Vulnerability is what we need

Transcript by Sean Jackson

Aidan Cammies (AC): Hi and welcome to Brainstorm - the podcast exploring how our minds work, how work affects us and how we can best deal with it. We are Aidan Cammies 

Damiano Tescaro (DT): and Damiano Tescaro. Explorers of the office jungle and mental health aficionados. Buckle up, because ideas are about to get wild.

[Introductions]

AC: Hello and welcome to episode one of Brainstorm. I am Aidan Cammies and I joined here by Damiano Tescaro. How are you doing today Damiano?

DT: Hello Aidan. It is so cool that we’re doing this and I am so happy and excited. I am doing really well, it’s a very good day. How are you?

AC: Fantastic. It is a bit grey outside.

DT: But it’s bright inside right?

AC: That is far cheesier than anything I was going to say.

DT: There you go, we set the mood perfectly.

AC: It’s dark outside, but it’s bright here on the podcast. So, Damiano, what is this all about? Why are we here? What are we going to talk about?

DT: First of all, this is an experiment. We’re going to experiment together and create a conversation around the topics of psychological safety, mental awareness, mental health, plus everything that has to do with diversity and inclusion. Perhaps Aidan, you should introduce yourself as the steward [of Neurodiversity].

AC: Wow, we’ve gone from aficionados to stewards. I like it. Since we’re doing experiments, can we be scientists?

DT: Yes, we’re also scientists.

AC: Everyday is a school day and everything we do is an experiment. That’s the way to live. I am the chair of the Neurodiversity community in Red Hat. Our mission is to show people that it is OK to be unique and different and that even if you don’t have a diagnosed mental health ‘anything’, people still have brains. People still have mental health even if you don’t have a mental health issue.

DT: I have a brain. I can relate to this.

AC: You were asking earlier (and I hope you don’t mind me sharing this) whether we should introduce ourselves at the start of the podcast, because we’re not really qualified. But you are qualified, you have a brain, we all have our own unique human experiences.

DT: Yes, it’s beautiful. And the reason we’re doing this is because I think right now is the best time possible to start a conversation around all of these topics - mental health, but also awareness. You don’t need a mental health issue to care about these things. Literally everyone should care about mental health. This is not something that just improves our own lives, it also improves our relationships, at work and outside of work. Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful conversation with other Red Hatters. What is our topic for today Aidan?

[Today’s topic - vulnerability]

AC: The topic of today will be vulnerability and showing people that it is OK to talk about the things that we find scary. Things happen in life that are difficult to talk about. It could be telling someone that you love them for the first time can be terrifying. Our bodies go into panic mode. Panic mode is my default. Thanks anxiety.

When you get through those moments of fear, you have real highs and strong emotions. These are the things that make life life. All too often we can be paralysed by our vulnerability and that can stop us from achieving the things that we deeply crave, but have blocked because of the initial (and understandable) fear.

DT: The beauty of talking about these topics is raising awareness. My natural reaction when I hear the word vulnerable is ‘argghhh I don’t want to be vulnerable, I don’t want to be weak’. That is the association that comes to mind. I think most people feel this way. There is an association that vulnerability is feminine and that being strong and not very emotional is more masculine. Which hopefully neither you nor I represent.

AC: I hope not. I cry at the mention of a dog film.

DT: The beauty of talking about this type of things is it does not have to be a silver bullet to fix everything, but the way to conquer this awareness for ourselves and others is to start to think about it. With vulnerability it is a bit like going to the gym. At first it’s hard and maybe it causes you aches and pain because you’re not used to it. But as you do it more, you grow stronger. 

These days there is a part of me that is able to take pleasure in being vulnerable because I know the effects will be extremely positive. We need to communicate that it’s alright, it will ache at first and feel uncomfortable, but we need to explain the benefits.

