Welcome to the job interview experience. I'm no psychologist, but I know this. There's a whole lot going on with job seekers, the stress of unemployment, the stress before job interviews, the unknown future. Which I know many people that are listening are in this position. Whether you don't know when the next job will come, or you don't know what your career will look like and you're feeling some stress, maybe you aren't where you wanna be. Nerves, excitement, terror. Like I said, there's a lot going on. My goal with the job interview experience is to help you prepare, give you the tools to help build your confidence. And when you're prepared, your nerves typically aren't as bad. You perform better and get further. I think it's important to dig deeper into the science of Job interviews, learn how to stay calm, manage anxiety. Be more steady, make better decisions and thrive in our career. So today we have two remarkable guests who blend the fields of medicine, neuroscience, and business to provide unique perspectives today on job interviews and career development. Dr. Randy Braze is a board certified psychiatrist, currently serving as a medical director for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and running a part-time private practice. Dr. Braze is also an active teacher in health related fields in a published co-author in several peer reviewed business journals. With experience in trauma, depression, and stress treatments, Dr. Brazy brings a wealth of knowledge on how to stay regulated. And maintain a positive frame of mind during things like the job search process, or even, of course, outside of that. Joining us as well is Dr. Jeffrey VanderPol, an educator and financial advisor with a robust background in finance, leadership, and business, In fact, Dr. VanderPol teaches in the Master of Science in Finance Program at Purdue University Global and is the author of Invincible Investing. His expertise in market trends and job opportunities, especially in the evolving landscape of in-office remote and hybrid work environments. Make him a valuable resource for career seekers. Together they co-authored The Steadfast Leader, a book that integrates the latest scientific understanding of the human nervous system to help leaders stay focused and make better decisions. Today we're gonna explore all of this. I think I've talked way more than I should, but we have great guests today and I want to do justice to their backgrounds. Welcome guys.
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801Thank you, Matthew.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801Can you share a little bit about your background and what led up to today and your focus on the intersection of neuroscience, psychiatry, and business?
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Randy and I have been friends for years and. About three years ago, we were having dinner one night and we were just chatting about some of the work that we're doing in our respective fields. And I've always had a very strong interest in psychology. And because of Randy's background, I always pick his brain regarding psychology matters. we were just having an interesting conversation. I was asking about some of the work he was doing with Somatic Experience and Trauma and PTSD and to understand that world a little better. And as he was talking about some of the work that he was doing he started. Talking about polyvagal theory and Neuroception interoception, these terms that I had no familiarity with initially. And as he was explaining all this to me, I was thinking about the linkage to leadership and leadership models, and we went down this path of having a conversation about how there's really a gap in leadership and business decision making and using some of these. Areas of psychology that could be very influential in business. And so we started basically writing down some ideas on a napkin in the restaurant, so to speak, and thought, Hey, let's write a book. And we joked about a little bit, but shortly thereafter we actually started working on writing the book. And it took some time, but we co-authored The Steadfast Leader, which was published by McGraw Hill late last year. But we also co-authored I think now we're at five peer reviewed journal articles in various business journals. And we're working on some other materials. And we have a second book that we're working on as well that's being shopped to different publishers. So this has really turned into something that from the initial catalyst stage to something that's really have grown quite a bit. And it's been an interesting journey so far.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801What can job seekers that are feeling that stress, anxiety and nerves, what can they do? What are some techniques they can use?
