4D Human Being Podcast

Summer Lessons: Embracing Uncertainty

• 4D Human Being • Season 4 • Episode 49

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What happens when expectations meet reality during those six fleeting summer weeks? In this thoughtful exploration of summer lessons, the 4D Human Being directors dive into the illuminating gap between what we anticipate and what actually unfolds.

Through stories of puppies, cats, teenage concerts in Barcelona, and dance competitions, Philippa and Penelope reveal a powerful truth: while we should aim to reduce unnecessary anxiety, learning to tolerate discomfort is essential for a meaningful life. Any experience involving connection, novelty, learning, or joy inherently requires stepping into uncertainty. As they put it, "The opposite of uncertainty isn't certainty, it's self-trust."

The conversation examines how "defensive pessimism", our tendency to ruminate over worst-case scenarios can both protect and constrain us. When we're caught in indecision, anxiety escalates; but the moment we take action, it begins to subside. This summer wisdom translates directly to workplace challenges, leadership roles, and team dynamics, where change and uncertainty are increasingly unavoidable.

Perhaps most poignantly, they discuss how our anxiety affects those around us. When we allow our fears to drive our behaviour, we create stressful environments for family members and colleagues alike. By developing greater self-awareness during these reflective summer moments, we position ourselves to navigate life's complexities with more intention and less reactivity.

As autumn approaches, carrying these insights forward can transform how we experience change, not by eliminating anxiety, but by expanding our capacity to work with it.

Ready to move from reactive to intentional in your personal and professional relationships? Connect with 4D Human Being for workshops, training, and free resources to continue your journey toward becoming a four-dimensional human being.

Speaker 1:

Hello, my name is Philippa Waller, my name is Penelope Waller and we are two of the directors at 4D Human being. And welcome to the 4D Human being podcast. What's it all about, pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships. It's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So, whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings 40 Human being are here to help. We're going to take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are going to help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being, so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you. Okay, I think I'm recording everything. Now it's like goodness. It's like in the circus where they're like balancing and spinning the plates on the tall sticks. That's what it feels like recording a podcast, very similar. I wish I could move my phone so that I could record the position that my dog is in, but I don't touch any of the tech. But he's laying on his back legs, akimbo Phil, he's relaxed. So hello and welcome to this Summer 4D podcast.

Speaker 1:

Do you know they do say they're saying in the UK at the moment about reducing the length of the summer holidays for the kids In the UK, yeah, which I mean they're already only six and a half weeks or so compared to other countries which are much longer. But one of the main reasons is is because we forget things over that period of time that have become very normal and habitual, and I was thinking that maybe we haven't recorded a podcast for a little while and we've forgotten how to use it. That is interesting, isn't it? Because that makes me think of two things. One is a study done on education for children, young people, and that the summer holidays are problematic in terms of levels of development for kids who can't, whose family can't, afford extra help over the summer, because they do that leap over the summer. Yeah, they really children, where they you know they're obviously they're growing up, there's obviously there's all sort of emotional and social development, but those who have tutoring over the summer, of course they keep notching ahead, yeah, yeah. The other thing it makes me think of, though, which is definitely a super segue oh, I knew you were gonna do it is I'm I'm listening to a david nichols book, sweet sorrow, on audible.

Speaker 1:

I'm now rattling through dav Nicholl's books, just loving them. It's narrated by Rory Kinnear. Love, love, love. Rory Kinnear. David Nicholl's writing, rory Kinnear's narration, it's like some sort of joyous gift. I just can't even.

Speaker 1:

And it's about David Nicholl's novels are about romantic relationships through different stages of life, and this one is sort of sixth form school leavers, and they talk about the summer holidays. This is my super segue and absolutely because it's British talk about those six weeks. Like we all know, it's six weeks and it sounds a lot. And it sounds a lot Exactly, and also in that sort of slightly sort of you know, bittersweet, sweet sorrow, nostalgic way he talks about Rory Kinnear's narration. Oh, my goodness, it's so great he talks about.

