Navigating Change and Uncertainty in the New Year (Part 2)

Change feels relentless right now—faster cycles, noisier feeds, and fewer chances to catch our breath - and we're just 20 days into the new year! We take you inside what’s actually happening in your brain and body when uncertainty spikes, then show how small, deliberate actions can flip you from reactivity to leadership. No fluff, no platitudes—just clear science, real talk, and tools you can use today.

• Click HERE for RGV's EQ resources

HERE ARE MORE RESOURCES FROM REAL GOOD VENTURES:

Never miss a good opportunity to learn from a bad boss...

Click HERE to get your very own Reference Profile.  We use The Predictive Index as our analytics platform so you know it's validated and reliable.  Your Reference Profile informs you of your needs, behaviors, and the nuances of what we call your Behavioral DNA.  It also explains your work style, your strengths, and even the common traps in which you may find yourself.  It's a great tool to share with friends, family, and co-workers.

Follow us on Instagram HERE and make sure to share with your network!

Follow us on X HERE and make sure to share with your network!

Provide your feedback HERE, please!  We love to hear from our listeners and welcome your thoughts and ideas about how to improve the podcast and even suggest topics and ideas for future episodes.

Visit us at www.realgoodventures.com.  We are a Talent Optimization consultancy specializing in people and business execution analytics.  Real Good Ventures was founded by Sara Best and John Broer who are both Certified Talent Optimization Consultants with over 50 years of combined consulting and organizational performance experience.  Sara is also certified in EQi 2.0.  RGV is also a Certified Partner of Line-of-Sight, a powerful organizational health and execution platform.  RGV is known for its work in leadership development, executive coaching, and what we call organizational rebuild where we bring all our tools together to diagnose an organization's present state and how to grow toward a stronger future state. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Part One Recap
• 2:22 Why The Brain Freaks Out
• 4:35 Fight, Flight, Freeze, Or Fawn Explained
• 8:30 Stress Chemistry And Memory Fog
• 12:10 The “New Normal” And Different Thresholds
• 16:40 Above The Line, Below The Line
• 20:05 Name, Normalize, Navigate
• 24:00 Coherence, Breathing, And Regulation
• 28:10 Avoiding The Bosshole Zone
• 31:30 Emotional Processing In Practice
• 36:05 What We Can And Can’t Control

Transcript

John Broer: 0:06

A warm welcome to all of our friends out there in The Bosshole Transformation Nation. This is John Brower, welcoming you to part two of the episode that Sara and I did on navigating change and uncertainty in the new year. Part one, we talked mostly about the change curve. And Sara did a wonderful job of walking us through what that means, the different phases, the fact that we all go through them and we all go through multiple change curves every single day. It's not a bad thing. It's not right, wrong, good, or bad. It's just understanding how to navigate it. Today, Sarah will go further into understanding what happens in our brain, in our bodies, the physiological manifestation of dealing with change and disruption. And just as humans, not only the impact, but also some really practical tips of how to deal with it. So let's jump in to part two. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Hey Sarah, back for part two. How's it going?

Sara Best: 1:37

John, it's great. It's going real good, and it's always a pleasure to be able to spend time with you. I know our schedules are busy, and it's not like we always get to do this, so it's a treat.

John Broer: 1:47

That is true. And I'm I'm so glad we have this two-parter dealing with change and uncertainty in the new year.

Sara Best: 1:54

Yeah.

John Broer: 1:54

And as our listeners know from last week in part one, you really walked us through the change curve. And we talked about some very practical tools. You were offering up some great resources, and we put those in the show notes. But you know, you you finished out last week talking about, you know, hey, we really need to talk about our brains and and and the role the brain plays in all of this in dealing with change and uncertainty. And I am sure everybody would be uh happy to hear more from you today than me, because again, I'm still dealing with this voice thing and feel like I'm in a tunnel. So I'm gonna I'm gonna talk as little as possible and really turn it over to you. So, Sarah, what are we what's part two gonna going to um explore?