AC: Absolutely, you’ve touched on something very important. A lot of this is powered by that fear of the unknown. I do a lot of presentations, and have given quite a few recently over BlueJeans. In the first one I did on psychological safety, I mentioned the fact that I have ADHD. It’s something I chat about with my friends all the time, I share it on social media, I’ve written blog posts about it. But thinking about the first time I was talking openly about it, I did not sleep for the entire night. I think I placed a post using my phone, then threw my phone across the room and though ‘this is terrible, what have I done? What’s going to happen?’ But then people responded saying things like ‘thanks for sharing this, I am also going through this and have not been able to talk to anyone about it’.

It is really scary taking that first step. It takes courage. The reason I was able to do it is because I’ve seen others sharing very openly with so much honesty. I thought ‘if they can do it, why can’t I?’. Now it’s quite easy. I’ll drop it into a conversation with a bus driver.

DT: This is super interesting. Can I ask how you first shared it and why? This first step is the make or break moment for most people. How did you approach that moment, what was your thinking and your reasoning?

AC: I am very lucky. At university I had a lot of close friends who were open about their brains, their mental health. Being able to talk openly and develop that knowledge and ability to talk my brain is not taught. In primary and secondary school I was never taught about mental health. I can tell you that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but was not taught how to rationalise and talk about my emotions. I have no idea. My answer was to just eat lots of food and play video games to avoid feeling sad.

It is easier to mask emotions rather than face up to them. It is more difficult to introspect and ask for help. Humans are a bit of a contradiction. We’ve managed to get so far in terms of evolution and progress (however you define that) through collaboration and helping one another. But we’re still too scared to admit that we don't feel great all the time, or that we’re stressed and close to burn out or that we need help.

DT: Ironically, this is one of the biggest things someone can do in their daily life. I have what is almost a daily challenge to be the voice of the thrill of vulnerability, almost on a physical level. It becomes energising when you realise how people respond. Ultimately, most of us are afraid of something, we don’t like feeling vulnerable. We have an incredible volume of information around us and social media is a big part of that. There is a lot of judgement that we perceive. Not necessarily receive, but perceive. It is lingering in the air and creates almost a constant state of ‘arghh, I don’t know what to do, should I say this or not? Should I just conform to what I see around myself?’ 

A lot of times I’ve found, and this applies to work meetings as well, it is easy to have a conversation with someone and it to be upbeat, but to be the person who says ‘you know what, I am having a hard time today’ When you do though, something magical happens. In my experience it has never failed to deliver a tonal shift in the conversation. I don’t mean that it transforms into pity. But most people respond in a sympathetic way, they feel compelled by what appears to be a call for help. It is a very human and natural thing to do. The conversations that stem out of these simple statements are wonderful. Because other people start opening up. It is like we’re opening the door for other people.

AC: Yes, it’s absolutely crucial to show others that it’s OK. A lot of the time you can go into a that ‘oh I read this book on psychological safety or I watched this excellent talk by Brené Brown about the power of vulnerability, and you all need to be more vulnerable and share your deepest darkest childhood fears’. That approach does not work, but doing it yourself and showing people that it is OK to do so works. Humans are great at complimentary behaviours. If you see someone doing something, you realise you can do it too.

DT: One of the big reasons I feel comfortable doing this at work is because my manager creates a very safe space to do that. Every time I open a conversation and check in, there is always a space to talk about this. That doesn’t mean we have to set aside an hour to talk about it, it could just be 30 seconds that allows you to get the information out of your system and it makes you feel a lot better instantly. It brings people together because we feel that we understand each other a little more. It makes it easier to be more proactive in terms of reaching out for help. There is a snowball effect of beautiful little things that can make one’s day a lot brighter.

AC: Something I’ve noticed in the current locked down times is you don’t have those little conversations that you take for granted if you’re just popping to get a drink from the kitchen. You’d be walking along and go ‘oh hey Harold’ though I don’t actually know anyone called Harold so I don’t know where that name came from, you go ‘hey Harold how are you?’, ‘yeah, I’m good but I’ve just got this meeting’ - you have these little conversations that happen throughout the day.

