Courage, Resilience, and Leadership in the Most Male Dominated Organization in the World with Shannon Polson, Writer Researcher, Speaker

✅ Navigating Challenge with GRIT: A Conversation with Shannon Huffman Polson

🎧 Join us on this enriching journey and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments! 💬

Key Highlights: 📌
🔗 Embracing Your Narrative: The power of owning your story and its impact on personal growth and resilience.
🧠 Building Resilience Through Grit: How grit and adaptability are essential for overcoming adversity, particularly in male-dominated environments.
🌱 Active Listening as Leadership: The crucial role of active listening in fostering team inclusivity and understanding.
🔎 Breaking Goals into Steps: The strategy of deconstructing big goals into manageable tasks for steady progress and reduced anxiety.

In this installment of the Anxiety at Work podcast, we welcome Shannon Huffman Polson, a trailblazer as one of the first female Apache helicopter pilots in the US Army. Shannon discusses her remarkable journey and shares insights from her book "The Grit Factor," highlighting the significance of owning one's story, cultivating resilience, and the essence of leadership in times of change. Her experiences reveal the importance of courage, compassion, and commitment to oneself and in nurturing teams.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Anxiety at Work podcast. I'm Chester Elton and this is my co-author and dear friend, Adrian Gostick. We hope the time you're going to spend with us will help remove the stigma of anxiety and mental health in the workplace and your personal life. We invite experts from the world of work and life to give us ideas and most importantly tools to deal with anxiety. Our guest today is Shannon Huffman-Poulson, founder of the GRIT Institute and one of the first women to fly Apache helicopters for the U.S. Army as a captain and pilot. Shannon earned her MBA at Dartmouth and worked in the corporate jungle for several years, including a stint at Microsoft, before writing some successful books, including The Grit Factor, of which I have a signed copy, that just came out in September 2020 with the Harvard Business Review Press. Her organization, The Grit Institute, trains leaders in skills critical for individual and team success, focusing on courage, compassion, and commitment, with an emphasis on grit and leadership in times of challenge and change, which we are clearly in. First and foremost, Shana, thank you so much for your service in the military and to our country and welcome to our Humble Podcast. Thank you, Chester. Thank you, Adrian. It's great to be with you. Oh, it is so great to have you on the show. You know, we were really excited to talk to you. In your career, you've worked in some male-dominated workplaces. You know, you've worked in the U.S. Army, flying. You've worked in medical devices, Microsoft, technology. So we really would value your opinion on, you know, for women and for others who are trying to build their resilience, their grit, but may find themselves in maybe an old-school environment. environment? Adrienne, that's such a good question and it's certainly a multifaceted answer. It's really the reason that I ended up writing The Grit Factor was because of a young lieutenant reaching out and asking me to mentor her as she began that same journey in that same environment. And I thought about how it was I could possibly bring to bear more than just my own experience. And so I began these several years of interviews of leaders in the vanguards of their fields that happen to be women, they happen to be military, but they're general officers across the services and aviators from World War II to the present and many more. And you know the place that the Grit Factor starts with Chapter One and I think we'll probably get into this a little bit more in just a bit, but it's about owning your own story. And in an environment which may be feeding you many different stories about who other people think you are or how things need to be done. Owning your own story and recognizing that you have both the opportunity and the responsibility to own that story is really critical to being able to move forward successfully. Yeah, you know, it is interesting, you know, the subtitle of your book, Courage, Resilience, and Leadership in the most male-dominated organization in the world, clearly the US military. You know, it's interesting, in our book, Anxiety at Work, we talk about the US Army and how they've decided to train soldiers and even family members, right, in resilience training. So why is grit and resilience so important, not only to those that may go to war, also to their families, and really to everybody in business as well? Yeah, I mean, the last couple of years have certainly been a perfect example of how things can go sideways in many, many different ways and in ways that we simply don't expect. And part of anxiety, and I know that you explore this as well, is things going in a way that you didn't expect and maybe in a way that you'd never anticipated, and that does cause anxiety. So training and grit and resilience, in part, adaptability ends up being really kind of the keynote chapter of, or the keystone chapter of the grit factor, because that really allows you to be creative in solutions, but grit and resilience are critical because things are