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801Yeah, Matthew, this is a great question. we have all these theories and ideas, but how do I implement this? One of the things that we're clear about is that we don't expect people to become therapists or to have to go back to school and learn a bunch of neuroscience. So we really strive to provide very actionable, easy to digest information and practical tips. So the first step is that if you want to know how to wrangle with these anxieties you have to know thyself. You have to know how your own nervous system, how you as a person tend to react to stress. And we talk about this in the book is basically our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for signs of danger or safety. And this is a very automatic instinctual process. The nervous system makes the decision whether we're safe or not on its own. Without our thinking brain, it's automatic. And what happens then is based on its determination the nervous system will then put you in a state that sort of matches with where it thinks it's at. So this could be if everything's fine, everything's safe we might be in what we call the social engagement state. Which is where everything's cool. We can connect and enjoy hanging out with each other as people. Think about an interview where things are going really well and you like the interviewer and you're really flowing and laughing and enjoying. That's somebody who is their nervous system has decided. Yep, we're cool. If, however, the nervous system thinks we're in a bit of danger here, there's some potential threat. We notice then that our sympathetic nervous system, which of course people know is the fight or flight system starts to activate. And when that does, this is where people really need to know. What are my signs when I am activated? Do I get hot and sweaty? Does my chest tighten? Does my heart start to pound? Do I get shaky? Then if the nervous system thinks that not only are we in danger, but we're not gonna get out of it, we actually might what we call immobilize. This is where a person can dissociate a bit, and so they look like they're talking and thinking and responding, but the brain literally is disconnected. The instinctive brain from the thinking brain. You talk about people who doesn't seem like it's getting in or they're not really retaining what's being talked about For any of your listeners, think about the times you've gone through an interview and walked out and thought what happened? I don't remember. That's what dissociation looks like. So knowing myself is what happens to me when I'm in one of these three states, because then you can start to more quickly identify, ah, I'm going into fight or flight. The second stage then is how do you actually implement that? What do you do to then shift yourself into a state that's more useful? And that's something that we can talk about a little further. And these are the skills that we talk about in the book, but also teach in our trainings.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801Would it be accurate to guess that people typically don't perform well in that state?
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801It could be either, and I'm sure Jeffrey has many examples where he's seen in the business world of somebody may look like they're on fire and performing well, but they don't recall what the heck happened. Or somebody that might be stumbling or fumbling or just withdrawing. This is the person that might even just say. flight, which is the higher level, the fight or flight. Flight could be that they just bail out. They just run away. So yes, you're right. They can look like they're very high functioning. But there's a scientific reason behind that, and it's basically a section of the brain that connects your thinking brain with your non-thinking brain. And that tends to kinda shut down when we're too freaked out. So you have the two regions that are working independently. They're not coordinating with each other, so this is why you can get a different presentation depending on the situation.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801What's interesting about job interviews is the physical situation you are in, if your body is triggering fight or flight is you're usually in a room with a closed door and it's either one-on-one or. Three to five people steering at you from the other side of the room, whether it would be claustrophobia or our gut instinct saying, Hey you're trapped in somewhere with a bunch of people who aren't necessarily on your side. You wanna close the door so it's not noisy and there's no distractions. I think it's a friendly setup, but. with our gut instinct, right? With that kind of reptilian brain fight or flight, none of these things work out in the favor of the job seeker. For the interviewer, it's just the office, right? It's just a boring conference room. For in-person interviews, is there anything. A job seeker could do to help warm up that situation for themselves so that when they sit down, they don't feel like they are, physically in a bad place.