Speaker 1:

It's always disappointing, it's always, it's always a disaster, because you know you look forward to it and it feels like this expanse of time and you imagine all the things that you're going to do and it's going to happen and that you can do in six weeks, and then gradually it just sort of speeds by and and you and you don't really know and nothing's really happening, and you're in places and you don't know what you're doing or why you're doing them, and then suddenly it's just, it's all about september's arriving again and it's over, and I just you know and but, but you should be, yeah, the beach with your friends having this amazing cool time. Yeah, bonfires on the beach, romances, transformational. And actually you're working in the local petrol station, sort of, you know, nicking the vouchers and Twixes, and it's never quite and stinking of petrol and it's never quite what you think it's going to be. But it really made me think of the topic we're going to talk about today, which is lessons from the summer break, which is all about expectations and how we actually exactly because we all go, I can't wait for the summer break, and then we're in it, and then actually what? How can we really be in our lives with everything else that's happening, and whether you're juggling jobs and children, or holidays or and going on holiday. So many people go on holiday and then it's definitely not what the fantasy was. You know, I feel I feel like this. I feel I haven't, I barely had time for a holiday, or you've had no time for a holiday, or or your role in the family system is such that it's sort of a holiday for everyone else but it's already a holiday for you. So, you know, I just that topic of that we really can bring back into the workplace is how can we be in the experience of our life as it's moving and changing, rather than have an expectation of what it should be and then be sort of almost always late to the party because we've already thought what it should be like. Then we arrive and then we're disappointed it's really not what I thought. Yeah, totally, totally. Well, this summer's definitely not what I thought it was going to be. But you know, all good, all interesting, not too disappointing. Can I open with puppy? Yes, well, let's just set the context. Really, I mean, this is a slight kind of filler episode before we start our autumn campaign. It's going to be very full, the fill is going to be very full.

Speaker 1:

We've really been thinking about, exactly as you said, phil, kind of expectations that we have versus the reality that we have and, linked to that, some lessons that we've taken away from this summer period in terms of just understanding life and understanding ourselves. I mean, we would always say learning never stops. It's not just about being in the classroom doing an online course. Corporate training Literally. If you choose to look at the world as one big learning opportunity, it's daily and boy you know. Corporate training Literally. If you choose to look at the world as one big learning opportunity, it's daily and boy. You can learn a lot in the summer holidays.

Speaker 1:

University of life, ben. University of life. Did you go to university? I did. I went to two. Actually I went to three, four. Crikey, I've been to a lot of universities. To be fair, you've learned a lot along the way. It literally never ends.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, this has been the university of life and I suppose, yeah, let me, let's go through our list of learnings. I mean I will definitely, we'll go, we'll come to puppy first. Yes, I would definitely say I, I, I like cats more than I did, that's. I mean, that's been been a lesson from the summer break, pen, which will be our cat's race. Another lesson from the summer break. You like cats more than you, I mean. You are not a fan of cats. Well, allergic, didn't like them? Yeah, I mean. Well, we'll talk about how that all unfolded and how it's been. I'm going to miss her.

Speaker 1:

Crikey. That has transformation, transformation, all right, tell us about puppy. Right, let me see if I can find him, because he, I have rolled up the rug. Put it on the sofa behind me in my office because, um, he's. He's been here for five days. He's only nine, ten weeks old, so he's not being trusted with any fluffy carpeting. Let's be clear. Um, right, let's. Where is he? He's under my feet. He's so tiny he just disappears under your desk. Have you got billy in there as well? Yeah, billy's. Billy's doing his. Um, you know I've been here long enough, grumpy. Oh, look at him. Here's humphrey. We love humphrey already. Oh, he's a redhead, aren't you? He's got big paws, Phil, do you think he's going to be bigger than the breeder said? Yeah, got those paws. They're like big plates. I think he's the big boy. He's beautiful. He is beautiful. What do you think he thinks of his new home?

Speaker 1:

It's interesting because he's the second child. So the first one, you're sort of setting a new way of being. Yes, uh, this is all relatable to work and life. It's like setting up a company. You're working out how does this all work, and then when second puppy comes, or second child or employee, they've got to work out how it already works. So it's very different. But he's uh, yeah, I think he's, you know he's he's working out like at night he worked. He's finally working out that when he goes into the crate and the blanket goes over because I'm going to crate training for a few weeks and billy and the human being disappear up the stairs, yes, but that is it for quite a number of hours, whereas of course, the first few nights he was, he was calling out, like surely you're coming back down and we're going to play again, but now he's like oh, this is. Oh, no, that's it, this is it. Now I have to be, I just have. Well, I might as well sleep because nothing's happening.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's also interesting for, as you say, sort of fitting into the system rather than the system being designed around you, and it is very much like a second child, I mean, aside from the fact that with a second child you don't tend to be holding a mirror up to its nose the whole time as it sleeps as a baby, to check it's alive, because you've got to have been through it. I did, although they do stay alive through the night. Do say that. But yes, it's also a little bit tough for love, I think, because you kind of you kind of realize that. Interesting, yeah, you, you don't have the time capacity, but also, the system has been established and, yes, you can adapt it a bit, but it is what it is and we go to bed at a certain time, we get up at a certain time. Deal with it. Do you know what I was thinking about?

