Navigating Big Life Changes with Rebecca Sutherns

Welcome to the Social Chameleon Show, where it's our goal to help you learn, grow, and transform into the person you wanna become. Today, we have an extraordinary guest who is no stranger to transformation and reinvention, doctor Rebecca Southers. Rebecca is an accomplished author and a midlife transition coach dedicated to helping high achieving women find clarity, energy, and confidence during life's most challenging transitions, career shifts, emptiness, or personal peoples. With her innovative, elastic method, Rebecca empowers women to stretch into the next chapter of their lives without snapping or falling back into old patterns. Herb Cross aligns values with actions, offering a structured yet flexible framework to navigate the messy middle of transitions with grace and purpose. Rebecca's transformation journey began with an unconventional family sabbatical, a bold leap that trans that reshaped her perspective on work life balance. The lessons she learned from taking risks and embracing change was has have transformed her life and inspired her mission to help others do the same. So whether you're on the brink of a transition or just curious about how to thrive in life's unpredictable chapters, stay tuned.

Rebecca shares her wisdom, story, and powerful tools to help you imagine your next chapter. Let's dive in and talk with Rebecca. Rebecca, welcome to the Social Chameleon Show.

Thanks very much.

So I was reading your your things, and there there was, like, a, seems like a a a personal life event or something that had happened that led you into this line of work that sparked a a need for a deeper personal transformation. Could you share that story with us and how that what that was what that was, how that came about, and kinda how you resolved that?

Sure. I would say that there have been kind of two big inflection points in my work and life, and and the first one was probably earlier, and that was that I used to travel all over the world, doing international development work. This is well before I had my kids. I was in my twenties. I had what I thought was my dream job. Mhmm. And, we realized a few years in, maybe five years into that, that if, if we wanted to have a family, there was nothing available right at that point that was safe to take during pregnancy if you were going to be traveling to areas that had malaria. So I had to make this big decision about whether I was going to prioritize the possibility of family Mhmm.

Or this job that had travel as so much a part of it. And so, fast forward probably another twenty years from then, and, thankfully to be able to say I'm thankful to be able to say that we were, in fact, able to, have four kids and, but it did require a pretty major, job change and a little bit of an identity shift at that time to say, you know, what kind of risks am I willing to take to, open up that possibility for us. So about seven years ago, when our oldest was 20 or 21, and our youngest at that time would have been maybe just starting high school, something like that. I realized that, although I had been working as an entrepreneur, I'm a facilitator and coach. And although I had been doing that work for, you know, the twenty years prior to that on part time and then full time as the kids got older, I kinda got to a place where I realized that in the ecosystem of our whole family, everything that I was doing was kind of bottom of the priority list for everybody else. And I had created that. So I'm not saying that with any sort anything other than gratitude for the flexibility that that gave us at this particular season of our lives. But I think I held on to that need for flexibility and availability for my family longer than I probably should have.

And it, it got to a place where all of a sudden almost suddenly, I went, hang on. Why are everybody else's, priorities always, higher than mine in the sense that, you know, a kid forgets his lunch. Somebody has to go to an appointment. She's got a soccer game, whatever it is. No matter what I was doing, that got dropped for those needs to be met, which makes sense when your kids are little, and maybe makes less sense when they're bigger. And, so as they got bigger, I started going, I wonder what the next thing is for me. And it was a pretty major, season of thinking this through partly because I couldn't think of anything I would rather do in the from a purpose point of view, from a meaning point of view. It wasn't that I loved every minute of parenting, and I wasn't doing it all the time.

I had been working all the way through. But I I did get to a place of going, what's the next chapter going to look like for me? Because, you know, the kids are, moving toward greater and greater independence. And so we decided around 2017 to take a sabbatical. As a family, we went traveling for about three months. And just before that, I became aware of, something called Thought Leaders Business School. And as I read their materials, I went, I think this might be the next possibility for me. So we were going to Australia as part of that sabbatical, and my one day of working on the trip was to meet with folks from there. And as that story continued, I ended up going back to Australia that year having never been there before in my life.

I went twice that year.

Wow.

And it felt crazy to extricate myself from my sort of busy household and hop on a plane and basically buy training on the Internet. And I didn't know if I would arrive there going this was, you know, insane and a waste, or if I'd get there sort of really demanding, like, don't you know what this took? But in fact, it wasn't like that at all. It was I was so excited and just so ready to learn and ended up being a student in their program and investing pretty heavily in that, both financially and in terms of time and and sort of changed my whole social circle and leveled up my work in a way that I never would have expected. And so the the kinds of things that they described as being possible, became true for me, and I was on their, student rock roster for about three years, three and a half, and then have been on faculty with them for the three and a half years since then. And what's important about that story isn't so much that particular program that I'm in, but was the willingness to reframe, sort of how my work fit into the puzzle of my family and also realizing that in the midst of it as I became more and more involved in transitions coaching, that I had to, you know, live through and think through my experiences of that as well. And so when people talk about, you know, sort of adjusting to an empty nest, for example, for me, that was a ten year process almost of emptying nest, and people don't talk about that. They don't talk about the gradual adjustments that have to happen or about the length of time that some major transitions in people's lives take. And so now where I've landed is that since that time, my my business has probably, I don't know, quintupled roughly.

