Nov. 22, 2022

How to Have A Self-Care Mind-Set with Jeanette Bronee | UYGW041

How to Have A Self-Care Mind-Set with Jeanette Bronee | UYGW041

Hey listeners, are you prepared to get a whole bunch of knowledge thrown your way? Because Jeanette Bronée not only has enough knowledge about self-care to go around the world TWICE, but she has a plethora of prolific and profound ways to re-think EVERYTHING! We, as human beings, are constantly focused on the doing, doing, doing, and Jeanette advises us that if we could just take a “power-pause” and listen more, we can gain a better understanding of what we need to accomplish our Great Work (which, as you all have heard me say time and again, is the work that matters most ton us). Jeanette believes if we can listen more to ourselves, we can begin to understand what we need right now and truly begin to feel to engage in what Jeanette calls “mental listening”. We, as humans, are amazing, we are here to solve problems, and the things we worry about are the things we care about the most. If we can pause for a moment, shift the “care for” to “care about”, we can understand that solving problems is not just about needing time off or time to get away, it’s about learning to “un-worry”. It is only then that we discover self-care isn’t really about self…it’s about care."

Join us as we discuss: 

02:25 Pause for a little bit and listen more!

04:27 How do we start self care in the workplace for us to do great work?

06:46 How can we respond with the right intent? 

08:00 What we care about is also what we worry about.

09:27 The FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

10:14 Solving the problem of burnout isn't just about taking more time off, it's about learning to unworry.

12:56 Shifting the “care for” to “care about”.

15:00 How do we help, how do we be of service? 

17:44 Good leaders listen with their heart, not just with their ears

18:58 Self care goes from “me care” to “we care”. 

22:54 How our relationship with our work, with the people in our workplace, and with the culture at work could affect our health and our relationship with ourselves.

26:06 We’re distracted by solving the wrong problem.

About the Guest:

Jeanette Bronée Rethinker, Culture Strategist, Global Keynote & 2 x TEDx Speaker, Author, CEO & Founder of Path for Life®, Inc.

Jeanette is rethinking self-care in the workplace as the foundation for peak performance, engagement, and a culture where people belong and work better together.

She shows us how to shift from a burnout mindset, operating in survival mode, to a Self-Care Mindset®, where we can harness our human advantage and create a Culture of Care® that’s built on Confidence, Agility, Resilience, and Equity.

An internationally recognized well-being expert, she shares the tools to reclaim agency and cultivate the human connection that helps us communicate and collaborate with curiosity and care so that we can navigate change and grow.

Integrating her 20-year background in business, mindfulness, and health, she gives us a C.A.R.E.-driven framework to cut through the noise of stress, get unstuck, and take charge of our well-being as the foundation for personal and professional growth.

https://www.jeanettebronee.com

About the Host:

Dr. Amanda Crowell is a cognitive psychologist, speaker, podcaster, author of Great Work, and the creator of the Great Work Journals. Amanda's TEDx talk: Three Reasons You Aren’t Doing What You Say You Will Do has received more than a million views and has been featured on TED's Ideas blog and TED Shorts. Her ideas have also been featured on NPR, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, Quartz, and Thrive Global.

Amanda lives in New Jersey with her husband, two adorable kids, and a remarkable newfiepoo named Ruthie. She spends her days educating future teachers, coaching accidental entrepreneurs, and speaking about how to make progress on Great Work to colleges and corporate teams. To book Dr. Crowell to speak or inquire about coaching, check out amandacrowell.com or email amanda@amandacrowell.com.

Website: amandacrowell.com

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Work-Amanda-J-Crowell/dp/1737374196

Podcast: amandacrowell.com/podcast

IG: https://www.instagram.com/aj_crowell

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-amanda-crowell-51188130/

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Transcript
Jeanette Bronée:

Don't burn out from working too much. We burn out from worrying too much and feeling that we don't matter.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Welcome to unleashing your great work, a podcast about doing the work that matters the most to you. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Crowell, a cognitive psychologist, coach, author of the book, great work and the creator of the great work journals. Every week on this podcast, we're here asking the big questions. What is your great work? How do you find it? And why does it matter whether we do it? What does it actually take to do more of your great work without sacrificing everything else? And how does the world change when more people are doing more of the work that matters the most to them? Stay tuned for answers to these questions, and so much more.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Welcome, everybody to unleashing your great work. Today. I'm super excited to have my friend Jeanette Bronée, who is a speaker about self care. Jeanette is a speaker who rethinks everything. It's not that she can't make up her mind. It's that she believes we are hungry to learn how to navigate, change and grow personally and professionally. Her new book, The Self Care mindset, rethinking how we change and grow, harness wellbeing and reclaim work life quality came out this November. So head over and grab it wherever you get books. Welcome to the podcast. Jeanette,