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801Yeah, and I know we can talk a bit about, Jeffrey has a lot of expertise around. Recommendations around how to conduct interviews and also advising organizations on how they can try to reduce these cues of danger is what we call what you just described, Matthew. But very quickly. There are a lot of different ways to regulate oneself and they don't necessarily have to be super fancy. They also can be things that are very subtle so that you can do these things without really anybody noticing. So what do I mean by this? For example, one concept that we learned from my training in somatic experiencing is that. Think about that phrase. He was like a deer in the headlights, right? So what do we do when we're freaked out? We freeze. We try to fix our gaze on what the potential threat is and we don't notice what else is going on around us. So we can actually trick our brains into thinking we're not in danger by doing the opposite. This is what we call orienting. So we'll invite people to simply look around. If you are in that room, actually take the time to look around and check out your environment. What do you see? Notice the things, even name those things inside, mentally into your head. Oh, there's a chair, there's a desk, there's a coffee cup, there's another chair. Don't judge things 'cause you, if you get in the judgment, that just leads you down the wrong garden path. We invite people to practice this when they're not in a high stress situation. Once it clicks with you, you get it. You'll realize that your brain will automatically say, oh, we're not in any danger 'cause we're looking around. Cool. We can stand down. We're okay. We also use a lot of other mindful techniques. You mentioned something about breathing. There's certain types of breathing techniques that people can use that will help them. We do not recommend just doing random deep breathing because if you have any kind of history of anxiety or scary experiences, you might actually trigger yourself into more of a state of panic. For example, Navy Seals do the box breathing right. Breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, and then wait for four before the next breath. Andrew Weil talks about 4, 7, 8 breathing, which comes from ancient India. Where you breathe in for four, hold for a count of seven, and then breathe out slowly for a count of eight. So there are different things that people can play with. To try to see what regulates their system. The last example I'll mention is you can just do mindful sitting. So you're there in the chair doing the interview. Try to take the elevator out of your brain and notice in your body where you feel contact either with the chair or your feet on the floor, and try to focus on that sensation. Really lean into it. Feel that contact. That's a very sort of instinctive way to tell your brain we're okay. Safe and supported much like a mother would hold the infant and support the infant that way to help soothe them to calm. I don't know if you have any other thoughts, Jeffrey, around that.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Yeah. And I think also, those are all, excellent suggestions that individuals can put into effect for calming themselves in those situations. Another thing they can do is before the interview, they make sure they're well prepared for the interview. Learning about the company, learning about the person that you're interviewing with, if they can learn enough where they can have a casual conversation coming in to break the ice. 'cause if the interviewer is not someone who's overly sociable, or really engaging could actually engage the interviewer to a degree and try to break that ice and create a more pleasant and calming environment that way. Now, of course, as the interviewee is being interviewed, the stress levels can be high and that can sometimes be difficult with practice, though, that can be done. Some of these ideas do take some practice, but once mastered it can make a profound difference. How people go into an interview process how they perceive the interview process and how they're perceived as well. So learning some of these social engagement cues and tips is really important as they go through that process.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801It is really hard not to be overly excitable For extreme introverts that are listening I think they actually have a leg up here because the volume's not turned up quite as high for extroverts that are getting all of this extreme energy from the room. I wanna repeat, I'm not a psychologist, I've just witnessed a lot of this. So please correct me where I'm wrong, but I'll see people, they come in, start talking way faster, a little bit jerkier, body movements, maybe a little more interrupting. When I coach people on this, I help them think of just boring. You're walking in the room and one of your parents is there. It's Hey mom. Not that's what you wanna do, but if you're gonna be a 10, outta 10, you come in and, you throw the hand out, you shake and you're, you start asking que like, oh, that's great art on the wall. And this is a great table. that's what people tend to do. If you can approach it. Hey guys, good to see everybody. And integrate that into at least the first moments to set a stage of that calm and quiet like you said, Dr. VanderPol. That seems to help when you just try and normalize things a little bit. And then the other side, when you talked about naming. There's a cup, there's a plate. In my mind, what that does is you're almost reminding yourself, this is all very normal,? There's no cleaver on the table, my body, for some reason, thinks that this a should be high stress situation. There should be danger. This is an office, This is a conference room. There's a cup, there's a table, there's some kind of boring artwork, Looks like it belongs in a hotel lobby. Everything's okay. I think that's gonna be really helpful for listeners. When I have a stressful phone call or when I've had job interviews on the phone as the interviewee, I tend to pace and I'm someone who could wear out the carpet in the house just doing circles, whether it's a phone call with a friend, where're, trying to maybe figure something out, something's broken. I'm trying to walk someone through how to fix something or like I said, maybe I'm being interviewed or something like that. What do we do with that energy, whether it's a phone interview, video interview, in-person interview? Where can all of that go?