Sara Best: 2:38

John, thank you for that great recap, by the way. Uh I think it will be helpful for us to dig into what happens to the brain during these times of uncertainty. Like there's there's some science that we need to understand and some biology. Let me just qualify all this by saying, too, I'm not a doctor. I am not a doctor. I'm only sharing what I'm learning myself. I don't pretend to be like super guru on this, but I do want to share this information because I think it makes sense and it's helpful. And for civilians like us, you know, these are details that we can keep in mind when we're trying to diagnose what the heck is going on with us day in and day out. It's been tough for people. So that's the first part is, you know, what's happening to the brain during uncertainty and challenge and change. And then, you know, let's talk about practically what is in our sphere of control. What are the things that we actually can influence when it feels like there's nothing around us that we can influence? First and foremost, and this will not be a surprise to most people, you know, when we find ourselves in times of challenge or uncertainty, the brain reacts a very specific way. So I think the first thing we need to understand is the nervous system will move into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It's it's the classic, you know, when we are um triggered or uh stimulated in some way by a threat, a threat to our security, our control, or just our approval, you know, this is what naturally happens. The body will go, hold on, you know, lockdown. And I think if if you're reading any of the articles that are coming forward the last couple of weeks from the Harvard Business Review or Forbes, or the places that generally put trends right in front of readers around business situations, you're seeing this. They're talking about the sympathetic response versus the parasympathetic response. And in in layman's terms, when we go into fight or flight, we are in sympathetic response. And the the body takes over and acts as if you know our life is in danger. So uh we call it a hijacking of swords. But just some of the things that some of us may commonly experience and and experience so often that we don't even really notice it anymore. But a racing heart, shallow breathing, you know, clenching our muscles, you know, clenching our shoulders or our fists. I have I have one client who notices his response is his toes, like he clenches his toes and his shoes, difficulty relaxing, and then like your your gears running constantly. So in this sympathetic nervous system mode, things really line up as if we needed to fight or run. And it's normal, it's challenging. We experience it now for sustained periods of time versus you know, the normal bursts that our body would need. And I think the other thing to think about is our hippocampus, which helps us kind of make sense of what happened in the past, what's happening right now. It's sort of like this air traffic controller kind of thing. Um, under chronic stress or big challenge in stress, it reduces our ability to hold on to new information. So to create like new memories, to remember stuff. Right. I don't know about you, John, but there have been a lot of times in the reason past where I know it's in there, this fact or this detail or this person's name I just met, but it's really hard to grab it. And I think part of that is just um we get foggy. We get a little overwhelmed and distorted and foggy. So that happens. The chemicals that are designed to help us fight or flight, and also the chemicals that come in to help bring um regularity back after fight or flight, those are an overload. So we're getting flooded with hormones and the chemicals that are really designed to help us. For example, cortisol, it is designed to help us narrow our thinking and focus and zoom in. Adrenaline primes us for quick response. These all create all kinds of imbalances, and over time they affect our organs like our adrenal glands. And so all that to say, um, when we're in fight or flight, we also lose access to our tools. And I always like to think of each person having a tool bag. You know, there's stuff that you do that helps you when you get in stressful situations. And over time, we limit or lose our access to those tools.

John Broer: 7:14

Can I ask a question? Um because you uh there's a lot there and and it all makes total sense. And yet again, the current state of, well, just just say the workplace or life, you used a word that just jumped out at me, and the word was normal. And you hear people talking about the new normal or the next normal. And I think I know a lot, I'm it's true for me. There are times where it's like, what happened to normalcy? What what and and it's different for everybody. You know, those of us that are more seasoned or older, uh I think we can reflect and reminisce on a time where we thought, well, things were just simpler or not as chaotic, and yet we have people coming into the workforce that normal to them is pandemic going to school virtually and and this break with what we would consider normalcy, and maybe I I just to me it's like this uh that overload that you talk about, it's like people aren't getting a break. You know, there isn't that that opportunity to step away and find that normalcy, whatever that may look like. Does does that make sense?