Jeanette Bronée:

thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yes, I am also very much looking forward to it. I have been for days. And we would love to start this interview the same place we start all the others. Jeanette, tell us a little bit about your great work.

Jeanette Bronée:

Right now I would say the book. Yeah. Because it's really coming together 18 years of working with people to help them survive, work and do great work. And it's also a drawing on all of my experiences before that when I was in the fashion, business, design, business, and so on, so forth. And it feels like to me my great work, my great work can be summarized into one thing. Learning to listen,

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

hmm. Say more about that.

Jeanette Bronée:

I believe that we are so focused on doing doing doing that if we could pause for just a little bit and listen more, we would understand more of what we need so that we can do great work. And when I have to say great work, I mean, work that matters to us, matters to the people we serve whatever that may look like.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Right, absolutely. So if we listened more, are we listening to ourselves? Are we listening to others? Are we less? What are we listening to? Exactly? And what's the insight that you feel is missing? From our lack of listening?

Jeanette Bronée:

I think we listen to ourselves first. Hence the book is called the self care mindset. But I do feel that we are a little stuck in what we believe self care is I think a lot of people think that it's about us, when really it's more about people we care about and the the work we do together. Right? So there's that sense that self care isn't really about self, it's about care. That's part of it. So if you can listen more to ourselves. And so part of what I the framework that I do in the book is about how do we learn to listen more to ourselves that physical, what do I need right now so that I physically feel able and capable and willing, for that matter to to show up great work, but also emotionally, how am I feeling in there right now? And what is getting in the way for me to be fully present, for example. And that sort of mental what I call mental listening is more that constructive mindset. It says, Okay, how do we solve this problem? And what is the right problem to solve? And so instead of thinking of self care as being about so called treating ourselves after work, which is also important. I'm not saying we don't need a bubble bath, and our walk and yoga and all of those things we do, but how do we actually start thinking about self care in the workplace as a way for us to actually do great work? Rather than feeling that we're focusing so much on the work we need to get done? Can we listen more to ourselves for a moment, pause and say, Eric, what do I need so that I can get this done? Yeah, we become more inclusive of our human needs. Because at the end of the day, we humans are amazing. And we're here to solve problems and we're here to engage with the people. We serve with each other as a team, and so on so forth. We're missing out on all of that if we don't pause and listen for a little bit, so that we can actually connect and communicate and collaborate better with each other.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

So I was recently doing this whole barrage of holiday episodes during this event called Podapalooza. And I did eight podcast episodes in a day, it was a fascinating experience. And what we focused our holiday or what I'm focusing the holiday episodes on is resilience. And one of the things that I really hold as a core message of this podcast is that great work depends so much more on our resilience, our ability to bounce back, bounce back, feel better, be innovative, be creative, get out of the grind, than it does on hard work, and diligence, and the grind and hustle and things like that. And I feel like that's very much what you're saying that if we actually take into account how to be the most, I don't know, sparked, rested fully in our mind fully in our cognitive capacities, fully able to connect with the person in front of us, because that takes quite a lot of effort and energy. And if you're burned out and stressed, then it's no wonder that you're not listening to the other people in your company. So does that does? Am I reading that correctly? That that's very similar to what you're saying? Yes, it is.

Jeanette Bronée:

And if you think about it, right, if something just happened, and you're going into a meeting, and you're still distracted by the other meeting, you're actually not listening to the person, you're listening to your own thoughts that are about what you just were engaged in. So I think it's important that we start understanding how the mind really works, and how our mind and our emotions are utterly connected. And we react from that place, rather than pausing for a moment and listening to what's going on there. So that we can respond with right intent. And when I say right intent, there's no judgment and that the only thing that is is his right, intent is what's the problem I'm trying to solve?

