S3 Ep116: Rethinking Mental Toughness

Mental toughness is having no feelings, right? That idea sounds impressive, but it quietly breaks people. We sit down with returning guests Matt Addison Black and Helen Lunnon Wood to untangle what mental toughness, resilience and grit actually mean when the pressure is real and the standards matter, and what gets lost when these words turn into buzzwords.

We talk about the social media version of Stoicism and why it often gets repackaged as emotional repression, then replace it with something more useful: perceiving emotion, processing it, and still making rational decisions. Helen challenges the “bounce back” story and explains why resilience is often slower and more honest: sitting with what went wrong, learning from it, and returning without brushing it under the carpet. From there we dig into values and identity alignment as a practical compass for high performers, plus the subtle ways avoidance can look like productivity.

Matt breaks down grit with a clear academic lens and highlights the most neglected ingredient: hope, not as blind optimism, but as agency and locus of control. We bring in the Stockdale lesson on optimism, explore stress as a signal until it becomes chronic allostatic load, and share tangible tools: naming emotions, breathwork, deliberate recovery, celebrating wins, and “mental modelling” to make better decisions under pressure. We also widen burnout beyond the workplace, and finish with a sharp look at risk tolerance through aviation’s “fit to fly” judgement.

If this helps you rethink how you push through, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a healthier definition of toughness, and leave us a review. What part of your life needs a more deliberate course correction?

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Transcript

Welcome And Why These Words Matter

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Welcome to Fortune Resilience, real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill. And join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today I'm joined by returning guests Matt Addison Black and Helen Lunanwood. Oh just double barrels. Double barrels on a round table around grits, resilience, and mental toughness. We hear these words everywhere in military and support and business and sometimes leadership, but have we got them right? Do we really understand them, or do we sometimes get confused? All three of us come from military environments where pressure has been real, standards matter, and the ability to keep going is often essential. But sometimes there can be a cost to this. Sometimes toughness become a mask. Today we'll explore those themes and what mental toughness, grit resilience really means. Matt is a returning guest, as mentioned, and he's an executive coach, keynote smoker, and associate professor of military. His work explores identity leadership resilience and performance of the profession. Brings a ground in honest perspective on what it means to stay clear, connected, life tested, virtual daughter. Helen is a returning. I've said that. She's a former RF fast pilot, aviation psychologist, coach and founder of High Flight. Her work draws on aviation, psychology, human factors, and leadership also under pressure. Helen brings a sharp and thoughtful lens to resilience, identity, belonging, and the hidden cost of always appearing strong. You'll notice, by the way, that that will stay in there. B, get it out to the world. Any cock-ups, it's just part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

So hey, it's so Air Crew C, like a C Air Crew Pass. All good, mate. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

I'm I'm good with B minus, but yeah. Um welcome back to the show, both of you. It's uh it's a real privilege to be able to sit with you both again and and as a tri-service board as well. So I'm really looking to this forward to this conversation. Um yeah, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_05 2:26

Matt, I'm gonna kick it off with you.

Stoicism Is Not Emotional Repression

SPEAKER_05 2:29

What comes up for you straight away in terms of what we get wrong or how we might misunderstand mental toughness, resilience, and grit?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

I think there's a lot of damage being done at the moment by um influences essentially taking stuff like Stoicism, not understanding it properly, and packaging it up as the need for emotional repression. And if anybody's bothered to read traditional elements of stoicism, be it Seneca, um Marx Aurelius, uh any of any of the traditional uh stoics, both big big S, little S, um, it's not about emotional repression, it's about the ability to perceive your emotions, understand them, and then process them, and not allowing them to overcome you, um, because I think that's the difference between us and animals, is that we we function from a space of logos and reason. So it when people talk about this this whole sort of grit resilience thing, it's not the inability to feel, it's the ability and the executive functions being in place to be able to process what you're feeling um and then make logical, informed, rational decisions despite the overwhelming adversity that you may be facing.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Mate, um I I love that response. So I'm gonna just gently ask you to bring your microphone down slightly so it doesn't sound like you're a certain service when they speak on the radio, mate. Um I can adjust the the the audio later on. Um yeah, Helen, and and for you, same question to you. What what what what comes up? What's what's your immediate knee jerk? And I know you've just given a talk on this as well.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:20

