This is The Coaching Inn, a podcast from 3D Coaching. So welcome to The Coaching Inn. My name's Claire Pedrick and today I'm in conversation with Chris Patterson and Chris is going to talk to us about resilience. Welcome, Chris. Hi Claire. Tell us a bit about you and your journey.
So I'm actually an accountant by training and spent 17 years working in a large multinational company and in a variety of different roles and was always interested in resilience, was interested in the idea of looking after myself, was interested in work-life balance and attended even some trainings on that at work and a lot of that stuff served me quite well. I went and worked overseas and took on more and more challenging roles and really, really enjoyed it.
And then came back from working overseas and trained as an internal coach in my company and noticed that there was a very different experience I had at the end of a coaching conversation to a typical working day. I noticed that I had more energy often at the end of a coaching conversation and at the end of a working day, I often felt quite drained. And it just got me, it got me curious. And as I started to do more coaching, I started to notice this difference more.
And there were also a few things that happened in my work, which I was finding more and more challenging that had me starting to question my sense of purpose. And things came to a head when I started really struggling with sleep. I was waking up at three, four o'clock in the morning and unable to get back to sleep. And my head was just worrying with what I had to do. in the end, I took a month off work with stress.
And that was a really tough time because it had me questioning what I was going to do for a career, as well as just feeling like a bit of a spare part around the house and not quite knowing what to do. And part of what I, I had some counseling to help with sleep and I also had some coaching, some kind of return to work coaching. And that was hugely, hugely useful. And so after a month I was ready to come back to work, but I decided not to go back to my old job and this on a temporary basis.
Because I said I wanted to work part time, I was looking to get some balance back. And so what happened was that I ended up saying no to the job that I had and choosing a different path. And actually, this is now six, seven years ago, I can say that I'm really, really glad for what happened. At the time it was, it wasn't much fun at all, but it set me on a path to really discovering what was important to me. And I've now managed to carve that out.
So actually when people ask me, who am I and what do I do? My purpose in life is to grow resilient leaders and teams. And I'm a house husband. I'm an accidental founder of a charity and I'm an executive coach and a facilitator. And all of those things generally bring me lots of energy and I feel like I'm making a meaningful difference in other people's lives. Wow. So there was a lot of courage there.
There was, there was, there was a part of me, my ego really wanted to show them once I got back at work, I can do it, I'll show them, I'm not quite sure who they were. because people knew I'd been off sick and they were naturally concerned about it. And so to be able to just to say, I've worked out that that's not what I want, even though it was a challenging high profile role.
so following my energy, my intuition was something that having trained as an accountant wasn't really very much encouraged in the early parts of my career. Yeah, wow. I love the way you said you could introduce yourself in all those different ways. Because I... think that's so interesting in terms of how people perceive us depending on what we say. Yeah and most people ask what do you do rather than who are you?
When I run workshops I ask people to say who they are and ask them to give some adjectives for maybe how they'd like to show up today or how friends and colleagues and It encourages people to be a little bit vulnerable. It can be playful as well. And people get to know each other much more quickly than being hidden behind a job description. And it also removes hierarchy from a room as well, which can be really useful. Because we're only, we're only human. We are all human, aren't we? We are.
And even one of the aspects of my journey has been a transition from being a human doing. towards being more of a human being. And I'm still a work in progress on that. The doing part in me is very, very, very strong. And when I can put that to one side, I love what the being part of me can help others achieve. Wow. resilience and being, and here we are in this strange world of everybody being different or not being different.
So what do you notice when you look at this in between space of pandemic? Well, certainly it's strange and it's different. There's some things that have been very common for everyone in terms of the restrictions on what we're allowed to do. And then there's other bits that have been very, very different because we're all experiencing it differently. And that could be partly due to our set up, our circumstances where we live, who we live with.
It could be to do with the nature of the work that we do and if we are have even been able to work at all. And also our natural preferences.
you know, I think for an increasing amount of time that the one view of the world is that extroverts have have, you know, those are the more and more extroverted preference have have somehow dominated how the how the world works and actually I think part of the lockdown has given people with a more introverted preference an opportunity to find their way a little bit more easily.