Speaker 1:

Second children because of having a second dog, and I did think, oh yeah, it's different, isn't it? It is different, it's because it's exactly that. It's crack on, yeah, and this is how it is, not in a bad way, I mean. One thing I would say about it, which is very much a topic for us this summer, is, of course, what if you've had the first child, you've had the first puppy, you've kind of done the big kind of unknown thing and you've stepped into it and you've had the first puppy, you've kind of done the big kind of unknown thing and you've stepped into it and you've learned all those lessons.

Speaker 1:

You've kept to being alive, yeah, and it's a really good example of I mean, those are big events in life, obviously, but it's a really good example of stepping into change and something new, because if you don't, you can never get over that kind of hump of anxiety and always thinking it's I mean it's like with the cat field. I mean I cannot tell you the weeks I've spent well, I have on this podcast, preparing and thinking this is going to be a nightmare. There's going to be like dog and cat bites. And I've done it and it was easy, but, of course, if I hadn't done it, I would still think I'm never having a cat in this house. And now hadn't done it, I would still think I'm never having a cat in this house.

Speaker 1:

And now I'm like that, for me, feels at the center of lessons from the summer break, that when we're thinking about well-being and whether we're thinking about that in terms of, uh, you know, stress at work or leadership or being in a team, or whether we're thinking about that more sort of therapeutically and, you know, needing to find a better balance in our lives, or you know, I think about it personally absolutely. We want to learn to reduce unnecessary stress and anxiety. Yeah, but one of the kind of key things that's really come to the front this summer is and you have got to learn to tolerate a certain amount of anxiety to have a life that has any meaning relationship, connection, novelty, learning, joy. You know that, both getting the puppy and doing my first ballroom dance competition, both of them I went through the emotions of yeah, so so. For the dance competition, I'm in the hotel room, the person gluing my hair to my head, literally literally seven in the morning, and in my, and someone else is saying to me, oh, you're excited. And and I'm doing the yes, absolutely. And. And the same with the puppy. People say, oh, how is that? Oh, it's lovely in my head in on both occasions. On the first one, on the first one, I I'd already decided at seven in the morning, I am never, ever doing this again. And with the puppy, first two days, I was like, well, this has been a big mistake. And the real learning is that just keep breathing, keep sitting with that anxiety. This is change, this is newness, this is novelty. Keep and then gradually let the, let the storm subside, don't let the weather drive. That's my big lesson from the summer. Yeah, is what? Through change, through these choices, don't let the weather decide. Let the weather move through. Completely normal, stay with it, stay with the process, stay with what's happening.

Speaker 1:

Loved the dance competition, totally joyous, falling more and more in love with Humphrey every day and of course, he's getting better and better. We're only on day. I have such high expectations. We'll come to that, but you know we're on day five and I expect him to be completely house trained. But really it was. What was so interesting was I was watching myself this week with Humphrey. I was watching myself thinking oh, I don't know if I can do this. And each day I watched that lesson and the joy increased. I was like this is what it is, isn't it? This is what it is, that's right. I mean it's really interesting because I had a conversation recently with a headmaster and there's quite a lot of consolidation going on in the schooling system in the UK at the moment for various reasons, one of which is the new VAT rules, and there was some big change going on in his school and, um, of course it's anxiety inducing for people.

Speaker 1:

Change. I totally get it. Look, you know cat gate, like I get it. And when you're talking about? For those who haven't heard this podcast before, can we just explain what cat cat gate is?