Sara Best: 8:32

It does make sense. And what I think about is each person is individual and each person's ability to navigate stress or the level of stress that they can tolerate is unique and different. So one of the things I know, John, we always talk about when it comes to managing and leading or optimizing people is to appreciate that they're different than you. Right. And just because something makes sense in your mind doesn't mean it's gonna make sense in theirs. So the adaptation for leaders to just appreciate and understand, hey, you know, my threshold might be higher than this person's, or uh and and to just acknowledge that uh everyone's walking some kind of individualized path. Right. And they're gonna probably need different things to find resilience. You know, some people are unflappable. You know, I wish I had more people around me like that. They they just make it through and and they're creative and they find their center and and they become productive rather quickly after challenge or change happens. But I think for the most part, many of us take a little more time and maybe need a little more nuance to find where we have a center again. And if nothing else, John, could we just declare that, gosh, is these are tough times for everybody? You know, I think back to when we were doing this during the pandemic and we were saying some of the same things, but different circumstances like this can be a lot. And to allow people uh the opportunity to better understand what they need to get through change or challenge. Yeah. And if you feel like you're freaking out, guess what? That's normal. Right. You know, I I think we got to give ourselves a little permission to go, something's not wrong with me. Um, I was talking with a client earlier today about how when we are um at threat, you know, when the these are principles of the conscious leadership model. When we find ourselves uh lacking or fearing approval, security, or control, like we're at threat there, we do fall below the line. And when we're below the line, all this regulation stuff is happening in our body. You know, it's fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And then we tend to be villain, victim, or hero, or we villain, victim, and hero other people. We start doing things to try to make sense of all of it. So if we could look at this um body stuff in the same way, like it's lined up to help us survive and thrive through challenging times. It's just that we got to figure out how to regulate it. We got to figure out how to not have it be prolonged. And we need to individually determine what would help us lessen the impact and create some more resilience. And it's not Pollyannish, by the way. Some people are out there saying, you know, you just gotta, you're just telling me I gotta suck it up and get through. Oh no, that's not what we're saying here. We're saying, you know, notice that this is a huge impact on the body. Your body doesn't know the difference of, you know, whether you're being held at a gunpoint or your job is at risk.

John Broer: 11:28

Right, right.

Sara Best: 11:29

But the impact is the same.

John Broer: 11:31

So suffice it to say, there are it's not unusual that people feel the overload or they feel that there there is no time to recover. It's one, it's like, it's like a punching bag. It's one thing after another. And I am the recovery or the time for recovery just isn't there. We've talked about it. We've had guests on the program that talk about like a technology detox. What are you consuming that is also filling up your mind with whatever it is? And um, that plays a role in it as well. I'm I not to jump around too much, but I uh again, I I I really appreciate the fact that this is not a uh a Pollyanna way of looking at life of just get over it and just get through it and it'll be okay. They're very practical things people can do.

Sara Best: 12:21

Yeah. And you're jumping ahead, John, in a good way. Yeah, sorry, but I think no, one of the things you're talking about there is decisions that we we can make each and every day throughout the day that would put us in a better position to sleep better, to show up. I think for me, the the biggest challenge is I'm limited. I know how I want to show up to the people I love and the people I serve. Right. But when I'm in this kind of state, my fuse is short, you know, my memory is foggy, my productivity suffers. Um, and and it'd be easy to look outside of myself and go, well, it's their fault. And this is happening, and I have no control over that. Well, um, what we're offering here is just just trying to help us each understand the wiring. You know, that fight, fight or flight deal means that it's just easy for our thinking brain to stop working very well and our emotional brain to take over. Yep. I mean, that could be a whole podcast in and of itself. But if you think about how your brain works, John, we do have that more evolved part in the front, the thinking brain, uh called the prefrontal cortex, and the emotional centers toward the back, and our our least evolved part of our brain is toward the back. We always say that emotional intelligence is our intentional effort to develop more pathways between the thinking brain and the emotional brain so that there's regulation. But I think in these situations, that thinking brain gets disabled quite easily when we're in uncertainty and challenge. And so we just got to recognize that and know that uh we're not gonna be as creative or innovative or available or present or able to manage things as effectively when we're in that state. Does that make sense?

