Be Shatterproof: Discover The New Science of Resilience

What if resilience wasn't about pushing harder, but about learning to bend without breaking?

In this profoundly insightful episode, Chester and Adrian sit down with renowned self-awareness expert Dr. Tasha Eurich to explore her groundbreaking new book, Shatterproof. Together, they challenge conventional wisdom around resilience, revealing that pushing through adversity isn't always the smartest or most sustainable approach. Instead, Eurich offers a science-backed roadmap to building proactive, personalized strength—and why it's essential in today's high-pressure world.

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

      ✅ Take the Resilience Quiz: resilience-quiz.com

      📖 Pick up Shatterproof (Hachette Little, Brown)

      🌐 Learn more about Tasha Eurich: www.tashaeurich.com

What you will learn

     Resilience Has a Limit — and That’s Okay

     Self-Awareness is the New Strengt

     Use the 2-2-2 Method to Regain Control

🧠 Featured Quote:

“This season needs a new strategy. Stop white-knuckling it—and choose to be an active participant in your own life.”
 — Dr. Tasha Eurich

Transcript

You know, these days just getting through the week can sometimes feel like an emotional marathon. What if resilience wasn't about pushing harder, but about learning to bend without breaking? I'm Chester Elton and with me is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gostin. Well, thanks, Ches. Yeah, you know, really a lot of us think we're supposed to bounce back from everything like, like nothing ever happened. But the truth is that kind of grit mindset can wear us down. Today's conversation is about a different way to think about strength that's rooted in self-awareness. Our guest will not only explore surviving stress, but using it as a way to grow. As always, we hope the time you spend with us will help ease the pressure and reduce the stigma around anxiety at work and in the rest of your life. And with us is our very dear friend Dr. Tasha Urich, who is an organizational psychologist, a New York Times bestselling author, and the world's leading expert on self-awareness. Her TEDx Talk has more than 10 million views. I think that's 9,995,000 more than our TEDx Talk. Anything we've ever done, yeah. And her books, Insight and Bankable Leadership are widely acclaimed. Her latest book, Shatterproof, which is a delightful read and ridiculously helpful, offers a science-backed guide to building a new kind of strength. Tasha, we are delighted to have you on the podcast. We've been big fans of yours for a long time, as you know. Thank you for finding the time. Thank you. It's the mutual fan and friend society here on the podcast today. And we have, we've, we've known each other for a long time. We've shared the stage before. Yes, I've taken stories you were about to tell. And, and, and I, right after you told me not to tell that story, I went up and told that story. So anyway, and I love you anyway. And you forgave me immediately. So, and you were shatterproof then showing, you know, it in, in an action. So, okay. So we're, we love this new book and you introduced the concept because we all talk about resilience, but it's kind of becoming this corporate word. And, and actually a lot of employees are kind of cynical of it. Resilient just means you want me to push through stuff. And you say actually pushing through all the time is probably going to backfire on you. So explain this idea of why toughing it out isn't always the best strategy and what we should be doing instead. So this was something that was very surprising to me when I first started researching this book more than five years ago. And what I was trying to understand was, you know, what is the real secret to living in this world of just increasing and accelerating chaos? It wasn't getting better. It was getting worse and that's still been the case. And so, I started a research program, as I said, and we started collecting data. And what we were discovering, much to my shock and horror, was that the people who were seeing the best outcomes, right, of people who were navigating adversity by getting stronger, by getting smarter, by getting wiser, even finding new fulfillment, were no more resilient than anyone else. And so that led to a lot of soul searching for me. I'm a fourth generation entrepreneur. Resilience is in my blood. I've been taught just keep going, just power through. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But that series of findings led me into the vast and intricate world of the kind of hardcore resilience science. And there were several things we learned, but most fundamentally, what we learned was, A, resilience actually isn't designed to help us thrive. It's designed to help us survive tough times, which by the way, in tough times is a masterful feat. So I don't want to sort of, you know, discourage that. But second, everyone has a limit to their resilience. What does that mean practically? It means, and I'll just use my own experience, as I was researching this book, I was going through a health crisis and I had gotten through every crisis that I'd ever had in my life with flying colors and all of a sudden it was like I hit a ceiling in my ability to cope