I'm working all over the world. My children are grown and gone. I've entered into the grandparent stage, which is another whole other story, and have kind of lived through a a fairly major work and identity transition even as my work has taken me into helping other people adapt and reimagine their next chapter.

That's interesting story. I have a similar, I guess, background or something like that. Same kind of thing. I'm the stay at home parent and also doing the entrepreneur things. But when I hear what you say, though those things don't strike me because what I told my kids was, you forget something at home. I don't care. That's your problem. You know? And and and to to my guys, the the first time each of them did it, I was like, this is the only time this is happening.

Never again. Do you think that's a a male or female thing or or something like that? Like, some of those struggles, I I don't I don't quite resonate with. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Fair. I appreciate you saying so. I don't I I mean, it might be a gender thing. I think for me, it wasn't even so much that my kids weren't, like, I you know, we've raised very independent kids. They kinda made their own lunch from when they were seven kinda thing.

Right.

It wasn't sort of over servicing them, I hope. But I think it was partly a math question of there's four of them. And when we were, you know, kind of figuring out everybody needs to learn to swim because that's a safety thing, and we want them to do something musical and something athletic. And, oh, by the way, you need your teeth checked. There's just a lot of things, a lot of appointments, a lot of stuff. And so that really was my sort of my job in the sense and I wasn't even I mean, I was not a stay at home parent fully. I but my older kids would say that they have no memory of me working for pay at that time because I tried to compress my paid work into school hours.

Right.

But I think for me, it was a mindset question more than a calendar question or an independence of my kids question. It was a you know, my work was the the extra. It was the, it was a different time economically twenty five years ago when families, at least where I live in Canada, with some doing could figure out how to live on one income, which is largely what we were doing. And so my second income or my second half, was kind of extra. It was what paid for vacations and lessons, and it wasn't buying the groceries. Very privileged place to be, I realized.

Right.

But I think the mindset that that put into me after twenty years of it, even though I chose it Mhmm. Was everything I was doing was kind of extra, kind of bonus, take care of it as long as everybody else's needs are met, and as long as kind of the three ring circus of our life was kind of, you know, running as it should.

Right. Right.

I could then pay attention to some of my paid work. And so as a result, even though my work was going well and I enjoyed it and I found it very meaningful, I think my mindset about it was that that was my side gig. And I think if you think of something as a side gig, for a long time, it takes on a particular weight or lack of it in your life. And and that served us well for a period of time, but I think what it did for me was made me realize that I was holding on to a story that had served me well at one point and was no longer. And I think that's one of the elements that we know about adaptability and transitions is that we have to be willing to loosen our grip on an old story in order to embrace a new one. And I feel like sometimes my ability to do that wasn't matching my circumstances or maybe my kids' ability to do that or what my business most needed. My mental, framing of things sometimes takes a while to catch up.

That's interesting, because I was trying to wrap my mind around, kind of the, I guess, the work you do. Yeah. It's interesting because as I'm reading through your things and I'm looking at your stuff and and it it doesn't make sense to me in in a way because I'm like because as the way it's the way I'm thinking about it, and this is why I wanted to talk to you because I was like, this doesn't make sense. I don't understand. Like so, you know, because I can relate from the female perspective because like I said, I'm a stay at home parent. So actually what you're saying but now that you're saying that, what I'm thinking is I was like, oh, I see what you're saying. You always thought of your work as a as a side thing, as a and a thing aside. So when your kids were gone, you needed to transition to something else.

You you you you had that need. So this is now I'm kinda understanding your work here as a mother or some or or something like that, or you were this stuff, when their kids are gone or they're leaving, I can see now how everything else you did was a secondary thing. And and you need help transitioning because, you know, I guess it trying to I'm trying to put this thought together as it's happening here. So, yeah, I can I can kinda I'm kinda seeing this like it's like I guess, like, you suddenly retire or you you couldn't do your job anymore, and you're like, what do I do now? This is my identity. This is who I was. This is how I am. So I can I can understand that maybe as a parent? And I see I can see how your work is starting to make sense to me now a little

bit. Well and it's not and and interestingly to me, I think the reason it snuck up on me a bit, and I was almost it was almost hard for me to talk about because it felt like such a cliche. Right? Like, lots of people go through this. It's not that interesting. There isn't that much to say about it. And yet for me, it was, and I was doing lots of other things. I think I was expecting, you know, that that would be the storyline for someone who, you know, I don't know, was like the nineteen fifties stay at home mom that was making cookies every day, kids coming from school. That wasn't my story.

And so I think because that wasn't my story, the adjustment period that it took me was almost more surprising because I had a very successful career all through this. Mhmm. And that's what makes me think that it was a mindset thing more than a calendar thing or more than a career thing. It was, if someone had said to me at any point during those years, what's the most important thing you do? I would always have answered with something related to my kids. And I noticed that over that time, if someone asked how I was or how, you know, how are you, which could be a a singular or plural you. Right? I would always answer plural. I would always describe how the family was if there was someone that knew our family. Right? It would be Right.

