Episode Transcript
KLEA: Hello and welcome to the Purposeful Planning Institute Podcast. We're so excited today to be able to welcome Ian McDermott. My name is Klea Harris. I'm with Angel Advocates, an estate planning law firm here in Utah. And Ian, you serve the Purposeful Planning community as Dean of Professional Intrapersonal Development and Skill Building, as well as running a worldwide seminar, international seminar training company, and you've just been so generous with your wisdom to the community. So what does it mean to be the Dean of Professional Intrapersonal Development and Skill Building? What are we having to look forward to today?
IAN: Well, clear, the intrapersonal, intra within one's own personal domain, life, world, professional, intrapersonal development is the difference that makes a difference when people who you find credible are partly so by virtue of the work they've done in and of and for themselves. The way they turn up, the way they can be present, that is something that I think any committed professional will want to be fostering in themselves and in those they work with, if they're other professionals, and it's made easier if you have skill building opportunities whereby you can learn how to do things as well. So that's my particular brief, and takes me into all sorts of areas, one of which I'll be exploring today. Because it seemed to me, if I think of the human experience, then setbacks are something we all experience on occasion, and dealing with them. Well, there is an art and indeed, a skill. And I'd like to just share some of the ways whereby we can deal with setbacks in the course of a life and enable others to do the same.
KLEA: Oh, great. Well, let's get started.
IAN: Well, thank you. And I wanted to choose a topic which I think is a universal experience, namely, how do we deal with setbacks? Because I don't know anybody who hasn't had them, and there are things that make a difference, and they are pretty universal.
KLEA: Now, Ian, you said something just then, “I haven't known anyone who hasn't had them, and if they think they haven't had them, they're profoundly boring people.” And maybe just a tad bit arrogant and not very relatable, isn't that? Wouldn't you say?
IAN: Well, I don't know. I think people may not wish to remember some of their setbacks. Some people are able to turn setbacks around much more easily than others, in which case they then don't really have them COVID as setbacks. I think that's part of the art of living, really what do you do? So let's be specific. Let's get into some how to if you will?
KLEA: Yeah, give us some.
IAN: Suppose you have some kind of setback, not then. Well, one of the really useful things is, when people have a setback, they they assume that things have gone wrong, as opposed to simply seeing it as feedback about, “You anticipated this, but in fact, you got that.” Okay, so then we might be probably better off if we were able to say, “So what's this telling me? What's the feedback that I could be getting from this unanticipated change, which I currently have coded as the wrong change, the setback.” And then I have all the reactions that I have when I have a setback, namely, “I don't feel so great, or I feel even in shock,” or whatever it is, you're not going to be at your best. So the things to do around how now to proceed, but to take an extreme example, because I think other things can impale by comparison and seem, relatively dealable with. One of the areas that I've spent a lot of time in is working with people in situations where there's been some kind of difficulty that is even traumatic in some way. And there is an area that has developed that many. People don't actually know about most people know about PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, but they're not so familiar with post traumatic growth, and it's a show.
KLEA: Oh, wow.
IAN: Yeah, because what you have with post traumatic growth is some episode occurs in a person's life, and it's really, it's at the least, it's really difficult, it may even be downright dramatic. But in some instances, it becomes perfectly possible whilst acknowledging this is very tough or even terrible. I've actually worked with plenty of people where they'll tell me about something which was just awful. “My marriage broke up. I lost my job, or the business collapsed,” all these kinds of things. But as they're talking about them in retrospect, they can say something like, “And you know, that was the turning point for me.” And when I look back and I know what they're going to say, t's something along the lines of, “That's probably the best thing that could have happened for me, given where I am now,, my life is really so different.” And so once you've got there is growth out of difficulty. Now, if you could have post traumatic growth, what would it be “like to be able to do that when it's not traumatic, when it's simply, “Oh no, that's not what I thought was going to happen at all.” Then I think there's an opportunity to respond in a different way, and to learn how to do that, so that it becomes a skill, because there is a how to and simply being able to look at things from a different perspective, to get curious. Now, how to do that? Well, one of the things is going to make a huge difference. So this would be like, if we're turning setbacks into something that we can use, we need to turn them into feedback. That'd be number one. Number two would be, “Well, we need to be able to be in a state to do that,” and that means you need to understand what state are we in, even how to control our state. And when I say state, what I mean is the way you are responding, energetically, emotionally, physically, mentally, all of that influences your state. Moment by moment. You feel good. You not feel good, would be a simple way of putting it. But actually, there's way more going on there. So the first thing, if you want to be able to begin to have some engagement with what's going on inside you in a fashion that enables you to have some agency. It's not as you want to control things, or suppress anything. What you actually want to do is to, first of all, allow yourself to be aware of your responses.