tough, right? Life is tough, life happens, challenges at work happen, and again, if we have learned nothing else this last couple of years, it's that grit and resilience are key to being able to push through and to push through successfully. I want to come back to this idea of you've got to own your story. So can you talk about the process for yourself and then what we can learn about it for ourself? What does it mean for me to know my story? Yeah, Adrian, that's such a good question. And what I have really enjoyed, and these conversations haven't quite caught fire in the way that they should, but certainly there have been some conversations about how the MFA should be the new MBA, right? Like we really need to be creative, we need to be in touch with story, both our own and others, and I think that's a absolutely critical component of business and part of what I work with clients on is a more creative approach to solving problems and to pushing through challenges. So knowing our own story, I give an exercise at the end of chapter one to do this and it's several different steps. But one of them starts with just simply writing down your journey line. And that's drawing out a lifeline, it's writing down those events that are positive and negative in your life and those are purely up to your own judgment. And then going back and looking at each one of those points and saying, what did I learn from this? What did I learn about myself? Maybe it was a strength, maybe it was a weakness, maybe it was a success, maybe it was a terrible failure. But what did I learn from these specific points of inflection? And then you go back through a third time and say what are the values that come out of these inflection points and the learning that came from those inflection points? What values do those represent? They might be something that you are rejecting and it might be something that you're really wanting to continue to integrate more completely in your life. But whatever it is, it's doing that third level analysis. And then finally we go back again and say, where do those values cluster? What are our core values in our lives? And again, these are things that other people will give you if you don't decide what your story is for yourself. And so that's why it's so important to do that work regularly. Say, hey, what does my life represent? What do I want it to represent? Take that raw material and form it in the direction that allows us to contribute in the most meaningful way. You know, that is so interesting. I don't think I've ever thought of my life in a timeline as to the inflection points and what did I learn. I remember the inflection points. Do you find when people do this exercise, they tend to focus more on the negative than the positive, as far as inflection points go? Yes, there is a tendency for that, for sure. And certainly like a larger life event, like marriage or college or graduate school or children, those all have positive and negative. So you sort of have to be a bit more, define it a bit more. But yes, there is a tendency because we are anxious, as I know we're about to talk about, to focus a bit more on the negative. And it is important to do both and to recognize that those negative experiences or those failures offer us learnings that sometimes are deeper than the positive experiences. So there could be real gifts in those that we can take away. Again, I don't believe in saying that, you know, it's good that something bad happened, but you can say, what did I learn from that? If I failed, what did I learn? How do I do better the next time and make that something that becomes a learning point? Interesting, I think I can speak for both myself and Adrian that our marriages were positive inflection points for us. No, that's not always the case. We're both very lucky in that sense. Hey, for sure. There's challenges too though, right? And we all learn through those as well. And yeah. Yeah, I think my wife would say there are more challenges. Getting back to to anxiety, it really is interesting. Obviously the focus of this podcast is anxiety at work and helping people manage their mental health and anxiety while they're building their careers, progressing professionally. What advice can you give to people who are struggling with their anxiety and may even be hiding it at work? What advice would you give them? Yeah, I always start with going back to owning your story. Right, and it's reconnecting to the basics. It's backing up and taking time out to invest in yourself to go back and connect to the basics. And this goes a bit to the concept of agency. And I think feeling a lack of agency, which is sometimes what change and challenge will force upon us, feeling that lack of agency is very anxiety producing. So realizing those places where you do have agency, for example, going back to focus on your story, connecting to those core values, connecting to the people that are important to you is really the number one thing. We'll talk, I think, a bit more about this in just a moment, but it's also about breaking down larger goals, whatever those might be, staying employed at this point, right, or just keeping the business afloat, into smaller, achievable pieces that you can celebrate every week. Again, this goes back to saying, what agency do I have? What opportunity do I have to have control over even a small piece of what it is that I'm