Ever found yourself in a bind, with no choice but to 'wing it'? Join me, Suzi Landolphi, as I explore the fine line between planning and improvisation, the concept of backwards planning, after-action reports and how we can use them to better our relationships and day-to-day affairs.
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
Ever found yourself in a bind, with no choice but to 'wing it'? Join me, Suzi Landolphi, as I explore the fine line between planning and improvisation, the concept of backwards planning, after-action reports and how we can use them to better our relationships and day-to-day affairs.
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
I'm Susie Landolfi, and welcome to Be Crazy. Well, hi everybody, welcome to Be Crazy. Well, and I'm supposed to have a guest. I'm supposed to have two guests this week, but you know, life sometimes throws your curve. Sometimes people can't follow through. Sometimes they say yes to something and then, when they think about it, it's not a good idea or they get scared. And so I was left alone today. I was abandoned, I was betrayed, I wasn't anything. Actually, they didn't do anything to me.
Speaker 1:It just happens, things happen, and so I'm very grateful that sometimes, as someone just said to me a few minutes ago, susie, you can wing it. And I thought, oh, these expressions, they mean so much to me. And I thought what's winged me? Does it mean that you can get on the wing of an airplane, like when they used to do that and do this train? Does it mean tricks? Does it mean that you're like a bird and you can wing it? I wasn't quite sure where that came from, and yet I know what it means. I know that it means that there's times when you don't get what you want. People bail, life happens, there's an earthquake, whatever it is that you can do your best to handle it. That does not mean you do it perfectly. It just means you do your best and or you won't quit, or you won't back down, or you won't surrender, or you won't do whatever. But you could do it that moment To say, well, they never mind, I don't have to do it.
Speaker 1:And I realized that that was my upbringing as a child. When mom was drunk, dad was drunk or too angry, I had to wing it. I had to wing it and I thought, well, gee, that's where I got that superpower. And sometimes when I was on stage dancing and somebody made a mistake and they didn't twirl when they were supposed to and they could have run into me, I had to wing it. And there was actually a step in tap dancing called wings, like when you did this thing with your two feet out, like that, I thought, what is it about winging it that is so important? When you can't get do or others won't help, you do what you need to do.
Speaker 1:Now I will say one thing everything can be an extreme, so I understand the idea that I shouldn't always have to wing it, like sometimes there should be. Oh wait, I have to wing it. My dog wants to be let out. Isn't this great when you do these podcasts at your house. So I just fed him and was like at the door going I got to get out. So anyway, I'll ring in that as well and you can hear him out there.
Speaker 1:So this idea that I shouldn't always have to wing it, that I could either do better at planning, I could get people lined up better for the podcast ahead of time, I could actually figure out who I think could actually say yes and mean it. Now, I can't always do that. I think I can do a better job at that, though I know some people, or even when I ask them if they're reticent or not, and so it's up to me to be able to do planning, make choices, so that I don't always have to wing it. Now, a lot of people set themselves up to wing it. I don't know if you've noticed how many people now are diagnosed with, or diagnosing themselves with, add or ADHD, but mostly ADD. I can't focus, I can't plan, it's too hard for me to concentrate, I can't get anything done. I always get distracted, and I was thinking about that because it's a real thing and most of what distracts us is our own chemistry. I know that sounds weird, it's true. Hear me out.
Speaker 1:When you go through a chaotic upbringing or a pressure-filled upbringing, you oftentimes are. Your brain and your body wants to give you adrenaline in order to deal with that chaos, because it's a stress response. So if there's too much stress, there's too much chaos, there's too much pressure, your mind and your body are going to try to deal with it by giving you a drug that can help you get through this. Move faster, talk faster, think quicker, all of that. Now the trouble is it doesn't really work that way, because a stress response could be that you run faster from the problem. It could mean that you come up with better ideas, that you get stronger that's certainly true in a lot of cases but also it can mean that you freeze. It also means that you could not think of what to do next. You could also faint or fawn. You could literally collapse under the pressure and the stress, even with a lot of adrenaline.
Speaker 1:So when people tell me a lot about how they get distracted, I'm wondering if that hasn't been something that they've used when they're under a stressful situation, when you have to study for a test, when you have to get paperwork done, which I have to do all the time and I know it's going to be difficult am I unconsciously looking for a distraction? Am I putting myself in a situation where I have to wing it? Could it be that I didn't put enough prep time, study time and thinking about and planning time so that I have actually created a situation where I can justify being distracted, or I could justify the fact that I have to wing it? So I wanted to bring this up because it seems to me that we have much more control. We have much more say about whether or not something is going to happen, come to fruition or go as planned.
Speaker 1:One of the three reasons I love working with veterans is because you come from an organization that prides itself on planning. You even have a great expression called backwards planning and I thought, oh my God, wait a minute, let me think about that for a second. You mean you actually go to the end result and then you backwards plan to where you are now, so that you can figure out how to get there, as opposed to starting at this point, making a plan but not really knowing where you're gonna end up. What a concept. Aar after action reports. So after you do an action, you literally look at. Did it work? What could you have done better to make those actions get you the result that you wanted?