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah. Right. am I reacting to something that feels prevailing? Or am I solving the right problem in collaboration with the person in front of me? So then what is your what? So? What is the like thrust of the book? What's the main message of like, Who are you directing it at? Is this like, let's have a more inclusive workplace that allows us to be human as well as productive? Or is there some other like, what's the main? Who's this book for? What's it about? Just give us the high level? Yeah,

Jeanette Bronée:

yeah. I think it's a book for people at work. But it is also a book for people who worry. Because it's a it's a book about care. And care and worry is two sides of the same coin.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Interesting, say more about that.

Jeanette Bronée:

So what we care about, is also what we worry about. So a lot of times, we'd say, we talk so much about all the things we worry about and believe, like, believe me, I don't think worry is going to be something we solve. Well, not just with my book, but also not just with your phone. No, and not in in the world anytime soon, there's just going to be more and more things that we worry about. But if we look at it and be like, well, the things we worry about is also because we care about it. Yeah, I care about environment. So we worry about the environment. We care about people and human rights and equal rights. We worry about that, because we care about the people. So yeah, these are really two sides of the same coin. Right. And so in the workplace, we talk a lot about people being engaged right now. And and one of the things I always say is, we cannot stop, we cannot stop worrying. And thinking we can still be engaged, we can do is learn that what we worry about is what we care about. So we can shift the worry, we can shift our attention and start saying, Okay, I worry about this. So what do I need so that I can truly care about it and create a change? So we use the worry as information. Or what the book is about is what I call the Fudd being stuck in the pothole of FUD. What's FUD? fear, uncertainty and doubt. And if we really pause for a moment, and look at the things that are stressing us out every day, it's the things we can't control is the things that happen in our environment, changes that happen in our environment that we're not prepared for or feel ready to handle. And all of these different things is what's causing us stress, right? We worry about what other people think of us. We worry about so many things. Yeah. Right. And so if we can, if we can pause for a moment and just be like, Okay, this solving the problem of stress isn't just saying any time off. So, we're solving the problem of burnout isn't just taking more time off, right? Learning to unwary.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Okay. How do you do that? That feels like, that's probably the whole thrust of the book. So go read the book. But, yeah,

Jeanette Bronée:

it's a big part of the book. And I think there are many books out there that can help in that process, too. One of the things I often ask people is saying, Do you feel that your mind is full right now? And there's so many thoughts that are just stuck in there roaming around and you don't know how to make sense of them? Or are you being more mindful? You pause and choose one thing to solve at a time you pause and say, Okay, this is what I'm going to focus on now. And so allowing ourselves to well choose, in a way, right, like choosing what is my attention going to be on right now? How does my attention best helped me navigate all of the different potholes and things that are challenging me? What do I need? Now, so I can get past this thing right now? Because I think we're trying to solve too many problems all at once. It becomes really overwhelming, and then worry becomes a big, big, big puzzle to solve.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah, well, and I feel like the, the thing that you mentioned about, I'm still stuck on the sort of, like, I'm probably going to chew on it for the next week, like the idea that self care feels like it's about self, but it's really about care, is so insightful, that, um, like I said, I'm just gonna keep thinking about it. But the idea that we're trying to solve all these problems also as individuals, right, like we're trying to solve the fact that we're extremely stressed about the planet, and our work and the recession, if we have one, and the, you know, insert all the things that we're super stressed about as though we created those things ourselves and consult them ourselves, when in fact, we created them together. And the solution comes from our work together. And the idea of like, somehow, reframing the whole thing, as caring for ourselves caring for others, creating environments where care prevails as a part of the way we set it up, does really feel like it would change the way we would approach the problem, because care would be built into it. Yeah, like, I know, quite a powerful message you've got going on over there.

Jeanette Bronée:

Thank you for that. And as you're saying that what comes up for me is also shifting the care for to care about. Hmm. Right? Because yes, we care for, because we care about, but a lot of times, I think we get really busy and worried caring for people, our team, for example, we can't. We can can bring tools, we can give them the tools to care for themselves, because I say back to the listening, right? Listen more, can we can we listen and say, Listen, I, I can see you're going through a hard time, what do you need so that you can feel a little bit better right now? Or that you can get through this? Or what do you what do you need that we can solve? Like, if you're really stressed about a project, for example, right? What do you need so that you can get through this project and get the tools you need? Or the support you need? Or what is that that gives people back agency? And it gives them permission to ask for help.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Right? And that's as opposed to moving in taking it over reworking it, looking at it giving them directive. That's that's the opposing, maybe more default way of doing it.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah. And that's what a lot of leaders I think, are burning out because they feel that they are taking on the responsibility of solving the problem and caring for people actually so so called take their pain away. When really we're there to support people in solving it. Now. Yeah. And and, you know, this is, well, you're in this field, you you understand so much about the human condition and the human experience and human behavior as well. Right, you you know this stuff. So I know you you, you get this and I want to be in service of our audience who