doing? And then hold on to that and celebrate it every week, every week, so then you have both, you're connected to those things that matter the most and you've broken things down into smaller pieces where you can truly celebrate that and recognize that you've made one small step forward, the next week you'll make another small step forward. And so I think those two pieces are where I would certainly start. But then the last part of that question was, may even be hiding it at work. I think that's an important thing to start to talk about and say, hey, this is making me anxious or I'm feeling concerned about something. And being willing to share that, depending on what your role is and who it is that you're sharing it with, I think that matters as well. But being honest and transparent because that allows that conversation to come up and others to feel supported in the places that they're feeling anxiety as well. Well, I love what you're saying there. I mean, there was a lot to unpack in that, I especially jumped to the idea of breaking down things into smaller pieces. When you think about the big achievements you've had in your life, whether from here writing a book or learning how to fly. It's a big elephant to eat. And so you have to find ways to break things into smaller pieces as you move forward. And I love one of your concepts in your book where you talk about turning the nose to face the wind. I imagine, you know, there's an aeronautical idea along with that, not our literal noses. So explain how you learned that and then how that can help all of us. Yeah, Adrian, I'm glad that you asked that because it's really my favorite metaphor and it's so applicable to every part of our work and our personal lives. And I'll usually bring you out onto the tarmac. You know, the very first time that I walked out on the tarmac towards the Apache helicopter that I was going to fly, it's a winter morning in Alabama. I have my flight suit and flight jacket zipped up against the cold, but the shivers that are going up and down my back have nothing to do with the temperature. Because I walk out on that tarmac and see this aircraft crouching there, looking like an enormous praying mantis, right? There's three different sight systems on the nose that see in day and night in adverse conditions, and any combination of the 2.75 inch folding fin aerial rocket and the Hellfire missile that can be hung on the wings. There's just a tandem seated configuration for only two pilots, but this is this, you know, the aircraft is 58 feet long. It's 12 feet high, it's 18 feet across, it's powered by two 1850 horsepower jet engines. And I walk out on that tarmac and look at that aircraft and I think, who am I to fly this thing? I mean, I was an English major in college. And right there on the tarmac in that moment, I have to decide to take control of my own narrative. I have to decide to own my own story. And so I get in that cockpit, we prep the engines, we spin up the rotor blades, we taxi out towards takeoff. And I love to ask audiences this in person and ask them, I raise my hand, say, hey, okay, raise your hand, tell me which way you take off in the Apache helicopter. And people will say up. And of course that is the end goal, right, is to get into the sky. I say in the Apache, like in any other aircraft, you turn the nose to face the wind. And when you use it the right way, that resistance will help you to rise. You have to face the challenges that we face head on, it causes more anxiety to try to take them sideways or not to face them at all. Right, if you turn away from a problem, a tailwind on landing is a real problem. I take off as well, it's potentially incredibly hazardous. So you've got to turn to face the wind and then that resistance will help you into the air. That is the best description of nose to the wind I have ever heard. I've heard those stories before. I love what you said there when you said, the resistance helps us rise. Because so often I think particularly in life and in business, we do everything we can to avoid that resistance, right? Yes. Yeah. Hey, in The Good Factory you talk about being yourself and yet also being adaptable. So how do those ideas work together in building stronger mental health? You say, own your story and yet be adaptable. So how does that work together to build better mental health? Yeah, one of the things that comes out in all of the stories and the lessons learned and then the supporting research of the leaders of the Grip Factor, and certainly in my own experience, more by failure than by success, is that sustainable leadership means that you have to be authentic to who you are. And that means you've done the work to understand your story, to understand those core values, to connect to heart purpose. You've done that work and you stay connected to those core values that are uniquely yours. Agnostic of the situation or the challenge or the business, those are uniquely yours. And to be authentic to who you are, you've got to remain connected to them. You can't allow yourself to compromise in that area. At the same time, every culture is different. And when you take on a new role, or you take a promotion, you move to a new company, every culture is going to be slightly different. You obviously want to select for a place that you feel like there's a fit, but you may need to be adaptable within the context of