[00:00] Katie: Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:36] Katie: Super excited to have Elena Twadel on the show today. Elena is the founder of Another Door, where she encourages people to rethink work and see Change as an opportunity. She's also the author of why Losing your job could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Wonderful to have you on the show, Elena, today. Thank you so much for joining.
[00:58] Eleanor: Thank you for having me on this strange, cold day.
[01:03] Katie: It's cold today. Are you based in the UK?
[01:06] Eleanor: Yes, I'm in the UK. We like talking about the weather because it changes so much. It's something we never get used to. So now I'm grumpy today because it's gone cold. So there you go. That's where I'm at today.
[01:19] Katie: And that leads us directly to our topic on Change, because you were saying the weather changes all the time and one of your expertise is helping people to deal with Change.
[01:28] Eleanor: Right.
[01:28] Katie: So you wrote the book.
[01:29] Eleanor: Why?
[01:30] Katie: Losing your job Can Be the best thing that ever happened to you, which I know sounds like a controversial topic and title. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on, first of all, why is this topic meaningful and important for you? And second of all, why do you feel that sometimes change can be the best thing that happens to you?
[01:50] Eleanor: Yeah, maybe they're interlinked. Yeah. Interesting topic, and I think it's interesting you say it's controversial and is it awkward? Does it make people feel a bit yucky? I quite like the title because of that, but there's an important word in it that makes it different. So could and we live in a world of kind of could, should, would. And these words actually probably dominate us more than anything else. So the important word there is could be because everything is possible. It depends on if we've tried, it depends on if we've set our direction. It depends if we've done the work. So many dependents, and yet a lot of us stay in this kind of place of, oh, well, not for me. This is my lot, this is what I do, this is all I can be. So I guess my book came from this fascination with Change and why we're so resistant to it, why we fear it so much, when actually it's all around us every day. So, yeah, that's where kind of the Change fascination came from. I'm actually a Change consultant as well by trade, so I guess organizational kind of change and transformation has always been what I do. But then bringing it to an individual level of real micro examination of like, what is this thing that we're so scared of that holds us in place and what's going on there? And then the best thing that ever happened to you? Well, yeah, I guess it came from that challenge of, but what if when things go wrong, we always just kind of sink into it? We let that thing command us, take over us, it becomes us. What if it could be us owning it? And what if we can kind of find the gifts, find some kind of golden nuggets in there that make it a good thing? As I say, the key word good could. The key word is could be the best thing that happens.
[03:56] Katie: Yes. I like that. Nuance around could be the best thing. And maybe we can make it the best thing if we choose to. I want to come back to what you were saying around the fear. I think this is so fundamental because it can either be an opportunity like the name of your podcast, Another Door, but it can also be just this huge amount of fear. And I often think also about the nervous system. And depending on your personality, your experience, your background, there's only so much change you can sort of cope with from a nervous system perspective. So I'm wondering what are the sort of steps that we need to go through as an individual to help us better manage individual change on our own level? Because, like I said, we all have different sort of comfort levels when it comes to change.
[04:44] Eleanor: Yes, such a good topic. I love this and I'm scared I'm going to sit in here and talk to you all day about this, so you'll have to stop me probably at some point. But one thing in a lot of the research that I did, the one thing that really everybody should really start to know is we all have our own change script running all the time, and the change script is constantly going. It's called all kinds of different scientific things. I just call it the change script because I like to make things really simplified. And what it's doing is anything that comes along in our life that we weren't maybe expecting, we run in a script over. Okay, how am I going to deal with this? What's going on here? How am I processing it? Whether it's a small thing, I always give the example of like, oh, I just went downstairs to make a cup of coffee, mind a little bit in complete flow, going towards the kettle, and I stand on a piece of Lego. Oh, my goodness. That moment in time when something's disrupted that you weren't expecting, that's change and our change script activates, and our response activates. And in that very short moment of time, we can choose how we react. We can completely lose it. The pain, the agony. Who left the Lego there? Oh, my goodness, this house is tip. Oh, my dramatized, the whole thing. Suddenly my lovely cup of coffee has gone out the window. It's a terrible morning. That's change. That's our change script of how we're going to handle that. On the other hand, I could just go, Ouch. Kick it out the way and go and make my cup of coffee. That's micro change. But then things come along, huge things come along for us, whether, well, we're seeing it now in the UK at the moment, maybe the globe where the Queen has died. So change has come and suddenly it's a huge thing where we're trying to work out, what does this mean for me? Does it mean anything? I don't know. And then we're trying to run our change script to process it. And that's the same with job loss. It's the same with perhaps when family life changes, anything like that. It depends on your change script. At that moment in time. You can't even say, oh, I'm really good at change, or I'm bad at change. You can't. It's so circumstantial. So these change scripts are running the whole time and deciding, okay, I'm going to stand on a piece of Lego and change my whole morning, or something huge is going to happen to me, and I'm going to actually kind of deal with this and handle it and work through it. So, yeah, I've got these five steps that I kind of help people to really slow it all down and work out what's going on. And I realized when I was doing the work on people who've been made redundant or lost their job, this is the same sort of process that people work through, I mapped out, like, what are they going through, but it's actually relevant in any type of change.