John Broer: 14:04

It does. Total sense.

Sara Best: 14:05

Yeah. We talk about the amygdala. And I know on previous podcasts we might have talked about the amygdala hijacking, but you know, when when there's a lot of stuff happening in the body, we don't have access to the calm and the patience and the fuse is short. And so sometimes people say and do things that are unexpected, even to them, and and they're not very productive. So we call that an amygdala hijacking. What's helpful when we recognize that we're a little dysregulated? I mean, that's a term that just means I I'm in fight or flight. I am not in coherence, like my head and my heart aren't connected. I'm worked up, I'm clenching my fists, I'm holding my breath, my heart is pounding. Um, we just need to be aware of that. All we need to do is re-engage that prefrontal cortex and and reconnect to um the stability of that. And we say name, normalize, and navigate. So name, name what's happening if you can. Um, this is anxiety, this is overwhelm, this is frustration. If we can give a a label to what it is we're experiencing, then the thinking brain can say, you know what? Um, alarm bells in the amygdala, you can settle down. This is normal. Yeah. I mean, I I think the other thing that oftentimes I know I forget to do and and I talk with people who experience this same thing that when you're in it, if you can recognize what's happening and go, oh yeah, that makes total sense. Because I don't know what's coming next, or I just heard this news, or I just, you know, got this piece of information. And um, oh my gosh, there's so much we could say about that. But it's it's name, normalize, and navigate. And ambiguity is challenging for a lot of us. So by doing that, by naming it, ah, this is sadness, or this is just annoyance, this is boredom, this is fear, whatever it is, then um we gotta just recognize that it would make sense that we feel that way in situations like this.

John Broer: 16:07

Well, and there was a real emphasis of that in part one. You know, the example I gave of um I was totally distracted because I had learned some news about somebody who had uh decided to step away from a team that I was on. And uh, you know, again, I talked about that in the first part, but until I actually stopped and gave it a name or or thought it through, it was a complete distraction. And um, like you said last week, it it's okay to feel your feelings, but you have to understand what are those feelings and and and their origin.

Sara Best: 16:42

Yeah.

John Broer: 16:42

And and you can't you just can't sort of gloss over it because those are the things that will consume us and wear us out if we haven't figured out how to if we haven't been able to activate that thinking brain.

Sara Best: 16:55

Yeah. And I I think you make a you make me think of a really good point, John, which is it's easy to stay in our thoughts and and rely, maybe over-rely on our thoughts. Um, their thoughts are usually not us. So we have to watch out for those automatic negative thoughts. Sure. But I think um where we can bring it back to normal is the feelings. The body, the body knows. I'm I'm learning about this for the first time, you know, in my long career of working with people, really deeply trying to understand and appreciate how much emotion is in our body. It's evident in our body, it gets trapped in our body. So a lot of the work we do with our executive coaching clients is around helping them to better connect with those emotions and express them. Yep. Because they're not going to go away. But if we can, you know, there's wisdom. I know one of the the big notions in the conscious leadership model is to use the wisdom that emotions provide. If there's fear, what do I need to notice? What I need to be paying attention to, what's trying to grab my attention? If there's anger, what needs to stop? And if there's sadness, what what story do I need to let go? What belief, what thing that I was counting on that's not there, do I need to say goodbye to? Right.

John Broer: 18:20

So I know we're kind of getting off track there, but no, well, that's I mean, you've shared how we both experienced it where I don't know if it's something about getting up into a senior leadership role that somehow it's like, I will not feel that, or I'm, you know, I I can't afford to, you know, let my emotions take over and let these feelings distract me from my very important work as an executive. It's like well, that's that's a super unhealthy way to look at yourself.