with what was happening. I was using all my resilience tools. Chester and I talked about this at the time, right? I had a resilience checklist where I would print out every day, did I do my meditation? Did I try to do yoga? Did I try to positively reframe my challenges as opportunities. And it was like I was running out of resilience. And at that same time when I was investigating the research I said, oh my goodness, this is kind of the missing piece that we all need to have. Because what happens when we reach the limit of our resilience or the ceiling, right, the upper limit, is we start to blame ourselves for something that is completely out of our control. When I hit my resilience ceiling, I said the meanest things ever to myself, right? Like, you're stronger than this. Like you've been through way worse than this. Why all of a sudden can you not deal? And I call that, by the way, grit gaslighting. We can maybe come back to that. But the alternative is, so it's not that we shouldn't be using resilience. It's a critical, critical tool. But what I came to believe and what the research really made clear was in a world where we're all stressed out strivers, chaos is accelerating, demands are endless across every area of our lives, we need some kind of second complementary skill set to resilience. There needs to be something that can help us not just survive and not just sort of use this limited resource, but actually not, sorry, let me start that over, to not just survive or bounce back, but to proactively grow forward. Not just to stand still or white knuckle through stress, but to actually get better, wiser, stronger, smarter. And that second complementary skill set is what this book is about, Shatterproof. You know, it's so interesting. You talk about, and it's so funny, every phrase you've used about pushing through, suck it up, you know, negative self-doubt. We've all done that, right? All of us. You've done harder things than this. You know, you weak pansy, whatever phrase you're using. But you do talk about that you use stress and setbacks into strengths. That's different than learning from your mistakes, right? Like sometimes you'd interview say, oh, I made a mistake, what did I learn? Which is a great, you know, follow up and debrief, but how to take stress and setbacks and turn them into strengths. That tool, that mind shift or mindset shift is when we're in the middle of tough times, right? Is that when you really has to kick in? That tool, that mind shift or mindset shift, is when we're in the middle of tough times, right? Is that when you really has to kick in? Is when you really have met your limit? Flesh that out a little bit. So I think becoming shatterproof above all else is a practice. And what I mean by that is it's a real-time monitoring of what's going on within us, what's going on outside of us, what needs of ours are not being met as a result of that, what are our self-limiting patterns as a result, and then what can we do differently. That's in a nutshell, instead of just pushing through, opening ourselves up to that awareness to say, I am not going to be a passive participant in this circumstance, who's waiting for it to get better and just, you know, crawling one inch forward at a time. I'm actually going to use this. I'm going to channel the broken parts of myself in this situation as early as possible to build a better version. So just to jump in, so what you're saying is you need to be more proactive in what you need. And that's that second skill is realizing before you get there the things that you can do to mitigate that, like you said, where you're in survival mode. And we used to take pride in that, right? You can survive this, right? Okay. I think I'm getting it. And that's exactly it because it's proactivity and I think that's the biggest difference. The other difference is, so I talk about the four-step shatterproof roadmap in the book, and it's very tailored to the specific type of crisis and the specific type of pain you're experiencing. What's different about that and resilience is resilience is kind of, it's usually seen as like a one-size-fits-all approach, right? We have our practices, we do them, it's going to help us survive. And again, that's that's often the case. But yeah, that's what being shatterproof is about, is about choosing to become an active participant in our own lives as early as possible. And we can still use this this practice when we're hitting our resilience ceiling. But step one of the road roadmap is actually to be constant, well not constantly, not obsessively, but regularly paying attention to our pain. What is what I'm feeling trying to tell me about what's going on in my life? And my belief, and we've seen this with our research, is when we do that we can head a lot of things off at the pass, right? We can't change things that happen to us that are out of our control, but we absolutely can do something differently with them. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, because you've said in the book that this, you know, this research project came out of a difficult health crisis as well, but you've told us a little bit about yourself, but maybe you've told us a little bit about yourself, but maybe you could take us through maybe a client's experience. You work with a lot of clients around the world. If you can think of something, take us through a client's example of real world how these four shatterproof roadmap steps work and let me put you on the spot there and see if you can take us through that. I'd love to. So the first person that comes to mind is a CEO I coached named Grace. And Grace came to me, she had just recently been promoted to be the CEO, she had been the president before. And she was doing what shatterproof people do, which was she, the step one is to probe your pain. She was saying, all of a sudden, something feels different. Before, even when I was the president, I could power through and I could get through things and I would still have enough energy and I could still, you know, find some semblance of like peace. But ever since I became the CEO, something feels different in me and something feels different in how I'm sort of experiencing this role. And so I said, I'm so glad that you reached out. What is it that you want to do? And she said, well, I want to lead authentically as a CEO. I want to focus on the areas where I can make my highest and best contribution. And I want to be influential, but I also want to kind of stay true to myself. And I said, OK, well, let's talk more about sort of the pain you're experiencing. And that led to a very comprehensive 360 interviews that all three of us do when we're coaching CEOs, right? But what it came down to was Grace was experiencing, and this is step two of the Shatterproof Roadmap, a series of triggers in her environment that she hadn't faced in the same way before. And triggers are things that flip our switch from being okay to not okay. So examples for her, one of them was just a completely new sense of pressure. When she was the president, she could kind of waltz into board meetings or she could, you know, lead town halls, but the buck stopped with her now. And as a result of that, she would lay awake at night and worry about, you know, the 1% of people that were mad at her or if she had made one mistake and it was going to sort of ruin everything that she had built, or if she'd lose everybody's respect. And as we started to sort of trace that trigger, this is part of step two, is what need wasn't being met for her? And by the way, there are three needs that every single human being on Earth is biologically programmed to seek. The need to feel confident, the need to feel choiceful, and the need to be connected. And for Grace, what was happening with this pressure and this sort of new role was her sense of confidence, that she was doing a good job, that she was learning, that she was getting better, was being obliterated. Not necessarily by other people, right, but by Grace's own experience of it. And the beauty of this process is it works for internally created problems as well as externally created problems. But in Grace's case, when I interviewed everybody that worked with her, they said she is the best boss I've ever had. I can't even think of one thing that I want her to do differently besides prioritizing herself and realizing that she's already a great CEO. So once we figured out what need wasn't being met, then we had to get into, you know, what are the sort of self-limiting behaviors, and this is step three, spot your shadows, that that was causing. Because when we're a human being whose needs aren't being met, we start to act in strange and interesting ways. And those ways usually do not bring us back to the need that is being frustrated. So for Grace, she doubled down on perfectionism. Oh, boy. And what we know about perfectionism, right, is that particularly as a CEO, can you imagine any decision that you make where 100% of people are happy with you? That's like about as difficult as learning to fold a fitted sheet in your bed. Like it's just not happening. And so we had to investigate that. And we had to tie that to, is that realistic? Is that what you want to choose? And this is obviously very oversimplified. But the fourth step then was, are you ready to leave that behind? And she struggled at first. She said, no, being perfect is what got me here. And then to quote our friend Marshall Goldsmith, we decided maybe it's not what gets you there. So step four is picking your pivot. And it's finding one way to escape that self-limiting pattern or shadow and do a better job of getting your own needs met. So for Grace, we decided to change the question from, is everybody happy with me? To did everybody feel heard even if they're not happy with me? And that's one just sort of minor pivot. But what started to happen as we worked on other behaviors and other pieces around this goal of self-development as a CEO, she started to feel more confident. She started to feel more comfortable in her own skin. She sent me an email three months in that said, I can't believe this is happening so quickly. But that added layer of how people perceive me that I'm constantly, that I was constantly running through is gone. And then she said, I do know what I'm doing. I've got this. And it was a process, right? It's always a process. People don't change overnight. But I think that illustrates so beautifully what happens when you pay attention to your pain? Taking your triggers seriously, right? And