[07:34] Katie: Amazing. Can't wait to dive into these five steps. I've never thought of those small sort of minute detailed things every day as being change. And I often just thought of it as I don't know what I would call it. Maybe small obstacles or I don't know, I had a different sort of term in my mind. And I think I would often look at the Stoicists, at Stoicism and that best approach, either Stoicism or the mindfulness. So either think what you can and can't change and all the Stoic stuff, or just think, okay, just be fully present. What just happened? Okay, you stepped on a piece of Lego. It's okay. Take a deep breath. Moving on. Right, just coming way back in the present and not dramatizing. So with the Lego it's easier, but let's say you just had a bad news or an email that was upsetting. Then I think I often thought about all this as emotional resilience, but I guess all of them are sort of changes, unexpected changes in your day. And then I would just be like, come right back in the present, don't like dramatize, the future. So anyway, I'd love to hear what are the sort of five steps that you help with in terms of dealing with change and managing these small to big changes in people's lives?
[08:49] Eleanor: Yeah, and I love that you've said that, because I think you're right. It's got all these elements of mindfulness. This is where, though, personally, when I started doing a bit more research a couple of years ago into wider change, I got overwhelmed because there's so much stuff out there. Oh, where does that fit? Where does that fit? So to stop the overwhelm and as I said before, my whole thing is make something so simple can be used, I realize, oh, no, it's a change script. It's just our change script running the whole time, throughout our day. It's always on. So we're actually always ready for something because changes around us all the time. It just is, as you said, it's that disruption and it depends on where we're at that moment in time, what's going on for us. There's so many dependence on how you're going to react. So you're right, you could be on the best mindfulness program in the world. You'd be so present, be like, okay, this has happened, this is cool, but wrong moment in time that goes out the window. Doesn't work, does it? So I think the change script, just acknowledging it's there, but you got a bit of control of it, just help simplify it for people. I always say visualize dials, and you've got these kind of dials that you are in control of. You can turn up, you can turn down when anything comes your way. Like what you said, the email, that email drops into your inbox. Oh, my goodness. And it's the most annoying email you've ever read. Are you dying to just get on that keyboard and respond with the capital letters? You might even use capital letters. I don't know, it might be that bad. But how amazing to kind of just stop and go, right, hang on, dial down, dial down. Let's control this. What do I want from it? So, yeah, these five steps that kind of I realize that we're running the whole time, help people to kind of start going, right, okay, I know where I'm at. So the first thing, and we never do this, the first thing is acknowledge that's. The first step of change. Just acknowledge the change, because quite often we don't even now, all around us with the queen dying, we're kind of acknowledging that side of it. But the bit that we're not acknowledging, or perhaps we're trying to talk about, but we're really struggling a little bit more, is, what does this mean? So acknowledgment of what does this mean for me? Oh, we've got a king now. Oh, we change this, we change it. Like, what does it mean? Does it mean anything? I don't know. So we just kind of carry on. So acknowledgment of the change and then the impact and just spending time understanding that really helps change your relationship with things coming along that you weren't expecting. So that's kind of the first step, this kind of acknowledgment of what changes.
[11:36] Katie: Just sort of nodding along, being like, okay, what's number two? What's number three? But yes, acknowledgment, I think is huge. And I know for myself that sometimes when I don't acknowledge even the tiniest email or even sometimes a thought that bothered me, then a few minutes go by and I think, what was that feeling? Like something in me doesn't feel quite right or a bit nervous or stressed or annoyed, and then I come back, oh, yes, it was sometimes just a thought or sometimes an email or something. And then I think, oh, yes. And then I sort of process it. Because if you don't, what happens is, like, during the day, it all adds up and you end up feeling super overwhelmed and tired and you just don't know why. So, yeah, you get to hear the next steps.