Sara Best: 18:51

Well, and guess what? We all know what those emotions are because we can see them on you. We can see them being expressed. Yeah. They might be, you know, you might have told yourself they're not there, but we know they are.

John Broer: 19:01

Oh, yeah. Good point.

Sara Best: 19:03

So with this name, normalize, and navigate, you know, uh, we talked about naming, we talked about normalizing. The navigating is simply what's one small action I could take right now to bring myself back to the center, like to find some regulation. And the most common one is a breath. Could you just take a deep cleansing breath and stop the cortisol, stop the fight or flight? If you do it like four or five times on purpose, oh, it's magic. It it can kind of reset the system. We we in our programs we talk about box breathing and we actually help people try to use that technique. You breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold for four. And of course, there's a million variations of that, but any breathing to bring calm back into the process is super, super helpful. Does that make sense?

John Broer: 19:56

It does. It does.

Sara Best: 19:58

I think the other thing too is. If we just pay attention, better attention to like how we're feeling, the heart has neurons like the brain does. The heart is calibratable. Like we can measure the activity of the heart, maybe 10 to 12 feet out from our body. But I think, you know, people might refer to it as energy. Like that person has good energy, or you know, I pick up their energy. But in the world of emotional intelligence, it's called coherence, where we get really on purpose about calming the heart rate and bringing some smooth beat back to our heart when we're in this dysregulation or fight or flight. And breathing is one way to do that. So we call that coherence.

John Broer: 20:42

Sarah, is it is it reasonable to suggest to our managers and supervisors out there that that would be a really helpful way to try to avoid the boss hole zone?

Sara Best: 20:54

Yeah.

John Broer: 20:55

I mean, seriously, can I mean you could see you could see yourself leaping into the boss hole zone if you did not regulate that and you were completely out of sorts physically, emotionally, mentally, and I mean, just say or do things that otherwise you could manage more effectively.

Sara Best: 21:17

Yeah. I I unfortunately, I think there's sometimes a trend that I experience when talking to managers and leaders, it, you know, they they get frustrated and they just write it off. They write the person off, they write the situation off. Yep. Because that's the way they cope. And that is, in fact, a bosshole way to cope. Yep, that's true. I'm done with you. I've had enough. But it makes sense, doesn't it? Like there's there's nothing left to give. So, in order for me as a manager or supervisor to respond more effectively, because gosh, if I'm feeling uncertainty, so is everybody else. What are they looking for from me? What do they need from me? Well, they need vulnerability and truth. But in order for me to say, you know what, I don't know the answer. I got to get back inside here and calm things down and find my center, find my ground, and and actually be on purpose about taking care of my uh ability to see what's in front of me versus fight or flight.

John Broer: 22:14

That reminds me of something that you always say is you can't give something away that you don't have yourself. Did I say that right?

Sara Best: 22:20

Yes.

John Broer: 22:21

Well, I think I think about the world, the state of the workplace right now, and how disengagement is a at a what, 11-year high, according to Gallup, manager burnout is very common. And I the word that comes to mind is discouragement. I mean, I I think people are discouraged, and and we see that, and our work is all about helping them find meaning and fulfillment in their work. How about if managers and supervisors could be a source of that encouragement? And you can't encourage somebody if you yourself are caught in that spiral. Yeah, I mean, you just can't do it from that state if you are in fight or flight.

Sara Best: 22:59

No, you can't. I mean, uh uh, you might minimally be available to people, but um good, bad, or otherwise, when you're responsible for other humans, this is something you gotta you gotta fill your gas tank first. You have to be willing to kind of move beyond your own um, I don't know what we call it. Um thank you, John. Um, to yeah, to to see that to be of value to somebody else, you know, and if anything, if if you at least share where you are. Yeah. Now I've had I've had managers and leaders say, I could never do that. That would not be helpful. And well, maybe not for you, but for them it would be. Right. What's hard is the discomfort, feeling the discomfort of letting your guard down. But in many ways, John, I feel like we're we could we could keep going with that.