You know, I'd I'd run through how the kids were doing and how my husband was doing and how I was doing, and it was kind of it makes me realize that I sort of saw us as a unit. And so as that unit started, you know, getting more independence, I was realizing that the work I was doing as much as it was helpful and meaningful and, you know, contributing to our family in lots of ways and using my brain and all that stuff, the deepest identity I was holding in that time or the most meaningful part of the work in the midst of the whole quilt of all of it, was the parenting piece. And sometimes your children, need that like, they move on to a new stage before you move on to a new stage.

Right.

And, or they move into it, you know, slower or faster than you think. And that happens when they're babies, and it happens when they're big. But for me, it was an interesting, journey of mirroring what I was learning around my transitions coaching I was doing with leaders

Mhmm.

And my own journey of, wow, this is a bigger deal than I thought. It is taking longer than I thought. It caught me by surprise, and it it felt I felt dumb. Like, I felt like, why would this be this is not that this happens to lots of people. We knew it was coming. It's mostly good news. I would prefer this than having, I don't know, my children living at home playing video games in my basement when they're 30. Right? Like, it's all good.

And I think

it's

one of the things that I have loved about this work is saying, like, even when a transition is what you wanted and even when it's really good news, there's still some bittersweetness to it. And so certainly my own story and, and my my clients' worlds have have really paralleled each other in that way.

I'm hearing something, like, a silent epidemic. Is that is that something accurate?

Say more about that.

Where you're saying how you're saying you can't believe this is true and it can't believe it's happening. Is it because it's not talked about and people don't think about it, so we're not saying anything? So people are, like, quietly, you know, women, single parents, or or or or single fathers are sitting at home saying, what's next for me? But nobody's saying anything about it. So when you discovered that, you had that moment. It's like, this can't be real because I've never heard of this. So I'm thinking it's like one of those, like, silent epidemics where where it's happening, but nobody's saying anything about it. Nobody's talking about it. So you didn't think there was maybe a a path there. Am I hearing something like that correctly?

Hear that. I mean, I think that the I think one of the epidemics that we're dealing with that's starting to get more play is, is a loneliness epidemic. And I think that in some ways, when people feel alone in a part of their story Mhmm. That can feed a narrative of of a loneliness piece. It can also feed a piece around, purpose. And for me, it wasn't so much that I didn't know anyone else going through it, but I almost felt like it was, it just felt sort of like I I think I mentioned cliche. Like, it felt sort of almost like boring to talk about, and yet it was pretty, major for me over like, sort of boiling in the background for almost ten years. And so it wasn't a sudden thing, and I think that's the other thing is that, you know, if you have a death in the family, if you have a sudden job loss, for example, people kinda know they rally around you.

There's some vocabulary around it. There's some rituals around it. Mhmm. This and and I found that there was some decent writing and talking about empty nest, like, what to do when your kids were gone, but this gradual empty ying and the gradual redefinition of, how I wanted to spend not just spend my time, but what I considered important.

Mhmm.

And what measures up to that, was a really important consideration for me. So it wasn't yeah. I think I think it's a I think it's a familiar story. What might be different for some people is maybe the the length of time. I think for smaller families, it's probably a little bit faster, but we've got lots of examples of kids moving back. And I think what it doesn't what we don't talk about is the level of adaptability, flexibility that parents in general need to have as you you know, your house is empty. Your house is full. Somebody's living there.

Somebody's not. Somebody's home for the summer. Somebody came back because they're in between jobs. And often, we're just kind of the backdrop for their transitions as they kinda launch and relaunch and find their way back home and leave again. And I don't find that people, maybe other people find that easier than I did, but I I think the, that extended kind of season of counting heads all the time. Right? Who's here? Who's not? Is my is my job to be fully available for you or not? And I do remember saying to my husband early on in that journey, I will be okay when they're all gone. I think I want them either all here or all gone so that I can focus on something else, which is also going to be hard but fine. It's the in between that I was finding really challenging, and I'm kind of a hold a band aid off quickly kinda girl, and I this was not that.

And, and so it was the in betweenness of it that, that I found challenging, and that's what most people actually find hard about most transitions. Right? Is the is that liminal threshold in betweeny kind of space between the old thing ending and the new thing starting, but you don't even really know what the new thing's gonna feel like or gonna be. And that in between part is that's hard on us. It's hard on our brains. It's hard on our social relationships. Yeah. So there's lots of reasons why I think that kind of untethered feeling is pretty common, whether it's about kids leaving or some other thing. I think the the the emotional experience of it is shared across a lot of kinds of transitions for people.

During this this time you're talking about, was there a self talk that you had maybe positive or negative or something you had to switch to?

Yeah. I mean, I think one of them was was an economic one. And that was kind of this idea of my financial contribution to the family, having been sort of the extra the side gig as I mentioned. I had therefore internalized a message that it was somehow less important, and that it wasn't kinda central to my identity or an important contribution to the family. No one in my family was belittling it. This was internal to

me. Right.

