Mastering the Growth Mindset: Leadership, Resilience, and Success with Katie Matthews-Furphy

Summary

In this conversation, Michael Venner and Katie Matthews-Furphy explore the concept of growth mindset, its importance in personal and professional development, and how it relates to mental health and resilience. Katie shares her personal experiences with mental health challenges and bankruptcy, emphasising the role of a growth mindset in overcoming obstacles. They discuss the significance of realistic optimism, self-care, and creating supportive environments in leadership. Practical techniques for managing stress, such as mindfulness and breathing exercises, are also highlighted, along with the importance of community support and effective communication in fostering a growth mindset culture.

Takeaways

• Growth mindset is the belief that abilities can be developed.
• Realistic optimism is more effective than toxic positivity.
• Grit and resilience are essential for overcoming challenges.
• Learning from failure is a crucial part of growth.
• Self-awareness is key to personal and professional development.
• Leaders must model growth mindset behaviours for their teams.
• Mindfulness practices can significantly improve mental health.
• Effective praise should focus on the process, not just the outcome.
• Nutrition and self-care are vital for mental well-being.
• Community support plays a crucial role in personal growth.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Growth Mindset

02:30 Understanding Growth Mindset

05:28 The Importance of Grit and Resilience

08:12 Realistic Optimism vs. Toxic Positivity

10:47 Learning from Mistakes and Failures

13:53 The Role of Self-Awareness in Leadership

16:28 Creating a Culture of Psychological Safety

19:12 Effective Praise and Feedback

21:57 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

26:17 Understanding Communication Through Open Questions

28:38 The Growth Mindset in Leadership

32:42 Mental Health and Growth Mindset

35:30 Praising the Process: A New Approach

43:51 Havening: A Healing Technique

46:24 Calming Techniques and Physical Wellbeing

48:24 Nutrition and Mental Health

54:06 Mindset and Systemic Barriers

59:22 Supporting Mental Health in the Workplace

01:03:24 Self-Care and Personal Wellbeing

01:07:19 Growth Mindset and Continuous Improvement

Key Links

Auva Website: www.auva.com

Apple Podcast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/by-all-standards/id1771677594

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/79OUNj3vY9dmESR3okwHJa?si=871837f56dc149b6

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@auvacertification/podcasts

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/auva-certification-ltd 

Katies Links

Website: https://themindtribeuk.podia.com/

Eventbrite Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1142729828679?aff=oddtdtcreator

Linkedin Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiematthewsfurphy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMindTribeUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themindtribeuk/

Email address: themindtribeuk@gmail.com

Transcript

Michael Venner (00:16)
Hello and welcome everybody to the latest podcast apparently I never introduced myself so someone told me so Michael Venner kind of the host on behalf of all the certification and today we are fortunate enough to be with the hostess with the most s Katie Katie if you want to introduce yourself

Katie (00:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much for having me, Mike. My name is Katie Matthews -Furphy and I'm the founder of the MindTribe UK. It's always hard when people say, introduce yourself and say, what do you do? And I'm like, there's a few different things. Yeah, I think, I think I just get bored easily. I needed a few different things.

Michael Venner (00:45)
Yeah. Yeah, you are quite entrepreneurial. You've got your fingers in lot of pies, haven't you?

You

Katie (00:56)
But my sort of main two pillars would be around sort of mental health and wellbeing, growth mindset, that sort of sector. And then the other side would be around enterprise, particularly inclusive enterprise and getting more people into entrepreneurship from underrepresented, marginalised and minority groups. So I'm sure we'll dig into that as we go through, but that's the very brief introduction of Katie.

Michael Venner (01:15)
That's interesting.

Yeah, that's interesting actually. subject that. Just sort of add as well, you're married to the wonderful Aaron, who was on a couple of, probably a couple of months ago now, talking about, I can't remember what he was talking about actually. Yeah, that was about leadership. Yeah, it's about something to do with quality. Yeah, we bore you to hell with that. yeah.

Katie (01:34)
I think something to do with quality.

Well, Mike, Mike, you started off with that and he specifically said do not mention that you're married to me so I can blame you and say that you brought it up. I don't know. That's it.

Michael Venner (01:47)
really? okay. That's it. Blame me. That's all right. Why do you want not when you mentioned it? We'll just talk about him now then, shall we? Yeah, cool. Yeah. So we're

going to sort of be talking about growth mindset, which kind of has a few got inter weaves with the standards in different ways into sort of leadership, thought leadership into health and safety as well.

So it's kind of a good little subject. Yeah, so be a good kind of conversation looking forward to it. then and I know you can chat so we'll try and keep it not. Yeah, we'll try and keep it fairly concise. Cool. Okay, go on a little introduction. What is growth mindset?

Katie (02:21)
You know me.

So growth mindset is literally my life obsession. It is something that I started to learn about about seven years ago. And it is essentially the belief that your talents, intelligence and abilities can be developed and that they can change. And that that comes through hard work, effort, grit and perseverance. So most of the time people think, well, surely like if I work hard, I'm probably going to get what I want. But it goes beyond that.

So it applies to any age and any stage, which is what I love the most about it. So it doesn't matter how old you are, what job you do, whether you're working or not, if you have a business, if you're an employee, whether you're applying it to kind of the quality side of things as well, it would apply there. Because it essentially comes down to this idea of continual improvement and always working towards some sort of progress.