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

of course pre chat. Yeah,

Jeanette Bronée:

let's hear it. This may be new to them. So I think you know, you and I having this conversation is about us saying How do we help? Like, how do we be of service? And if leaders had that sense of saying, Okay, I'm not here to fix the problems for my people, I'm here to help them and support them figuring out how to solve the problems. They're challenged with. The dynamic completely changes and people are engaged people know they're cared about. Right, right. So again, we're also looking at what is great work, right, great work isn't to just get it done. And reach the goal. Great work is what are the ways we're solving the problems along the way?

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

How does it come from me? Extremely each individual person with their unique perspective at work, wanting to bring what they have to the conversation, and there's sort of a, an almost patriarchal kind of top down kind of monarchy feeling of being cared for, where you're just full of it. I'm just gonna read this book. It's not out yet while we're recording it, but the minute it is, I will certainly be pre ordering it. Because it sounds great. Yeah, I feel like that's also a really great insight that changes, you know, and oh, my gosh, what relief for the leader? Yes. Oh, my, I don't have to solve all these problems. I don't have to, like, go home with all these people and choose for them what they're gonna have for dinner and force them to go to bed and have, you know, like, manage all their relationships, I can just facilitate them.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah. And you know, I learned this when I was sitting with my dad, when we knew he was dying. We didn't know when. And we really had to just figure out how to how to spend this time together in the most meaningful way. And one of the things I got caught in was caring for him. And granted, I had to because he was bedridden. Yeah. But one of the things he said to me, he said, Listen, you're running around, doing all these things for me that I don't necessarily need you to do. And you're stressed, what I really would like for you to do is just care about me and come here, sit down and talk. No. And it really, number one, change my perspective. Yeah, legally. Because I realize how often we try to show people that we care about them by caring for them. But for them to know that we care about them, is to have a conversation.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah. To show up, ask them questions, listen to what they say.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah. And to listen, exactly, to listen. And my dad always taught me as well. He always said that good leaders, listen, they listen, with the heart. Not just with their ears, they're listening to try to understand the person, what they care about what matters to them, and what they need, so that they can grow.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah, that is a great leader. And it's a hard it's a and it's worth realizing that it's a hard life skill. It's something that comes from trying and failing and trying again, to connect with people in a different way. Because there's a lot of Gestalt in this country in particular, in the US, in particular, around sort of individualism and the lone cowboy, and the the great inventor, all of these sort of individualistic ideas that don't, you know, there's value in them, but they don't teach you how to listen with your heart to another person. Because you're always trying to prove your individual worth by contributing. Yeah. And I like that this changes the narrative on that as well.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah. That's one of the one of the reasons why I also say that self care goes from me care, to we care. Right. And we really understand that our self care is partly connecting with other people being in relationship in healthy relationships with other people. That is part of our self care.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah. And that it doesn't have to always be in service. It can be because it brings you joy. Yeah, exactly. And that that, I mean, not everything has to be doing great work. But like, the more you are enjoying the people that you're in contact with, the better your work will be the better collaborators, you'll be because they know that you value them.

Jeanette Bronée:

And I think we need each other we needed. And we saw that during the pandemic, right. We saw how much we needed connection with other people to thrive. And that's one of the one of the things we're trying to solve now is in this hybrid work environment. How do we do great work? We're not in the room together. And I believe that's where listening comes into. Yeah, how we'd create these moments where we can pause together and just reflect on what was just said, and digested and be like, Okay, what do we do with this? Rather than jumping in on each other? Because we're so pressed for time, and we just need to fix this problem. Now, we all want to get up. Yeah, how do we actually pause for that moment and be like, Alright, so what do we need so that we can figure this out? Well, we're

