Stephanie Brown: The Journey to Finding Your Next Perfect Role

Dr. Paul White: Developing a Sense of Appreciation in Workplaces

Appreciation is a crucial element for a healthy work environment.

Bio:
Paul White, PhD, is a psychologist, author, and speaker who "makes work relationships work." He has written articles for and been interviewed by many media houses. His expertise has been sought by people from across the world.

Links:
Website: https://appreciationatwork.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-white-ph-d-3178276/

Quotes:
"When we show interest in other people and open ourselves up to learn even more or be influenced by them, it's a huge door of opportunity."

Episode Highlights:
Today, Dr. Paul White shares his journey to becoming the person he is today and discusses the different languages of appreciation in workplaces, and gives us his view on life in general. His passion lies in motivation by appreciation. He has authored a book and created resources to share his wisdom and knowledge.

Childhood Memories:
Dr. White worked in his father’s factory from junior high school until college. His dad’s motive was to teach him the value of education and training. Through his experience working in the factory, Dr. White knew he didn’t want to work at the end of the conveyor belt later in life. As a child, Dr. White always went fishing with his mother to have a moment of bonding. His mom learned how to fish as a way of creating a special bond with her children.

Cultural and Leadership Influence:
In life, having a community and developing relationships is essential for times when crises arise, so at least you will have people who can step up. Dr. White recalls when they had their twin sons in Phoenix away from family. The first two years were not easy for them, and it got as far as sleep deprivation.

Influential Groups:
When Paul and his wife were raising their children, it gave them an opportunity to meet parents of their kids' friends and develop friendships. Unfortunately, when their lastborn left the local school, there was a vacuum of friendship since there were no activities bringing them together with other people.

Cultural Epiphanies:
Dr. White realized that in a white male business group of older decision makers, expect respect to be communicated by giving your full attention, listening, and looking them in the eye. In contrast, culturally, both Native Americans and some groups of African Americans view looking a superior in the eye as disrespectful. He learnt the we need to work harder to understand people’s culture.

Personality and Temperament:
Paul describes himself as a social animal. He is socially outgoing, fairly spontaneous, flexible, and loves to have fun.

Impulse control is one characteristic that Paul has grown and continues to grow. He can be spontaneous, but he is learning that there are times to slow down, think through things clearly, not react as much, and be more thoughtful and listen.

What Brings Out the Best in Dr. Paul White?
Dr. White enjoys some structure but also appreciates opportunities to think on his feet and give answers from his life and brain. Recently, he spoke to a group of 30 to 40 business leaders in New York City, during a half-day interactive training. This group really challenged him and asked thoughtful questions that made him stop, think, clarify, share thoughts, and pull information together.

Soapbox Moment:
Dr. Paul White invites us to check out the resources and materials his team created for the website. These resources will help managers build a healthy team and organization.

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Insights: What is Career Trauma?

What is Career Trauma?
Imagine the teacher, interrupted mid-lesson by her principal's inappropriate whispers, or the immigrant worker denied a bathroom break, only to be mocked as he wets himself.

Consider the unfairness of a negative evaluation and pay cut from someone who's never even seen your work or being passed over for a promotion in favor of the boss's less qualified nephew.

Who hasn't felt the burnout from impossible demands or the frustration of training your replacement?

All these experiences cause us work wounds, which require us to be intentional to heal.

Importance of Emotional Safety in Workplaces:
According to Employment and Social Development Canada, key risk factors for poor workplace psychological safety include high demand and low control, unfair treatment, harassment, and lack of professional development.

A report from the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health revealed that 500,000 Canadians miss work daily due to these issues, costing organizations $200 billion annually as of 2023.

This trauma leads to hyper-vigilance and increased anxiety. However, recognizing emotional safety cues and fostering a safe environment are crucial for healing career trauma.

Doctor Steven Porges' research on polyvagal theory explains that by identifying and processing emotions and sensations, the amygdala's threat reaction is reduced. This allows for the release of emotions tied to recent unpleasant memories, improving overall emotional balance and perception of current situations, without having to revisit past traumas.

While coaching or therapy can significantly help with career trauma, individuals can start their healing process by intentionally focusing on the following three key aspects:

Breathe Intentionally: Focus on the breath to divert the amygdala's attention from a threat response to a safety response. During a virtual training with oil field managers, one manager had a meltdown due to personal and work-related stress, including the recent loss of a worker and family challenges. I suggested he take a moment to breathe, which visibly calmed him. We then took a few collective breaths, further calming the entire group. The manager explained that a colleague had tragically drowned in a tailings pond, and this trauma had amplified his existing stress. However, the simple act of intentional breathing helped him and the group regain composure, highlighting the power of mindful breathing.