Um, when when you hear that.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Do you know what? It's amazing. Matt's come at it from a different angle, but got to the same point that I have, which is and my version of it is resilience has become a buzzword and it's become a TikTokism. And uh, if we talk about resilience, if we just talk about it, then it's all good, and we're resilient and it's all good. And I know we've talked before about that phrase bouncing back, and I can go on about that. Uh, but it is bouncing back comes if it's done in the wrong way, if it's misinterpreted, it becomes a permission to deny or to disregard the lessons and the difficulty and the awkwardness of when something doesn't go right. I'm gonna bounce back, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just like step over it and keep going. And actually, real resilience is about sitting with it, understanding it, internalizing it, learning from it, and then coming back. And the idea of this bouncing back that is all which are the the words that I see a lot with it, is it it just feels like uh uh shrug it, shrug it off and dispose of it, don't or brush it under the carpet with someone I someone uh said to me, and I was like, Whoa, that's not gonna work for you long term. That's gonna end up in eventual well, actual impairment, I would imagine, surviving but with impairment, and then perhaps long-term succumbing to it or succumbing to the collection of it. So um that's kind of where I go when we talk about the buzzword that is resilience.

From Swagger To Self-Awareness

SPEAKER_05 6:06

Matt, what in in what what what did mental toughness mean to you? And what does it mean now?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

So I think I think it's probably changed um in its meaning throughout my life and my experience, um and certainly throughout my my research over the last few years. I think initially uh as a young lad, mental you know, mental resilience or toughness was almost like Helen said, um being on the rugby pitch, getting bounced around, um, and just never never letting uh it show. And that could that that was both emotional and physical, um, spiritual, whatever. It was the ability to just endure consistently and never complain. And I think that was the model of toughness that was certainly perpetuated in in the 90s and early noughties. Um, and I I was very happy to subscribe to that because it was what was being role modeled um and what I thought needed to be done. Uh but as I said, I I also believe that that's changed. Nowadays, if I were to think about what toughness is, I think it would stem probably in the space of self-awareness and self-determination. And what I mean by that is having enough knowledge of yourself and the way that you interact with others and the way that you are perceived by others as well as the way that you are perceived um internally. So that that would enable self-regulation, it would enable social skills, empathy. Um, and nowadays when I'm thinking about toughness, it's less to do with shrugging it off and cracking on, and more to do with being very conscious about the way that I choose to be perceived, being very conscious away about the uh how I perceive myself and making deliberate choices as to which hills are worth dying on and which ones sometimes uh no matter how much you may want to go forward, are worth having a tactical retreat from.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

Or popping smoke on.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Or popping smoke on.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Honestly, Jen.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

I got I got it there first. Um Matt, and um how then in your own life or in terms of the the people that you've worked with, do you go about providing those sorts of conditions to implement or or to lean into that what sounds quite gentle approach to mental toughness, which might uh yeah, mental toughness, which might come as a a bit of a a bit of a slap to some so I think like so many things, I think it comes down to identity alignment.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Um as far as I'm concerned, if you can't articulate what your personal values are in about 10 seconds, you probably don't have them nailed down. And if you don't have them nailed down, then you are essentially just spending your life fluctuating between different spaces of ambiguity, different shades of grey. And the way that I sort of have worked through this myself and the way that I work through this with other people, start off with working out what your social anchors are, move that the next level down to your behavioral anchors, um, and then identify and articulate what your values are. And once you've got those, I mean it might need some testing and adjusting over time because uh identity isn't a fixed cut construct. We change, we evolve, we adapt. But once you have that compass, I think using it deliberately and using that to inform where you go and how you behave and how you interact with other people, using it to make difficult decisions. Because I I believe that an awful lot of um how would you describe it, maybe moral disengagement comes from people acting out of alignment with their own values, but not having identified what their values were in advance and therefore doing it unconsciously, and it leads to them to them to places that they probably didn't necessarily want to go to and cascades other decisions that they probably didn't want to have to make.

SPEAKER_05 11:03

So so an awareness of values and using those as a as a compass. Going back, Helen, and turning this to you on uh again the the question to Matt, what what did you um

Values As A Compass For Choices

SPEAKER_05 11:14

what did mental toughness mean to you and and and how has that changed, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Um so so that's a really interesting mental toughness is um as Matt said, so I was going through training right at the end of the 90s, beginning of the noughties, and um mental toughness was swagger in in my training environment was swagger. It was, I mean, we had things like the 5G stance, you know, you you were um mentally tough if you were kind of in with the in-crowd and you could see people kind of cutting bits off themselves, trying to achieve this idea, this this construct of mental toughness. And actually, that probably, if we look at what mental toughness is now, um, in terms of how effectively individuals are dealing with um challenge, with pressure, with stress, actually that's why I go, that mask, we've talked about that before, is not the helpful bit. The helpful bit is the courage to step behind it and go and really get kind of gnarly with what's going on and and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. And actually, it was really interesting because I was just I was you saw me scribbling down as you were talking about, hopefully. You you are absolutely right. You were talking about identity alignment, you're talking about personal values. And when I got my values straight and did the work to get the values straight, suddenly my course felt correct, right? And we've all probably done different versions of this, but we, when we're flying and taught the one in 60 rule, you know, if you're one degree off heading after 60 miles, you're gonna be 60 off heading, you know, you're gonna be it it was it was one of those things, it was just the one in 60 rule. And if you do that tiny adjustment wrong at the beginning, you're gonna be way off it in a little while. So um making sure when you're setting your course, you know where you're going and what you're doing, and doing the work then saves you doing all this recovery bit, you know, 60 minutes down the road when you're 60 miles off track, kind of thing. So you're like there was so much in there, and and it goes back, I think, to what you picked up, uh Matt, about deliberateness about be deliberate, sit with the gnarly, don't be ambivalent, don't go to the other side, don't go to the obsessive side, but be deliberate and and set the course.