Yeah that's interesting isn't it and it feels as though there's either plenty or scarcity you know people have either got too much work or not enough work they either love being at home and find the space really life-giving and fruitful or they absolutely hate it and that there doesn't seem to be many people who are in a kind of middle course. Yes and I suspect if they are in a middle course they might have had to work at that a little bit.
Because it's involved change and being able to navigate change is a big part of resilience. Absolutely. So I've been on leave in the living room for a week. And coming back to my computer, I've noticed quite a number of emails from people talking about resilience and asking if we can talk to them about resilience. So what would you say to people who recognise that resilience is a thing that needs to have attention paid?
I'd say that recognizing that is an amazing first step because it can be sometimes it's something that we don't pay attention to until it forces us to. And that was pretty close to where I got to with my situation. So I think it's as... as pressure mounts, as the level of challenge increases, because we are naturally adaptable creatures, we can flex with that up to a point. And there's quite a thin line between being able to keep going and not being able to keep going.
So I think a lot of this is about starting to notice and pay attention. The idea that resilience is something that some special people have, I think, isn't a particularly helpful idea. I think the starting point is that everybody is resilient. And I've heard some people describe it as ordinary magic. I like that. So, actually, just to, you know, some days, just getting out of bed requires resilience.
And so it doesn't have to be related to the hardest thing you've ever done, but it is about that sense of being able to keep going. think it's. one of the ways that we can tap into our resilience is to think back to previous challenging situations that we've encountered and ask ourselves, how did I get through that? What were the things that I did that were helpful?
And it's quite important to think, to make that very specific to ourselves because yes, there may have been some things in the situation that were helpful for us as well. And it's good to be aware of those because we might be able to recreate them. But those also may be things that are beyond our control.
Whereas if we can identify the things that were helpful, then, you know, for example, it might be, well, actually what I did was I just took some time, I said a brief bit of time out and I, and I made a plan for what I wanted to do or I noticed that this was becoming a bit difficult for me. So I went and found someone. had a conversation with them. Or I found someone who'd done something similar and I asked them for help. Or I... or I just made an extra special effort to look after myself.
So I focused on making sure I got enough sleep or making sure I had some exercise. it's, there's lots of different ways that we can promote resilience. And it's a, it's a very personal thing. Something that works for one person may not have the same impact for others. So I think a lot of this is about getting to know ourselves and knowing what works for us and do more of that is a great starting point.
It's interesting because as you speak I recognise what I did at the beginning of lockdown that I don't think I was conscious of. So I had depression about seven years ago and as lockdown started I doubled my walking outside because I knew that that was a really good thing to have in place. and I've worn out a pair of shoes. And now I can't get another pair, but anyway, that's okay. What a great measure of success for resilience. I got through a pair of shoes. Yeah, absolutely.
And better to get through a pair of shoes than to get through your mental health. Yes, or, you know, however many bottles of something or some other things that might have alleviated something but actually didn't address anything underlying. Yeah, so there's a timing thing that's coming up as we're talking which is how early can you put your resilience measures in place? And I think there's two ways of looking at this. There's an expression, know, there are things called storm shelters.
And as far as I know, you don't start building the storm shelter when the storm is there. So they only really work if they're there in advance. And so I think one of the ways of thinking about, about resilience is, is building capacity during good times. What are the things that we can put in place? What are the habits that we can cultivate when things are going reasonably well? And then there's the, do we respond when the going gets tougher, when the storm does come?
And the more preparation we've done, then the easier that response is. And I guess that most storm shelters have a story. building of most storm shelters has a story. Because I learnt the exercise thing, I learnt when I was recovering. Right. So there was a story to that. And I guess that that's when we really know what the storm shelters are that we need. So our past experience can be, yes, hugely helpful here. And There's an expression that a smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.
Yes. And so what's becoming more resilient isn't is covering ourselves in cotton wool and protecting ourselves. We have to expose ourselves to challenge and we need to know our limits and do that in a way that allows us to build and learn and develop. What it also means is that anytime we feel like we've had our resilience tested is an opportunity for us to ask ourselves, okay, what happened there? How did I respond? What worked for me? What was unhelpful?