Speaker 1:

Picking up a cat from Italy? We're driving a cat back from Italy to come and stay with us for the summer. I have a dog who doesn't love cats. I don't like cats, uh. So the whole thing was yeah, it's your, my daughter's cat. So the whole thing was like I was nervous about it, both because of how I feel about cats, how the dog feels about cats. The journey through europe worried the cat wouldn't survive, the dog, yes, so many things, um, and of course, it's all been easy, breezy and actually very, very pleasurable, and I actually don't want the cat to go.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, point being that, I mean, if I felt anxious about that and that's just having a cat in my house for the summer, I mean, imagine how we feel when there's big organisational change or you know, we're fearful about losing our jobs, like it's normal to feel anxious. And going back to what you've just said, I mean, if we can find a way to treat it as part of the journey, part of the learning, it's completely transformational in terms of how we feel about change, and I'm not saying it's easy. You know our brains, the mechanisms in our brains are almost designed to drive our science. Well, and actually let me add to that, because what came up for me, as you said, that is, of course, that's absolutely right the whole body system, the nervous system, all of our vital organs, brain, the whole, our whole body system, is designed to constantly try to get back to homeostasis. Yes, so the signals we get in our body when we're hungry or thirsty drive us, motivate us, to fulfill that need, so we can get back to homeostasis. Now that's really which is great and really useful.

Speaker 1:

But the danger with life experiences, we think we're constantly looking for that I can just sit on the sofa and do nothing. But we can't. No, because if we were just in homeostasis and we were like, well, nothing's happening, everything's just fine and it's on a level I don't need anything, want anything or I don't want to do anything, I'm afraid that's also not how the human being is wired and the only thing that would happen to us, as we talked about earlier, is bins and taxes. Exactly, we'd be sitting on the sofa if we had a sofa in homeostasis, waiting for the tax bill and the bin people to come, and if we don't do anything else, that's not really a life. Well, and also, you can try and control your life to a certain extent in terms of keeping things at homeostasis, but of course, things are going to happen to you that are outside of your control. So you're sort of fighting a losing battle by trying to stay in control.

Speaker 1:

There is a truth, and there is a truth and I mean, if it's useful to to the listeners something that I sort of learned about many, many years ago when I did my psychology degree, and something that's really come up for me again this summer, is we all have different coping mechanisms with unknown uncertainty, change and of, and the one that really struck me was defensive pessimism, and when I read about this I was like, oh, my goodness, that is how I live my life. And it's a coping strategy where we're trying to stay in control by kind of ruminating over the worst case scenario, the worst outcome. And it's called defensive pessimism because it's pessimistic, it's assuming the worst, but it's defensive because what it's trying to do is it's trying to say to you look, even if the worst thing happens, a, we're assuming the worst thing is going to happen, and B I'm mentally preparing for that to happen. Now, in a way, it can be quite useful because it can make you feel like you've got some control over things. But the amount of excess worrying and anxiety that we create in our own minds, and that is our experience of life, is extraordinary. And so you know, we all have these different coping mechanisms. They're for a very good reason, but the downside of them can be, you know, really really terrible, oh, life-destroying. Well, in fact and you're talking to so to give it's really interesting to give defensive pessimism some different names from different areas of psychology Internal family systems would call that the manager.

Speaker 1:

So if you imagine the sort of manager with the clipboard constantly giving you all the reasons to do something or to not do something, and that has, that has impact both ways that it will stop you doing things. So this is the sitting on the sofa, can't even, can't do, can't do anything, won't have relationships, won't change anything, change, change anything. But equally, the other way, if you've got yourself into the homeostasis of spinning so many plates that you're burnt out, your manager or defensive pessimism equally won't let you change that either. So it won't let you stop doing things in that great netflix documentary that we like, was it stultz? He calls this part part x, so it's the. It's the part that is constantly sort of giving you the exactly the pessimistic like why you should, the reasons not to so. However you want to frame it, we all have that part and that's part of, as we've talked about, I'm sure, in many podcasts. Part of our survival mechanism is that ability to have that mentalization, that other voice. But from a 4D perspective, if we don't train that voice to be more intentional, it gets stuck on a record of either don't do anything or I've got no choice. I have to keep going.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and another thing that's come up for me this summer exactly with this, I mean part of it was about myself and how I felt about things that were going on this summer and things I had to deal with, but of, of course, the impact that you have on other people in your life, whether that's kids, relatives, partners, team members because of these fears and coping mechanisms that we have in place. And for me, a really good example this summer was we went to barcelona for a couple of nights't we, phil, we did, we took four teenage girls over there who were going to a Cis and Kendrick Lamar concert, a pop concert. It was a pop concert, although we would never be allowed to say that the eye-rolling was intense, but anyway, the point being that I'm not going to lie, I was anxious about that. I was anxious about my young teenage daughters going to this concert in the massive Barcelona Olympic Stadium, getting there, getting them home after the concert. I mean, there were, I can't even tell you how many people were flooding out of that stadium and I guess, because of this work that we do, because of what I was thinking about this summer, I did not want to put an iota of fear in their minds that trying things like this it was the first concert they'd been to alone.