SPEAKER_05 13:39

And course correct if you need challenge me if I'm off the mark then for so but because what I'm hearing about mental toughness is is a certain level of self-awareness to be self-accepting, then to take action. And I don't what what do you hear in that, Matt, and where my advice slightly missed?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Um no, I think Helen's on the money with uh being deliberate and being consistent. Um I hadn't heard the one in 60 rule before, but I really like that. I you may have seen I I jotted that one down as well. Um but it's the same with all forms of navigation and micronav in the jungle, no matter what it may be. I think that what we so often forget is that we are navigating our own lives and having that having the ability to stop and take stock and uh align yourself with where you want to go, as you would with a map and compass is uh the perfect way to uh get where you want to go. And sometimes you need to factor in um external elements such as toxic workplace environment, toxic friends, toxic family, and you know what? The old adage is pretty simple, just mount to grid, get rid. Um you've got to be deliberate these things.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

It's really it's really interesting you talk about that as a journey because um, and it's it sort of links

Grit Resilience And Hope Explained

SPEAKER_03 15:16

in a little bit. I was I was doing this workshop and we were talking about kind of you know the the things like grit, mental toughness, resilience, and we we we majored on uh a bit on burnout as well, like when you succumb to things not being right. And um actually one of the things that we talked about was like grit is the journey or the destination, you kind of long journey, right? And whereas resilience is kind of how you handle the everyday potholes on the journey, like you know, you've gone through that, and you're kind of the car, I guess, in this analogy. Like you've gone through that, you know, you've gone through that pothole. How's the car doing? You know, what do you need to do? But mental toughness is the one driving. And that's how you react to the potholes, it's how you react to the overall journey. And sometimes, as you've just said, actually, and it's the bit that I hadn't thought about is actually sometimes we need to pull over into the gas station, take a look at the map, take a look at the sat nav. Are we going the right place? Has the sat nav got us on the best journey, whatever it is, and to kind of reassess where we are, but do it deliberately. Like, don't get to the point of burnout where you know the engine light is on, you're out of gas, the last gas station was three miles away, you've got the hill to go, and you're now just on the side, I don't know, with the tyre bust or whatever. So there's all these different bits that pop into my head from that idea of this journey and and what you've just described that hmm, I'm gonna have to go and do some gonna have to go and do some reflection after this one.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

That that's really interesting to me because for me, grit and resilience are slightly different. Um grit has uh a very clear academic definition. Um and it's sort of got four main constituent components which are you know, you need to have you need to be interested in what you're doing, um, you need that time, that practice for deliberate improvement, you need that unifying purpose, which of course in the military we're we're very used to and and we do well. And the one that we don't talk about so much um is hope. And I think hope is so important. And I know Ron's heard me wax lyrical about existentialism before, but um I think it's the the one area in in grit that people forget about that that they understand the interest, they understand the practice and they understand the purpose, but they forget to hope.

SPEAKER_05 17:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what is what is hope, Matt? Help us understand that.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

So I I'm not talking about sort of blind optimism, um, because of course that is you know going to be somewhat naive. Um I think it's just the genuine knowledge and belief that your actions can and will influence the future. And that can be for better, that can be for worse. I know I've certainly uh yeah, I I'm an active participant in my life. I have made my life better at times, I've made it worse at times. But if you can if you genuinely believe that you are the architect of your own success and that you can influence your future outcomes, then that ought to then link to motivation, which is autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If we're to go with um with with Pink or autonomy, master uh autonomy, mastery, and connectedness, if we go with with Herzberg. It and and all goes back to self-determination theory, which is lovely because it's actually just saying, guys, you own this shit, it's yours. Um don't be a passive bystander in your own life. Grit is about taking control, and that locus of control is so essential to creating self-fulfillment.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