But if your only interaction is sitting at a desk, then looking at your celandard and seeing a meeting from 9-10, then another from 10-11, but one of the meetings will run over, and they’re all for an hour, and you’re always in a rush, and so you rush off at the end, but actually taking some time at the beginning to check in is something that I enjoy doing, I just ask the question, where I’ll grab something nearby like a rubber duck, and I’ll ask how the other person how they’re doing today, then I might ask them how they’re really doing. That shows people it’s OK. The first answer might be ‘yeah, I’m alright’.

DT: Yeah, it’s a knee jerk reaction.

AC: Yes, it’s a formality and an automatic reaction, it’s not a real question. But if you ask ‘how are you really feeling?’ rather than doing, you can ask a follow up question like ‘what have you been watching on TV recently. It starts an actual conversation that is not to do with work. I like to pass around the imaginary object on a call and so everyone gets to say how they’re really feeling.

DT: Something I remember you saying in one of our conversations around this some people are afraid that if they start the conversation and they’re not feeling great that the people they’re talking to have to deal with the negative emotions. So people feel uncomfortable with that. But I heard you say something beautiful, and it’s that we don’t have to fix other people. Just listening and acknowledging the other person’s emotion is absolutely more than enough.

AC: It is so powerful in its own right. Just having something who will listen to you. And actually listen. That’s why I recently started through the EAP (Employee Assistance Provider) some counselling that I’ve been putting off for way too long. I am very lucky because I’ve got close friends who I can share my feelings with. But even if you’re telling someone, you’ll having something at the back of your mind saying ‘oh you can’t tell them this, because they’re got their own things to deal with’. But if someone comes to me and tells me they’re feeling low, I will happily sit and listen and genuinely care, but if I’m talking to someone else I’ll immediately think that they’re too busy. It is illogical. I think therapy is nice because part of me thinks ‘well they’re paid to listen, so they’re going to listen’ So I don’t feel as though I’m bothering them, because that’s what they’re there to help with.

DT: I think this a great exercise because most of the associations we have like not wanting to bother people with things are automatic or an association we have, but perhaps counselling can replace the previous habit with a new habit. I have been at Red Hat for just six months and I’ve had some amazing conversations with my colleagues. I feel very lucky because you can start these conversations. There’s a lot of courage at Red Hat and I think it should be encouraged even more.

As you say, we’re all working from home and I think there is a level of stress, a scientific term that is used for this feeling is psychological grief that is applied to this situation that is so alien for most of us. Being able to establish a new level of connection with the people we work with that dramatically changes our professional interactions. Just starting our conversations with s true and honest check-in, can completely shift the rest of the conversation because you have a lot more context. You get an important side-effect that stems out of the conversation, compassion.

AC: I think one thing we need to do is recognise that we are all human. It is something that can disappear when you’re sending an email to someone. If you don’t the person you just see an email address, but doing check-ins and trying to remember that you’re dealing with people, or out in the real world where you’re interacting with bus drivers or people working on cash registers in the supermarket, they’re human beings, they have hopes and fears, they have dreams, they have families, they’re just trying their best to be happy and to get on and be human.

It really helps to move towards that compassionate mindset, which we all have by default but it sometimes gets covered up by other things. But coming from a place of compassion is what helped us progress as humans. There’s an excellent book I’m reading at the moment that I could talk about for hours, it’s called Humankind by Rutger Bregman that describes how compassion and kindness have got us this far and what still helps us to work together and ultimately be happier.

DT: One question that I have when it comes to compassion. It sounds very intuitive, but in a daily scenario there are plenty of blockers that stop me feeling compassion or prevent me from being vulnerable. Because there is an autopilot in our mind that will stop some things happening. How do we identify these blockers and showstoppers that prevent our compassion from springing into action?