But I think one of the narratives that I needed to change was, thinking of myself as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, because I have been all along. I mean, year twenty seven of my business. So it's not this is not a recent thing. But I think the mindset shift of, it being, sort of more core to my identity than it used to be, I think, has been one piece. And I think relative to that, there have been a lot of other kind of self talk things that have gone into this, including, my willingness to play a bigger game, you know, to live kind of a bigger life that might exceed kind of the the boundaries of, you know, what any individual child might need at that time or something like that. We've always been a big traveling family, and so we've always had a big world at that sense. But I think that my work life, I fit it in between the cracks of what everybody else needed. And I'm really grateful that we were in a situation where we could do that for a period of time.

But if you do that for twenty, twenty five years the way I did, you start to feel I started to feel that that my work was kind of the residual category. It was the thing that happened to fit into other things and privilege there, but also I don't wanna I don't know what the word is. It's not quite belittling, but it it made me play small because I was playing I was fitting it into cracks and gaps as opposed to letting myself think about what do I want. And one of the moments for me there was I have a friend in New Zealand named Lisa O'Neil, and she wrote a book called Everything You Want, maybe five years ago ish. And when I first saw that book, I all of a sudden went, I'm not sure I know what I want. There would have been a time where I knew what I wanted. Maybe you make that just I jokingly said at the time, you know, you decide that you want a bunch of kids, and then you don't make that other you can't ask that decision. You know, you don't ask what you want as the as the parent again for another twenty years.

Right? It's all about what they want and, and what the whole ecosystem needed. And so me kind of sitting in a place five, seven years ago going, what do I want now? And maybe even more importantly, who am I now? Mhmm. Was a really important and fairly gradual transition for me. And in the midst of that story, one of the other pieces, another chapter was that we also became grandparents. And so we were Parenting teenagers while also grandparenting somewhat unexpectedly And so that was another layer of realizing sometimes you don't know you're holding tightly to a particular script until the script is violated in some way, and you go, oh, that's not how I thought things were gonna go. That's not the order I thought they'd go in. That's not the timing I thought. That's not the situation I thought we'd be in.

And so there was sort of layers of adapting. So it wasn't just a work thing or a parenting thing. It was also that plus a grandparenting thing. And I think when you talked about silent epidemic, there's some things we do talk about and things we don't. So for me, I was thinking the other day, we hear about the sandwich generation, you know, people in my age. I'm 55. People who are looking after parents and and kids. Mhmm.

We were laughing that I'm in the club sandwich generation where I'm just I've got some responsibility for, you know, parents, kids, and grandkids.

Right.

And working. So my image of a of a grandmother, for example, was largely someone who was always available and not working for pay. Right. Even though I had grandmothers that were also worked for pay and were not always available, they were very available. And I had to make some decisions about how available I would be, particularly as someone who's self employed and therefore has all kinds of choice about that. Mhmm. That, you know, I couldn't blame my boss because I am the boss. Right?

Mhmm.

Couldn't just say, oh, I've got a shift to take or something like that. It was that was on me to to shape, when the need was high, but also my other responsibilities were multiple, but but created by me. So I feel like there's been, you know, as many people have, and my my story is not in any way a tragic one, but there is a level of, adjustment after adjustment after adjustment. And I think for me, that has been a a really transformative thing and important for me to be able to put language around that and help other people navigate that, which is why my business has really evolved to being helping mostly leaders who have been very mission driven in their work, figure out what their next chapter looks like either organizationally or personally. So I'm mostly working with CEOs, board chairs, executive directors who are navigating some of these same things or perhaps making a change out of that rule, and they they feel like they have been defined by their work even though their work has been part of a very interesting varied life. You realize when you remove one piece or maybe it's the parenting piece or whatever it is and go, my hope my social circle, my calendar, my, the way I think about myself has really changed. So I had a client say to me the other day. She said, I'm not dealing with empty nest.

I'm dealing with empty inbox. That was her post retirement, challenge. Right. And, you know, I I similar feelings, different reason.

A a theme that seems to keep coming up so far in our conversation is is adaptability. I I'm I'm big on that, but it doesn't bother me. I'm I'm flexible. I'm ready to go. I'm always I love to adapt. But I do know it's hard for people. Can we talk about that? What are some there's some challenges? Maybe what are some techniques, or how have you kinda developed that? How do you see this?

Yeah. Gladly. Some of what I'm about to talk about would come from my work as an adaptability quotient coach. So that's a particular tool. AQAI is the is the name of it, and it's a way that we measure, individual and team adaptability. And so the data science that underpins that assessment is is partly where this experience comes from for me in addition to the transitions coaching I mentioned. My feeling is that adaptability is becoming more and more necessary as the pace of change accelerates.

Right.

And I think even people who are okay with change

Mhmm.

Are feeling like we can't keep up, and that's actually true. We know that about 20% of businesses are reinventing themselves faster than their than their budget cycles right now. Like, there's just an incredible you feel like you're running downhill all the time. So I think partly, it's not about, you know, somebody being change averse versus enjoying change. None of us can keep up with the pace of accelerating change. And so I think we have to figure out, what it means to know that change they say change is the only constant. Right?