Speaker 1:

I didn't want them to start forming the belief that these things were dangerous, risky, should be avoided, etc. I really wanted them to feel like anything's possible. It's OK, you have this, and you know it wasn't easy, because inside I was thinking, how am I going to find them? But I don't want them to feel like things that are impossible. Yeah, do you know? I really this feels, this feels. Oh, there's so many. Oh, I feel this is, this is like the juiciest, juiciest topic like this. It's like it's. It's like I'm being pulled down so many different paths as we talk about this.

Speaker 1:

Let me try and sort of focus on what you just said. So it really makes me think of some client work I have where, going back to that manager role or that defensive pessimism where your plate's spinning now, I mean, in this case it was your kids who wanted to go to a concert. But even if it's you yourself who've got you into a place of doing that job, um, you know having lots of travel, or you know having the pressure of running a business, whatever it is, but you've created this and now the manager, your internal manager, is telling you you've got to keep going, you've got to keep going, you're holding everything up. This is what's completely underpinning the whole building here. Everyone's relying on you. So now you're stressed and stressed, and stressed. You've got no time for yourself, there's no boundaries, and the market gets harder. Time for yourself. There's no boundaries, you're, and the market gets harder. So now there's more competition for jobs. You're worried you might lose your job. It's now, they're now spinning even more, even more, even more.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, what the manager or defensive pessimism convinces us is you've got to keep going because this is what everyone's relying on and everyone's happiness and well-being is relying on. You can keep going, but of course, this is the ridiculous thing about that level of control is that the knock-on effect of you spinning and spinning and spinning because I've got no choice everyone else's happiness and well-being and life experience is dependent on me is now they're living with someone who is completely stressed, angry, short-tempered, irritable and unhappy, and you fun, fun times, fun times. But you know exactly exactly that that we forget that if we let that part, in your case, if we let the part of oh my goodness, where is this venue? How am I going to get there? Are we going to be in a crush? Will my kids get lost in a crowd in spain? If we let that part drive.

Speaker 1:

That is the experience. The experience isn't. We've gone to barcelona in july and my kids have gone to a first time they've had that sort of real independence, gone to a pop concert, stepped out into the world. That's not the experience. The experience is mummy. You know mummy's stress. Mummy was really stressed and you know. And so it's, it's all very well, that's right. You know mommy's stressed. It was really mommy was really stressed, and you know, and so it's, it's all very well, that's right.

Speaker 1:

You know, sort of you're letting that manage apart. You think that it's really wise, but it has such a knock-on effect, yeah, that I've got no choice, I've got to do it like this and no one else is helping me it. If that's true, and and this takes me to responsibility that if we as adults don't take responsibility for that, then we're not doing what we think we're doing. What we think we're doing is giving everybody a great time or providing everybody with a great quality of life because we're working. What we're actually doing is creating Is the opposite, is completely the opposite.

Speaker 1:

And this makes me think of something that was definitely a theme for me this summer, which was around that holding on to resentment or blame for the choices that we make, and some of those might really be true. We might have had an upbringing where maybe you know the parent was neglectful or, you know, not ideal, or there was addiction in the house or any, any number of things. But as an adult, if we can't somehow take charge of that and do some work around that, then my analogy that I came up with was. It's like we were living in a house and 30 years ago one night we got burgled, we got robbed, they smashed the back door in and stole the television and 30 years later we are complaining in the winter that it's cold because there's a hole in the back door and we've got no television to watch. You're like it was a terrible thing that happened. But over the last 30 years we have choice. It was your responsibility to fix the back door and buy a new television, it that wasn't the burglar's responsibility. You know that both can be true and I think that's such a useful way to think about our choices, yeah, and our development that it is ultimately our responsibility.