It's really interesting because when you talk about blind optimism and hope, um, and you uh and actually when you mentioned it right at the beginning about stoicism, the the person that pops straight into my head was Jim Stockdale. And when he talks about um there's a so Stockdale is the Vietnam, one of the many Vietnam prisoners of war. He um, you know, sort of survived with dignity, he was vice admiral, ended up vice admiral, and then ran for a Congress, I think it was, and actually didn't do too well doing that. But he did loads of stuff about uh and I've got his book here, she says, waving it around, courage under Courage Under Fire. It's really thick. James Bond Stockdale.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Good name.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Um yeah, James Bond Stockdale. But um it's a really, really interesting essay that he's written um about his experience after he was shot down. Um clearly he was a spider pilot, but um, he was shot down over North Vietnam and and did, I think it was about eight years, um, about half of which was in solitary. And he's he there was a question asked for him after he'd come back and and um he was being interviewed quite late on in his life, uh, and he said, the you know, which of the pr fellow prisoners didn't do so well? And he had an instant answer, and he said, the optimists. And it's a really odd answer. But when you see it in the context of what you've just talked about, about this blind optimism, that's what he was talking about. And he says things like, the ones that said, Oh, we'll be out by Christmas, and then Christmas came and went, the ones that said, Oh, we'll be out by Easter with no justification, just this kind of blind optimism that you know, this will this will resolve, this will get better. But the ones who were deliberate and who, you know, took every day and survived with dignity, but had this idea of hope that they weren't going to die here. It might not be attached to a date or a an event, but that they would survive, they would survive with dignity, were the ones who were far more successful. Um, anyway, thoroughly recommend a short read on uh that called Courage Under Fire, but ties into what you're saying about blind optimism.

SPEAKER_05 21:12

Love it. If if if we zoom back out a bit um and and anticipate that that certain people listening to

Practical Tools For High Pressure Moments

SPEAKER_05 21:19

this, given the title of the podcast, the type of guests and conversations I've had on sometimes, are very used to pushing through, pushing on, really stuck with yeah, grinding it out. Uh how might we suggest then some some certain certain steps, approaches, things to consider, even practices, um, when these sorts of high-level things can seem so far away. Uh I'm and I'm curious what comes up for you there, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

So I think in the in in the I think there are two sides to this. So you've got the immediate present moment, and then you've got the long-term work that needs to be done. I think in the immediate moment, it's the ability to perceive your emotions and then reason with them. And that allows you to regain that locus of control. Long term, it's the space of understanding and being able to manage your emotions. Um, but that is not something that I think many people are able to do in an instant. That is something that requires some proper introspection, probably some guidance and um And some support. Um but that to me is is is the best way to think about it. That short term perceive and if you want to perceive it to me, it's just about being able to name that emotion. So uh if if I think a great example is if you step into the ring, if you're if you're boxing or whatever, okay, you're probably going to feel a flurry of emotions. I know that I always do. There's going to be fear, there's going to be um potentially the an element of shame. Am I going to embarrass myself and make a twat of myself in front of my mates? Um there's going to be pressure, there's going to be excitement, uh, there's going to be you know um physical concern and not not not to even mention the sort of somatic response. So the first thing is to ask I I do is I say, okay, well, what are these emotions? Can I name them? If I name them, I can then reason with them and I can go, okay, well, it's it's natural to be afraid because someone over there is about to try and kick me in the head. Um it's it's natural to be worried about judgment of other people because I've literally put myself in the position where I'm walking into the ring or walking into the cage where um other people are going to judge me based upon my performance. Um it's natural to feel excitement because I've trained for 10 weeks in order to get to this space. I've actually volunteered to be here. And that all of a sudden returns that locus of control to me. I'm the architect of this situation. And you know, if I if you add in a couple of levers of breath work, all of a sudden you can uh you can start to relax and you can start to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

What what do you hear in what Matt is saying, uh Helen?

SPEAKER_03 24:13

I think I I I'm scribbling again. So, and and the idea of you know locus of control and and and getting down to the basics of um your resources about the breath route, which is just about trying to regulate what's going on internally and therefore giving you more resources to then deal with whatever is coming at you externally, or maybe what's bubbling up negatively inside you. But that idea that you can give yourself more resource in order to deal with whatever is coming at you. I think what what was really interesting, so we're sort of dancing around a version of talking about burnout in a way again, about when you're not high on resource, but the demand is there and you don't have you're not resourceful, so you are trying to match the resources you do have against a demand signal that might might outweigh them. And I guess what comes up when you talk about length of time, whether it's short-term or long term, short term you might be able to endure through, but endurance should have an end, endurance races have an end, endurance 24-hour dances have an end. You know, an endurance race has a an end point. The challenge is how long are you out of kilter between demand and resource? And does it have an end? Do you have an ability to recover after that end? And therefore, can your you you fill your resource bucket up again? When endurance becomes sustaining, that's when you in the long term you you you don't replenish, you don't you don't you you don't survive really, you're impaired to the point of succumbing. And so there's this really interesting bit there about, yeah, and and we'll have all seen it in the military, right? If you go on a deployment or you, you know, whatever it is you're doing, you'll endure, but you know the deployment will come to an end, you know this shift will come to an end, you you know the end point is there. When you don't have the end point, that's when it becomes much more challenging. And actually, in my head, you know, I go back to Stocktail about he didn't have an endpoint. So, how do you get mentally? How do you prepared, resilient, resourceful? What's your responsibility to that particular situation in the longer term where you don't know where the ending is?