Right. Right.

I think many of us live as if it isn't. We live as if if I just keep my head down and wait for the dust to settle and things will somehow go back to normal, I'll be fine. There is no back to normal. The the the constant need to adapt is there, and so I think about that as what do we do to keep our battery charged almost like a gas powered car charges the battery as you're driving. We need that as opposed to, like, the battery on our phone where we have to, like, stop everything, plug it in, don't carry it around. Right?

Right.

It's a bit like that where people kind of expect a period of change followed by a period of stasis, and that's not what it's like. So the work that I'm involved in is helping people, see the good in that, in the sense that if you can find your preferred tools to use to help you adapt quickly Mhmm. You're gonna be energized by that. And I think it's not about I don't want to adapt or I can't adapt or I'm not adaptable. It's like we all have to adapt. We don't get to choose that. We all have the ability to adapt, but the tools we each use to do that are different and personalized. And if we are being asked to adapt in ways that don't suit us or we're on a team that is using certain tools for adapting and they don't fit what we would prefer, we're gonna be depleted by that, and we're gonna be just like, it's like one more change initiative or something.

Mhmm. As opposed to going, hey. This is kinda fun, and you feel like you're, you know, sort of nimble, and you're on the balls of your feet, and you're ready for whatever comes next. And so, for example, there are 15 different components to this adaptability quotient, and you can imagine 15 things can be combined in an almost infinite number of ways.

Right.

So for some people, they might draw on a tool like grit. Maybe they're super persistent and perseverant, and that's a really helpful tool for them to adapt. Other people, not really into that at all, but they might be big picture thinkers. And so they can see the long road and go, I can see where we're going. That means I can adapt how I get there. I'm fine. Other people might say, I don't have it right now, but my team can help me. So if I'm in a work environment, both with my team or my corporation, where risk taking and experimentation are encouraged and, you know, failure is no big deal.

That's an opportunity to learn. That's gonna help me adapt. Whereas if I'm in a really, like, beige, boring, risk averse corporate environment, my adaptability is not going to be encouraged by my collective setting. So those are just three examples of more, but I think if people can find their preferred pathway to adaptability, they're gonna find a way to be energized by it, because it's learnable, and there's lots of ways to get good at it. So I love encouraging people to find their preferred path through the woods as opposed to feeling like they have to, yeah, I don't know, grab a machete and blaze the trail themselves. So there's probably one that's already cleared for them.

One thing when you're talking, what I what I hear is is priorities. Is that maybe a lack of priorities? Is that something that factors into this?

Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about where you hear that, Tyson, because I'd I can take that lots of ways. Say more about that, and I'd love

love to talk about it. When you're talking about maybe, you know, being risk averse or or you're talking about, changing things or trying different things, what what what I was hearing was just, like, it sounds like maybe there's a priority problem when and and because you don't want your company or you or you as an individual, whatever it is, doesn't have clear identified, you know, priorities, you can easily get pulled in all these different directions. Mhmm. Just AI is here now. Oh, gosh. This is our savior. We're gonna do this. Or this new widget's out.

Oh my god. This is our savior. Maybe because you don't have priorities, the next shiny thing is gonna get you. And that's that's what I was hearing when I was, you know, not not the whole thing, but of the things you were talking about. The thing that stood out to me was, like, I I feel like because the priorities are there or maybe they're not communicating well. Maybe, you know, you're such such a large organization that at the top, they know what's going on. But by the time it trickles down, the communication maybe isn't so great. And then you went down maybe a little bit below.

They're like, I I don't know what's going on. I I don't know how to do this because they're not clear on what the priorities are because maybe things keep changing. Maybe somebody middle management or whatever it is is constantly moving things around. I I hope this may be

kind of Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There's things up from

what I'm I do think lots of us feel like the goalposts are moving all the time. Mhmm. And I think that can be true even in very mission driven or clearly prioritize clearly strategic companies. I mean, most of what I do is help organizations with strategy. And so Right. I really think of strategy as those big picture priorities that help you say a strong yes to some things and a strong no to some other things.

But the

problem is if the whole context is changing really fast, sometimes we can get kind of anchored to things that need to shift. Mhmm. Whereas we need to stay anchored to a very few things that shouldn't shift. And so helping people figure out what's fixed and what's flexible is a really important part of this conversation Mhmm. Both personally and organizationally. Because if I'm on a team and I feel like hang on, we were told to go this way and now we're being told to go this way and this was important before and now it's this other thing. I can get really frustrated by that. If, however, that same kind of nimbleness is framed as the big mission is clear.

How we get there is gonna change all the time. I think partly it's expectations coupled with priorities and not having really short term sort of changeable priorities, but having purpose driven big picture priorities that everybody knows and understanding where their latitude is to find their own pathway to get there. So the big picture is super important. Like, big rocks don't change. The but what has to change is the how, is the pathway we take to get there. And so, you know, I often use travel analogies, and I think about it like, hey. We're going to go to Florida, but, you know, we're we're gonna talk about whether we're gonna fly or drive, and, okay, we're gonna drive. Great.