then all the other things. Go ahead, Jester. Yeah, no, I mean, that's just the perfect example. I mean, you know, and like you say, once you get it, it can actually happen fairly quickly. I mean, three months of coaching is not a long time, you know, that you've made such a difference in her life so quickly. You know, this brings me to my point that I think is hard for most people, at least I know it is for Adrian. I'm just kidding, it's hard for, really hard for me. I don't know what you're gonna say, but I'm guessing yes, it will be hard for him. He's nodding his head, yeah. Yeah. For me and I think most people, ability to be more self-aware. Because we do, we power through, we have that inner voice, you know, we're self-critical. Like you say, we lay awake at night and worry about stuff over which we have no control. And it seems to me like in your book, you talk about how that self-awareness is really important. It's even harder when life gets really messy though, right? Because you revert back to those survival instincts. How do you coach people up to be more self-aware, to take that time and step back and say, okay, that's a shadow behavior, as you talk about in your book, or that's a trigger for you? How do you get people to stop and say, okay, enough is enough? So I think a couple things. I'm going to give you two thoughts that just occurred to me and maybe one of them might be helpful. Okay. So, the first is it's really a new mindset or belief that a better way exists because when we're pushing through, when we're being resilient, we are cosigning the status quo as something that we want to get back to, right? But so often the status quo isn't making us truly happy. Maybe we're barely hanging on or we're barely surviving. And so to make the case that could you keep doing that? Sure. But what if you chose to believe that even if you don't know what it is now, that a better way exists? And that's something that I learned from our friend Alan Mullally who we all talk about in our keynotes. Yeah. All of us. The better way mindset, right? Yeah, all of us. The better way mindset, right? Yeah, all of us. The better way mindset. Because what that does is it gives us a why to take the time to be like, okay, wait a minute. I'm not gonna just keep sort of aimlessly rolling a boulder down this hill. Maybe I'm gonna just put like a tree trunk under it for a second, and I'm going to look around me and see what's happening. You know, it's like what Grace did with realizing that she was laying awake at night worrying about the 1% of people that were upset with her. And that's where self-awareness is really the answer. We obviously have to scan our environment, but the better way is within ourselves. The better way is self-awareness walking. So that's the first thought I'd offer. The second thought I'd offer is, and I actually, this isn't in the book, this was a Q&A that I did for Parade Magazine, of all places, and they asked me, if I wanna stop grit gaslighting myself and be more sort of open and aware when things are difficult, what are some mantras that I can replace my grit gaslighting with? And I thought, ooh, that's really interesting. So the one that I came up with now that I've started using almost every day, getting through some tough things in my personal life, is this season needs a new strategy. This season needs a new strategy. So it's kind of a compliment to a better way mindset, but if you're more of a mantra person, like for me as somebody who suffers from anxiety, mantras can be helpful because when you have the noise in your head, it's like what you come back to. But white knuckling it is not the strategy that's going to help us. And so if we need a new strategy, where does that start? It starts with self-awareness. Such great advice, Tasha, as always. How do people learn more about your work? Where would you send them? Oh, gosh, I'm everywhere. They can just go find Tasha Uric, EUR, ICH, anywhere on the internet. And if they want to see how close they are to their resilience ceiling, we have this very cool free five minute quiz that you can find at resilience-quiz.com. Awesome. Well, give us a good, I noticed our time has flown by. This is not fair, but we're almost out of time already. But, okay, a lot of listeners tune in. They may be feeling, I mean, with so much socioeconomic, political stuff going on right now, everybody's feeling burned out. Then you add in all the stuff at work and everybody's trying to do more with less. Give us maybe one small thing people can do right now if they're feeling a little bit more, a little overwhelmed, to help them feel maybe a little bit more grounded and strong. So I'm going to give you another tool that I use more than I wish I had to. I call it the 2-2-2 method. And here's how it works. The next time you're feeling like you're getting close to your resilience ceiling, or frankly, you're just having a really tough day, really tough go of something, you're going to pause. You're going to give yourself permission for a deliberate pause for 48 hours. And you're going to decide what you need in three time frames. So the first time frame is two minutes. What do I need in the next two minutes? That's physiological first response. It's how can I calm down