SPEAKER_05 26:48

Helen, in your in your life now and once upon a time, um what

Planning Recovery And Mental Modelling

SPEAKER_05 26:55

what were some of the resources that in the cockpit I referred to? Um what's some of the resources that you used to to use to prepare for in terms of that high pressure environment? Um, being out a while, starting to get tired, but still with a job to do.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Um, yeah. Uh so just to give context, you know, if we were doing Iraq, we were doing between six and eight hour missions. We were only stopping at eight hours, good or take, because the um oils and hides with the aircraft, that was our limiting factor. We could refuel ourselves, we could refuel the aircraft, but we couldn't replenish the oils and hides. So the oil, you know, was supposed to last about eight hours. So that's why we did eight-hour sorties. Uh, unless there was probably a May Day or a tick, we would have been able to extend um uh uh extend that. Um in Afghanistan it was a bit shorter, it was sort of more like between four and six, but certainly when I was there, I did some really wacky hours. So we would do circadian low flying, so sort of airborne at 11 at night and through till sort of dawn or a couple of hours past dawn would be some of the really more challenging things. Um some of the ways that we ensured we were resilient enough was um prior planning and preparation beforehand. So knowing what we were going up to do, going through all the things, or as much as we could think of that might go wrong. Um and one of the things that might go right, but was always needed, might go wrong all right. We had we'd had days where we did both, was um getting fuel from tankers. So very roughly we had to refuel every two hours the aircraft. That gave us a breakaway from supporting the guys on the ground, um, and took us out of mission uh or combat mission status, not status, but thinking in a way. Detached, literally changed radios most of the time, went to the tanker, and that gave you that kind of stop. Well, I need to go and think about that. And that's a whole different challenge. Got to go and find a tanker. There's big, you know, there were some big old thunderstorms, massive mountains, obviously, but you're you're thinking about something different. So the change in thinking gives you a chance to be to adapt, so you're not just so focused on one thing. And then you have to feed yourself and fuel yourself as well. You know, you have to keep yourself going over six to eight hours. Um and and that takes some thinking in a cockpit that doesn't have a whole lot of space. Um, but you you kind of you kind of plan it, and then at the end, when you have landed and you've shut the engine down and you can kind of then you go through it all and go, okay, how would we do that differently next time? What can we do to be better tomorrow in support of the troops on the ground, in support of ourselves, in support of our windman, and you know, where can we learn um and what did we what did we learn from this one? So I guess that's sort of the three bits beginning whilst airborne and after that that was well thought out.

SPEAKER_05 30:10

Matt Matt, I'm I'm you you're nodding at a fair few points there, and and and I'm curious if anything spoke to you as to what Helen was saying, or or stuff that from your own experience be yeah, in the green suit or since that that that might not have worked given the different context or or in business or whatever it might be that from the people that you've worked with, what's you know?

SPEAKER_00 30:31

I I I think mentally modelling things is is fantastic. Um and the reason why is quite interesting. If one goes back to the sort of yeah, the the adage of 10,000 hours, I think it's important to understand where that comes from. And it comes from something called naturalistic decision making. Um, and specifically the the area that I like in that is clients uh recognition prime decision making. And we uh as humans, what we do is we we we seek to identify patterns. And the more training that we do and the more that we mental mentally model divergent scenarios, so thinking through your worst case scenario, you know, the most dangerous course of action. Why why in why in our orders process do we spend so much time thinking about the coordinating instructions and detailing what's going to happen when the shit hits the plan and the enemy has a say. Um when we're doing this, what's actually happening is we are rehearsing various scripts in our mind. And the more that we the more models that we uh rehearse, the more script that we learn, both in in practical experience through training, but also intellectually through uh preparing in advance, um, the more uh options we're creating for ourselves so that when you're put into a high pressure scenario and you have to make a split decis split second decision, you've already done the heavy lifting before you get there. And at that stage, assuming that you are in a space of conscious or unconscious confidence in whatever it is you're doing, you're able to just press execute and get on with the task.