Well, now that we're driving, oh, you know, there's a snowstorm. There's construction. There's an accident. There's a beautiful scenic route. Are we gonna take slower or faster, you know, ways to get there? Mhmm. And who gets to decide that? Because I think part of it is for people if they aren't driving, They're in the back seat going. Hey, wait a minute I thought we were taking this route and I thought the gps said it was gonna take twenty seven minutes And now we're up to an hour twenty seven How did that happen? And you do feel like the kid in the back seat of the car that has no say Over when you stop for a snack or whatever. And so, I I think there's a lot of different layers to the pace of change who has decision making rights, and as you said, how it's communicated.

Because Mhmm. If you have somebody who is a really detailed kind of micromanager kind of person, they might communicate rather than the big picture purpose, hey. We're going to Florida. They might be like, take Highway I 27 whatever.

Mhmm.

Stop at this restaurant. Do this. Do this. And all of a sudden, everything changes, and you feel like your instructions have been blown up where the instructions maybe should have been, we'll meet you in Florida. And you figure out kind of how to get there. And so I think the level of autonomy, independence, agency that people have and control over resources and visibility to that big why, can really, affect how comfortable they are with the change. And, also, whether they've had any choice over the change. So people's journey through transition, whether it's corporate or individual, is really strongly affected by whether that change was chosen by them or was kind of put upon them.

Right? So if you if someone dies unexpectedly, very different than if you chose to make a job change.

Mhmm.

Both can be hard, and I think sometimes in chosen changes, people are shocked by how hard it is. But there is a different experience of voluntary versus involuntary transitions.

Is there some type of SOP or communication that you find works to get the team and everybody in in line with these so everybody kinda knows the priorities and and maybe the guy that is has a propensity to micromanage maybe says, okay. Listen. We'll go to Florida. This is how I think we should get there, and you kinda tone him down a little bit, but amplified the other guy. Does this make sense?

Yeah. I mean, for me, the world I'm in is strategy. Right? So to me, the strategic priorities are one of the communication tools and not just the actual sort of written strategy, but the process of developing it. Because if you have done a collaborative process to develop those priorities, people not only know what the priorities are, like, on paper at the end Mhmm. But they understand how they came to be and the why behind them and what things were shed in favor of those things. So, hopefully, they can bring to that list of priorities a bit of understanding about why so they can use some good judgment in that. I think the other thing is in a corporate environment, not every role needs to be equally adaptable. Mhmm.

So adaptability is a very high value for me, but it is not the highest. It's not the only. And so if you are in legal or procurement or you're a pilot or you're a surgeon, you do something that has a checklist kind of element to it in order to keep people safe or on track or compliant. You probably aren't the most adaptable person on our team, and I'm okay with that. Right. So and you find as you go up the food chain in an organization, people at the more high the higher levels of the organizational hierarchy, they tend to be more adaptable because big picture thinking is an adaptability superpower. So as you go up the food chain, you have that sort of higher altitude visibility, and you might say, we're going to Florida. You guys figure out how we're gonna get there.

But if you're the person lower on the food chain that goes, I write the procedure manuals for driving to Florida Mhmm. And we go, guess what? We're not driving. Actually, we're flying. You're like, what? I just wrote the new manual on driving. Right?

Yeah.

So I think it really depends what your sort of altitude is, and I don't mean that only hierarchically. I also mean just kind of the visibility that you have on the trade offs that are being made by the people who make the decisions. So if if if it's your own life you're talking about, it's different again than if you're part of a larger bureaucracy or corporation.

We keep talking about strategy at the moment now. For those listening and watching, what are some key things that they can use to develop a strategy?

When I think about people who are strategic, you know, we think about strategic plans. But just like a human that is strategic, I wrote a book last year called Elastic, and

Mhmm.

word elastic stands for seven different leadership skills. It's an acronym, and the s is strategic or strategy. And I don't think about it as, like, a document or a strategic plan. I think about it as people who have their priorities clear. Right? As you said, it's people who have a multiyear kind of high level view of the whole picture. So they're looking at it from above, but not, like, so high up that they can no longer see the ground. They kind of can connect the big high level values of a person or an organization. They can connect the mission and values with the actual day to day behavior, and that is true for individuals.

So as I'm navigating a transition out of a parenting season and into something else, What's important to me and what does my day to day calendar look like? Right? My strategic brain can see the connections and look down the long road with that. But, similarly, if I'm in an organization, regardless of where I sit in the org chart, if I can see the big picture of what we're trying to do and look at it as a whole organization and down a longish time frame Mhmm. And connect that for people, communicate to people how that bigger picture vision links with their day to day decisions, that makes me a strategic leader. And it's it's really hard. People find it hard to stay at that, what I call the high middle altitude. Mhmm. We either wanna go so high up that we are, like, in the clouds and talking about like, it's like when an organization develops their values, and it's like, we value integrity, respect, and accountability. It's like, so does everybody.

Yeah.

Right? Show me the ones that don't.

Yeah. Who like, no one is gonna say, like Yeah. I'm against integrity action.

Listen. We don't do that here.