[12:17] Eleanor: That's exactly it, those little things. And it is. It's because we're not acknowledging it. We're not going, oh, okay, that kind of triggered me, or that set me off because, oh, okay, that's cool. And if you kind of work on this, you can even do it in these moments that throw us, like the Lego thing. You can because you kind of stand on it and you go and you think, oh, this is what I'm doing. Literally just stood on something. Fine, get over it, move on. Or you might just need a release. So it's acknowledgment. It's really like, what just happened? That set me off there. Give yourself a bit of space with that. That gets you into step two, which is process, sorry, I've jumped ahead. That gets us to step two, which is react. I'm way ahead. I'm over the hill already. So step two is react. And that is about, okay, almost looking back at yourself and going, how do I react? What is going on here? How am I reacting? So job loss, for example, is really interesting. People get lost in the fog. They get lost in the moment when they were to look back in six months time and think, did I handle that well? Let me give myself an appraisal here. Think? What was I doing? Because people lose control. They maybe haven't acknowledged, they haven't grabbed hold of what's going on and, okay, how do I want to behave in this kind of situation to get something for me out of it? The reaction and the response they're leaving to just whatever they feel like. So they're getting angry. They're sending emails to managers demanding, like, why is this happening? This is outrageous. Wasting so much energy on stuff that's just not going to serve them. But it's just because they haven't acknowledged and they haven't really observed their reaction. So again, slowing it all down to go, yeah, how am I reacting? Am I sort of grouping up with the gang that likes to sort of moan about this and, yeah, changing the business, they don't know what they're doing, blah, blah, blah, or am I going, Right, hold some space here, let's see what's going on. I want to feel in control. So step two is all about really checking in with your reactions, observing what's going on, giving yourself space and time to really think about the group around you as well as you. And this involves friends and family as well, because when change happens to you, their change stories are all happening around you as well. So they might be acting odd when you lose your job as an example. So quite often your closest people will act really OD because you've triggered a change story. They'll be more fear because something's happened to change their script of what they think you are. So they're now in fear for you. They might be acting OD and you think, well, that's not very supportive, but their change script is going on overdrive. So reacting is kind of just watching what's going on for you around you, giving yourself space and time.
[15:11] Katie: It feels to me like the reaction part, it's more observing. So observing maybe your instinctual reaction. So first you acknowledge something happened, then you observe, oh, how is I about to respond? If you've got a bit more of a meditation or mindful practice, you might see the impulse without doing it. If you've got less of a meditation or mindfulness practice, you might respond and react and then observe that. So it feels to me like this reaction phase is more sort of an observation phase to notice what is your reaction, what is the reaction of people around you?
[15:44] Eleanor: Yeah, that's it. Observation. And then the next stage that we go into when we kind of go through this with people is to go in, react. We start to introduce getting to know yourself. This is an opportunity to meet yourself and say, wow, I didn't know that's how I did this. I didn't know what my change story was, or I did know that, and I want to hold on to it. So you're right, it's observing. And then the next level is really opening up, getting to know yourself a bit better. So you're right, the react piece is really understanding how you react to change. Yeah.
[16:19] Katie: So the third step is then sort of understanding yourself, understanding why it's a trigger, why it makes you respond. I'm curious about this step because I think it's quite a deep one. Okay, so even something like, let's say, the Lego piece, again, to come back to that example, there might be some sort of huge control issue, or maybe you grew up in a house that was super tidy or a house that was a total mess, and it might bring up really deep things. So I'm wondering how deep are you supposed to go in? You're like, oh, I acknowledge stepped on Lego. I observe I was about to lose my temper. And then in the understanding phase, I think that's great and it's super deep. But I'm wondering on the moment you're about to grab your coffee, you might not want to start psychoanalyzing yourself to really understand the root cause of why it's upsetting you so much.