Move: When the nervous system feels trapped or tired, it becomes dysregulated, hindering movement and causing distress. To regulate the nervous system, it's essential to recognize and honor the body's need for movement, much like dogs naturally do through stretching and shaking. Dogs rest and heal after conflicts, then resume their normal activities without forcing themselves to overwork. Similarly, humans should balance movement with rest to maintain emotional regulation. So, when tempted to overwork or skip breaks, ask yourself, "Would my dog do this?" First, breathe intentionally, and second, move even just a little to help regulate your emotions.

Connect with Others: Social connection is crucial for healing career trauma, as isolation exacerbates feelings of distress and can shorten life expectancy by up to nine years due to loneliness. In the world's five blue zones, where people live longer and healthier lives, strong social connections are a common factor. Human beings are inherently wired for connection; even babies react positively to emotional connection. In these communities, people regularly interact and care for each other across generations. To maintain emotional regulation, it's essential to connect with others, share experiences, and support each other.

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The Spirit of Work: How The Soul Relates to Work

How the Soul Relates to Work

Episode Highlights:
In this episode, we explore the qualities and nature of the soul from various sacred traditions and how they matter for good work. We delve into the teachings of multiple western and eastern religions and Indigenous spiritualities to understand how the soul relates to and influences our work. From the power to accommodate to the concept of respect and interconnected relationality, the insights from these sacred traditions provide a unique lens through which we can approach work and workplace dynamics.

Defining the Soul:
On page 22 of my book, “Soul in religion and philosophy, is the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being that confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind and the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and is often considered to survive the death of the body.”

According to the Baha’i teachings, the soul is not a combination of elements. It is of one indivisible substance, associated with the body but not inside it, and eternal.

How Various Religions Define the Soul:
Page 21 lists simple summaries of how different religions have spoken about the soul.

• The ancient Egyptians talked about the soul as being buried in a stele, meaning the container in which the body had been buried, and that the soul was inside this container, meaning the body.
• In Christianity, Saint Augustine wrote about the nature of the soul as having 3 parts, the body, or somatics, the soul or the psyche, and the spirit or the pneuma.
• In Hinduism, there is the concept of Atman, which is the essence of life that exists in all living things and within human beings is an opportunity to achieve transcendence.
• Islam and Jainism state that the soul exists before its association with the body and must pass through the physical life to overcome bondage and become liberated from the constraints of self and desire.
• In both Judaism and Christianity, the soul is alive if it follows the commandments of God and dead if it does not.

Many North American Indigenous spiritualities have references to life as emanating from the Great Spirit who imbues all living things with the spirit of life.

Qualities and Powers of the Soul:
On pages 23 to 32 in my book, The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities, I highlight the qualities and powers of the soul. Interestingly, these qualities are the same across all sacred traditions. The qualities include purity, peace, love, joy, bliss, and knowledge. The powers of the soul include the power to accommodate, be flexible, consider the other person, and act based on both your needs and the other person's needs, power to back up, and the ability to bring things to closure and move on.

Understanding the soul and its characteristics can inform and improve workplace dynamics, including addressing issues like bullying and toxicity. When work is only a struggle for existence, it feels hopeless. If work is only a search for purpose and meaning, then we may not develop the necessary practical tools required to be able to deal with the struggle of existence. I propose work that is meaningful because it is related to the qualities and characteristics of the soul. It combines the struggle for existence with purpose.

If you are finding these episodes insightful, you can purchase the book The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities online on Amazon and Barnes & Noble or directly from my website shiftworkplace.com. Feel free to send me your insights and stories at [email protected].

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Pavini Moray: Embracing Authenticity and Play

The Somatic Leadership Journey

Bio:
Pavini Moray has started, failed, and succeeded in many businesses. A serial entrepreneur, they have built private practices, a worker collective, and a for-profit company. Pavini is a somatic leadership coach, specializing in helping relationships be easy. Moray holds an M.Ed in Montessori curriculum design, as well as a Ph.D. in Somatic Psychology. Pavini has authored, How to Hold Power: A Somatic Approach to Becoming a Leader People Love and Respect.

Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pavinicoakwellmoray/
Website: https://www.pavinimoray.com/

Episode Highlights:
In this episode, Pavini delves into their experiences of cultural disconnect, sharing personal stories of their childhood and how counterculture and punk music provided a sense of belonging and freedom. They discuss the importance of somatic approaches in leadership and personal growth.

Childhood Incidents:
As a child, Pavini’s mother decided that Pavini should have a cultural education of experiencing the arts. As a single mother, cultural education was a luxury she had to prioritize and save for. Contrastingly, Pavini’s dad had season tickets and a box at the opera. One night, when mother and child were at the opera, they noticed the dad sitting in his box in the theatre which was Pavini’s first awareness of wealth disparity.