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801That gets to really the concept of that you have this survival energy. So Steven Porges, who founded the Polyvagal theory, which is the backbone of a lot of our approaches, he describes that as the nervous system is all dressed up with no to go. And so you basically, you have survival energy, so you have to do something with it, right? This is exactly what you're asking. It might be that if you're on a phone interview that you need to pace, that's actually perfectly fine, provided that you're not getting yourself so ramped up and overstimulated that then you start to lose the plot. Basically lose the train of your thought or what you're trying to achieve. It could be these mindful approaches. So some people do mindful walking. So if you're pacing, drop your awareness, take that elevator out of your head and actually pay attention to your feet. What does it feel like to pace in your feet? What does your body feel like as it does that? If you're on a video type thing, when you're trying to sit still maybe you need to focus on where you make connection. Like I said, with the chair, with the floor. Maybe put your hands on the desk and feel that connection. Do these orienting skills. Ultimately, when you have this survival energy, when you're in the moment, it's gonna be hard for you to, do something too obvious run and pace and or do anything. 'cause then they're gonna think you're a bit odd or that you're a bit too anxious. But maybe, before, Jeffrey really touched upon an important point is that preparing yourself before help boost your confidence. So maybe before you need to do something like, throw down a few pushups or jog in place or. Keep working on settling your system. You have to find what works for you in the moment and it's gonna be different for each person. Yeah, so those would be some of my thoughts around
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802And I would just add that, there's different things for different people. So like for example, I had to take an exam recently. I was doing another master's degree. And the test was a little stressful, so I took a walk around the block before I sat down for the exam. For me, that actually calmed my nerves and took some of that nervous energy away. You could even do that for a job interview. If it's the right environment, maybe walk around. The lobby for a little bit, or you walk around the block if that's possible, or walk around the building, if it's appropriate. if you have a lot of nervous energy, you can work a little bit of that off. Now, you shouldn't be jogging around getting all sweaty, obviously, before the interview but certainly you can let some of that energy off if you have a lot of nervous energy. For some people it might be listening to certain types of music if there's certain music that calms you down. Then maybe listening to the music on the way to the interview. Or if you have headphones, maybe before you go into the interview and listen to the music for a little bit, that might put you into a calmer state as well. So there's different techniques, like Randy was talking about all different types of techniques, but you have to find what works for you those techniques can be very useful for calming down nervous system.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801Do you have any advice for people, to get to a better place or to help set themself up for success so that their finances, don't overwhelm the process of getting a job.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Yeah, there's a couple things and some of this might seem like common sense, but unfortunately human nature, always follow this path. Number one budgeting is really important. And that's one of the first things we talk about in financial planning is how do you properly budget? Doesn't everyone budget? No, actually a lot of people don't really budget. If you sit down with most people, for 20 years I was certified financial planner and met with thousands of clients, and I would say the vast majority. Did not have a real good idea of their actual budget. The first thing we did was actually sat down, looked at their income, what they paid in taxes, all their bills, rent, mortgage, everything, and broke it down, health insurance expense, et cetera. And when you start to do that and break it down, you start understanding, where's the money coming from and where is it going? You can better allocate your resources and figure out how to better not only invest your money, but also. Where can you get some efficiencies and save more? And that's really, the first step. The second thing I think is very important is not to over and debt ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of debt. We take out a mortgage to get a home. Most people can't afford to pay cash for a home, understandably. It's an expensive asset. Same for cars. Cars are very expensive. Most people take out a loan. Understandable. It's okay to take a loan out for the car 'cause it gets you to work and helps you make money, right? It's a resource that allows you to earn income. The home is an asset that hopefully will appreciate in value over time and it's a place to live for you and your family. There's reasons for taking out debt for those purposes, but just to spend on things that you don't need on credit cards and pay excessive interest rates. Is really not a wise way of managing your money, and unfortunately a lot of people are spending money on things who are not managing their budgets well and they have excessive credit card debt. Now, there are emergencies and things that happen in life, understandably, where you know, you might have to use a credit card to pay a medical bill. I certainly understand that. But a lot of cases people are locating their resources and taking on a lot of debt when they don't need to. So I think those are the two biggest elements to be aware of.