that culture, and yet remain true to who you are. And I think it really is a both and answer. It's not, it doesn't even need to be a challenge, but there will be times when it feels challenging. And that's where I really recommend to leaders that you go back and connect to what matters most. Connect to those core values, connect to that heart purpose, and stay tethered to those. And that allows you then to negotiate through any kind of turbulence and any kind of change. You know, it's interesting as I think about that and your experience in the military, you think about the US military, which does that of course it instills or you know aligns your values with with the organization's values you're very value centric but then you will you know we just and I would travel all over the world and I'll be in Kuwait one day in a bump into a bunch of you know servicemen going back to back home and here's these 18-19 year old kids are off the sometimes off the farm or off the side of the city they've never been anywhere in the world and all of a sudden they're in Kuwait. And so like you say, but they've had to walk around, they've had to adapt, but they've also had to be grounded in their values. It's really interesting. It is, and I will say like, it's true in the military as it's true with any other organization that you have to connect to your own values first and then connect those to that of the organization because it's easy to sometimes get pulled away by organizational values away from your own. And that's the balance that you've really got to maintain. And it can be a challenge. And that's such a good point. Cause we do hear things like that. That can be very anxiety inducing. The organization wants me to do this, but I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable. So I think that's your right. You start with yourself and then, you know, make sure the organization you align and you may have to be a little bit adaptable, but you can't stop being who you are. I love that. Now, one of the things I wanted to ask you about is, well, you know, in our new book, Anxiety at Work, we talk about underrepresented groups that they face a unique set of challenges that can be quite anxiety inducing, and we as leaders have a responsibility to help them with their unique perspective. So for those of us maybe who rarely face underrepresentation, how can we better understand the problems that can be present and offer the representation to groups who need it? Because, again, you have been one of the few. Maybe you felt like an other in many places you've been. So how can maybe we as leaders be better allies for our team members? This is a really important question and I'm so grateful that you address this and that you recognize this as well. I think oftentimes it's given lip service but not truly considered. And I would go to the chapter in the Grip Factor that surprised me the most. And again, the Grip Factor was formed, the spine of it was formed by the stories and the lessons learned that were shared with these dozens of leaders in the vanguards of their fields. They happen to be women. They happen to be military, which means that they all face that double crucible. They were all part of that group that you're asking about that's underrepresented. And from the stories and the lessons learned that they shared comes the grit triad. And that's really the foundation of the book. There's commit, learn, and launch, right? Owning your past, deep engagement in the present, and then looking towards the future with particular characteristics. The answer to your question falls in that middle realm, in that learn, in that deep engagement in the present. And the most surprising chapter for me that came up again and again, especially with senior leaders, was how critical the art and science of active listening is. And you know, when I've talked to clients in the past who have said things like, you know, gosh, we're trying to get more women in the partner field, but they just don't seem to be interested. And I say, well, you know, what should we do? I said, well, what do they say? And I've had a couple of people look at me a little surprised and clearly they've never asked. And so part of the process for this with any kind of a group that may be different from who you are as the manager, whoever you are and whoever they are, is to ask questions and then open the space to listen, where you just listen, and really work on that skill of active listening, which is, again, it's an art and a science. We talk about the pause. We talk about waiting, really sometimes an uncomfortable amount of time to reply. Maybe it is even more than a day. And it's listening, and then it's finding ways to address those concerns, letting yourself really be pushed out of your own comfort zone and saying, hey, maybe this is something I don't understand. I can't just put this into the framework that I'm used to dealing with. So it's opening that space, it's being an active listener as a leader, it's asking the questions, and then it's doing the work to find solutions that may push you out of your comfort zone. And those are really critical things. I am grateful that some of the conversations now talk about not only diversity, but inclusion. How do you ensure that people are not only at the table, but their voices are heard and are affecting the decisions that are made. And though