So a lot of the time, if I said to you, Mike, you know, finish this sentence that we've all been told as children, practice makes.

Right, so everybody says that practice makes perfect, but that's a load of rubbish. You answered my question right, but everybody thinks, you know, practice makes perfect. But if you look up perfect in the dictionary, all it says is the state of something being free from flaws. But as humans, exactly.

Michael Venner (03:35)
thought I it wrong then. so I did get it wrong.

Me.

Katie (03:55)
But the thing is, none of us are perfect and as humans we are already flawed. So what happens is people are already setting themselves up to fail or to be disappointed because you're trying to work towards something that you're never going to be able to achieve. So what Growth Mindset does is it almost flips that and says, we don't need to be perfect, but the thing that is attainable and is achievable that we can always work towards is progress.

So it almost links in with that idea of, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, the Japanese concept of Kaizen.

Michael Venner (04:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that will.

Katie (04:32)
So yeah, so those 1 % improvements, it links in, you know, that continual improvement idea, but it's how you approach everything in your life. And I know we'll probably speak a little bit later about, you know, the kind of like the positivity side of things, but this isn't just about being positive all the time, you know, and kind of whitewashing if you want to think of it that way, everything to say, oh, everything's fantastic, and I'm just going to put all this effort in and everything's going to be fab. It goes a bit deeper than that.

You know, it's about the effort. Yes. But it's also about your creativity. It's about how you work with other people. It's about how you view challenge, how you overcome mistakes that all perceived mistakes should I say that you're not looking at everything and going, my goodness, I'm never going to be able to achieve the things that I want to do. It's well, actually let's look at this from that growth mindset perspective and say, this is the big overarching goal.

But how do we break that down into those smaller 1 %? How do we keep striving towards progression as opposed to trying to strive for perfection?

Michael Venner (05:38)
Interesting. Yeah, because when you say like small 1 % add up, I think it's Toto Wolf from the Mercedes Formula One team. I remember him talking about it once that that's how they conquered, you know, one, I can't think it was about five or six on the trot, I think of the championships and they were just kept looking for those very micro improvements that combine them. It became very powerful. I've heard it's quite a few sportsmen actually and just work in that mindset. So interesting subject.

Katie (05:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (06:06)
Yeah, and I think we mentioned at the start grit and resilience as well. I think that's very much overlooked in a lot of people. You got to have grit and determination and when the chips are down, you got to keep going. There's always things knocking you back as leaders, always something happening. So yeah, it's a good subject. You got to keep that mindset, like I say, positivity, but I suppose being a bit realistic in

Katie (06:09)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Michael Venner (06:31)
the world is I suppose is my sort of little interpretation of that.

Katie (06:33)
Absolutely

and that's That is so true Mike and that's why we say to people, you know, they think also it means It's a misconception of growth mindset that I just have to be positive all the time But when we are trying to be positive in quotes all the time, we're kind of undermining the human experience because as humans we're never gonna be positive all the time because we can't be there's there's things that happen in our lives that you know, we almost start to

undermine or invalidate people's emotions and experiences when we say it well just be positive. You know, I don't know if yourself or even listeners can think of an example of a time when you've maybe been really down or stressed or struggling with something and somebody's gone to you, I'm sure it'll be alright though. Just think positively, you'll be alright.

Michael Venner (07:18)
Yeah, all the time.

Katie (07:19)
And you're going,

well, thanks for that. That was helpful. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't actually do anything. If anything, it almost feels a bit dismissive because it's like, I don't know how to engage with you speaking about something that's difficult. So I'm going to push it away and just say, be positive. And it's not as if people are doing it from a place of nastiness or, know, that they don't care. It's just that a lot of the time people are uncomfortable having those conversations or maybe don't know how.

Michael Venner (07:22)
Yeah.

Katie (07:48)
to talk about their emotions and what they're experiencing because it can be emotive for the other person as well. So instead of coming at it from that perspective of almost toxic positivity where it starts to undermine and diminish people's emotions and experiences, I prefer to call it realistic optimism. So I would say I'm very much a realist. Well, my husband would probably disagree.

somewhere between real and dream world. But definitely the optimism side. You know, I'd always try and look for kind of the silver lining, if you like, and try to look for the positive within something, but not feeling that I have to be positive all the time. You know, it's okay for us to feel the feelings, you know, and to go through that process.

Michael Venner (08:15)
You

Yeah, I'd say I was quite an optimistic person. I'll try never to look at the downside. It does get to you. I suppose it's about being aware of your emotions a little bit. Yeah.

Katie (08:39)
Mm-hmm.

There's definitely that part of that, yeah, definitely

that self awareness. Self awareness is a big part of growth mindset because it's taking that realistic look at where am I now? What has happened? What mistakes have I made? You know, what are those perceived failures? And almost dissecting those. So just a trigger warning for anybody that is watching, I'll be mentioning about mental illness. So I was diagnosed with depression when I was 17.

and anxiety when I was 22. And it's something I still live with, I still have those diagnoses, something I still have to manage on a daily basis, going to counselling, et cetera. But going through those challenges and having an invisible disability and all these myriad of things going on, it can really kind of grind you down. And you start to get to a point where you just think, is it going to be like this forever?

But having that growth mindset approach has really helped me to kind of almost step back and analyze. And that's where the deconstructing of the mistakes came in. Because I started to realize, well, actually, all these perceived failures is actually just part of the learning journey. It's part of that learning process. You know, I know, obviously, yourself, Mike, have children. When your children were learning to walk, what was that process like?