AC: That autopilot is kind of how we live most of our lives. For me, with ADHD, I have lots of things flying around my brain, my hypothalamus doesn’t release for noradrenaline to help get me motivated and focused on an important task. The issue is I get distracted by every single thought that pops into my head. Like ‘oh, new Taylor Swift album, let’s listen to that now.. No let’s focus on what we’re doing, let’s not look over at the phone.. Ok we’re turned the phone over and we can’t get distracted by notifications.’ That’s what’s going on inside all of our brains, maybe not to the same extent, but we live in that autopilot, we look at whatever is the most shiny, the most reactive, the loudest voice (this happens often in office environments), we’re not necessarily thinking ‘what’s the most important thing for our customer?’ or ‘what’s important to the people in my team?’, it’s more what’s got the most urgent deadline, and then we do that.

I think we need to bring a bit of mindfulness, that doesn’t mean we need to start meditating and doing yoga or sitting on a mountain while balancing on your big toe. It just means recognising your own thoughts and realising that perhaps you feel stressed and asking why that is, or noticing your heartbeat has increased - maybe you’re recording a podcast. It is something that we can definitely do, we can get more in tune with our thought patterns, which is big blockers.

DT: I am a very visual person when it comes to thinking about concepts.

AC: And yet you’re doing a podcast, the least video medium!

DT: Well if people want to see a video of the presenters they can let us know in the comments below. Anyway.. There are two red flags that I can come to learn and detect when it comes to the blockers. Most of the time for me the blockers are of an emotional nature, and emotional thinking is difficult for us to sift through. Emotions are cloudy and blurry and difficult to rationalise in the heat of the moment - perhaps you’ll be talking about a presentation that needed to be completed by a certain time, it can be hard to be compassionate. There are a couple of things I do.

The first is Mel Robbins’ method of 5,4,3,2,1 - the five seconds rule. She has developed a system where she literally counts allowed 5,4,3,2,1 - which forces the front of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) the rational part of the brain to take control because we have to think about counting backwards which is way to bring the energy from the emotional side into the rational side.

The other thing I like to do is something I took from meditation exercises is imagine myself in a car, and that I am driving the car and I am stressed and honking the horn because other drivers are behaving badly, I visualise myself moving into the backseat. I need to visualise that the driver is feeling anger, but the annoyance or anger does not belong to me. I am not anger, I am experiencing anger but it is outside of Damiano. It is a filter, lens or pair of sunglasses, it is in the driver’s seat. I am in the passenger’s seat.

This is a little trick that helps me step back from the emotional hyper moment and helps me reconsider things. It provides some breathing space for the compassion to kick in. I might feel ‘I’m having a hard time in this conversation, is it because the person is feeling weird?’ I like to change the register of the conversation. So I drop the work topic and go back into ‘hey how are you feeling now, because I am feeling a bit stressed, maybe we need to realign ourselves before we can move forward, because otherwise we will clash. Is this something that you ever do?

AC: Yes. Meditation is something that I have done on and off for many years. I know it would be a good thing to do as a daily habit, but I am yet to manage it. The thing that you describe where you know you’re aware you’re feeling a certain way. You’re separating yourself from the equation is something that sounds great in principle but is very hard to do. It is something that comes with practice. Little things like you might be a meeting and you know someone is disagreeing with you, the limbic system will kick in and you’ll immediately want a fight, they disagree with you, you need to shoot down their ideas. You need to recognise why they’re doing something, ask yourself ‘are they doing this to me because they’re a bad person?’ probably not because they’re a rational, sensible human being. If you can recognise that they are not setting out to deliberately antagonise.

Try and look at what they’re seeing and see if they’re right. There probably is, there is definitely a reason they’re saying what they’s saying. You should approach those conversations with the mindset of asking what you can learn, rather than thinking ‘I need to convert this person to my viewpoint because my viewpoint is definitely the correct way of thinking. I will think about asking questions that will help me discover their viewpoint.

DT: As you were saying this I was imaging how many situations this applies to. It is virtually every possible situation at work and off work. This reminded me why we decided to talk about vulnerability in the first episode. I think we both agree this is the keystone, it is the foundation of the conversation around mental health awareness, psychological safety, in general awareness. As a first episode, I really hope people jump on the train with us. Not because we are telling them what they should do. Because this is really a conversation starter.