Speaker 1:

And actually I mean, I know you and I love this work, but I find it fun, like it's been. You know it's been a great summer. It's not over yet we're in august but it's been a great summer. It's not over yet, we're in August, but it's been a great summer. It's been a kind of odd summer, lots of different things happening, but of course I mean not, I don't even the odd summer, that's a novel title. But I think what's interesting for me is that you know you and I love just continually reflecting on what we learn from everything. What does this mean? How did I show up? What was what was good about how I showed up? What would I change next time? It's just, it's just endlessly fascinating to look at. Look at the world like that, and the summer is a perfect time because generally, things are happening that don't tend to happen in the rest of the year. You are not wrong, and it really reminds me as well.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned this earlier about the poldi quote as well. Oh, yes, in terms of, I can't remember. Is it something like happiness is? Is happiness is reality minus expectation? It's actually from buddhism, of course, really. But, um, the auntie poldi novels, which are just brilliant if you haven't read them, if anyone hasn't read them, are so, so good. I'm gonna look up the right.

Speaker 1:

She, she, she's absolute. I mean, I absolutely love her. She's the kind of person that you don't want to spend time with, and it probably is partly because of her attitude to life, where and things just happened, don't mario giordano and there's four books. He's actually, um, he's got an italian name, but I think he writes and lives in germany, but they are. She's got that attitude to life of that presence and sort of in often chaos, she moves to sicily and sort of becomes a bit of a murder detective. But her philosophy that she keeps coming back to where other people are sort of getting all wound up or cross or angry or whatever you know, the water's been turned off again down the street and she keeps coming back to happiness is reality minus expectation, and it's that gap, yeah, between what we think it should be and what it is, and I mean that that has really grounded me over in so many situations.

Speaker 1:

It's the flexibility as well, isn't it? I mean, I think that's something I loved about the poldi novels and it's it's certainly played out in in my life this summer is the flexibility to adapt. So you know, I, this is what it is, this is, this is what it is. And you know, in in the books, you know she's, she, just, she just makes decisions like suddenly she's on her moped and she's just going somewhere completely random to meet a random person, like she'll just do things because that's what's needed in that moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know, I know about myself, I'm quite a planner usually, and it was much easier to plan when the kids were younger because they tended to move on mass and the summers. Yeah, I'd have to organize the summers and this summer has been a real. That has gone out of the window. Yeah, it all growed up. You've just got it. You've you've got to adapt and flex and flow day by day pretty much, and it's not easy, for for some of us who like that control and planning, but it has been quite joyous just to go and I've said to everybody, it's been my mantra this summer, hasn't it, phil? I'm just, I'm moving through this summer a day at a time and I think that's the thing is exactly that is it's, it's moving through which, at the same time, is being in. Yeah, it's.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you think about sort of I don't know moving through a, a pathway, an obstacle course, a tunnel or whatever it is, it's the difference between looking over there and I've got to get there and it's being and I know it sort of feels really obvious. There was a. It comes up in dancing a lot when you're thinking about dance steps. You learn dance steps and they're like the dots, if you like, in the on the page. And when you're learning, all you can think about is getting to the next dot, but, of course, really, what, really what dancing is? They're the steps. Yeah, really, what dancing is is all of that flow between the moving between, and that. I mean, I was joking with my dance teacher yesterday.

Speaker 1:

I think you're telling me it's about the journey, not the destination, and of course she was laughing because, yeah, that's, that's right, that's really what it is. It's that idea of we'll get there. I mean, you know delays on in transport and flights, which I think a lot of us have experienced this summer. If it's all about the destination, those hours in the airport are miserable. Yeah, if we can make it about, oh, another hour in all of a bonus, all right, let's. Let's catch up with some birthday presents or other shops are available. But you know, but it's true, you know, it's that, it's the Eckhart Tolle thing we're in the supermarket queue and we'll still be us however long that queue is and however angry we are, we're with ourselves, yeah, and we can choose how we move through that supermarket.