SPEAKER_05 32:13

Matt, Helen's alluded to it, and you're you're right. Some of the talking about some of the times that we've been pushing through, we're dancing on the edge of of burnout or paying a a price. But I'm I'm curious when when might it be the right thing to do to to keep on pushing, to keep on grinding.

Stress Burnout And The Cost Of Sprints

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Oh, people talk about stress incorrectly all the time, and it really pisses me off.

SPEAKER_05 32:36

Edu macates me.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Um The Yerks Dodson law is um an oldie but a goldy. Um not sure it necessarily survived the replication test, but um there's still a lot that we can learn from it. And I think there's a tendency now, people hear stress and like, wow, I need to remove stress from my life, and that's bollocks. What's stress is stress is a signal. Stress is a signal there to recruit interest and to say pay attention. The only time it starts to become bad is when you are in a space of um constant tension where your body creates what's called an allostatic load. Um, so there is a physiological reaction to the amount of cortisol within your system. Now, at that stage, well, really ideally before that stage, you are able to identify this um that you are chronically stressed, perhaps you know, finding areas of cognitive dissonance, which I think we'd traditionally call a mental breakdown or black in Cooper's color code for your for your military audience. Um there are enough telltale signs before you get to a space of chronic hypertension that you need to be doing something about it. But I think it goes back to exactly what Helen was talking about earlier in terms of optimism and grit and not having blind optimism, having an end state for when something's going to finish is really useful. The area that I see a lot of my clients get wrong and that leads to chronic pervasive stress is that they go from one sprint to another sprint to another sprint without ever stopping to celebrate their wins. And the so what of that is they're artificially stressing themselves. Um and I say artificially mostly I is it I think it's Robert Zabowski um why zebras don't get ulcers. Um just because you know, what you're not walking into a room and finding a lion in front of you. These are these are 21st century stresses that we've created um societally. But they are going from sprint to sprint to sprint without stopping to celebrate the win. As a result, their body remains in a state of hypertension. Um they create that allostatic load. The simplest way to prevent it in a workplace environment like that is when you or your team have done something really good, stop and recognize it collectively, share it socially, express that, have gratitude for it, be present in that moment rather than searching for the next ladder to sprint up at a thousand miles an hour in full battle rattle. Um because when we tell ourselves the story of the last 12 months of work, if you go from sprint to sprint to sprint to sprint to sprint, it's accumulating. If you go to sprint to oh wow, do you remember we, you know, we we went out for dinner and we celebrated this win on this account together, and then we did another really great piece of work. Um, and then after that, you know, the bottle took us out for dinner and you know, put put his car behind the bar or her card behind the bar for an hour, and you know, it was great. All of a sudden, you're telling yourself a story of respite as well. And it might seem silly, but that little moment, that little thing, allows you, exactly as Helen said there, to start to have a little bit of psychological recovery. And that's pretty essential.

SPEAKER_05 35:57

Rem reminds us of a conversation we had not so long ago, uh Helen, around transition and and down regulation, yeah, um, and building the intentionality to to to certain yeah, points of the day, points in the project, relationships, maybe as well. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Kind of it goes back to um the idea of deliberateness as well. Like and and this Matt may um may have noticed this as well, is actually some people don't want to stop because the idea they'll they'll finish that job, but the idea of stopping, taking a break, looking around, assessing, even celebrating. And I'm celebrating, you'd think people want to do that, but actually that might open them up into something they don't want to go and witness, they don't want to see about themselves, so they just jump onto the next task, they just keep going. It's just another job. And what are they not doing when actually they jump onto the next job? And it might be a tactic of avoiding whatever this really big gaping hole or big question or real challenging thing that's difficult and hard that they've got to go and look at. But I tell you what, I'm busy. I've got I've got that next project to manage, or that next client to go and see, or that next promotion to go forward, and da da da. But actually, there's something here that they need to be looking at, and they're not. Um, and it it's really interesting that one. Carver, there's um an academic study, and I will find the link and we can put it out. But Carver did a four-response model, and he he did a big meta-analysis quite a while ago. He did a big meta-analysis of people's response to adversity. We can talk about that one because there's another challenging word. Um, and what he found was the four responses from this meta-analysis were um people reacted in one of four ways, succumbing, i.e., they just sank. Um, and that's really immediate and really quick. The next one was they survived, but with impairment, and that's sort of that long road to burnout, because if you survive with impairment, the next adverse event takes you down another level and takes you down another level. You never get back to it. The third response was that resilience, that bouncing back that goes back to what they were, kind of normal operating, that but they haven't really done much with it, and that might be the person that you know keeps going with the jobs, but or or whatever. But the last one was thriving. And I think that's what you're describing, Matt, is they've done something or something has happened, the adverse event has happened, and they thrive. Or if we don't call it an adverse event, but we call it a challenge, or the end of a project, or whatever has happened, if you can thrive after that, if you can take it and build on it, actually you go up. And it's this for response model that I find really useful when you talk to people about well, how do you deal with challenge? How do you deal with, as Matt has rightly said, ri uh real stress isn't the right word, but stress that isn't this, oh, it's so stressful. Actual stress on your body, stress on your mind, how does that, how do you deal with that and come through that? Um, and those four responses I find quite useful. Go on, Matt. I'm not sure you have to put a hand up there.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Just a question, really. Um I was wondering if you've looked at that model, um, Carvers for response model in line with cognitive appraisal theory.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Oh, no, go on. Go on.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