KLEA: You know you're saying something here that's reminding me of, first of all, the phrase breakdown before breakthrough. Sometimes you gotta have a breakdown. But also you're reminding me of some very poignant experiences in my life where I really, really blew it, like pretty horrifyingly embarrassingly blew it, and it caused a ripple effect in relationships, and I kind of felt like an elephant in a china shop when I was younger, in my younger years, where I would kind of bumble around and break things and it got to a point where I was like, “Man, do I have like a lightning rod on my head, because I seem to be attracting all of the disasters that are, that are like refining my character, because I can't be doing that.” And then I had to start doing some serious meditation and thought work on, “What do I need to change in my life, about me and about how I interact with others before I damage anyone any further?”
IAN: Well, that's a big question to ask of yourself. And of course, what you're doing is taking the events that are occurring as feedback to…
KLEA: As feedback, right? And how can I be proactive about this before it turns into a setback?
IAN: Well, one of the things that's going to make a difference is being aware of what's going on both your impact on others, but also what's going on in you. That's why somehow sensing your own internal state is so important. A lot of people just try and distract themselves. They'll watch what's on TV, or they'll just start eating, or they'll start drinking, whatever it may be, but distractions don't actually take us forward. They may provide momentary distraction, but distraction is not relief. So there's something about, first if I'm feeling anything crappy about what the state of play? Then I need to acknowledge that. Then I'm going to need to know what, what was given rise to this. Okay, suppose I'm clear about that. But what do I need to do to affect my state so that I can be in a resourceful state, so I can be in a good state to do something, and that gets into what do you know about yourself that means that if you were to adopt that knowledge and apply it more frequently, you'd be in a better state. Now it's easier to answer that for some people. If I just ask them, if you want to feel that you're worse worst, what would you need to do? And if I do it for myself, I can it's very simple, “Well, I just need to be sleep deprived. I need to be hopelessly distracted. I need to have a sense of overwhelm. There are too many things I need to do simultaneously.” I probably should have low blood sugar so that I'm not really functioning that well, and I really need to eat. And if I could just top that off with perhaps a little anticipatory anxiety about what's going to happen next, because I just don't know if I'm up for it. Now, all I've done is just come up with five different things that will result in me not being at my best. Now, could I actually turn that around and be able to say, “Well, how could I take care of myself so that I'm able to respond to the challenges I'm addressing I'm confronting?”
KLEA: Yeah, when isn't really that the test of life is to really be deliberate about our our self care and about our mental state and the and taking time for for thoughtful introspection, to be proactive about life, rather than reactive, and playing Whack a Mole with the problems that pop up.
IAN: But I think you can do this in so many ways. It doesn't have to be serious. It could just be, for example, what am I feeling right now and what do I need?
KLEA: If you're not feeling like a baby, right, what is the baby right now?