Speaker 1:

Totally, and it's another reason that I think the summer is such a an interesting time, you know, for those of us who've either had some time off or perhaps our workload is lessened a little bit over the summer, it's just such a great opportunity to do that self-reflection about how you operate in relationship and through change and uncertainty, because, of course, until you do that, you really can't make any changes in terms of how you operate in the workplace, collaboratively, and in terms of your leadership. So I think this time is really important to do that. You know, with all the will in the world and we work with loads of leaders around the world If we said to them in the middle of October, right, you're going to take a week now to self-reflect and notice all of your decisions and actions, you know they wouldn't have the time to do it. This is the time to do it. It this is the time to do it. And all of the life lessons that we learn in our, in our personal lives, in our downtime, are so relevant to how our system is operating. 100.

Speaker 1:

I was having that thought this morning. I was really I sort of stopped in my tracks, thinking about the last five days and you know me, I'm not a fan of being woken up in the night um, you know, being woken up a little bit by the puppy and thinking, if you have the self-awareness of knowing your own patterns, you've sort of almost got all of it, because when we think about change and uncertainty, if you know yourself pretty well and you realise when something isn't quite right, you only need a few tools in your toolkit to actually do something about it. It's the knowing, because what most people are doing in unhappiness and stress is not listening to those messages and thinking. Well, bob over, there seems to be spinning this number of plates. So I should be able to and you and I have talked about this in terms of being twins that as we move through life, if you're looking at someone else saying, well, they seem to be able to do this, so I should and ignore what's happening in us. Yeah, then we're not a, we're not in the experience and b, we'll probably end up being unhappy.

Speaker 1:

But once we know, ah, this is how I operate in change, this is what happens to me in uncertainty, okay, this is happening, this is happening. Now I can feel how anxious or worried or whatever I am. What do I need right now to make this better? And that might be a coffee and a donut, it might be. I need to change job. It could be any number of things. But once we've got the awareness of this, all right, I've sat with this. I've let the weather pass through for a few days. It still doesn't feel good. This is why it's so ridiculous, isn't it, for people to stop being emotional. You're a little bit like thirst and hunger.

Speaker 1:

Those signals through change and uncertainty are trying to tell you something. It might be as simple as a break. It might be you're in the wrong job or you're in the wrong place, or you know there might be a bigger message. But once you know yourself and once you trust that you'll listen to those messages, the opposite of uncertainty isn't certainty, it's self-trust. Totally when you think, when you really can tell yourself well, you know what, if in another week's time I'm still feeling this, I'm going to do something about it. Yeah, you've sort of done so much of the caretaking and alleviating of the stress of change because you know that you'll do something about it. I think so much of the stress is that we ignore us. We put ourselves well, we always say we talk about throwing yourself under the bus. We ignore ourselves and keep going and wonder why we're unhappy. And actually it's counterproductive because by raising our self-awareness, self-understanding, we're helping other people as well. You know, I mean.

Speaker 1:

A really good example is as I was. I was driving around London a few days ago with with my kids, and I'm walking around a part of London as well and, phil, you know my sense of direction. I mean it's just, I meancious, you have many strengths, pen. Well, exactly. So this is what I said to the teenage girls I was with. I mean, I couldn't even work out where the arrow was pointing on my sat nav and they just looked at me like and I said, listen, I'm good at a lot of things, but directions is not one of them. When one of them pip piped up you're not good at being late either mummy and I was like, yeah, but it's good that you know these things. Yeah, yeah, that's right, you accept them. We all know where we are. That's right.

Speaker 1:

And actually, it, it changes it from a criticism of you should be to actually there is a truth to that. Yes, you know, I try to manage it, or I try to be a little bit more flexible, but actually, yes, there's a truth to that. So what can we do? You know, and it's that constant balance that you sent me a wonderful video on, um, neurodiversity is that constant balance of how much do I need to change myself and how much do I need to change my environment? And sometimes you know what. We don't have to keep beating ourselves up. Sometimes. We can just change the environment, say this is not working, this is not gonna work. Someone else needs to take charge of the navigation and directions here Exactly.

Speaker 1:

That said, I will just circle back to I think my lesson of the summer is maybe be a bit braver with some of those. I mean, let's say, smaller things. I mean, you know, I guess some of them can feel like quite big things, but you know relatively small things in life that you probably try to avoid because it feels like a hassle, it feels like hard work, it feels like something you're not going to like and and it's been a bit of an eye opener this summer of maybe, maybe it's better usually to step in and see how it feels once you're in it, rather than assume you know how you're going to feel when you're in it. Well, it's an interesting one. It brings me to one of my favorite visuals in the past few months, which is an action anxiety graph. Oh yeah, so putting anxiety on one axis. Put anxiety on one axis and action on the other.