How did they get to that point of being able to walk?

Michael Venner (10:04)
How did they sort of physically or mentally or how did that entire process go?

Katie (10:08)
Yeah, so

they weren't just born into the world walking, were they? What did they have to do first?

Michael Venner (10:13)
only walking no well

initially they're just laying there like a blob and they roll them around for a few months then they start to sit up and then you can see them sort of shuffling a little bit and crawling I remember it specifically with my oldest where we had like a... I think it's like a... not a futon... anyway in front of the couch

Katie (10:21)
you

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Michael Venner (10:43)
kept pulling himself up. know, you put your foot up, but you can lift it up and that's where you hide all your stuff that don't want visitors to see. And he would get himself up, hold himself up and he would just walk around and around and around and around. But if he let go, he would fall. But then eventually, obviously, that started to develop and things like that. That's kind of how I remember that process working. He just kept trying and trying and making little changes, I suppose.

Katie (10:43)
the perfect thing in the middle.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. when, let's say when he was crawling, you know, and then moving to that stage of pulling himself up onto things, when he took those first steps, I bet you didn't turn around and say, God, you're actually really rubbish at walking. Like you should probably stop. You know, we don't turn around. We don't say, you you're not really good at this. You're not really getting it. So probably just don't do that anymore.

Michael Venner (11:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katie (11:40)
You know, with children we encourage them to keep trying to make those small changes to keep striving to make progress. But it seems to almost be knocked out of us. I don't know if that's through the schooling system or just through life experiences or what happens, but it seems to be as we get older, that fear of failure increases and we almost have that beaten out of us where it's

No, no, you have to get it right. You have to get everything right the first time. And as humans, we're not going to get things right all the time and sometimes not going to get it right at all. You know, but that's part of that learning journey is that we have to make that progress. We have to practice. We have to learn. And as I say, you know, we don't look at children and say, you shouldn't just, you shouldn't do that anymore. You should give up. We always encourage them to keep trying. But when it seems to come to adults,

especially workplaces and things as well, know, managers, why didn't you get that right? Why didn't you understand that? But it's almost like a teacher in school. Like I don't know if you had a teacher in school, Mike, that you really hated. And if they're not me, model student, but if there was somebody.

Michael Venner (12:45)
We all did.

you

Mine

was my French teacher. Yeah, yeah, was terrible at it. Yeah, not good. Yeah, sorry, go on. You're giving me nightmares now, I'm going to be dreaming of that tonight.

Katie (12:56)
How was it?

No, you're grand, but if you...

But everybody's got somebody in their head, whether it's a teacher, a manager, a family member even, like somebody that always comes in and has to say, you did that wrong. Why didn't you understand that? Why didn't you try hard enough? And it may actually not be a case of that you didn't try hard enough. You may have actually been trying your hardest, but...

Maybe it wasn't explained to you in a way that you understood. Maybe you didn't have the prior knowledge to understand that new concept. Maybe you'd never been shown, you know, effectively. So let's say people that are kinesthetic learners, it's no point in the manager saying to them, this is how I need you to go and do this without showing them. You know, so it's that thing of, as we get older, it seems to get knocked out of us. This,

want to try and try again and we build up this big fear of failure and getting things wrong and making mistakes and that would be probably one of the biggest mistakes that I'm very you know open speaking about is I was actually bankrupt at the age of 26 so I'll leave that little bombshell there for a minute and it was embracing a growth mindset that helped me to

recover from that and to build back now a successful business where I'm a sole trader, but I've now got, you know, six figure turnover, public contracts, tenders, and I'm doing the best we've ever done, you know, but that didn't come overnight. That's six years of rebuilding from absolutely nothing, you know.

Michael Venner (14:37)
Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of kind of fame famous entrepreneurs that have, you know, failed if you want to call it that multiple times, you know, who's the Dragon's Den guy? Peter Jones. I'm pretty sure he went bankrupt a couple of times at some point. But like you say, I think it's that growth mindset that I can do this. Something's going to happen. I learned from the experience, I suppose. That's a key bit learning from it and you know.

Katie (14:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Michael Venner (15:02)
picking yourself up and going again.

Katie (15:05)
Well, absolutely. It really, that's the key bit. It is the learning from it. And it's acknowledging, yes, I have made this mistake to have that self-awareness to go, actually, that was my fault. You know, because that's hard to do. It's a painful process to actually admit that you're in the wrong about something and that I should have listened. You know, I should have listened to my husband. My husband's a business consultant. He knew, he knew all the signs. He kept trying to tell me, but I wasn't prepared to listen. And I wasn't in...

Michael Venner (15:20)
Mmm. Yeah.

Katie (15:33)
the right headspace with my mental illness to separate the fact that it wasn't a personal attack, it wasn't an emotional thing, it was him coming at it from a logical perspective and saying, actually, if you take that bird's eye view and zoom out a little bit from this and detach the emotion, this is what's actually happening and this is what's going wrong. But because I wasn't in that headspace to be able to separate, I thought,

he's going at me here, this is a personal thing, but it wasn't. And that was part of the really difficult learning from those sort of, probably the first three months or so was actually to sit down and go, you were right, I was wrong, I should have listened. I don't say that to him very often, but I should have... What else can we say about him? Say it! But I should have, I should have listened and I wasn't prepared to.

