steps, yeah. I think that can really make a difference to be able to hold the space to explore it for a moment. And we're not talking hours of conversation, Law. This could be done in like two minutes, um, but it could be enough to say, and that's sometimes we as coaches don't get dragged into the story because you know, ultimately we want to help, we want to fix, blah, blah, blah. But that's not our role, and it's not what we do well. So we have to go listen, and then you go, okay, so what would you like to do with that? And that's it. That might be the only question you ever asked. And I love the so what question. So what do you want to do now? I'm not getting involved in the drama or the story of it or the historic, you know, his hysterics of it, or the chaos. Just calmly ask, so what would you like to do with that next? It's enough to get them to go, uh, yeah, like you said, well, I've only got 40 really, rather than 70. And then they talk it out themselves, which is fascinating to watch. Because what you've done in that moment is you've grounded them and you've brought them into the present moment, right in the now. And it's asking again, what has helped you reset when things have felt full on in the past? So again, you're asking them to go back to find out what has helped them. So you're bringing that into the present, knowing that that's what could help them now. And then again, what's one thing you can do this week? Or what's one thing you can do right now that's going to protect your energy to create a calmness? So again, it's bringing them right down into the present moment and the close, yeah, closing people calmly, it's just that next step. So, as coaches, we always turn it, it's always action-focused. There's always a solution that comes out of a coach, a good coaching conversation. If there is no action, it's just being a nice conversation, it's been a nice chat, and that's the difference between getting somebody to own it to make their own step, um, keeping them safe, obviously, and then just say, you know, what what would good enough look like for you right now? Yeah, what can you do? How can you do that? When might you do it? And then off you go. So it's that what again asking them what what is it? What's their next step here?

SPEAKER_00:

What I think is just awesome is taking from the the profession of coaching, which has grown massive over the last 20, 20 odd years. And you're one of the OGs, Deb, so you know you've seen various sort of fashion coaching fashions come and go, but I cannot think of a single um line manager or leader job advert that isn't going to be asking for a coaching approach to be able to unlock potential in people because that act of one person listening to another is already kind of calm, calm and in its own right. So I think that's that's a real um opportunity to just refresh our coaching toolkit. And let's now end on what does that mean for us on an individual point of view? Because managers are people too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, they are.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh, for anyone here who doesn't identify as a manager, what does that mean in terms of being able to steady yourself and shift from chaos to calm?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I like that, Law.

SPEAKER_00:

Guess what, Debs?

SPEAKER_01:

Go on, what have you done, Law?

SPEAKER_00:

I've got 49 and a half steps to creating a steady mindset.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you sure we need that many, Law?

SPEAKER_00:

Only joking. So we've got one, two, three, four, five, six steps. Okay. And already, you see, we're a bit more motivated to think about those six steps because practicing Robert Chialdini's art of presuasion, keeping a center perspective can just help refocus ourselves. So if you've got 40 things to do, well, that's better than 50.

SPEAKER_01:

That's true.

SPEAKER_00:

And again, I'm not advocating for toxic cheer yourself up, even though you're weeping and time. No, no, no, no, no. Um, cheer up might never happen. Well, it just has actually. It has happened. Yeah, back off, yeah. So these six steps handily, guess what? They spell the word steady. So this is riffing on the things we've already discussed. So this is a nice little summary before we get into our call to action and share the secret. Number one, stop. I'll stop, Lord. Whoa, when everything is spiraling out, just stop. Whether that is physically stopping in your tracks, whether it is physically moving your hands on the keyboard or your thumbs from the screen or your eyes from whatever you're looking at, stop. The second T is talk it out or think it through. So depending on whether you need to get those thoughts out of your head to just tumble them out to get headspace, whether you need to think that through to be able to get some clarity. And if you're working alongside someone else in that moment, signposting it as you are a real advocate. So if you're about to work with the world's deepest introvert and you go to them and say, I just need to clear my head for a moment, it's making it really clear if you're the world's biggest extrovert, that these thoughts aren't necessarily decisions. No, very important.

SPEAKER_01:

This is just your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00:

No, just because you're saying it out loud doesn't necessarily mean this is a formal briefing. This is a way of getting clarity, being able to talk it out or think it through. And that's where the wonderful world of individual differences means that you know we can be the yin to the yang, but it's understanding. The E of steady stands for explore what's going on and those amazing questions you shared earlier from managers, that can be self-management questions as well. And then the A, I think, is a big one is to accept not everything can be done by you right now, and that's okay, because you're not a machine, and even machines need to have their batteries recharged.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And speaking as the former head of training for Anne Summers, there's a big market in that as well. So then D stands for deciding. Okay, decide. Okay. For decide. So what is the most important thing? What is the next step I can take? Again, riffing on those coaching questions, and the why stands for you matter. So acknowledge what you have done already, not what's it kind of next on the things to do. So that's your sixth part. Oh, I like that for keeping steady, stop, talk or think, explore, accept, decide, you matter in that moment to be able to create the space for what matters, which is looking after you. Because if you're not alright, none of this stuff on your to-do list is gonna get done anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

No, definitely. Oh my god, I love that steady. So we had fresh, which law, and then that was last week, and then steady this week. I'm looking forward to what's coming next week. But I love that. We have to come up with you'll have to come up with it. But yeah, I think that just I'll just put that on the to-do list, Deb. Yeah, on the number 94. But I think um, yeah, I think that's really cool, and I think that links into the call to action is for me, is to just take that breath if you can feel because you feel it and you feel like your brain's rushing, you're rushing, everything else. So that stop, as you said in the beginning of steady, stop, um, just to take the time to just breathe and then head into whatever it is you're through those, you know, talk, think it through, explore it, accept it, decide. You make the decision as to what you're gonna do next. I think it's perfect. So I think my call to action was yeah, how are you gonna use steady over the next few weeks and months that are gonna create a sense of calmness rather than chaos around you? Love it.

SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic wrap-up. Thank you, coach. Um, okay, so my share the secret. Who do you know in your work or personal life who you think would find this a reassuring, light-hearted listen? Because sometimes the stuff that can overwhelm us is when we feel like we're the only one going through it. And um and the irony is, of course, is the busier you are, the less appetite you have to connect and catch up with others. So if you found this an interesting listen, all in the pursuit of helping us thrive and maximize our performance in this ever-evolving world of work. We're five and a half years in, and who knows what is waiting for us over the next three to four years, but it's probably going to involve things on your to-do list. Definitely that capacity to be able to shift from chaos to calm is a useful skill, not only to role model as parents and friends and partners, you know, to our personal networks, but in our professional networks as well.

SPEAKER_01:

So I've loved it. I mean, it's been good. I really feel I feel very grounded again, and like I can do what's on my list today and I can prioritize it. I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I love those questions. Thank you so much. Just a really useful refresher of these things. And then this is the thing, Debs, all this stuff is common sense, but it's common practice and putting it into your sort of habits and routines, which is why next week, which is our third in our four-part focus, looking at fresh start, is um, how do we create that life work balance that we want? And uh, just as a teaser, Debs, I can't tell you the amount of times that I've gently shifted someone from saying, you know, I want to have a good work-life balance, and I say, ooh, I say, Well, my work wife Debs, she's on a mission to change the ordering of that word, yes, that phrase, so it's life work balance. So more of which we'll cover at the next episode.

SPEAKER_01:

Looking forward to that one as well, Law. But in the meantime, have a great rest of the week.

SPEAKER_00:

You two devs, keep steady, sister. Love you.

SPEAKER_01:

I will do. Love you too. Bye.

SPEAKER_00:

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