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

in a weird time, as everyone knows, where we are actually, given the opportunity, a lot of people are trying to ignore the opportunity. So they don't have to deal with it. But it just keeps on popping back up, like we are recreating the world of work right now. And so we are now like, of all the times in history, it's like when the United States in the Revolutionary War, and now he had to build a nation, the notion of a nation that we now get to build, right? If you're not listening, and know how to communicate and know how to bring people along, when you're creating something almost from scratch, then you're going to end up with something that doesn't work very well. Jeanette, I have to ask you this question. So this is all very interesting. And as I said, I cannot wait to get your book. But I'm curious, like, how did this become your work? Like how what tell us about your great work and your history of great work? How did you get here,

Jeanette Bronée:

um, after my parents died of cancer a year apart. And I had an I had burned out twice, I decided to leave the fashion business. And I wanted to Originally, I wanted to create a wellbeing center for cancer patients, so that they had somewhere to be that felt nourishing and safe. For them while they were in treatment, but I was a bit too early, and people thought that it was to alternative medicine.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Oh, my gosh, I did, I had a good time.

Jeanette Bronée:

This was this was in 2002 was a little early, maybe, but still. And so I decided to go back to school studying nutrition. And I studied all kinds of health and healing modalities, because I was really curious about what makes us sick, because I was told that it was very high risk breast cancer, and it was only a matter of when I was gonna get cancer too. And I was like, there's something I can do rather than just get on medicine right away. And, obviously, now we know more about the interaction between your physical and emotional and mental health and, and how, you know, we can indeed take care of ourselves, but at the time, it wasn't so well known. And so I started studying all kinds of different ways that makes us sick. And I realized actually want to know what makes us healthy instead. And one of the things I learned during this time, but also while looking back at my mother's mental illness, which was bipolar, her mental illness, and how much her relationship with others was affecting her relationship with self. So I started seeing all these relationships happening in that way. And coaching people through all these years, I always saw how their relationship with their work and the people in their workplace, and how the culture at work was in general, affected their health, but also their, their relationship with themselves.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Okay, so I feel like, I kind of know what you're saying, but I need you to break it down. Like, is there an example? Or yeah,

Jeanette Bronée:

yeah. So when somebody would come to me and say, I need to take better care of myself, a lot of times we were just focused on okay, what are your habits? What do you need to do like, that kind of stuff, right. And what I realized was that, if they felt that didn't matter, contribute, were, you know, part of something at work, that they didn't get acknowledged for their work that they felt they always were doing it wrong, or something like that. If they didn't feel that they had that sense of contribution and belonging and feeling, feeling that they mattered, were valued, valued, they wouldn't go home and matter to themselves. Interesting. They would go home and just being like, who cares about me, so I don't care about me either. You can try as hard as you want to change your habits. But if you don't care about yourself, you're not going to care for yourself.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Interesting. So when you prior to your epiphany around your parents deaths, which I'm so sorry to hear, as you said that you're why

Jeanette Bronée:

I'm here today. Yes. I thought of the work I do. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I honor them every day. Oh, that's

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

lovely. You had mentioned around that time, you had also burned out twice. When you look back on your experience of burning out in the fashion industry. Did it help you understand your own experience and like what insights came out of looking at it in that way? Yeah.

Jeanette Bronée:

Whenever I was working on something where I felt valued, and where I felt appreciated, and that I was doing a good job. I was just having fun working. Yeah, me starting to Don't worry about am I doing the right job? Am I being seen and heard? Am I having the support I need when I started worrying, and not feeling like I was able to contribute or have the kind of feedback loop that I needed. That's when I started to worry. And then overwork myself and therefore. So that's why I'm always saying if we feel safe, we if we belong, if we feel valued, we don't we don't burn out from working too much. We burn out from worrying too much and feeling that we don't matter.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Fascinating. Yes. Well, right. And the what are the keys to burnout, exhaustion, cynicism and hopelessness, right? Yeah. So exhaustion just like is feels to me, very much like the outcome of cynicism and hopelessness, because one is about like, I can do nothing to change my environment. And the other one is about, I don't like any of the people and they don't like me. Yeah. So of course, you're exhausted, which is really what you're saying?