Michael Venner (16:15)
Make sure he doesn't listen to this episode!

Katie (16:28)
And that's hard, you know, to acknowledge that and admit that, yes, I was wrong and I've made these mistakes and I should have asked for help earlier. But as we said, it's part of that learning experience. And now six years later, we always call them board meetings. It's just me and him, but we have board meetings now where we discuss things and I still struggle to manage finance. That's always my biggest thing that I struggle with and managing cashflow.

you know, that's big thing I would struggle with. So I would say to him, you know, can you help me with this? I've also got now a really good accountant that guides me and that takes the stress out of it. And that helps me then with the mental illness side of things that my anxiety isn't through the roof constantly worrying about paying the tax man.

Michael Venner (17:13)
That's interesting. So it's kind of it sounds like leaders have got to have that growth mindset, but they've also got to be wary of their employees and how they can help them. Especially when you said about the learning process, it's learning how to teach, I suppose, is part of the leadership element of that and keeping the right growth mindset. Yeah. OK.

Katie (17:21)
city day.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Well, there's

that part of role model in the behavior as well. Because, you know, if we want to create cultures that have psychological safety, to allow people to make mistakes, to allow people to challenge the status quo, we have to model that behavior ourselves. But we also have to allow people the freedom and the space and the time to learn to make mistakes, to actually develop and not

cut people down and just say, you know, that's wrong. Why do you do it like this? It's well actually tell me your thought process behind that. Let's look at a way that we could maybe move this forward more effectively. Or is there some additional training or support that you would like to increase your knowledge in this area? So looking at the different aspects of it as opposed to just your incompetent.

Michael Venner (18:20)
Hmm, yeah, yeah, which could be a challenge, can't it? So I just feel like throttling people sometimes. So how can leaders kind of learn how to do this really? Do they need, is there a kind of a step process? They need to be self-aware first or they've got to get their own growth mindset before they can then start trying to flow that down the chain, I suppose, chain of command. How can they approach this?

Katie (18:21)
You

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah,

I think you're definitely right there. does start with the self-awareness piece because it's being aware of like, it's almost like doing a personal SWOT analysis rather than like a business. Yeah, that's what I was doing when you're a workshop with people. That's something I would teach in those growth mindset sessions is doing a SWOT analysis of yourself and saying, well, actually, this is something that I struggle with and also recognizing your triggers. So, know, we

Michael Venner (18:55)
Yeah, I've done one of those before. Yeah,

Yeah.

Katie (19:13)
see this a lot on social media being thrown around like, oh, I'm triggered. But there is real kind of cadence to that. Like being triggered by something is genuine. There's obviously something there inside of us. We can all think of situations. Let's take the easiest example of, let's say you're getting really angry about something, and you're getting really irate and frustrated. And I turn around to you and I say, Mike, will you just calm down?

Does that help you calm down? No.

Michael Venner (19:40)
No, and to be honest I'd

probably do that to my wife. I feel like I'm in the therapy!

Katie (19:50)
Everyone says this when they speak to me, they're like, it's like going to therapy session.

Michael Venner (19:54)
I think I need to lie back. yeah, she I do say that quite often, must admit, and she has shouted at me before. Don't tell me to calm down. Just calm down. But yeah, OK. So.

Katie (20:04)
Yeah.

But we all do it. I'm not

sitting here preaching and saying, know, you're wrong for that. I do it. I do it too. go, God, what's wrong with you? Wise up. You know, and then you think about it afterwards and you go, God, that probably wasn't actually that helpful. In that moment.

Michael Venner (20:19)
Probably not,

I suppose you're dismissing their emotions, aren't you? That's what it boils down to.

Katie (20:26)
Well, that's how it is thinking about things from other people's perspective, you know, and actually recognising to say, hold on, why have they responded in this way? And then looking back, hold on, what have I done to contribute to this? But also sometimes it's not actually about us. You know, a lot of the time we do that as humans, we think, it must be about me. But sometimes it's actually something they're going through. Maybe they've had an email coming from somebody that stressed them out. Maybe they've had a phone call.

maybe the dog's playing up, you know, maybe something has happened that has triggered something within them and then that's the last little thing that kind of tips them over the edge if you like. But us then turning around and going, god, just calm down. That's never going to make anybody feel calm. You know? So what I try to do, now it's not to say I get it right all the time, but what I try to do is say things like, what do you need from me in this moment? What do you need from me currently?

Michael Venner (21:03)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Katie (21:21)
because sometimes it's, need you to go away. Like I need five, 10 minutes where I can just have time and space away from everybody. You know, I need to decompress and people think because I'm very, you know, bubbly and talkative and stuff, people think, she must be like that all the time. But I still need that time, you know, to come down and to connect with myself again, but also to like center and decompress.

You know, I usually use my car journeys on the way home, say like after a workshop or something, I would use that car journey to just drive in silence. And that kind of allows me to like decompress a bit. So by the time I get home, I'm not coming in, you know, raging and stuff.

Michael Venner (21:57)
Hmm.

Yeah, okay. So Aaron's disconnected your radio there, so just...

Katie (22:09)
I was gonna say he's probably cut the brakes too, but I wouldn't accuse him of that, so...

Michael Venner (22:12)
Ha ha ha.