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801And it sounds like some of that one could be long term and one could be short term. So long term would be trying to fill up that rainy day fund emergency savings account, and the other would be. Maybe you see layoffs coming or you've recently been laid off, not the best time maybe to go on such a nice vacation. Or maybe it's better to hold onto the car, right? If the car's running maybe not purchase a new car just yet. I've seen people who have lost jobs and they've saved so well that it's I think I'm gonna take a couple weeks. Just relax and then I'm gonna get on the job search. And not everyone has the privilege to be in that spot. And that's something that you can't just snap your fingers and be there, being able to live your life in that type of way and budget and plan. I've seen this in people that the urgency, the stress of the job search, it removes those financial factors. At least. You might not know when you'll get the next job. You might not know who wants you or where the demand is for your skills, but at least you're not counting down maybe days or weeks until you have to have a job and. My wish would be that, job seekers could be unburdened of that. That's just the reality for many people. So that short and long term today is the time to start thinking about that. Especially as listeners get jobs and get that income back to start saving and have that, people call it a cushion, right? Or safety net, where no matter what happens, the employment does not have total control over your life and lifestyle. whether it be a couple days or a couple weeks to breathe a little bit in between jobs, takes a couple mental health weeks, whatever that might be. That seems to be a very empowering situation for people to be in if they can get themselves to that spot.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802if you look at human nature in regards to making more money, what's the first thing people do? They buy a bigger house, they buy fancier cars, right? They buy more things for the home, they buy more expensive clothes. List goes on. And you hear about people that are claiming they're making half million a year, million a year, and they're claiming I don't have much money left over. At the end of the year, of course, people making 50,000, they go, what are you talking about? That's crazy. But the reality is they just keep spending more. So you really should be saving more instead of spending more. But unfortunately most people don't do that. So they wanna upgrade their lifestyle and I understand people wanna, have a better life, but at the same time, you have to be very rational and reasonable about it. So if you are making more income, you really should be focusing on putting more of that away in savings, retirement, and not just saying, oh, I can go buy some jet skis now. Oh, I can get a bigger house, or I can buy a third car. They don't really need, but it'd be nice to have, so at some point you have to say, okay, I need to pull the reins back a little bit and think about my future and go, I need to save money. And this is something I spend a lot of time, especially with younger clients over the years, trying to get them to understand that the time value of money, the compounding of money over time is so critically important. You start in your twenties saving even a couple thousand dollars a year. That grows into substantial amounts of money by the time you hit retirement. But most people didn't even think about really saving money until about their late forties getting into their fifties. And by that point it's much more difficult 'cause you have to save a lot more 'cause you have a shorter period of time. 'cause the compounding effect isn't as strong. It's almost like an inverted ski slope basically going up the ski slope that when you look at compounding exponentially, the further you go up, the more the money actually grows. It's really amazing. And if people better understood that very simple concept, they'd be able to save a lot more money. I think be a bit more disciplined.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801What has the reaction been to the steadfast leader? Do you have any stories or feedback from readers?
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Yeah, we've had some people close to us actually read the book and come back to us directly and say, look, this book is very different from other leadership books. And they really enjoyed reading it, and they learned a lot from it. They've read other leadership books, but found ours to be quite different than what's on the market. It's one of the reasons why McGraw-Hill picked up the book, as first time authors. That was a pretty big deal. And they saw something in the book that was very different than other leadership books on the market.