IAN: Yeah, what do I need exactly? And that's something which I don't think it's just babies who need to be attended to in that way. If we attended to ourselves in that way, we don't have to be babying ourselves. But it begins to be clear that, “Well, maybe I just need to go off out, get outside, have a walk now,” that's a kind of activity, or it may be, maybe what I actually need is just to do precisely nothing and stare out of a window for a moment. I mean, there are such interesting contrasts here. I was talking to somebody just a couple of days ago, high achiever, and my radical suggestion for him, even that he was asking for one was, “Every time you have a moment when there's nothing requiring your attention, your default is to look at your phone.” Okay, that is now default. It is the default such that it is habitual. So what would it be like if, instead of looking at your phone, you were to perform an experiment for several days and just look out of a window? In other words, allow your mind to run free, so you're creating a space for unconscious processing, which is going to be founded on associative thinking, which is a basis of much more creativity. What would that be like? So he's currently trying that he actually phoned me the first day in just to say, “It's really good, as if it's like a novel idea.” So he's changing his state, and with it, potential for engaging differently. So that would be something that pretty much anybody could do. What do you need to do to be in the best state for you? And if you don't know, this is an area of inquiry which is worth exploring, because until you know, you can't really have agency. I mean, who's driving the bus?
KLEA: I love the examples you're using, because it's tapping into, I don't know what the statistic is, but something significant that people who have really good mental health. They talk to themselves, they say, “Klea, what do you need right now?” And and they're thoughtful and deliberate, instead of looking for answers outside of themselves, because so often, I mean the best coaches and teachers and and such as yourself, you what you're really doing is teaching us how to coach ourselves, how to take care of ourselves.
IAN: And that’s absolutely true, and that's why conversation is so important. And the basis of coaching, what does conversation do? It enables us to externalize. We have a lot of internal dialog, but our internal dialog is frequently slightly persecutory. We beat ourselves up, “Sure, why did you do that?” And so on, but when you just ask yourself, so what do you need right now? And you and using your own name is a very interesting thing to do. It takes us into very fascinating neuroscience area, but now we are much more capable of being empathetic towards others than we are towards ourselves, and we have to learn how to be more empathetic. Let's push it all the way, more compassionate, even to ourselves. Again, it's a learnable skill. So for another time, perhaps there's much to be said there. But I think one of the other things that's going to be really critical. So here's number three, if you like, for handling setbacks and being able to make some use of them is understanding that, and it's entirely natural. Most people want to feel comfortable. Okay, nothing wrong with that, but there's something about being disconcerted, which does not make you feel uncomfortable, generally speaking. But what would it be like if, instead of wanting to feel comfortable, your aim was simply to be more resourceful, because if you could be more resourceful, you'd actually be more comfortable with whatever comes your way anyway.
KLEA: Elaborate on that.
IAN: Let's say, Yes, tick, tick, tick. Whatever it is that is disconcerting to you. What would it take for you to be sufficiently resourceful, to respond in a way that allows you to make the most of the opportunities that do arise now, people have different ways of managing themselves. That's ultimately what we're talking about here. Actually, as I say that, I'm just reminded one of the books I written is simply called, “Manage yourself. Manage your life.” If you can't manage yourself, you absolutely can't manage your life. You may look as though you can, but that's different from it really being the case on the inside. So how do you get to be more resourceful in a state whereby you're at your best. Now I'll give you some examples, and this is not a definitive list, but I've sometimes asked people so you say, you know you're no good at one instance recently was meeting people and being able to handle fact that they were very prominent and that you felt you weren't by comparison. So who do you know who's actually good at doing this? And they started to tell me one person, they said, “Oh, and another one.” And now the brain's working through, as I say, associative thinking. They're just going, “Oh, there's another one. There's another one.” So they're threading beads on the necklace, if you will. And they had two or three examples. And I said, “So, what is it about these people? What do they do?” And they started talking about and I just interrupted them and said, “Please, just show me, show me what they do.” And they started doing what does people do? And as they did it, they use their body differently, their voice tone sound different. They're able, as every child is, to mimic and learn unconsciously, a great deal by so doing. But we're not looking for mimicry. We're just looking for trying on, for size, things that others do. And as a result, they were able to start getting a sense of, “Oh, yeah. Well, I pointed out to them. You do realize that you're doing this?” “I suppose I am,” but my next step was to say, but obviously you want to do this in your own way. Like having having your mentors around you, these are your role models. And you can learn a lot from role models, whether you actually know them personally, is entirely different and often quite unnecessary. So there's something about asking yourself, what do I need right now? And the answers are often fascinating with somebody else, CEO in a very tough situation he was dealing with, and he goes with conversation. And he said, I know it sounds stupid. Now when people tell me that, I know they're about to tell me something important, because it's just they don't yet understand what it is they're saying. And said, I know it sounds stupid, but really the first thing that comes to my head is a sense of humor. “Whoa. And I just needed to point out to him.” When you have a sense of humor, you're able to see things from more than one perspective. All humor depends upon some switching perspective that is refreshing, different, not previously together, the elements and so on, and that's what you're doing.