Speaker 1:

And when we've got, when we take no action, anxiety just goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And that's that wondering. Should we, shouldn't we? What will happen if what? I can't change anything. If I change anything, it's going to be stressful. But actually that's stressful, all of that anxiety. But as soon as we take action, it's like you know, as soon as you get in the car and start driving down to italy to pick the cat up, that's where you are, that's where you are and anxiety starts to drop. Exactly, so there's. So, it's exactly that.

Speaker 1:

There's so much to be said. We can sit on the sofa, wait for the bins and the taxes and worry about if we go out of the house or if we start a new relationship or if we get a new job, or we can get off the sofa and we can tolerate a little bit of anxiety and see what happens and be with it and know that we can take some time out. But I think you're absolutely right, pen. I think that that ability, it's the window of tolerance, isn't it? That ability to tolerate discomfort is probably can I say definitely going to lead to a richer life experience. Yeah, and like I said before, there's really no avoiding it, and I mean nothing in our corporate or political or economic environment is suggesting that change and uncertainty is going to drastically reduce anytime soon. So there's kind of no avoiding it. It's something we're all going to have to learn to live with.

Speaker 1:

And it is really interesting, isn't it, that video that I sent you. It was about adhd and autism and that perhaps the, the kind of the, the morphing of our genome is possibly deliberate to cope with how the world is unfolding and how we need to be in in the, in the world around us as it, as it changes and grows. So it is. It is really interesting just to notice that. You know, change, uncertainty will continue to unfold, it will continue to be. And how do we adapt to it? How do we adapt to it? Because I think the body is trying to adapt to it. It takes a lot of time for the body to adapt to it, but we, we can do some of the work ourselves, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I think you just come back to that core port, that core point that you know, in every area of our work, we're often talking to people about their anxiety or discomfort, or you know it's. It is part of the human condition and I think that with so much around well-being and you know it's a huge part of both of our lives that we can make the mistake of thinking we're trying to eliminate anxiety. Actually, yes, of course we want to reduce that, but really, once we've learned to tolerate to tolerate it a bit more, and it will start to settle a bit and we'll get back to centre much more quickly. But it's the resilience and the ability to tolerate it that's probably going to help us move forward. And then it's, it's it's like people talk about grief, that like it's a, but it's a ball or whatever. It's a, it's a thing inside you and it doesn't shrink.

Speaker 1:

With time you expand, yeah, through time you grow, your life starts to move and grow and expand and so in proportion it becomes smaller. And I think we can think about anxiety like that, that when we're enclosed in the idea of you know I've got this presentation tomorrow and it's filling up my whole consciousness then it is the whole of your experience. But once you expand out and you know, drive to Italy to pick up a cat, or, you know, take your kids to Barcelona. Once you expand out and you know, drive to Italy to pick up a cat or, you know, take your kids to Barcelona. Once you expand out and you keep expanding your experience in your life and your relationships, that's now in proportion. It's a smaller circle, isn't it? So true, so true. So we have a nice portion of the summer left, phil, we're going to enjoy.

Speaker 1:

I have to say I think I said on one of the earlier podcasts that things didn't seem to be slowing down, and that was certainly true in July. But now we're, we're into the second week in August and I think there's going to be a little, a little breathing space for a couple of weeks before we kick back off at the end of August. Well, yeah, fully back in a bit of a breathing space, slash house training and catch up yeah, okay, exactly, and catch up with everything else. Yeah, we have a new website is coming very soon, which is very exciting. It's looking amazing, very dynamic. Uh, and not just a website, of course. It's the 4d portal to the 4d world, your digital. It's a full portal. It's a portal to the on-demand digital training. So anyone, anywhere, anytime, 24,. You've got 4D plus the AI teaching assistant in there. So it's very exciting.

Speaker 1:

So enjoy the rest of your summer. If you're listening. Enjoy the rest of your August and we look forward to seeing you, hearing you, talking to you again in the next few weeks. And, yeah, keep absorbing those lessons from the summer break. Yes, keep absorbing those lessons from the summer break.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human being Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools and tips, because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become and I love that phrase, pen, I do too and please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And, of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings, online in-person conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on-demand platform for your whole organisation and we do have a free Essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools and tips. So do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.