And if I had my time again, what would I do differently? And therefore, what have I learned about myself from this? People... sometimes describe resilience as bounce back ability. I like to think of it as bounce back ability plus because we emerge from challenge, difficulty, struggle, stronger, fitter, wiser from the experience. And a way of appreciating this will be to think of something that maybe was a month ago or a year ago that we found challenging. And then imagine we had to do that.
same thing or face that same situation now. And then if we can get that sense of timing we get a sense of the progress that we've made and the growth that we've managed to achieve as well. So it's a muscle. Very much so. It can also be seen as a bit of a discipline as well. Now I appreciate that that word may not land for some people.
It's about a series of habits, a series of things that we find helpful and putting systems in place so that those things happen without us having to do too much remembering. And we build them into our daily lives so that they happen without us even having to think about it. Because when you need your resilience most, automatic is going to be easier, Very much so. So food and drink, food and water and resilience. Yes, and And I think most of us know what we need here.
I think there's lots and lots and lots of advice out there. And I'd almost challenge you not to go looking for advice, but actually just look inside. Ask yourself, what do I already know? And, or what advice would I be giving to a friend who was in a similar situation? See what you can do under your own resources as a starting point. before looking elsewhere because you're much more likely to do the things that you already know than to try something totally new and different.
Yeah, so that's a real coaching thing isn't it about being your own expert? Yes, yeah and I think this starting point of what works for me, a relatively simple way of getting our head round resilience is to link it to our energy levels. So one way of looking at resilience is that it's our ability to bring our best energy when we most need it. and Thinking about times when we feel particularly energized and what contributes to that is a great starting point.
You can even imagine that you have a personal energy battery. Most of us have some sort of smartphone or device that will tell you how much battery there is left. You can take the fingers on one hand and depict five as a full energy battery. You can make a fist that's empty and you can have any number of digits in the middle and asking yourself, where's my energy battery? can be quite a useful way of saying actually how much resilience have I got? How much capacity do I have right now?
And if someone is prepared to look at that, maybe at the start and at the end of a day. and just pay attention to that over a few days, you might start to notice some patterns. I'm thinking about my car. OK. So normally, my car gets filled up twice a week with fuel, and then it had its fuel in it in March and didn't have any more fuel in it until last weekend. So sometimes what we've got in us lasts a long time, doesn't it? And sometimes we need quite a lot.
Yes, and you can broadly think of energy in different types. So there's our physical energy, which is to do with how much we sleep, the food, water and movement. That's essentially what that's about. Then there's emotional energy. And that's more to do with the quality of our energy and it's often linked to relationships. There's mental energy, which is our ability to focus. And then the spiritual energy, is about our sense of purpose.
And there are things that can boost or drain each of these types of energy. But we can have a day, for example, where physically we haven't really done very much and we feel exhausted. Yeah. And sometimes there's a, you know, without. understanding the distinction, you just go, I'm really tired. But it might be that our brain is frazzled, as we've had to do thinking, or emotionally, we might be really depleted because we've had some difficult conversations.
Or spiritually, we might also be wondering, what's the point? Why am I doing this? And so taking those four different dimensions, we can also think of things that might boost our energy in each of those dimensions. And even taking as little as a minute can offer us an opportunity to boost any one of those four dimensions. So pay attention. Yes, yes. It comes back to that knowing where's my energy, where's my energy battery at at the moment. And if the score is a two or a three or lower.
Okay, what might be driving that? And more importantly, what might I need to do? And the best way of figuring this out isn't to think for a very long time, it's to try something and notice the difference. If it helped, keep doing it. If it didn't, try something different. Yeah. And you said earlier, have your internal strategies first. Because there's so many things aren't there?
If you look on social media there's 10 things you can do for this and 10 things you can do for that and 10 things you can do for something else but what you're saying is look inside? Yes because what's worked for us before is highly likely to work again. What we tend to do is we forget. So if we can re-remember then we've got everything we need. Wow. So if people want to talk to you more about this Chris, how do they get hold of you? They can email me.
My email is chris at smilebcurious.co.uk and that's all one smile and in B-E and curious. And that's what you're suggesting we do. Exactly. Actually, humour is something that definitely increases energy levels and a smile and sharing a smile with someone can boost your energy and that curiosity to wonder what is it that I can try now is going to help with my energy levels and my resilience. Brilliant. Well, thank you, Chris, for sharing some wisdom.
I'll certainly go away with some things to think about and I know that other people who've listened have as well. So my name is Claire Pedrick, I've been talking to Chris Utterson.