[17:05] Eleanor: Yeah, I love this. So when we kind of go through this and you get third step, you write is process it's. How am I processing this? How am I translating this into meaning? We're kind of not saying you learning on the job. So, yeah, let's take the Lego. Our micro change. We're not saying, right, get out. When you stand on the Lego, get out the book read like each step, go through it. No, you're right, that's not going to happen. It's a really good example because people can identify it with it. They can identify that moment. Or the other one that I use is when you get cut up by a car, you're a driver and someone's cut you up again, it's your reactions. It's how have you just dealt with that kind of moment in time? Because it's very identifiable. You can start to work through it. So when you start working through owning change, which is ultimately where we want to get to feeling like, okay, I'm calm, I can own this. It's fine. It's not going to take over my life. I'm in control. Then these are the five steps you're running the whole way through. And whether you acknowledge it's very much dialed down and it's a split second, some parts will be dialed up, and it's why you're reacting to something so you can work on it. So the next time you step on something and you go, oh, you've remembered you've done something, you go, oh, okay, I know I could choose to deal with this. Okay, breathe out, breathe it away. So you're right. It's kind of not an on job learning thing. That would be slightly strange, getting the manual out, going through. But in organizational change, for example, say your role has changed or you've got a new boss or something like that, then perhaps you can actually work through these steps because you can feel it. And we get people who maybe a couple of weeks ago, we worked with people who've been taken over, their company has been taken over, and they were going through this. So we did a five week experience on each step and slowed it down for them. So it is more practical to go through it because they're like, yeah, I'm acknowledging that. I'm a little bit scared. Okay, what are you scared about? And you kind of start working through it. So when you get to the third one of process, you're right, you're going a little bit deeper. It can start activating all sorts of stuff. But this is where we would then say, this is what you need to get to. You need to know exactly, well, what is the help you need? Because I think sometimes we are given help or resource or pointed in a direction, and we're not understanding it. So a lot of organizations will give an EPA helpline or a wellbeing campaign or go and watch this webinar about trauma that people don't do it because they haven't gone through their change story to understand, well, where is it? I don't know what I'm doing with know the processing part. The translation part hasn't happened. So they're, well, is it me? I don't know if this is for me or not. So that's why we kind of slow it all down. And when if you're getting to a point of like, wow, yeah, it's a trauma thing that I'm recognizing here and now. I've just thought about why do I behave in this way? Well, it's because of this, then you could get more specific help for whatever it is. So actually, the next layer of help that we kind of see sometimes is more impactful. So, yes, you're right. The third part, in fact, the whole of this can trigger all sorts of emotions. You got to be constantly checking in on yourself if you're okay, but then you can actually get help that will really help where you're at. So I think it kind of works aligned with that. It's not a substitute. It works alongside it nice.
[20:42] Katie: I'm only seeing one extra step afterward, which is like what you actually choose to do about it. So I'm very curious. Four and five. So it's like, first you acknowledge something's happening, then you observe your own sort of impulsive reactions. Then maybe you seek to understand it a bit more, process it. And then for me, the next step would naturally be like, okay. And then you choose your response to it, or you shift your response, or you accept sometimes there is no reaction. So I'm very curious to hear how it's two different steps.
[21:13] Eleanor: So the fourth one is explore. And it's quite often the one that people who like, maybe, you know, people who say, I love change, they tend to jump straight into four explore. They will have the idea, they will see the possibility they'll be there already. So they'll already have worked out, oh, okay, this is all shifting. There's a restructuring, the business. Well, I'm there already. I've got the promotion, I've got the project. And you're still sitting here processing. And in the days in being in the office, you're sitting next to someone, you're thinking, how have they just got promotion out of this? And I'm still sitting here worried I'm going to look what's going on. They jump straight into this exploration seeing opportunity, because you've gone through this change kind of experience. You've kind of been processing it. They've already kind of worked through them three steps already quite quickly and for them, all it leaves is opportunity. So exploration is what's the possibilities, what's the options? What is out there? How can I do this differently? So again, it slows it down to give really good ideas and this is where it links to the redundancy part as well of making it a good thing. Things can be upgraded out of change. Sometimes we think, oh, change comes along. All we can either get is just, okay, let's just try and maintain or it's going to get worse. But what if you can actually upgrade? So the fourth step is really important to upgrade and get that upgrade mindset. And that's where you work on your mindset, on your how do you feel about yourself, all of that good work you've done in step one, two and three, the belief systems, your values, all of that stuff comes into action in step four.
[22:54] Katie: I can totally identify with this. I love change and if I don't have enough change in my life and in my days, I sort of feel like dead inside. So I literally have to do things like change where I'm working and add a different lunch paste and see different people. And I've noticed my happier days are the ones where I have not as much change as possible exactly, but at least three to five different places in the day and preferably at least three event or three type of people or deep conversations or something like that. But obviously there's probably a stage where I'd have too much change, but it's interesting and I always find people who are very reluctant to change or don't like a lot of variety and like really strong routine with no change. I'm like, oh, so boring. So yes, I skipped straight into the explore stage for sure. So what's step five?