John Broer: 23:50

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Sara Best: 23:52

I think the upshot of it is, hey, if there's dysregulation in me, I am not gonna be able to be effective in helping others who are also probably feeling dysregulation and uncertainty and challenge and fight or flight. And I'm gonna take it more personally. I'm gonna get more frustrated with people. So knowing uh what are the steps I need to take that make that less likely to dominate how I respond.

John Broer: 24:16

Okay. So what are some ways to resolve this? What are some steps and and practical ways to move forward?

Sara Best: 24:23

Yeah. Well, John, we already talked about two of them. The first one being um recognizing when you're dysregulated and you're in fight or flight mode and you're you're feeling, you know, feisty and you're below the line. Right. It's it's finding some coherence. And, you know, breathing can help you do that. Some people can take a walk. Um, they can listen to music. And, you know, I know this may sound trite, and I might hear some CEO going, I'm not doing that. Okay, well, good luck, you know, with trying to find some resolution internally so that you can be available to people in the way you need to be as a chief leader. But um, yeah, I so the first thing is finding one small action that will help bring some coherence and regulation back to me. And, you know, everybody has their own set of tools. If you need more tools, um, there's a host of really, really good books. I think, John, we shared our resource list for emotional intelligence in a previous episode, but let's make sure we share it again here. Apps, podcasts, um, there's some great books, there's some TED Talks. Um, sometimes it's just learning a new set of activities for that. Yep. I think the other thing we can do is feel our feelings. You know, just allow ourselves to get present to the feelings, give the emotions. Yes, I said emotions and feelings, give them a name, normalize them, and and do something helpful to navigate them. And and in my world, that would be feeling the feeling all the way through, like name it, um, and and be with it and manage it, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think the other thing we often talk about is um well, let me just say we call that emotion, emotion processing or emotional processing. Recognize what you're feeling, allow it to be there. There, there's a huge challenge for a lot of people. I don't know if this happened to you, John, but I think when I was growing up, it was whether it was the nuns or, you know, my grandma or whoever happened to be around, it was like, you know what? You want to be sad, I'll give you something to be sad about.

John Broer: 26:36

That's right.

Sara Best: 26:37

Like we were really not allowed to express fully and explore challenging feelings. So I think for a lot of adults, that's still a problem today. Like I could never do that.

John Broer: 26:50

Well, allow it to be.

Sara Best: 26:51

Yeah, go ahead.

John Broer: 26:52

Well, no, and when we do w work with um teams, I mean leadership teams or any team, and a lot of times you'll bring up the uh the feeling word list.

Sara Best: 27:02

Mm-hmm. Yes.

John Broer: 27:03

And oh my gosh. Now there's some people that go, I feel frustrated, I feel excited, or what I mean, they'll they'll l with laser focus, they'll find their word. Yes. Others that will absolutely I mean, they're like stuck. Uh they it's like, what is she what what am I supposed to do? I mean, I'm supposed to express this. And I think talking about it, articulating it is a huge I don't think it's enough to just think about it, especially in those circumstances. I've seen you d do this masterfully. It's not enough to just think about how you feel, but actually articulating it is so powerful.

Sara Best: 27:39

Yeah. It it really is. And not just articulating it, if you can, expressing it. Yeah. In the conscious leadership model, the notion is to match the emotion with a sound or a movement. And I mean, if we use anger as an example, well, that's a pretty easy one, you know. Ah, like and and taking my, I have a wiffle bat, taking my wiffle bat to the pillow that I love to hit, you know, what would give that emotion some full expression? Yep. So recognize, allow it to be there. It just acknowledge it's here and it makes sense that it's here. In many cases, if we really like experience it and think about it, of course we would feel anxious or afraid. Of course we would feel isolated or alone if, you know, a person didn't include us in an email. Doesn't mean it has to run the show, though. That's the whole thing, is we get to experience it and move on with it. Explore it, you know, what is this emotion? Where does it happen in my body? You know, is is my shoulder tight? Is my chest squeezing? Is my stomach turning? You know, do I feel tension in the back of my neck? Are my jaws clenching? Um, but to investigate that with curiosity and kindness. You know, because it's normal. That's how we know where feelings are. And then lastly, um, just find some way to nurture yourself, to nurture that emotion or just allow yourself to be okay with it. I think that's a that's a powerful tool. Let's see, a couple other things, John, here. And and the main one we talked about was this idea of understanding what's in our control and what's not in our control. Because at the end of the day, there's a lot of shit going on that we can't control. Would you agree?