that's not an easy thing, but it absolutely is doable with just simple respect and listening and opening our minds to more creative solutions. Yeah, I think the inclusion really was the next level of diversity when you think about it. Absolutely. You know, it is incredible when you think about it, what a difference a safe space makes for people. Is it safe for me to speak up? Is it safe for me to talk about my story, as you would say? But it's common for those that have anxiety to suffer alone. What are some of the ways leaders can bring awareness around mental health and create that safety for their team members, especially those who may be more in need of others. And particularly in the military, you know, there's a lot of talk about the anxiety, the aloneness, the guilt, whatever, and self-harm in the military. So what are some of the ways you found in the military that could be applicable to us in our business lives and personal lives to address that, creating a safe space? That is something that we all need, the safe space, and especially in these last couple of years, but truly at any point in time. And as leaders, I think there's an opportunity and a requirement that we create that space in part by offering resources, but I think before you offer those resources, especially in a place that is really driven or really, you know, I think so much about how the warrior culture is elevated in the military. And so there's this real requirement in a way, or perceived requirement to not admit weakness. And leaders can start by admitting their own weaknesses, right, admitting their own challenges, and how it is that they were able to find help, or telling stories of other exceptional leaders. Make sure that you have a diverse set of stories representing a diverse population. That's my other little tangent there, but make sure that you're telling those stories where you're giving the example of outstanding leaders who are willing to ask for help, and were willing to find the help they needed, and then as the leader yourself, sharing your own stories, and that's hard, but it's so important because that does create a sense of safety and a sense of openness to making sure that we're meeting the needs that people need to have met. And then it goes back to asking the questions as well, right? As a leader, hey, how are you doing? You know, I know that I'm sure feeling the strain of this. How is that working out for you? How is that working out for your family? What resources can I help you with, help you find? And so making those resources available but opening those conversations both one-on-one but also in front of the group to say this isn't a weakness, it's a strength to be able to say I'm suffering, this is how I'm getting help, and you should be able to do the same thing and I'm here for you to be able to do that. I'm going to make that space for you. That is just so important. It is so important to normalize, to destigmatize. This has been just great, Shannon. Where can people learn more about you? Give us a couple of if you have a website or or about your book Sure. Thanks, Adrian well the grip factor certainly is the culmination of many years of research and again stories the lessons learned the Tactical takeaways and then the the supporting research as well in business and psychology and then leadership So I hope your listeners will enjoy the grip factor I'm also at ShannonPoulsen.com and at thegritinstitute.com, and I'm often on LinkedIn and Twitter, so I'd love to see you in any of those places. Well, that's great, and I hope people do check out all of your material. If you had to summarize our discussion today, a few ideas for our listeners, what would you say? You know, besides being incredibly grateful that you're elevating this conversation, I would take people back to the basics. Whenever things feel that they are out of control, it's coming back to those small places that we can control. And that's coming back to the things that matter the most, those parts that are unique to you in your heart purpose, in those values that are core to who you are. And whenever things feel like they're spiraling out of control, I'd really bring people back to just chapter one and two of the Grit Factor. All of these leaders have felt the same thing. We all have been there. It's coming back to that core. And again, tethering yourself to what matters the most because then you're able to negotiate any of the challenge that you might face. That's so great. Listen, it's been a delight to have you here. I do have one last question because I am the proud owner of an autographed copy of The Grit Factor. So how much more on eBay do you think that book is worth Yes. That's a great factor. So, how much more on eBay do you think that book is worth with your signature on the inside file? Oh, it's faster. It must be millions. I'll split it with you if you find that. There you go. Well, the reason I ask is we're doing retirement planning and I just want to know what assets do I have to bring to the table. Excellent. Well, many, many from both of you as well. So I'm so grateful to know you both and your excellent work. Well, thank you so much. You've been a delight. We love your commitment and your excitement. And the messages that you've put out there really are gonna be helpful to a lot of people. You know, as we deal with these pandemics and