Okay, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah,

okay. So how... I suppose... I'm probably struggling to see how this adapts to growth mindset, like the mental health element of it. How does that kind of adapt to the having a growth mindset, you know, trying to achieve something?

Katie (22:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so it's something that takes a bit of time to learn about growth mindset. So there's a lot of kind of, they call it the false growth mindset trap that you'd fall into. So for anybody that's interested in like learning more about it and reading, the fantastic professor who theorized this is called Carol Dweck. And she has a book which is just called mindset. So that can be a really good starting point.

And it kind of takes you through different scenarios, takes you through the theory. But what she did was go into big organizations like Microsoft, like Google, going into schools, university settings, and seeing how when it was applied, that there was actual impact being created and how it was then affecting and improving people's mental health at the same time. So with Growth Mindset, it goes beyond effort.

It's not just about trying hard. It's about, you know, if we find maybe a different solution to something. It's about how we praise ourselves. So when we offer praise or feedback, a lot of the time it's what's called empty praise. So if somebody does something well, a lot of the time we'll go, good job. Like with children, we'll go, good boy, good girl.

But what does that actually mean?

Michael Venner (23:51)
Bye.

Katie (23:52)
You know, what's good? What have they done that's good? And you know, so it's actually, it's like when in the workplace, when people provide feedback and they say that, yeah, good job on that. Did that really well. And they're like, okay, thank you. But that's not helping me grow. It's not helping me learn anything because you'll say, yes, it's fantastic that you've made that observation that yes, you've done a good job, but we need to go a bit deeper than that because that's the bit that actually

Michael Venner (23:56)
Okay.

Katie (24:20)
links with people's mental health and well-being, it links with their self-confidence, it links with their risk taken so that they become more likely to try new things, that fear of failure becomes removed, it improves the psychological safety, that culture that you create in a workplace by making people feel seen, by making people feel appreciated. So when we're offering praise and feedback, it's not just a case of that was really good, it's that was really good because

and giving something extra or saying I've noticed that you did this and picking up on that. It's like, say,

Michael Venner (24:56)
Is it being a bit

more specific? it? Is that what it kind of boils down to? Yeah. OK.

Katie (25:00)
Absolutely. Yeah, which I'm not very

good at is getting to the point. no, I'm not going to get into the point. I need to learn to be more specific.

Michael Venner (25:05)
Sorry.

Katie (25:12)
But that is that that's definitely, you know, part of the effective praise process is to be specific about something, to make a comment on something that you've noticed. So say, for example, maybe yourself or maybe listeners have been in a scenario where a child has done them a drawing, maybe a young child, and they bring you home a picture and they show you it and you go, my goodness, what is that?

Michael Venner (25:34)
I was clearing up earlier this morning because I've got a stack of crap and I found so much that my sons have brought in at various times. Look at this one here. It's got loads of it there and I'm looking at some of it I'm like, the hell is that?

Katie (25:40)
Mm-hmm.

Very good.

Yeah. And that happens all the time. You you think, what is that? Like, I don't know what you've drawn here. But a way that we can ask a question to make it, to get that conversation, one, you're finding out what they've actually drawn, but two, how to praise it is to say to them, wow, this is so creative or God, I really like what you've done here. Talk to me about your picture.

So you're not actually saying anything specific yet because you don't know what it is you're commenting on. But if you say to them, talk to me about your picture or tell me about your picture or describe it to me, what's all this then? Tell me about it. You're still seeming enthusiastic and engaged and excited and positive about what they're showing you. So they know, okay, it's okay to open up, but actually finding out as well, what is it they've done and how can I then praise this?

Michael Venner (26:17)
Yeah.

Katie (26:40)
And if it's something, you know, they say, this is a drawing of you, dad. And it looks like a square or something. And you're like, thank you.

Michael Venner (26:48)
Yeah, because

I've often guessed what it was and got it really wrong and yeah, I got myself in trouble. What are you talking about? It's obvious. okay.

Katie (26:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. You clearly it's that. And you're like, yeah, I can see that now. But that's a really good way around it, you know, to say, like, talk to me about that. And it's the same even if, say, like, in a workplace, you know, if somebody brings you something and you're not fully understanding it or understanding where they're coming from, going with that open question, say, talk to me about this.

Michael Venner (26:59)
I can see it now, yeah yeah, silly me.

Katie (27:21)
Tell me a bit more about this side of it. I'm just trying to understand. I'm trying to get a feel for your perspective on this or how you're coming at this, the angle that you're taking on this. Because again, communication is a big challenge for a lot of people because in our minds, we think everybody is mind readers. We're like, well, I understand it, so why don't you?

You know, and that's what happens with managers a lot.

Michael Venner (27:46)
suppose we do it a little bit during auditing because the technique is open questions. We just ask someone to explain it to understand the process, understand what's going on. That's a big part of what we do. I suppose I'd need to do that in other things, not just during the auditing process, don't I? Yeah, OK.

Katie (27:56)
Mm-hmm.

But it is is

taking that but that's that's like brilliant from it not sound patronizing but that's brilliant from you because that is that self-awareness to go actually Why am I not taking that that I utilize in my professional life and I can use that transferable skill and take it across to other aspects of my life You know No

Michael Venner (28:21)
So I'm going to have to be auditing all the time, is that what you're saying? Just in auditing mode.