KLEA: Can you recap one, two, three, and four. I feel like sense of humor just became five. Did that just become five?
IAN: Well, I don't know. Well, if I was just doing this as examples of being resourceful, things you can do and that. So I would say number one is being able to see feed failure in the Verde commerce as feedback, I'd say number two is being able to have control of your state, which means you've got to first of all, know what's going on, acknowledging it. I'd say number three is getting over being comfortable, and instead aiming to be resourceful, because when you can be resourceful, you have so many more opportunities, you can respond differently. And there are lots of things that will help that, knowing where your resources come from, be they other people, be their sense of humor, whatever. But each of these merit exploration and that each in its own right. So there's, you know, there's a lot we could play for here, but a mindful we're going to be at a time, aren't we soon. So let's see if we can summarize what would be a next step or something. What do you think?
KLEA: Yeah, no, I just remember. I remember studying for the bar, and I had just gone through two and a half years of law school. I graduated a semester early. I'd given birth to a baby, and my mom had taken care of my kids, my husband had taken care of my kids during this time period, and if I didn't pass that bar, I was going to be letting a whole lot of people down. And I remember, I remember throwing myself on the bed and just crying, because, what if i What if I blow it? What if I don't pass? Because there's only so much when you have, you know, five, six kids under the age of, you know, seven, you don't have much time to study. You got to get it right once. And I just remember the thought came to myself. I The thought came clear, this will be funny. One day, this will be so funny, and you're just your comment about humor can often pull us out of that, that failure, potential failure, can be successful.
IAN: That's a great example, because you're doing a couple of things that being able to change perspective what you did technically, is known as temporal distancing. You've suddenly gone into the future, and you're just reminding yourself, one day this will be funny now in the moment when you think of that from the perspective of that imagined future. You change your internal state, yeah, you suddenly have a different way of engaging with the experience you are having, which is different from feeling the overwhelm the pressure to perform, yeah,
KLEA: Yeah. Problems, right? Exactly. Read failure when, when you get into
IAN: That stuff, exactly. So what did you do? You know, you changed your experience. Yeah, and by so doing, you get to have more choices about how you can respond and
KLEA: Have post traumatic growth, rather, instead of it turning into post traumatic stress, I would say yes,
IAN: You actually paste yourself into a different kind of future where this will be a plus, a story to tell. And of course, you were absolutely right, because you've just done it. You've just told the story in that younger clears future, yeah, which actually may not be a bad place to press the pause button, but if there's more time, another time, then there's some more we could speak of.
KLEA: Oh boy, Ian, there's always more that we could speak of. I'm so grateful for the wisdom that you've shared. I've taken tons of notes, and I just recently have been asked to lead a group of 30 young women ages 11 to 18, and I am going to a big part of this personal development for them and helping them to see and what a powerful state. There's so many things I'm going to use, the phone, call the phone, putting the phone down and looking out the window, the resourcefulness, the humor, looking I mean, as one of their leaders, I would be more than happy if any of them wanted to, you know, imagine a future different from what they're experiencing, to give them everything I could, to help and connect them, but just helping them see that that's something that they can be in control of. And I know that everyone listening as well, not only for ourselves, but for the people that we interact with and and care for and serve as clients and as family members and friends. I hope that everyone will have will be able to grab a piece of wisdom that we can bring into our vocabularies and and serve, serve, continue to serve the world. That's what purposeful planning Institute is all about. So thank you today.
IAN: This is an absolute pleasure, and maybe, given what you just said, Maybe we should call this part one, and in the fullness of time, we can always do a part two.
KLEA: That would be great. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Pleasure.
IAN: Bye.