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah, we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Because we're trying to solve the problem of being liked being included, feeling that we belong, versus saying, what's the work I need to do? In the team, so in a way we get distracted? Yeah, we end up solving the wrong problem.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Are we distracted or we're like, uninformed? Because I think if you talk to a leader, which I assume you do all the time, this is like your time, this is your whole deal. Right, like, and so tell me, tell me how I have to assume that when you really lay this out and help them understand the total shift, shift and frame that explains things like it explains the data in a way that their current model really doesn't. I don't know if they're distracted, or if they just really are like, if people are burned out, then they need more time off. And I have to care for them and try to get them to take a vacation and try to versus caring about them. And then that changes, because you said they were distracted. I'm like, I don't know if they're distracted, or they just do not see it that way yet.

Jeanette Bronée:

Well, they're distracted. They're distracted by solving the wrong problem.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

What problem are they solving? Do you think? Well,

Jeanette Bronée:

sample, for example, if somebody says, I don't feel that I matter at work, they are solving the problem, what I call the pothole, right, they're stuck in the pothole trying to drain the water that's keeps coming up, that they don't feel that they matter on the long when they're really trying to say I want to do good work, right? I want to be acknowledged for my work. That's really the problem they're trying to solve. And that's why I'm saying that's a weak problem. Versus a me problem. That's right. That pothole is the me. And that is why it's kind of it's kind of funny, right? Because so when self care doesn't work, you actually become self absorbed. And that mean that not in a judgmental way. I mean, it in the pot hole is just taking over the fear, uncertainty and doubt is taking over. It is that sort of like we're being overwhelmed by what we're afraid of what we're, what we're not feeling seen and heard, right, versus saying, Oh, I actually feel like I matter. And then I acknowledged now I can focus on how do I do great work,

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

right, which is which you can't do alone, which is why you're saying it's a weed problem. Exactly. Because if your leader doesn't stop and talk to you about what you've been trying to do and what your motivations were, and help you not hear through words, but we do value you but instead really understand what it takes for you to perceive that value. Yes, problem can't be solved. Exactly. Hmm. Very interesting.

Jeanette Bronée:

And also what happens is people go to go away for a week, right

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

to recover Barbados, let's say

Jeanette Bronée:

sounds good to me. And they spent the first three days trying to unwind Yeah, and then spend the last two days getting wound up again about

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

having to go back to work worrying about going back Yeah, no,

Jeanette Bronée:

they have about one day maybe to where their worry free. Yeah, we need more worry free zones. We need to learn how to unwary more we need to learn how to catch where am I at right now? Am I stuck in the pothole right now is my Am I thinking about? What am I not doing right? Am I being critical of myself? Am I in am I stuck in that mindset that says this is not working? Because under stress, as you well know, we go into that part of the brain that just focusing on fear and danger and what's not working? Yeah, right survival. We're stuck in the pothole. These are the things that are not working. We're solving the wrong problem. Saying being curious and more constructive and saying what do i So I can solve this problem over here. That's actually the one I'm trying to solve, right. And I know I'm be repeating myself, but it's the same pattern that happens here, sort of like this idea that we're going away to get away from the worry. But the worry is still there when we come back, if we haven't learned how to change our mind.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Well, or the environment doesn't change, right? Because if it's a weird problem, I think that's the really the sticky wicket of what the world that you're describing.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah it needs to be a new language as a culture.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Yeah it requires new beliefs, it requires signing on to a new way of seeing each other. Yeah, that is tricky. And if you're a leader, if you're just a person, right at work, and you're reading this book, and you're like, yes, I want to be seen and heard at work. But your leader doesn't have the skills to do that and isn't interested in learning them. Is that like, what does the individual person do? Do they hope for Mirror Mirror neurons to be enough and like, show up and try to see the leader for who they are? Like, what do they do?

Jeanette Bronée:

Yeah. Well, part of the framework that I teach, I teach, I teach three tools in the book. The first one is power, pausing, nothing changes without a pause, because we're just going to run on automatic and be mind less power pausing,

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

I love that. We do have a lot of synergy. We have to do some kind of event together. Yes, we

Jeanette Bronée:

do. Right? So we have that power, pause that moment where we can bring mindfulness to where am I at right now? What's going on? Or just even just getting out of that stress? Worry worried that our nervous system calmed down. And the next one is how do we engage better with ourselves and others by asking better questions. And this is a framework, I call it the care framework, where hair stands for self communication, self awareness, self responsibility and self expression. And so your point is the last one self expression, how do I then instead say to my leader, listen, I need five minutes, before we actually meet, because I have just had to solve this problem. And my mind is not in the right place, so that I can be present to our meeting. So having that nuance that says I need so that I can, because this is the cause and effect it's going to have, right? So if we can start communicating, I need this so that I can, so that I can serve whatever it is we need to serve. Now we start developing a new language and how we, how we actually just don't have self care, being like me having to take care of myself. But my responsibility, and instead being this is really a possibility for better teamwork. And the nature, it is

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

relationships and the outcome of collaboration. Yeah.