Katie (28:27)
No, I live with somebody who does that, so no, please do not audit everything. Very stressful. He's like, sorry, can I actually raise a non-conformance here? And I'm like, no.

Michael Venner (28:29)
you

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

You're cooking, I'm gonna write

you up here!

Katie (28:42)
goodness mate. I'm like

go for the praise, go for the effective praise. Tell me something you did like about it. Yeah, it looked like food. It was on a plate. But there is that real... go on Mike, sorry. I was just gonna say about the link of mental health there, you know.

Michael Venner (28:48)
Yeah, it was warm.

You

So how? Yeah, I was going to say.

Yeah, I was going to kind of say, how does as a business leader then, how do you get that growth mindset? Because often you're the one, excuse me, out there kind of delivering the praise, doing things, you know, trying to encourage others, trying to get everyone on board. How do you yourself keep that?

Katie (29:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (29:24)
that growth mindset.

Katie (29:26)
It is a challenge. It's something that you have to practice. it's not to say, you know, I, whenever I deliver training on growth mindset, I talk about that mindset is a continuum. So you've got fixed mindset at one end and you've got growth mindset at the other. As humans, you're like, we're never going to fully be on one end or the other. We're always going to be somewhere on that continuum and different things that are happening external to us or around us are going to impact.

where we are on that scale. It could be on a day-to-day basis, it could be on an hour-by-hour basis. So it's keeping that connection with yourself to check in, that self-awareness to say, okay, let me take stock for 10 seconds. How am I feeling at the moment? Is there a better way that I can approach this? Do I need to ask somebody else for help? And for leaders particularly, that could be things like delegation, because that's something I struggle with. That's why I'm a sole trader.

Because I very much struggled to delegate because in my mind I'm going I want it done to this standard or I want it done in this way and Nobody else can do it like that, even though they're probably more than capable but in my mind I'm like no it has to be done this way so it's almost learning as well to to let go and relinquish a little bit of that control and That can be very hard for business leaders is the control aspect

Michael Venner (30:20)
you

Yeah.

definitely. Especially if it's like say you've been a sole trader for just say five, six years or something like that. And then you suddenly think I need employees. That initial step of getting employees on can be very hard and to relinquish control. I'm actually quite good at it. I don't know if it's because I'm lazy, but I like to understand how something works. And then I'm very happy just to you can do this now.

Katie (30:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (31:12)
then at least I know what should be done and how to get to the eventual goal. How you get there I'm not too worried.

Katie (31:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

No, but that's a good thing because you're giving people their opportunity to grow and to develop and learn as well. You know, you're not being prescriptive and saying you can only do it this way because that's the way I've told you to do it. You know, because everybody, like the way we are as humans, know, all our brains operate differently. You know, we've got people that are neurodivergent, they're absolutely incredible at what they do.

Michael Venner (31:31)
Hmm.

Katie (31:44)
that think about things completely differently to the way somebody that's neurotypical would think about it. And that they would look at each other and maybe go, that's completely wrong. But it's not wrong, it's just different. You know?

Michael Venner (31:49)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you do get some interesting ways of getting to the same goal. say get to the same goal, they try to.

Katie (32:03)
Mm-hmm.

But going back to what we were saying there about you know kind of that mindset continuum and how to actually like improve then as a leader with the growth mindset It would be things like developing that self-awareness Asking for help when you need it Doing things like mindfulness mindfulness meditation visualization can all be really powerful

We've obviously got that fixed mindset and growth mindset. And as I say, you know, we're always going to be somewhere on that scale, but it's not necessarily just what's happening within us that is affecting that is what's going on around us as well. And that's where it links in with the mental health side of things, particularly because one of the biggest factors or

Drivers of anxiety is a feeling of being out of control and I know that's where a lot of my anxiety would stem from is feeling that I have to control everything or make sure that everything is done a certain way or that I have got kind of full awareness of everything But when my anxiety starts to flare up, that's when I find it harder to embrace a growth mindset You know and I find it hard to have that realistic optimism

Michael Venner (32:47)
Mm-hmm.

Katie (33:10)
because my anxiety is almost fighting against that. You know?

Michael Venner (33:13)
Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, because I don't feel like I get anxious and I don't get anxiety. It's something that's always... I often think about it and I see people get stressed out and I can often tell when people are getting anxious and I kind of try to try and back off and things like that. It's never really been something that's impacted me. So it's quite hard for me to appreciate it, I suppose.

Katie (33:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Michael Venner (33:36)
I suppose I appreciate it, I don't understand it fully because I don't experience it. I'm not too sure if I got that around the right way but some people do. Yeah, I can see it can be quite crippling for people, know, and I've spotted it in the workplace as well that certain people I can tell when they're getting really anxious and worried about something and things like that.

Katie (33:44)
No you're okay, we know what you mean.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (34:02)
Yeah, so I suppose they need to do something for their mental health, like you say, and just appreciate it, understand it and try and do something to aid yourself. Turn the radio off.

Katie (34:07)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, that's

it and you know that I found that when I It's almost like in tandem when am I when I improved or worked on improving my mental health or mental illness I found it easier to do the growth mindset development I found them going hand-in-hand, you know, because the growth mindset is particularly to do with resilience but when you are Maybe extremely anxious or feeling very depressed or going through a period of extreme stress

Michael Venner (34:25)
I can see.