So it no, just uh the synergies there I think are really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Um, because cognitive appraisal theory is that when you look at a let's call it a uh let's call it a stimuli, um, you either see it as a threat or an opportunity. Ah and there are multiple, uh, I think three different appraisals that you uh conduct, um, and how you respond to that internally very often predicates the way in which you will respond to it externally, and really interestingly, the successful um completion of tasks. And it in many ways it goes back to winning being a habit, which takes us back to the script that we were talking about earlier. Um, because if you've had positive experiences and positive mental models of things in the past, you're more likely to view it as an opportunity rather than a threat, and it becomes cyclical, which is just lovely.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I'm just taking it. I'm gonna have to go and look at Carver's full response model.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

I will send you, I will send you the link. It's actually it's it's like 25, 30 years old, and it was this big meta-analysis, but I will send you the link. Uh I actually got it from another person who I do need to just acknowledge is Dr. Audrey Tang. She does amazing work on burnout. She does quite a lot with the British Psychological Society. Uh, but beyond that, she's on TEDx, she does loads of stuff on burnout, and um I she I'm I'm actually I've actually used some of her stuff in today, so I do feel I need to acknowledge her excellent work on burnout.

SPEAKER_05 40:52

I love it. Um Helen, a question for you. I'm I'm I'm curious then. I find myself listening to this through either a work lens or a personal life lens. In your experience with the the work that you've done, if we're only looking at it through work because there's less shit to deal with in terms of our own emotions, how how far are we how much are we limiting ourselves, if at all, then by not taking a look at the root cause, which is is probably us and what parts of us we're bringing to work? If that makes sense that question, I can have another go at it.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

No, no, no. I'll I'll start, I'll I'll answer a version of what I think that question is, and then I'm sure Matt or yourself will might want to come in as well. So, what's really interesting, and I'll focus on burnout just because this is an interesting link into the World Health Organization defines burnout as um occurring only in an occupational setting. And from lots of reading, uh, like I said, especially um Dr. Tang's stuff and other stuff that I've been reading on, it uh burnout doesn't only occur in an occupational setting. It you know, you get parental burnout, you get uh carer burnout, you get relationship burnout, you so burnout where um the demands on you exceed the resources you have to deal with it. Um, and I don't know who defined it like that, but I think it's an excellent definition. Um that for me can come at any point where that demand is on you, and you'll see it, you know, as um mothers with young, well, parents with young kids, forgive me, mine was I I'm a mother, so that's my version of it. But you'll see it in work, you'll see it um, you'll you'll see it in all sorts of different places. So where demand exceeds resource, it's across the board. Where we tend to think burnout occurs, it happens in an occupational setting, and therefore we can kind of feel like maybe we can we can fence it off. It's a problem at work, it's over here. If you come home, if we give you some rest, we'll get you out of the work space, you'll recover, and that will be fine. And it doesn't happen like that, it will go across the spectrum of lived existence, and rest isn't the cure for burnout. Um, is a there's a vast array of things that need to be looked at when you're looking at recovering from burnout, if that's even the right phrase. Um, which includes, and that goes back to what Matt had come up with that identity alignment, the values, the purpose, big P and small P of how you exist. Um, because that's where burnout really stems from is that misalignment. That probably didn't quite answer the question you were looking for, but perhaps if I hand it back to you two, we can keep the conversation going.

SPEAKER_05 43:56

Yeah, and it it's your job just to speak what's on your heart, you know, on your head. I I make these things up as I go along, as you well know, having done these episodes with me. Um and I can rephrase it. But yeah, no, no, it did. Um, it did. Um and and Matt, and same question to you, or if you would tweak that question um for yourself to answer, I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

I don't think I could answer that any better than Helen just did, actually. Um yeah, I think that's a a very good, very clear, very thoughtful answer. What was Coming up for me when Helen was speaking actually weirdly was um almost the army

Risk Tolerance And The Fit To Fly Test

SPEAKER_00 44:35

and some of the um some of the attitudes around risk. And I I think it's an area that is perhaps, dare I say, a little bit immaturely understood. I'm convinced that whoever wrote the army's manual on risk was a bottom third SO2 somewhere uh who was given twenty hours to do it. Um because to me, a world class organization doesn't just hold risk, that's immature. A world class organization, exactly as Helen says, has the resources to mitigate risk. And I know that the the adage of doing more with less uh doesn't seem to have gone away. Um I I speak to friends in other defence forces and militaries around the world, and they're they're getting the same narrative downfast, maybe the US. Um and we wonder why our service personnel are mentally fatigued and exhausted. I don't know. I think our relationship with risk could really mature if we aligned it with conversations around resilience and resource.