Speaker 1:It's fascinating to me that we try to have relationships, we try to bring up children, and we have none of that practice. We have none of those tools. There's another one I learned train to standard, not to time. That this idea that you train someone to how you want them to be able to function, either with a piece of equipment or in a situation, not as we're gonna give you this many hours of training and then not even know if the person has in fact gotten to the point where they have a standard of competence. So I just wanna tell you that I'm working on my better backwards planning, my AARs and my training to standard, not to time.
Speaker 1:I bring this a lot to the groups that I teach. I teach groups on Tuesday mornings, thursday mornings and Tuesday nights, thursday nights. So Tuesday and Thursday night I'm in a gym, I'm in craft boxing, teaching a mental health group, and on Monday, tuesday and Thursday mornings I'm at a treatment center, a treatment center that I was the clinical director of many years ago, and I bring a lot of what I learn from being taught and trained by combat veterans and veterans in general and combat veterans as well, and one of the interesting things is I share that with the civilians mostly civilians that I'm around a lot of and I am one as well and it's fascinating how they respond to this idea of not winging it. Now I will say that I've heard many a story when the plan didn't go as planned. The enemy didn't respond the way that we thought. The place and the situation wasn't what you expected, that had already changed, or even the equipment that you brought didn't work, and I hear these stories all the time from veterans about how they had to wing it. They wing it differently and they wing it differently because they have so many other options already thought of that they don't just have one plan and if that doesn't work, they wing it. They have a plan, the best plan, all of this they've put in, and then if one part or all of it or something goes wrong, they have so many other practices to be able to create a new plan on the spot with a team.
Speaker 1:Now I've been watching a lot of football. Football started. All my stepbrothers played football. I actually played on a girl's team. It's called Powder Puff no one knows what a Powder Puff is anymore. That's okay. And we were just as tough and rugged. I mean, we were supposed to pull out someone's flag and of course we were tackling all the time and elbowing each other.
Speaker 1:And so you have a plan. You actually have, you know, football strategies. You actually have plays. That's interesting that they call it a play, because I'm from theater and we have plays as well, and the play is a structure. It's how it's supposed to go, it's the words you're supposed to say, the actions you're supposed to do in. Each character has that written down. And I've noticed that quarterbacks have the same thing. They have plays and it's written down on this thing on their arm and everybody has practiced them and they've practiced them at nausea, I would probably say, until the point they know they can do it. And they go into the huddle and they quarterback and probably the coach, because I'm sure they've got to say in this as well, start to decide which play is best based on what they have seen the other team do. Now, if they've watched tapes of the other team and how the other team their plays and how they are in terms of their football prowess and who their plays are. They're making up plays based on what the other team might do as well and what their team is capable of doing. So I'd say there's a lot of range in there about how you could decide which play to do, nevermind what's the weather, where's the football at this moment and what's the clock saying.
Speaker 1:You know, I never thought about how important it is for, I would say, athletes to also come up with plans and plays and strategy and have to wing it at the same time, and it is amazing to me, when we put combat veterans together with retired professional athletes, how similar they thought about planning and about when they had to wing it or when they had to go against the plan because something happened on the field that they could not have ever thought was going to happen, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. That planning, though, that practice, never goes to waste, and I thought you know, suzy, I think that you're so comfortable winging that maybe I'm not giving myself enough time, enough effort and discipline to plan, and I wanna know that I can plan and I can stay to the plan if it's a great plan and it's under the right conditions. I wanna be able to give myself more of that and I thought, what if families did that? What if couples did that? What if we taught our children that we have a plan and they're part of the plan? What if we actually included them in the plan? And we thought, oh my gosh, if we included them in the plan. And then we said, well, that's our plan, and if that doesn't happen, here's what we're gonna do. What would that ownership, what would that agency, what would that belonging and inclusion actually do it to a family when they have to go to dinner, when they're going out to an event, when they're going on a vacation, when they're moving? What's it like to actually include the children and include every member of the family and help them be a part of the plan, give them some ownership? Because then I'm thinking, wow, as parents and as leaders, and this could be an NES. But what if, in a company, we gave employees more ownership, more participation in the plan, if we asked them to come up with a plan?
Speaker 1:So I work at a treatment center and I was sitting with this young man and we were gonna have a conversation with his mother and father and he stayed with us for quite a while and he's thinking about his plan, about whether he's going to go back and work with his parents or not, and it wasn't a very successful experience working with his parents and they own a lovely education company. And what happened with the time that he was with us is we've been talking about what his plan is. He was so used to his mom and dad giving him the plan and then him trying to execute it and then sometimes, even though he executed it well, he they didn't use his plan. So he realized he didn't really have agency or part of the plan they said he did, but when it came right down to it, they really already had a plan in place or plan that they wanted to do. And I was thinking how frustrating, how scary and sad, how disappointing, how devastating is that when we really don't have a say in the plan, and how many leaders actually don't give their team members a say in the plan? How often do I not give myself a say in the plan Because I'm not even planning it as well as I can. So I started a new plan. It didn't work out. This week and I'm not giving it up.