[23:47] Eleanor: Yeah, and you definitely got to the punchline really quickly. So the punchline, step five is choose. And that's where we want to get people to feeling ownership. But you're right, you can't just jump straight from, I'm going to own this, it's fine. You have to go through this kind of space and time to understand yourself and acknowledge that, yeah, you might be angry, you might have feelings that you might need to address in some way or confusion or whatever is going on. But in step five, it's choosing and owning it. It doesn't mean you've solved everything. It doesn't mean you've got an answer. It doesn't mean you're thriving and like, hey, everything's fine, it's a happy day today. It doesn't mean that. It means that you are now saying, okay, I'm responsible, I own this, and it goes full circle. I'm going to acknowledge what's happening and I'm going to own it. So these kind of steps are very circular because it means that actually you can have far better conversations with people about change. Again, putting it in the organizational context, if you got restructures going on or new managers coming in, or you've got like the takeover that I gave the example of. It's really powerful to just feel as an individual, take the worry away because you're fine, you're in control, you will do what you could do, you'll ask good questions for yourself, you'll think things through. So you're not acting from the sort of worry point of view. You're not acting from the no acknowledgment zone, which is just like, hey, I'm just going to get angry and say random stuff and spread gossip and blah, blah, blah, which is not going to help you. It's going to be far more considered. So, yeah, that's the final step of feeling like you're choosing, you're owning. But as you said, yeah, it's not straightforward still, but it just makes you feel like you have more opportunity coming your way.
[25:37] Katie: This is so interesting because what comes to mind is that people who struggle with change or get stuck in the first sort of acknowledging, maybe observation, maybe understanding, processing phase for a while before they get to the exploring phase. But then I'm thinking of people like me who sort of jump really fast to that explore and choose phase. Sometimes I realize I haven't processed enough. Like I've moved to a new place and I'm jumping in, I'm doing all the activities and I'm like, wait, pause, acknowledge. This is a change for your nervous system. Obviously you're feeling a bit more tired, et cetera. So I feel that the two categories, the ones that are reluctant to change, that take a while before they explore, but then when they do get there, they've actually lived the change sort of more fully, sort of jump to it. And then maybe three months or six months or whatever, a few weeks later wake up and think, oh, wow. I didn't actually process what happened here because I'm so used to change, I'm so used to jumping into exploring or choosing that I didn't really pause and see what that meant for me from an identity. Did it shift my goals? How am I feeling about it? So it's interesting to see the sort of preferences of people.
[26:44] Eleanor: Yeah, and it's such a good point that we I think the singular message as well as you have control over change and we've got this change script running the whole time and the strong message that comes out from that is we're all different. We cannot possibly understand what someone else's change script is going because there's so many parts to it and complexities to it. So we can never go, yeah, I get that because of no have so many complex thoughts going on. So you're right. And I think the people who kind of jump into explore or decide and choose and they know, they look so assertive in what they're doing, it can look like, oh, I wish I was me, I wish I could be more like that. But you're. Right? Sometimes they get to a point in life and go, I don't even know how I got here. And we meet a lot of people who are career changing who say that, so they'll kind of ten years later, they'll go, I couldn't even tell you how I got here. They jumped on every opportunity that came along. I did that for 20 years. I never applied for any jobs for 15 years. Just things came and I was like, yeah, do that, do it, do it. Yeah. Brilliant, Brit. And then suddenly you wake up and go, what am I doing? I don't even know. What was I meant to be doing this? So I think, yeah, there's no right way, there's no good way to do this just your way and your way that you feel like, oh, yeah, this is how I deal with this. This is cool. And you can have far better conversations. People. You can sort of help others with their change script if you're kind of understanding how that's going.
[28:23] Katie: Wonderful. I love this so much. This has been such a great talk. It flew by and it was a super focused talk with the five key steps. Sometimes my interviews go in all directions, so this is a really clear episode for people who want to learn these five key steps and understand a bit more what's going on when they're going through change. So amazing. Where can people find you? And if they want to be in touch, what's the best way to reach you?
[28:46] Eleanor: Yeah, and thank you, because usually I'm all over the place. There's a big danger there of me just going off all over the place, so I have to put in structure in my life to keep me on track. I'm at anotherdoor co UK. We're growing community and we're all about helping people through change and we do lots of work with teams and organizations about change and individual rethinks of their career. Really, if you've just hit that road that we just talked about of like, what am I doing here? That's who we help. So that's where you can find me.
[29:19] Katie: Thank you so much. It's been wonderful to have you on the show. Elena really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for joining today. Thank you.
[29:27] Eleanor: Katie.
[29:31] Katie: Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Be Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.