Katie (34:39)
It's hard to, as we said earlier about the emotion, it's hard to step back and detach almost from that emotion and say, let me look at what I could do to continually improve here. You know, it's very difficult to do that when you're in the moment. It's a lot easier in hindsight. but there are certain questions and things that you can ask yourself that are growth mindset focused. So simple questions like on a daily basis or a weekly basis, you know, what did I learn from that? Did I ask for help when I needed it?

What could I praise myself for? So maybe it was the effort you put in. Maybe it was the fact that you did ask for help. Maybe it was that you found an alternative solution to something. Maybe it was your creativity, the communication. You know, there's so much that we can praise ourselves for that is in what's like outcome based essentially. So in growth mindset, they call it praising the process, not just praising the product. So

Michael Venner (35:30)
Yes,

OK.

Katie (35:31)
A lot

of the time our feedback that's given and received is product based. It's all based on this. You are only worthy of praise if you get an A. You're only worthy if you got your certificate renewed. You're only worthy enough if you achieved X, Y, Z. But if we focus on this process praise as well, all the things that it took to get to that point, not only does it create

a psychologically safe culture where people are more likely to try and more likely to yes to fail but they're more likely to get creative solutions because they've been given that time and space to fail and to learn.

Michael Venner (36:09)
Yeah,

yeah, I suppose you're getting the reward through the process, not the end result. It's all about the journey. Yeah, so you still getting that dopamine hit, I suppose, of getting that reward as you're going along. Okay, yeah, can kind of see how it all sort of gels together now. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, so if you...

Katie (36:27)
But it does

seem like a bit of a it does seem like an intangible thing first of all when you hear about what does that mean is just another buzzword, you know

Michael Venner (36:33)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, but it's definitely opened my eyes up to it. Do you know of Stoicism? They say you're never a Stoic, but I like to practice Stoicism. one of things you mentioned there was about where did I do well? Where was my communication good? Things like that.

Katie (36:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (36:54)
So an actual practice of Stoicism which I've tried and I've never really accomplished it very well I must admit. So I think I'm going to get a specific Stoic journal but anyway that's one of the tools in that. It's one of the toolkits of Stoicism is having a daily reflection. At the end of each day where could I have been better? Maybe I lost my temper with the kids. Happens very often.

Katie (37:08)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yep.

Michael Venner (37:16)
Where did I

succeed? Where did I do well? So I think it's very good practice actually. I was doing it on my phone but I feel like if I had something hard, a copy, like a journal, next to the bed, yeah next to my bed of an evening and I'll write, I'll make a few little notes. I think that would be a very good practice actually. But I know a lot of people do it so yeah that's quite a good thing.

Katie (37:28)
I'm the same, I like to actually write stuff.

Well, that's something

that people can do. For some people, know, for me, I love writing. I've actually got a degree in English with linguistics. Like, I love writing. But my fear as somebody who lives with mental illness is that whatever I write down, that I can't journal. Because if I journal, I've got this irrational fear that somebody's going to find it and that I'm going to be like, hospitalized or something. Like, locked up.

Yeah, so very PC language, Mike, know, so.

Michael Venner (38:10)
Kate is a nutter! Yeah sorry, I funny, I

said that, thought I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, sorry. We'll scrub that bit out, yeah.

Katie (38:19)
No, we know

the intention behind it isn't nasty, so it's okay. You're still allowed a bit of crack, like, is it? Well, that's a bit... Sometimes I think as well, people would get so offended by everything as well, and you're like, it's okay to have a bit of a laugh at yourself as well, do you know what mean? You can probably tell why I like to laugh, so...

Michael Venner (38:23)
No it wasn't at all, Yeah that's it, lucky you know me.

Yeah, like you say,

none of us are perfect. We've all got health flaws and yeah, that's okay. Yeah, it's interesting that. So is there any other tips that people can do to try and help with a mental kind of resilience or clarity or just your mental health type things people can do? You obviously turn off your radio to get clear in your own mind. Is there anything else other people can do?

Katie (38:43)
Exactly. You know.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so my

I Would do that I drive in silence on the way home, but I like to listen to music that has got Delta waves in it. I don't know what people know so sorry if I sound like I'm lecturing anybody but we have obviously different stages of sleep and when we're in the REM like the REM rapid eye movement stage of sleep and that's the stage in which our brain and body actually does the healing and That is

Michael Venner (39:08)
Okay.

Katie (39:25)
produced as I say when we are asleep is quite hard for us to produce when we're awake. So what I do is I listen to music that has Delta waves in it. It helps me to concentrate but it's also like healing my body and cells and all that at the same time. But there's also certain practices you can do there's something called Havening and Havening is used a lot particularly in America to treat veterans and people that struggle with PTSD or complex PTSD.

and it's all to do with touch and pressure points. So a really, really simple one. Actually, let me ask you question first rather than showing you. Yeah, you're like, what's next? You'll be coming off this like, my goodness, was too much. So pretend that you are... Nope, not yet. I'm going to do that in second. If somebody was stressed...

Michael Venner (40:02)
me on the spot again do I need to lay back

you

Katie (40:17)
How might they physically show it? So if I said to me, almost like play charades, act out for me somebody that looks stressed. How would you, without any words, how would you show me somebody stressed?

Mm-hmm. Might bite their nails. What else might they do?