In January 1986, Pavini’s friends invited them to a punk party. While there, Pavini felt the difference between the world they lived in and the current world they were experiencing then. This experience set Pavini on a journey to find spaces of belonging.

Cultural Influences:
Pavini’s purpose comes from living a life informed by pleasure, embodiment, and communication, tempered with transparency and kindness.

Leadership Influence:
In 2008, Pavini attended an activist camp and experienced the power of transparency and power sharing along with strong organization. This shaped their foundational beliefs about leadership, elderhood and the importance of structure. To date, Pavini cannot stand being in a poorly organized meeting and strives to incorporate elderhood into leadership since it increases the capacity of an entire community.

Temperaments and Personality:
Pavini believes they came into this world as a dancer, with a sense of awe, magic and connection to nature and spirit. Curiosity is also part of Pavini’s temperament. As a child, and later as an adult Pavini developed both a playful and pragmatic side to their personality.

Cultural Epiphanies:
Pavini lived in Bulgaria in the 90s and experienced the Bulgarians' sense of powerlessness and hopelessness as shocking. Pavini recalls a time they went to the mayor asking for transportation for books that had traveled 10,000 miles around the world, and now required transportation for the last 200 miles to get them to the destination. The mayor said it was impossible, but Pavini was able to show him how doable it was when he opened his mind to possibility.

When Pavini was working with a worker collective, a sense of anger at late meetings arose frequently. One of the people they worked with told Pavini that the time intolerance and anger was white supremacy and not all people understand time the same way.

What Brings out the Best in Pavini?
Pavini enjoys working in environments where they can laugh and be playful.

Soapbox Moment:
Pavini encourages us to be attuned. They recognize how vulnerable it can be when we open ourselves to attune with someone else's needs, feelings, desires, fears, and grief.

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Insights: What It Takes to Manage Well

What It Takes to Manage Well

Episode Highlights:
Delve into the three essential categories for effective management and self-regulation, differentiation, and high-level thought integrated throughout and responsive to operations.

Three Essential Categories for Effective Management

Self-Regulation:
Self-regulation is crucial for good decision-making. It involves recognizing and accepting your feelings. It means being aware of your feelings and thoughts and choosing not to act on them impulsively. Self-governance enables you to consider the impact of your actions leading to more thoughtful and beneficial outcomes.

• Self-awareness and self-governance: This results in the ability to manage and release unpleasant emotions safely, interpret reality accurately, and maintain a sense of calm and peace.
• Other awareness and empathy: With genuine self-awareness, you'll have heightened empathy and notice and understand others' feelings and experiences. Increased other awareness and empathy in the workplace is a sign of effective management.
• The ability to change and sustain one's habits for elevated thought and action: True self-regulation means not defining yourself by routines or limitations but continuously expanding your sense of self through learning and applying new insights to work habits.

Differentiation:
Differentiation is the ability to see the separate within the whole and the whole within separate and to bring them together. It's the ability to do analysis and synthesis.

• Separation of identity from in-group and out-group bias: The ability to separate your identity from the groups you belong to is crucial in management. A strong in-group and out-group identity is necessary for a sense of belonging and security. However, it's essential to maintain a balance and not let these identities define you entirely.
• Being able to hold multiple points of view without attaching yourself to them: This is a sign of effective management, allowing you to make decisions based on what's best for the collective rather than your personal biases.
• Capacity to inspire others and be inspired: If you are inspired by others, you're likely to be more inspiring yourself.
• Ability to balance encouragement and challenge: It means when people are not feeling strong, you can encourage them and build them up. When they're feeling strong but not showing their best selves, you can challenge them to step up to the plate.
• Being able to read reality without becoming hopeless in the face of difficulty: There are a lot of challenging realities in the workplace, and people go through many difficulties. If you can read and understand these difficulties without losing hope, it's a sign of great leadership.

High-level Thought Integrated Throughout and Responsive to Operations:
It's not enough to have great ideas if no one can act on them. Frequent conflicts between departments occur when high-level thought is not integrated, usually due to lack of consultation.

• Have principle-based discussions that respect individual inputs: Listen with interest without getting defensive or allowing anyone to dominate.
• Collective decision-making that promotes honest and kind participation: Making decisions as a group where everyone is both honest and kind leads to agreed-upon solutions benefiting the whole without excluding individuals or groups.
• Ability to translate thought into action, reflect on the outcomes, and make adjustments: Changing your mind isn't a sign of weakness, but constantly changing it is. Making a decision and sticking to it despite negative outcomes is not a sign of strength.

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