Jeanette Bronée:

And so for example, if we're in a meeting and we feel bullied a little bit, yeah, maybe we could say, Hey, can we just pause on that for a moment? Because I feel like I feel a little bit pushed right now. And I might not respond quite the way I would like to respond.

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Now, that's an interesting example, right? Because it's a wee problem, not a me problem. So sometimes, I think like when you change the nature of relationships, where there's a new set of skills, like literally skills, like I've witnessed many times, I'm not the one being bullied, I'm not the one bullying, but I've watched this person, push that person around. In a team where we have agreed this is not how we roll, I then can enter into the weed problem and say, Wait a second, I feel like things are getting heated. Maybe we should give her a chance to restate, maybe you could back off a little, you know, and if that's allowed, and it doesn't feel like butting in and stepping on toes, because it's a weed problem that changes the role other people can play to.

Jeanette Bronée:

Yep. And we can take ownership of that thing. Can we just pause for a moment? Because I just want to understand what you just asked for? And what's the problem we're trying to solve here? Like, we can actually say that just own that we need that. But we're actually there for someone else. Right, right. You're just

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

a little bit of advocate. But advocating actually, for solving the problem. It doesn't always have to be advocating for the person, although, of course, we recognize there's no problem without the people. It's all about the people. But in the service of the problem in the world of improvement science, which is the kind of like coaching and you know, a real basis of it's like how do you solve entrenched problems? It's like a method for doing it. The question is, what are we hoping to accomplish? And that's a very similar question, and it always stops the conversation and people say like, Oh, I see what you're saying. We are on a tangent. We've gotten emotional. We you know, we're off topic. What are we really hoping to accomplish with this meeting? All right. Let's restart let's let's take a power pause and and reset. Yeah, that's very interesting and helpful. Well, honestly, I wish that we could talk about this all day long. Wait for the next, I don't know, seven to 10 hours, we could just continue this conversation because it's great. But I'm excited that in just a couple of weeks, I actually can get, like, what looks when you held up that book? Like, I don't know, like 250 pages of genetic, erroneous thinking. And I'm excited about it. So

Jeanette Bronée:

they're 400 248 I think no, actually 258

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

Nice. Love it

Jeanette Bronée:

259 to be honest, to be right on

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

259 pages of your best thinking that's like a holiday for me. I'm excited. So tell us if people like me are like, Damn, that was the lot of knowledge dropped in a very short amount of time, how can they get to know you more? Where can they find this book? And if they wanted to sort of reach out to you for the kind of coaching or speaking that whatever it is you're doing, tell us how to support your work?

Jeanette Bronée:

Yes. Jeanette Bronée, anywhere in the in the world, I would probably come up under that name, because I don't think anyone else has it. So you can always find me, I can't hide. But basically go to my website shall not pony.com Sign up for the newsletter, because I tried to really make a newsletter that is about tips and tools, creating conversation and giving people something that they can take to their teams or their family. And, you know, on all these social media channels, and you know, how, however, well, I'm doing all of those things, because it's not my primary, my primary focus to be on those, my primary focus really is to be of service as trite as that sounds. But when you ask me first, what is great, my great work, it is to figure out how to help people to in a way of being of service, not helping them because they need my help. But just sharing my insights from what I've learned, and what I've learned from working with people, and the framework and the systems that I have developed because of that. That's just tools that I can share. And thankfully now in my book, which I'm really, really grateful

Dr. Amanda Crowell:

for, yes, absolutely. Well, we will put a link to your website and to your order page for your book. So they don't have to even remember how to spell your name because it does have two E's, which is probably perplexing for the American audience. So we'll just put it, we'll put it there, they'll click it. And I just really want to thank you so much for your time today. This was a fascinating conversation.

Jeanette Bronée:

Thank you for your attention, for your care and for your wisdom and working on doing in the world too.