John Broer: 29:23

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We try to, we may try to, but you're absolutely right.

Sara Best: 29:27

Yeah. Well, let's let's me and you brainstorm for a second. And and to our listeners out there, you be thinking of some of these too. What are the things that are out of our control that we often spend our time thinking about or get all worked up about? Uh, I have a couple ideas, John. Would do you have any to start with? Out of our control.

John Broer: 29:44

I mean, out out of my direct control. I mean, it it's say, let's just say the the chaos in the Middle East or Yes. Um uh I don't know what in what interest rates will be rolled out next week. I that's out of my control, but you we think about it.

Sara Best: 30:01

Yes. Yeah. So you talked about, you know, global and political issues, the economy. How about some of the natural disasters? Oh, yeah. Uh my past behavior, because it's in the past, um, death and illness. Although some would argue we do have some control over that, but I don't necessarily have control over when someone else dies. Um, what others choose to believe or do or say or value or feel, those are out of our control. Yep. The happiness of other people, out of our control. Yep. Their excitement, you know, whether they're on board with something as much as you are, that's out of your control. Strangers on social media, out of your control. Yep. And also not only out of your control, engineered algorithmically by robots. So don't believe everything you read.

John Broer: 30:53

Well, that's true. Yeah. Or see or see now.

Sara Best: 30:56

Yes, or even see. Right. So the weather, if other people are on time, traffic, you know, we could go on and on. So then the next question is what's in our control? Let's focus on what is in our control. Certainly um, how we spend our time, how we spend our discretionary time. I know for me, I I've become aware of my tendency to just want to fully unplug and go, I'm I'm out. I just, I gotta recover. And so it's a Netflix binge or it's a shopping thing, or it's it makes me feel better, but it doesn't provide recovery. It doesn't bring regulation back. It may temporarily bring it back, but it doesn't address and heal, you know, the craziness that happens when there's uncertainty.

John Broer: 31:40

Yep.

Sara Best: 31:41

So that's a big one. Um, who I follow on social media, or as you alluded to earlier, John, do I even engage in social media? Right. How much of my time am I spending reading and following the rabbit holes of news and information that may or may not even be accurate? Right. How I talk to myself, you know, if there's a a running commentary going on in your head that's the judge and jury all in one, like you're an idiot. I can't believe you said that. Oh my God, you forgot that. You should have done this. Or the the one that says they're an idiot, you know, they're they're a dumbass. They shouldn't have done that. You know, those are the things that we can be aware of and begin to manage. Yeah, we are. Whether or not I ask for help. So those are all things that are completely in our control. The amount of effort I give, I I'll be the first one to admit, I have been under the uh like false assumption that if my motivation isn't there, I can't give. I can't, I can't do it. I can't bring myself to it. And I'm getting, you know, I've read great books like Renee Brown, James Clear. These are people that are kind of help uh helping me to understand that motivation is fleeting and it's not the source of my productivity or my action. Discipline is and choice and all that kind of stuff. So I don't want to oversimplify this, but a lot of us really unconsciously spend uh the bulk of our time focusing on and being in the area out of our control.

John Broer: 33:15

When you boil it right down to its to its most basic level, the only thing we control in this world is how we react and respond to it.

Sara Best: 33:25

Yeah.

John Broer: 33:26

And like all those are amazing examples. Uh the one that jumped out for me, you were asking me for examples.