SPEAKER_05 45:53

Where's your mind going, Helen?

SPEAKER_03 45:55

Sure, so sort of in quite a specific direction, which uh uh with regard to that, because one of the things when we're talking about uh air crew and flying, and as you know, I like to do that, um one of the things that we will check in with uh is are they fit to fly? And it's a it's you people think it's a very black and white question, it's a very grey question with some very grey answers in there because there's there's some days when you really aren't, you know, um and genuinely you can't clear your ears, which will cause some real serious issues, and there are other issues that mean you cannot get airborne. But then there's that nuanced bit in the middle of well, am I am I good to go? Am I fit to fit to fly this sortie? Um, and there's a risk tolerance in there that's implicit because if it's a training sortie single aircraft in the UK, the risk level, the risk the willingness to bear risk is lower because really, you know, we can either bump it a couple of hours, we could bump it to tomorrow, maybe, you know. If there are other dependencies, if you're on an exercise, you're gonna land on the boat, you're going or you're on something overseas, but still on exercise, your risk tolerance changes again. And then when you're in operations, you know, your risk tolerance is very, very different, right? You'll take the you might take the dodgy here, albeit if it's too dodgy, you might write yourself off for a week. So there's all these risk balances back and forth. And I go to that very personal space of it was a daily judgment for our individuals who are very young individuals. Are they fit to fly? Are we, as the authorizing officers and the seniors, happy with the risk they're carrying going forward? And we, you know, and we made we made some tricky decisions about risk tolerance and risk acceptance and risk breaches. When when the young, excitable junior, we called them the junta, wanted to go flying, and they always did, right? Because they're junter, and that's what you want to do in your first talk. Actually, sometimes we have to say, You're not fit go ahead, you know, or you know, we need to know we're not gonna let you two fly together or something. So is that that risk tolerance is what came up for me then about identifying and managing the real risk that sometimes a single question, Are you fit to fly? Doesn't it only scrapes into the surface and you have to you have to ask the right questions to dig down, have the awareness to dig down in the right way.

SPEAKER_05 48:46

Yeah, and like and I guess there's a sense of modelling that as well. So not not just dictating, but but modelling it. Um and and we could carry on for ages, and I and I love this conversation. Um, but I'm I'm curious for both of you, aware of time, um, if there's anything that we've not talked about um that you'd like to mention or or something that you would like to leave on, um or or a reflection from the many notes scribbled. I forgot to mention this is being recorded, you get to listen back to it. That's the beauty of a podcast. Maybe I should explain that better next time. Um yeah, before I'm joking. Um before before we start to to round up, uh Matt Matt, over to you, mate.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

I think the uh Oracle at Delphi had it pretty spot on and it's 2,000 years old and we're still

Closing Reflections Know Thyself

SPEAKER_00 49:40

not getting it. Know thyself. Get to know yourself, learn to love yourself, give yourself a little bit of grace at times. Sometimes give yourself a kick up the ass. Um but get to know yourself. Don't I can't think of anything worse than waking up on your last day on this earth and you know, looking yourself in the in the eyes when you're brushing your teeth and going, I wasn't deliberate and I don't recognise the person I've become. That to me would be a really sad state of affairs, and it's eminently uh avoidable. And I reckon a lot of coaches will talk about finding your why, and uh in psychology, we've got different ways of phrasing it as well. But um there's nothing trite about it really because it's as old as time. You had the elucid mysteries, you had we have vision quests, we have um you know Aboriginal culture, go walk about. The idea of getting to know yourself and aligning who you are with the way you navigate the world is a story as old as time, and it's pretty simple to do. Get out into nature, go ped red, so you know, mobile phones off, and don't come back until you've learned something about who you are and how you'd like to live.

SPEAKER_05 50:54

Love it. There's a challenge for the week.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Uh and and for you, Helen, same same sort of question then um I guess mine mine is a slightly different viewpoint, but goes back to that idea of it being a journey and you perhaps being a car or the vehicle that's on the journey. And there's a question, and it's similar to what Matt said, is you know, if you're about to go this journey or if you're in this race, how do you make a fourth position? How how are you?

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Thank you very much. Um, I think that's a good idea.