uncertainty, certainly building resilience and grit is gonna be something that's gonna carry a lot of people through. So thank you so much for your work and your commitment. You are making a difference. Thank you, Chester and Adrienne, and you as well. Well, another great podcast. Thank you, Shannon, for coming on. And Chester, I really liked how Shannon kicked things off. What an amazing story she's had with all her amazing accomplishments. But she tells us we've got to own our own story, right? Yeah, and I never really thought of putting my life on a timeline. And then she says, pay attention to the inflection points. And then what did you learn? And then what are your core values? Because even when we went to look, you've got to be adaptable, you've got to be flexible, she said, yeah, you're never flexible, though, on your core values. That stays the same. And I thought that was really grounding. And then her explanation of Nose to the Wind was beyond brilliant. I mean, I got to take that clip and just put it in my phone and play it over and over again. Yeah, but it is resistance that helps us rise. I love that. Now this is a woman who's accomplished a lot of big things, MBA from Dartmouth. Then goes and gets an MFA, so not only knows how to run a spreadsheet, but knows how to write a short story, so really amazing. But she says, look, the way you accomplish things is you break things down into smaller achievable pieces. When we write in Anxiety at Work about the Navy SEALs, that's what we found, right? They break things down into little pieces, the ones that make it through. They don't think about the elephant they gotta eat, they think about, I'm working on the tail. Yeah, just the next step, right? I love her grit triad, commit, learn, and launch. I think that's so great that she doesn't just talk about it, she gives you this little playbook that you've got to commit. What are you learning from this? And then go do it. Nothing, no substitute for doing. And again, and we've heard this so many times from so many great leaders we've is you learn more from your mistakes. Don't hide from them. Embrace it. What did you learn? Move on. Absolutely, love that. And this idea of being an ally. Okay, so here's a woman who's probably one of the few flying Apache helicopters, one of the few in medical device sales and all the things she's done. In many cases, she's been one of the few and has had allies that have lifted her. But, and you just wrote about this in your gratitude journal recently. It was interesting, somebody made a comment underneath. He said, this is so true. And he says, but I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually seen this happen. And so that's sad. That, and maybe the tide is changing. Maybe the tide is rising that we can start seeing more allies really come through. But she says, if you want to do this, then you've got to develop your critical and active listening skills, right? Yeah, and we again, we're hearing that time and time again. Listen, you don't have to have all the answers, listen. She does talk about as well that if you want to be an ally, admit your own weaknesses, you know, be vulnerable there. Talk about how hard it is for you, and then how can I help? She said, as a leader, ask your people, how are you doing? I thought, how many times has Adrian said that on my podcast? How are you doing? How are you doing today? And how can I help? Just brilliant advice, grit, resilience, and boy, has she ever demonstrated it in her life, the fact that she would then write a book and share that with everyone else I think speaks well of her core values. Absolutely. So, again, special thanks to Shannon for being on our podcast today, to our amazing producer Brent Klein, to our wonderful booker Christy Lawrence who finds us these amazing guests, and to all of you who listen in, and especially if you download, we love that because it helps us build up and get even more amazing guests, right Jess? Yeah, and you know, a special thanks to our sponsor, you know, Life Guides. You know, you think about going through turbulent times, we need a guide. You know, whether it's tough times at home or finance or whatever it might be, and Life Guides is a peer-to-peer community that helps people navigate through their day-to-day stressors. They provide a place of empathy and listening and wisdom and support with a guide who has walked in your shoes, experiencing the same challenge where life experiences you. And we love that they offer up this special offer for our listeners. To show your team you care, if you're interested in sampling Life Guides, all you gotta do is go to lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo, schedule, yes, that's the Canadian in me, and add in the code healthy2021 into the free text box and you will get two months free of their service. So if you need a guide through turbulent times, there's nobody better than Lifeguides. Now, I love how everything is peer to peer. So you're working with people who have gone through exactly what you've gone through. It's an amazing, amazing program, amazing organization. So thank you again for joining us today. Yeah, check out our new book anxiety at work And thank you so much for taking a few minutes with us today to learn a little bit more about building mental Resilience and grit. Yeah, take care and we hope to see you again soon. Take care. Be well.