Speaker 1:I decided that I was going to record my podcast every Wednesday and I had someone lined up and they at the last minute said they didn't really want to be on the podcast. So then I looked for someone else. Now, you know, it's one of those wing it moments. I'm asking somebody last minute to give up some time and do the podcast, and of course they couldn't. So I actually couldn't get somebody in that time frame because actually what I thought about was I don't have a whole list of people and I haven't planned out when they're going to be on which Wednesday, and now I'm going to have a backup. So I'm going to have someone that commits for next Wednesday and I'm going to have a backup. And I thought, whoa, what a great idea. And you know what, if someone comes up that can do it on Tuesday, or if someone comes out of the woodwork that I didn't know could do it, I'll do an extra one. So I'll always have my Wednesday and then I'll always have somebody else. I'm going to record somebody tomorrow, an amazing young man, like an unbelievable young man. I'm recording him tomorrow morning at eight o'clock in the morning, before I go over to the treatment center, and I called him to do it just a few minutes ago because I spent lunch with him today in another wonderful co-worker of mine named Andy, and so that's OK, that wing it is OK.
Speaker 1:And I thought, yep, I'm actually going to be better at planning. And I'll tell you a funny story about my family. My daughter is often hired to organize people's houses, things going on in their job, organizing people's business and what needs to be done better at the business. She is a wonderful friend that she's now working with again, where she's actually organizing her product and planning out when it's going to be presented to be able to be sold. And I thought, who taught her that? And one time I must have been a good planner and one time, as a single mom, I must have influenced her somehow in that planning and doing that Somehow.
Speaker 1:I had to plan a play opening. I literally had to cast the play, direct it and get the poster and get it in the theater and get it up on his feet. So apparently I had this ability to plan. I had to plan when I was going to go to school to get my degree. I had to plan when we were going to do a retreat and who was coming to the retreat and what we were going to do. And we had a plan. We had a curriculum that I helped create, so apparently I do have this ability. I think what's happened is I've gotten comfortable on my wing. Now I have to bring up one more part.
Speaker 1:I don't put this podcast up on the web, I don't do that. I record it and I send it to a wonderful woman named Cindy Thompson, who is well, she's really the nuts and bolts of coming home well, and I think she's actually the president of the board. She might not be, but I'll tell you she's the behind the scenes of everything coming home well. So when I wing it, I'm affecting her too. I'm affecting all the other things she has to do, because now I don't have it in on the time that I said. She never knows when it's gonna come. She's gotta get it up at a certain time.
Speaker 1:And I thought, well, boy, winging it oftentimes affects a lot of people negatively. It doesn't necessarily help the people that we work with when we wing it. I'm also working with a lot of young influencers. You know those amazing young people that can get on and stream and all of that. They're remarkable and they are winging it 100%, like they're winging it all the time. And I thought, well, that is interesting. I'm the mental health coach for a bunch of wing-its that are on streaming online all the time, some of them 24 hours. So I think what's happening is I'm getting really used to and I'm around wingers winging it all the time, and what's interesting about a lot of these young people that are doing the streaming is they're noticing that winging it is also dangerous Because there isn't a plan and there aren't principles and there isn't a program in place for them to understand.
Speaker 1:How far do they go, where's the boundary, when is it safe to wing it and when is it not, when is too much, and how winging can get us into serious, serious mental health, physical and even legal problems. Had a wonderful conversation with a young man who's managing influence and another man closer to my age he's certainly not as old as I, am a little closer and we were talking about how we help this younger generation in terms of planning principles, mental health and how they can actually make a business that is sustainable. So I thought how funny is that that I'm winging it too and I'm there helping them plan. So yeah, I've got some hypocrisy in me, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So I invite you all to think about planning, about minimal winging it, about planning, planning, planning and also know you can wing it if you have to, but not making it the plan. So I'm gonna stop planning on winging it and tomorrow I'll do this wonderful podcast with Christian King, who works for a wonderful organization called Higher Ground, where they take veterans out on retreats, and I'm then going to line up a whole bunch of planned podcasts to be recorded on Wednesday, which is my easiest day to record, and I'm sticking to the plan. So I hope that all of us get better at planning, including making sure people are part of the plan that deserve to be, and that we make sure that we are inclusive, that we are respectful and that we know we can't make the whole plan ourselves, nor should we be winging it ourselves as well all the time. So happy, be crazy well. We should actually have a be crazy well week, don't you think? I think why don't we have one of those where we actually celebrate the idea that people want to be well, they want to improve their mental health, they want to make sure that they're not worried about being crazy, that they are wanting to learn how to be crazy well? So we invite you to that.
Speaker 1:Thank you, calvin Love, for the theme song. Be your best self, and I'll see you again next week. And next week we will have Christian King, as, let's see, that's another way I'm doing this is I'm telling you ahead of time what I'm doing, and that's gonna be part of my plan. So tune in, because you wanna meet this remarkable young man that has an amazing story of how he has created himself and why he chose to be a part of higher ground, and now he's gonna go actually be a therapist as well. Well, can't wait. All right, everybody, be crazy. Well, break.