my nervous system? Deep breathing, putting ice or cold water on your neck has been shown to help regulate yourself. Even just saying out loud or to someone around you, here's how I feel right now. Two hours is the next time frame, and that's a little bit more deliberate kind of psychological first date. So think of something that you can spend two hours on that would feel like a relief, that would give you peace. It's different for everyone. It might be the gym or it might be a Netflix marathon or it might be just doing nothing for two hours. The final time frame I think is the most important, which is two days. What you're going to do is as much as is possible, as much as your environment allows, you're going to give yourself permission to take a deliberate pause from the problem that is pushing you over the edge. To stop agonizing, to stop analyzing, to stop problem solving. Unless you, you know, are heart surgeon or some other jobs, right, most problems can get 48 hours of airtime because the payoff is huge. What I think you'll find if you try this tool is we know that our bodies or our minds are subconsciously processing it anyway. And giving ourselves that break, we're going to have a new perspective, we're going to have new energy, we're going to have a new fighting spirit to keep going. So the 2-2-2 method doesn't solve all of our problems, it doesn't magically make us shatterproof in two days, but it helps us keep going. Excellent. So, you know, we're always interested in, you know, resilience practices or self-care practices, however you want to. And you, at the end of your book, reveal so much. By the way, by the book, and Tasha, you and I have talked about this before, the fact that you were so vulnerable and you shared so much of your story, to me, was beyond remarkable. So thank you, thank you, thank you. You mentioned one thing that you do is you get 10 hours of sleep. I remember I was trying to think, I can't remember the last time I got 10 hours of sleep where I wasn't in a coma in a hospital somewhere. But the idea of- Which often happens to Chester. He'll go to an event and wakes up in a hospital, kidney missing, so yeah, it's very common. It's so mysterious. But the idea that you had to identify that you needed 10 hours, to me was really remarkable. What else do you do? Just one thing that keeps you... Sleep, sleep is huge. The thing, so I'm in a book launch with, as I mentioned, like some personal things going on. I'm kind of like the person that I wrote my book for right now. So I'm actually going back to some basics. And one thing that I used the other day when I was having some anxiety was four deep breaths in and out, go to the fridge, put ice on my throat, four more deep breaths in and out. Go to the fridge. Put ice on my throat. Four more deep breaths in and out. Ice on the throat. And do that until you feel your nervous system regulating. And it's really remarkable. There's a lot of like new science on the vagus nerve and I know you guys know more about that than I do, but I could feel. I went from like 100 to 30 in about five minutes. That's awesome. Yeah. And I'm somebody who is like, oh, I can't do that. It's too simple. But sometimes the simple things really work. Those grounding techniques, love that. Love that you found things that work for you and love that you've written this book. We want to thank you, Tasha Urich, for coming on. If you haven't picked up a copy of Shatterproof yet, do. It's available wherever great books are sold. Hachette Little Brown is your publisher. So this thing is going to be everywhere and pick it up now and get the tool. So thanks, Tasha, for being with us today. You've been amazing as always. Thank you both. You're been amazing as always. Thank you both. You're equally amazing. Hey, and one last thing. Give our listeners again that test site. Yep. So it's resilience-quiz.com. Excellent. Tasha, you're a gift. We are delighted that you are our friend and this book is going to make a difference in a lot of people's lives. Thank you so much. Well, Adrienne, we've known Tasha for a long time through a lot of things that she's gone through, which is a lot. The fact that she would take the time and tell her story and do the research to figure out, you know, that your resilience has limits and that, you know, to be shatterproof, you've really got to be proactive. I mean, there were just so many good things. I'm curious, give me two or three of your takeaways. I think this was one of the most salient and timely podcasts we've done in a long time because I'm hearing this over and over again. People are saying, look, and the people we know, they're all smart, they know control what you can control, ground yourself, they know all the tricks of the trade, and they're going, and I'm still stressed, I'm still at 100, I've reached that resilient ceiling, and I can't do anything else. And what do they do? Like she says, they say, they blame themselves, because we're all these stressed out strivers and then you combine everything else that's going on in the world and people don't know how to respond. So I think this is great. Some real practical strategies to say, okay, here's the four things you do. Yeah, isn't it interesting? I never thought of your resilience