It is important to me that everyone feels they belong in this conversation and everyone should be able to speak their mind and give ideas. I would really like, now that we’re starting to wrap up the episode to say ‘thank you’ to all our listeners, we hope you enjoyed the podcast, if you have any ideas please let us know, because there is more to come, but we really want to hear from people.

AC: I think it would be nice to wrap up with some strategies for helping yourself to be more open and vulnerable, and to help others around you. One that was mentioned earlier was the idea of a check-in - it can be two minutes at the start of a meeting - asking everyone in the team or even just one person, how they’re doing, how they’re really doing, or what do you want to focus on in this meeting or get out of the meeting or a totally random question like what new album have you been listening to lately or what book are you reading or what TV show are you reading, what hobby have you been doing, what’s the last thing that made you smile, tell me a joke you heard - just something that is completely unrelated to work but helps build the conversation as human being, give people time when asking questions, it’s easy to ask quick fire meaningless questions and then move on, but instead of doing that you dig in and ask for more information.

Often in mental health we spend a lot of time trying to second guess, and worrying that might say the wrong thing or something that offends. The intent is always more important than the words. Rather than worrying about whether it’s OK to say something, just say it. As long as it is coming from a place of wanting to learn more or know more, not so that I can say ‘oh here are my ideas to fix it’ but just to listen, I think people will always recognise that. So listen more than you speak.

And finally, to end my monologue before I pass over to you Damiano (because I know as a human being you have plenty of ideas), it is difficult to say without being patronizing, but just try it. It’s a muscle. Try it with close friends, try shouting it out into the air while listening to this podcast ‘I’m feeling stressed’ or ‘I’m feeling the loss of freedom is making it difficult to get the right balance between work and life right now’. Start small and build up. Close friends, family, then teams, then maybe write a blog post or record a podcast. What do you think Damiano?

DT: It is all about practice. For me the most important thing I would like is for everyone to realise is this is not a one step solution, it’s not a five-day programme, there’s no silver bullet. This is a lifetime of practice that yields phenomenal results in the long run, but it is really made of micro-interactions and micro-decisions. The beauty is that the outcome constantly overwhelms the effort. We get so much more.

When we think we’re losing by being vulnerable, ultimately we’re creating stronger relationships, and also within ourselves, we’re being more honest with ourselves. This is good in general for a lot of things. And for even the most business oriented people that really despise talking about emotion in a work environment - which I can understand - I think that this level of awareness for mental health and psychological safety is business critical. All of these things are important from a personal perspective, but boy oh boy, this has a business impact. Which really interests me and is a nice segue to the next episode.

[Coming soon - psychological safety]

AC: The next episode will be about psychological safety and talking about the benefits of that within an organization. Google did an excellent project called Project Aristotle where they reviewed their own teams to find what made those teams high perperforming. It was about 700 people in 220 teams they found psychological safety was above and beyond the strongest indicator. Lance Frazier and a group of their colleagues did a meta analysis including 2200 teams and they found that overwhelmingly the data show that psychological safety in addition to the fantastic things like people being happier, it leads to better ideas, more innovation, people being more open, less time lost - in the US $108 bn were lost and an average of 35 work days due to unreported stress and mental health issues. I’ve got lots more numbers, but I will save that for the next episode.

DT: I am looking forward to that. I would finally say the wrap up line for this and probably for most of our episodes, is it is OK to not be OK. But the good thing is we can talk about this and we can think together about this, we would love to hear from everyone, let’s start a conversation and keep this going

AC: Where can they write? Let's see if we can get Brainstorm@redhat.com - we’ll have to check that there’s not someone called Brian Storm.

DT: If the conversation kicks off in the right way, we can have a Google Chat room or Mojo space - throw us ideas. This is a conversation, it is important that we have it together.We’ll be here for the next episode next time. It has been great to share this experience with you Aidan. Thank you so much.

AC: Thank you Damiano, it has been my pleasure. We also might be joined by some guest soon to share their expertise. Have a great day and remember it’s OK to not be OK.