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801As a matter of fact, I just before our recording this podcast just got off a meeting with a woman who's an executive coach in London who had found us on LinkedIn, she's also trained in. Understanding Polyvagal theory. She trained under Deb Dana, the famous therapist translated theory from science to actual language the rest of us could understand. And she was just very fascinated with the book. We're getting a lot of people acknowledging that this is different rather than just using the same old models and rebranding them. We're trying to do something that really brings in a much more holistic picture of understanding how we as human beings work. Listening to Jeffrey talking about, some of those recent comments reminded me of how as a psychiatrist, human beings react. Like people going into financial stress, how they do the doom spending, right? They just say fine, forget it. I'm just gonna blow all the last little bits of money, or. And it gets into some of these biases that you talked about where we make these large judgements or decisions on an impulsive level basically on faulty logic once we're triggered once our instinctive drives or our survival mechanisms are triggered. It's very interesting how we humans react to situations.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802I would just add too, the gambler's fallacy. Speaking of biases, one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of people make and it's not just young people. I've seen this happen with people who are older as well, who are trying to make up for lost time, but also younger people who tend to be, more risk-taking in their attitude 'cause they're younger. Is the fact that they're investing in assets or in various investments that have large amounts of risk, hoping to get rich quick. And I can assure people not just through my own experiences anecdotally dealing with thousands of clients. But also the research shows this as well over and over again that there really is no such thing as Get Rich quick. Every once in a while someone wins the lottery and then, there are things that do happen in life, but the vast majority of people who are millionaires or billionaires, The wealth was created over multiple decades. In fact, the average millionaire in the United States is 54 years old. For people who are 25 years old thinking, I'm gonna get rich quick and put all my money in crypto and make millions in a couple years, that's probably not likely. I'm not saying don't put a little bit of money in crypto. What I'm saying is you need to be careful Diversification. I can't emphasize this enough. Even Scott Galloway talks about this quite a bit. Diversification, and this is something that's a mantra in financial planning that all financial advisors typically talk about. You need to diversify, you need to have different asset classes, different types of investments. You need to manage the risk carefully. It's not about getting rich quick, it's about getting rich slow. And I know it sounds boring to a lot of people, it doesn't sound exciting, but the reality is, if you think with a get rich slow mentality, you're gonna probably get rich and keep your money. If you have a get rich quick mentality, you're probably gonna lose most everything at some point. So it's a very I can't emphasize it enough. And it's. Very difficult. Some sometimes get people to truly understand that concept.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801Would you leave us with some words of wisdom, maybe your advice on maintaining that resilience and adaptability and this changing job market that we're in.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Being a problem solver, I have this discussion with my students Periodically, you can be an order taker or you can be a problem solver. Employers are looking for problem solvers. So if you can find a way to solve problems, be a solution provider, that creates real value. And I think that can give you a competitive advantage, especially in the interviewing process. So that's basically what I would focus on from the interviewing perspective.
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801Yeah, and I would say that, I think really, Matthew, you touched on a critical point is what is my mission? What is it that I want to do? And if my entire mission is just, gosh, I need to get an income to support myself or my family. That's important, but that's a very different sort of motive than to say, wow, I know this company does really great. This or that, and I have so many really interesting ideas that I would love to share and to help this company do better, because I think it'll also basically do better for our community in some way. Whether you're selling a product or a service or working in the healthcare industry, it's pretty easy to find ways that you think you can actually change lives. So if people can tap into that. And then work on regulation skills. Work on the ways that help you to settle yourself. It's gonna be different for each person that'll help you get through and stay focused on this kind of mission. what is my purpose behind this? And I think that is so critical to really keep in mind.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801What's the best way for listeners to connect with you two and the resources that you offer?
squadcaster-537d_1_07-19-2024_090801We have a couple websites or our main one is neuro consulting group.com. And that's where they can see some information about our company. And also it links to some online training that we have prerecorded and developed that's based on the book, which by the way, does give continuing education credits. For CFP Board, PMI, project Management Institute and SHRM hr. Is that correct, Jeffrey? I got those. It also, it just breaks down the concepts of the book in a nice way that's easy to digest. They can go to steadfast leader.com, which is where our book is highlighted, although it's available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble for those in the us. And it, there's also an audio book version of it that's available. Those are probably the two easiest ways to contact us is through those sites.
matthew_1_07-19-2024_110801We'll link to those in this episode's description. I'll put a link maybe to Amazon and the steadfast leader book.com so listeners can quickly jump to that and then those other sites that you listed, so they'll look forward to connecting with you. Thank you both of you so much for sharing your time and insight.
geoffrey-vanderpal_1_07-19-2024_090802Thank you very much.