We don't do that. I'm sorry. I don't I don't like it. So, you know, you've got that or you've got the, you know, well, the procedure manual on policies 27 b says, and finding folks who can, kind of lift their gaze but not so high and and is is really strategic. And when you think about it, I often think about, like I don't know. I know nothing about walking on a tight rope, but you can picture people kind of, like, we tend to overcorrect. Right? We go too far one way, too far another, and that's what balance looks like to me. It's not, like, not very often like a a gymnast on a balance beam.

It's more like a, a tightrope walker going, oh, yeah. That's too too high. Oh, yeah. That's too in the weeds. And we try to get kinda get the balance right. And I think the people who are really strategic can go connect your day to day decisions with what's really important. That's the alignment I'm looking for with my with my folks I work with.

My mind, I I'm trying to look for a quantifiable thing. So are we talking, like, three year, one year, and then we get granular? Are we talking, like, hundred year succession plan? You know, this is the overarching theme, and then but that's a long time, so we got a a lot of things to do today. How how are you

I think it varies. I mean, I noticed through the pandemic and since then, people's time frames are changing. K. Because I think we've all lived through a time where we go, oh, we couldn't have predicted that. Lots of big systems were rocked during that time. And so people's kind of I don't know if it's pride or hubris or something, but their their their confidence in projecting, you know, five, ten years out Mhmm. We were all kinda shaken by that enough to go, jeez. I don't even know.

But we also recognize that looking just, like, right down at our feet and taking only one step doesn't make sure we're going in the right direction. So I'm kinda noticing at an organizational level, they wanna talk about that ten year, twenty year story. Who are we trying to become? What's the impact or the dent we're trying to make in the world? And then, okay, what's the kind of three year set of priorities to get there? And in in twelve months, what are the really granular sort of performance metrics we're looking at? So we're often looking at long, medium, and short time frames, but partly, it's that fixed and flexible thing. It's realizing what can and probably should change. Because I think if people are really gripping a strategy too tightly, they aren't being adaptable. They're not being responsive. They're not reading the signals. Right? So you don't want people who are oblivious.

You want responsive, adaptable, and emergent strategy, but inside some anchor points that don't change. And in human individual lives, same thing. If I think about what I want people to say about my character

Mhmm.

At my funeral or at my retirement party, those are my long term story lines. Right? Not knowing if that is fifty years from now or thirty years from now or two. Mhmm. But I'm I'm keeping my big important values clear, but, obviously, making really detailed plans for a shorter length of time. So I do still feel like most people are making kinda, you know, three to five year plans inside a twenty year story, but the details, you know, it might be a court like, three months. It might be twelve months, something like that. And so you're balancing short and long term, and I think that's what strategic thinkers do.

Yeah. I I I like that. I I I tend to agree with that because like you're saying and I think it happens a lot. You see it often where people are so stuck on my plan. I I've got this this very rigid plan. You know? I I'm gonna go to college. I'm like, And it and then you're in school or you're in your thing, and it's like, that doesn't exist anymore. Or so many jobs have been created that nobody ever thought of just in the past couple of years.

Yeah. So, yeah, being able to to to say, this is the overall theme, but I'm willing to go where I need to go along the way.

Yeah. And I think sometimes we don't even know that we have a rigid script until that script is violated. Right? Until it doesn't go that way, and you're like, oh, that was important to me, and I don't even realize I don't I didn't consciously name it or write it in my own personal life plan. Right? But when it doesn't go that way and you go, oh, I kinda thought this was gonna unfold differently, and we only know kind of in the breach that it didn't go well. And then we're kind of extra rocked because something has happened, and it's it's upset our expectations. And we don't always know our expectations until we don't get them. But our contentment, our adaptability is very much a function of our expectations, right? So if you have low expectations, it's you know, you're pretty okay with what goes in but if you had a pretty high view Of what was gonna happen? Sometimes it is the expectations themselves that are hard to, adjust rather than just the actual circumstances.

Are there, I don't know, techniques, tips, or tricks? My wife's like that. She's like, I, you know, I have this expectation, and if it goes wrong, she just loses it. Me, I'm like, I don't care. We can go left. We can go right. We can circle the block. So how do you, you know, how how do you coach people on that? Like, some couple of things we can take away right now from from this conversation?

Yeah. Absolutely. I think, first of all, is the awareness, right, of knowing kind of your default setting. Because if you are someone who you know, like, in the example you just gave of you and your wife, I think just knowing that and also knowing that when you're under stress, You will you will go to that place even more. Mhmm. So somebody who really likes detailed plans likes to orchestrate things. If they're stressed out, they are gonna build like a meeting agenda that's like at 10:12. We do this in 10:17.

We do this And they're gonna get pretty uptight if it's 10:19, and we haven't done it. Right?

That's my son.