Sara Best: 33:31

Yeah.

John Broer: 33:32

Um I can control what I put in my mouth. I mean, I you know I don't all the time. I mean, I need to, but it's like uh that is fully within my control. You know, to eat better, to when you were thinking about consuming, I was thinking, uh yes, social media, but it's also just sustenance and being careful and better about that. So yes, um, it's a it's a very narrow thing, but boy, we do try to control a whole lot of things, and I think it just wears us out.

Sara Best: 34:00

Or, you know, we operate b sort of unconscious of the fact that we're we're thinking about and trying to create action in places where it's not gonna happen. Right. But I love John what you said about sustenance. You know, it comes down to choice. Sure. And our ability to take responsibility for understanding the difference between, say, a dopamine hit, like, oh, I'm gonna eat that donut because it feels really good and I just need it today, versus I understand how that inflames my body and it makes me foggy and it it really shortens my fuse and makes it hard for me to make good decisions.

John Broer: 34:40

Yep.

Sara Best: 34:41

And so therefore, you know, maybe it's a smoothie today. I I don't want to, again, I don't want to oversimplify it. And I'm sure we're telling a lot of our listeners things that they already know. Sure. But I think we I I appreciate being reminded of these things because the intensity has increased. Yes. The complexity and the intensity continue to increase. And um, there are people who are finding peace and fulfillment and they're they're getting along pretty well. It's not like their life is perfect either, but these are people that invest their time and energy in trying to better understand themselves. Where am I on the change curve? What's the what's the zone I'm in? How long do I want to stay here? What are things that have worked for me in the past? Oh, and by the way, what's what's the wisdom of my body telling me? What are the emotions I'm having? Yeah. And am I above the line or below the line? All good stuff, John.

John Broer: 35:34

When you say, I'm sure we're telling our listeners a lot of things they already know, but we all need, I mean, I don't care how old you are, these reminders of the basic things in life that are essential if we are to, I mean, just live in a good place. Yeah. And not get caught up, not get caught up in the hamster wheel that's around us. I just think that's really I think that's really powerful. And I and I I so value the fact that you are reminding us of how these things are within our the things that are within our grasp are the things that we ought to pursue.

Sara Best: 36:10

Well, you know, John, what I've always loved about doing this work is that I'm I'm only sharing what I'm trying to master myself. Like these are things that have been helpful. I'm not perfect at them. Um, but I think we're all on the planet at the time that we are for a reason.

John Broer: 36:27

Yep.

Sara Best: 36:27

And if we can find ways to become, continue becoming our best selves, then that's a good, good thing.

John Broer: 36:34

Yeah, that's true.

Sara Best: 36:36

I guess true to our mission, John, we we have always been about helping people find meaning and fulfillment in their work. Notice we don't say, you know, better bottom line results and best sales numbers ever and growth like you can't imagine. We think those things are byproducts of meaning fulfillment, which is really about alignment. And if we don't have the alignment in ourselves, if we're looking to the outside world and to the people around us to create that alignment, we're gonna suffer. It's it's gotta start on the inside. And I I think that's what these two episodes have been about is maybe just giving us some tools to to figure out where misalignment is taking place or to just better know what the heck is going on in the in the internal world and to take some steps to be in charge of it as best we can.

John Broer: 37:28

That was just a great way to wrap it up, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you, John. No, this is no, this was you, this is your your brain child. I I just knew that this was going to be an impactful and helpful two-parter. So thank you for that. And and I would just remind everybody go into the show notes. All our resources, things that we talk about will be in there. And uh, stay tuned because you know, you just heard Sarah use the word alignment. And I can assure you, in the next week or two, we're gonna be talking about the necessity for that in the workplace and to help our managers stay out of the bosshole zone.

Sara Best: 38:03

Thank you, friends. We will see you next time on the Boss Hole Chronicles.

John Broer: 38:11

Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory at the bossholechronicles.com. Again, my story at the bossholechronicles.com. We'll see you next time.