having a ceiling. And that you realize that because when you're pushing through, it's like you can do this, you've done harder things. And we feel like there is no limit to the grit, what you call it, the grit gaslighting, which I thought was a great phrase. What do we say? Yeah, rub some dirt on it, get back out there, right? Yeah, come on, suck it up, you can do this, right? Isn't that interesting, the three needs that she came up with weren't what I thought she was gonna say. We always say, well, need to be affirmed and the need to be cared for. She said, no, it need to be confident, need to be connected, and it need to be choiceful. Isn't that interesting, the word choiceful? Because both of us wanted to ask, what does that really mean? But we didn't want to seem like we were dumb. I don't think that's a real word in Scrabble. I think if you challenge that, you'd lose. But it is. It's to have some sort of mastery over our own dominion in our own world. But that gets taken away in so many cases. So I love some of the things that she was pointing out. Like, first off, pay attention. You know, what is it that feels different like her CEO Grace said? And then you take those triggers seriously. You start identifying what is it that's limiting me? And you know, you talk about this a lot. It's that voice inside your head. It could be your greatest advocate or your biggest enemy. And then you have to make this point where you pivot away from and leave those self-limiting behaviors behind. But I love what she said, just choose one small thing. Doesn't have to be huge to begin. Yeah, I got such a chuckle. She's got a delightful sense of humor and we've known her a long time. She always has those little quips that make you kind of giggle. But when she was talking about the CEO and that, she doubled down on perfectionism. It's like trying to fold a fitted sheet. That's the way they were doing it. Which I have done. And it's like, how do they do that in those hotels? Yeah. Yeah, my wife Heidi, as a system, it still looks like crap, but at least it's sort of all in one place. But if you're trying to perfectly fold a fitted sheet, you're never gonna get there. I love that. The idea too, that there is a better way was to me really revealing. You know, we've pushed through, we've pushed through, we've pushed through. Take a minute and say, you know what? There's a better way. And she gives you that better way in the book, which I think is really interesting. The two, two, two is my last one. Two minutes, two hours, two days. I was with her on the two minutes and two hours. The two days I thought, ah, I don't know about that one. But if you are going through something hard, yeah, if you're going through something hard, you may need to say, I'm taking this weekend, I'm turning off my phone. We've done it. You go to your getaway in the upper Adirondack side. I do this too, where you kind of have, okay, I'm shutting off everything except emergencies for family, but not work. And you just need time for our brains to settle. Yeah, that downtime. Well, the book is shatterproof. It's out everywhere. It's a New York Times bestseller. It was number one in- Actually, it wasn't a New York Times. She was saying she didn't want to do all the, all the, you know, the tricks we have to jump through. Yeah, yeah. But she was saying, yeah, it's a financial week or whatever it is. Yeah, kind of book to read and things, but yeah, yeah. I mean, what an amazing read. Yeah, she really is. We're part of the 100 Coaches group. She's been in there from the early days and she's just such a contributor and such an inspiration. You know, when I think of other people that really inspire me when it comes to, you know, podcasting and content and so on, one name comes to mind for me, I'm interested if it's the same name that comes up for you. Let's say it together. One, two, three. Brent Klein! Brent! Brent! Brent! He is, he gets us, you know, all this mishigash, as we say in New York, and makes it beautiful, the masterpieces in the mess. As well as Christy Lawrence, who's been with us for so long and gets us just the most interesting guests. She really does help us make this look really good. Of course, we've got our thanks that we want to give to all our wonderful listeners here that take the time to listen to our podcast. And please follow us on LinkedIn. Uh, look us up on the culture works.com. We've got all kinds of great, uh, tools there for you to help you, um, build the culture that you want and to thrive within that culture, you know, and after I think four or five years of doing this, I I'm not sure exactly, but we're about to re structure this podcast and we're about to relaunch. And so we're really excited about that. So stay with us and keep looking, checking out thecultureworks.com for some free resources to help you and your team thrive. We also love speaking to audiences around the world on topics like leadership, culture, resilience, things like that. Give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about your event. Yeah. And as always, Adrian, even though I've interjected here in what seems to be the wrap-up, I want to give you the last word. Well thanks everybody for joining us. Until next time we wish you the best of mental health.