So right? So I think knowing what your default setting is when under stress is is partly a helpful thing and also being able to, I was gonna say self soothe. It's a bit like that where you go, what are the minimum things that I need to be able to be adaptable short and long term? So in the short term, I need sleep. Right? I need hydration and nutrition. Right? It's those kinds of basic things. So if I stayed up too late watching a hockey game or whatever I did, and then coming into a big meeting the next day overtired Mhmm. Mhmm. My ability to adapt in that meeting is gonna be low. So there's, like, what's my temperamental preference? And then just some basic self care things that go, what kind of state do I need to be in? Like, when was the last time I exercised? Have I had any water today? Right basic things like that that are going to allow me to show up at my best To be able to go.

Okay. This is a big thing. I have to deal with then I think it's figuring out your preferred adaptability tools that you love to use. So I am like to put it in a different context. Excuse me. I am I'm terrible at Excel spreadsheets. So if someone said to me, you must use Excel to get through this problem. I will be in tears in five minutes.

Like I'm just terrible at it. But if they said to me, what we need is we need someone who can see the big picture and who can build a team around them and use their social rapport building skills and their big picture thinking to take us through. I'm like, I'm there for that, and I will bring people with me. Right? So it's am I able to know my own preferred toolkit and to use it in that context? Because if I have no power in that context and or if I'm also overlaying 15 other transitions and I'm grieving, I'm not gonna be in the same kind of space that I would be if I am, you know, feeling kinda solid in my own situation and can cope with it. So I feel like there's a number of different, like, self awareness pieces, some really practical habits, and then just knowing what tools you prefer to use, to say, you know, I can unlearn things. I unlearn things in the past. I'm going to unlearn things again. And having that mental flexibility that says there's a lot of different pathways to get to where I wanna go.

You know? But when people are stressed or exhausted, that mental flexibility disappears. Right? So, and we know what that's like. We can picture that in ourselves and in our loved ones and our colleagues. So I think managing our own state in the micro time frame, but also big picture, understanding the tools and the temperament current that we're swimming in can really help us.

Is there some self awareness prompts or or tools or something so you can start to discover what type of adaptability person you are?

Yeah. Well, that's where I love that AQAI tool, actually. It's an assessment.

I'll I'll link to that for people.

It's a

good one. I've got

I can send you that link if you don't have it. The other thing that I'm finding useful, I I have a little quiz on my website, and we'll link people to that too in the show notes.

Mhmm.

And what it is is a, it's just a it's kind of in between a quiz and a diagnostic very quick. But sometimes what happens when we're in the middle of transition especially is that we feel, like, not anchored to anything, and we're we feel just kinda off, but we don't really know what we need. And, you know, it's like I don't know. I picture it being when we are like, am I hungry? Am I tired? Am I irritable? Am I what? Like, what do I need? Right? And I have this sort of model that I've I've developed over the years of saying some of us are craving challenge. We're just we're bored, frankly.

Right. Some of

us are craving contribution, and our whole life has become so inward focused that we haven't looked outward. Some of us need clarity because it's foggy. We just don't know what else to do. Mhmm. Some of us need connection because we're, we're lonely. Like, we have been doing things on our own a lot. And so it goes through things like that and says, you know, how are you scoring today on on these various elements? And therefore, your path to feeling a little more grounded will be different. Because if you need adventure, if you need learning, if you need challenge, you're gonna do different things than if you need connection and belonging.

So let me go back to full circle to the empty nest example For a long time in my life. A lot of our friends were what I call proximity friends. They were friends because They had kids on the same teams as my kids or they were parents from the school or you know, we spent a lot of time together and they are good friends. And if I called them today, we would be able to pick up where we left off. Mhmm. But our paths aren't crossing now because our kids are grown and gone, and we knew each other because we sat in the bleachers at the soccer game.

Right.

So all of a sudden, my need for connection might be higher in this season because it isn't baked into my schedule. Whereas when I had four busy kids in sports, I didn't need more social contact because I didn't have time, and I saw lots of people. And so you need different things in different seasons. And so those would be two quick tools. The AQAI one, that's a bit more involved because, you know, it's got some coaching attached with it, and you get a a a it's a very well proven, sort of report of results. Mhmm. Whereas the little diagnostic I'm talking about is a bit quicker, lighter, free availability on my website. But if people like pools to go, what do I score? What's my tool that would be great? I would I would turn to either of those.

Okay. Like I said, we'll link to those for you guys, so don't worry about, running and trying to write write this stuff down. Yeah. Something I I I heard with in that whole explanation, and and it's interesting to me. I I hear confidence. And you talk about this on your website and stuff too. I don't have this problem, but I know people do. Can we talk about confidence? Mhmm.

Yeah. I mean, I

think

I think confidence is an interesting one because I do think a lot of it is an internal dialogue thing. So you asked about self talk earlier, and I feel like there's a lot of that because our confidence is not accurately linked with our abilities. It's not a competence algorithm. Right? We but we think it is. So our our self talk is telling us that we, you know, maybe that we're not very good at something or that we need to play small or that that's not our lane or whatever it might be telling us, that any, you know, sort of cognitive behavioral therapist would tell you that it is not closely aligned with evidence. Right? So Connect On Social This podcast is available on… You can listen to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Overcast , Pocket Casts , Castbox , YouTube Music , Amazon Music , Audible , Substack, or your favorite podcast platform .