Michael Venner (40:31)
see them very tired. I notice people if they're stressed I can see that so they're obviously not sleeping very well so then you sort of think you're not looking too you're not looking too healthy in a in a kind of that way. Fidgety yeah let's not say fidgeting and you know hair and think moving stuff yeah just really yeah I suppose

Katie (40:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, do you ever see people doing this?

Yep, rubbing their heads or maybe... Yep. Mm-hmm. Maybe people

rubbing their hands together. People do this quite a lot or rubbing... So I'm stressing you out, so... But that is your body trying to regulate. That is your body naturally doing it. So we have 15 pressure points in each hand.

Michael Venner (41:01)
Yeah, that's how I've been doing this entire podcast actually.

Okay.

Katie (41:19)
And that's why I think and our feet too, that's why reflexology works. So it's tapping into those pressure points. But the simplest way you can haven, you can haven yourself and you can haven other people, is to pretend that you're holding a marble in your hand and you're going to roll it all the way around. Excuse my psoriasis by the way, if anybody can see that on the screen, sorry. Pretend you're rolling a marble all the way around and you're getting as much contact.

Michael Venner (41:26)
Okay.

Katie (41:46)
Would you like to join in Mike and do it with me?

Michael Venner (41:49)
I haven't got a ball. got a phone one. you just imagined. Right. See I got it wrong straight away. So I'll do that. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Learning. I get it is really wrong.

Katie (41:50)
No, you don't know. No, just imagine. No, you just imagine. No, you're learning. You're learning growth mindset.

So you're gonna roll that marble around, the imaginary marble, and you're both all the way, yep, so you're getting as much contact with as many pressure points as you can in your fingers. But you'll notice that as you start to do this, you will start to feel yourself starting to calm down because this is producing delta waves in your brain.

Michael Venner (42:09)
fingers or my hand? Is it like that? Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Katie (42:29)
So, you know, we said about in the REM stage of sleep, that's when our brain produces it naturally, but this is a way that we can produce it. You'll be sitting there the whole time. You'll be like, I'm literally so calm. But that's just one place you can haven. You can haven on your face as well. So you can make like heart shapes from between your eyeballs around to your chin. And you'll find a lot of people do this and straight away they go,

Michael Venner (42:34)
stupider isn't it?

Very zen.

Katie (42:56)
feels really nice or I do that to my kids to get them to sleep or my mum used to do that to me and rub in here so because it's therapeutic touch it produces Delta wave so it's healing for people the one the other one you can do in your face is called a shower which is where you get your palms and you don't drag your face down but you gently rub right from the top all the way down so that gives you like the big hit if you like because it's giving you that

Michael Venner (43:22)
Okay.

Katie (43:24)
kind of big boost because you're getting all that contact between all the pressure points in your face and your hands. And then the last place that you can have them is on your arms. So this goes back to when we were children, like when we were babies. If you think about holding a child, the place that always has the most contact is the upper arms. That's the bit that's always supported. So this links back to that idea of like security from when we were kids. So

Michael Venner (43:29)
Alright, okay.

Mm.

Katie (43:51)
If you may have seen maybe your own children at some point or other people's children, when they maybe go into themselves and they might go like this on their arms, almost like there's a protection thing. That's what it's going back to. It's that security, security blanket. So you rub down your arms, but I extend it and go across my hands then as well. So I'm getting both of them, a double hip. Exactly. So down the arms and across the hands and you're meant to do.

Michael Venner (44:14)
It's a

Katie (44:20)
at least 30 of those before you start to actually feel like, that feels really, but even doing a few of those, you feel like a little bit more refreshed or something. And as I say, that is producing those delta waves in your brain. So that's a way that you can almost like hack your brain and do it when you're awake. So it's the same as if you think about when we comfort somebody, if I walked over to you, obviously we're not in the same room, but if I walked over to you and tried to comfort you and you were sad, where would I probably touch on you?

Michael Venner (44:47)
Is Aaron watching or not? It's not going to listen to this anyway. I guess around here, is it? And then around the back.

Katie (44:48)
I was gonna say, up off the waist, where would we?

Are we cutting that bit or are leaving that bit in?

you

Well think of, if I came at, say we're in a workplace, okay, we're in a workplace and you're upset and I want to comfort you, where do most people then actually put their hand on people? Because I wouldn't come up to you and put my hand on your chest, where would I put it?

Michael Venner (45:17)
I dunno, shoulder or back is it? Yeah, yeah.

Katie (45:19)
shoulder or back yeah

here we're most likely to touch that place or to touch somebody's hand because we know instinctively as humans that that is where to touch people for comfort so that is we're drawn to do that so our body knows to do all of these things so we're just tapping into that and then using that as like a modality of healing them god sorry i know i went off on a big tangent there i love havenin so that's why i was like

Michael Venner (45:24)
Yeah.

I've heard of the Delta waves, I have tried that by neural beats isn't it type thing. Yeah, so I've tried that sleeping and things like that. But yeah, I didn't know about the Havening, that's interesting. Yeah, haven't heard of that.

Katie (45:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So that's something that's really simple that you can do. if, say, you're in a workplace and you're maybe conscious that you don't want to be sitting there, you know, being like in front of everyone, you may feel a bit strange. You can do it. This part of your palm is connected to your solar plexus. So the place in which you feel the butterflies in the nerves or that sicky feeling when you feel a bit anxious or overwhelmed. So I just say to people, turn your hands over.

Michael Venner (46:08)
Yeah.

Katie (46:25)
and you can rub, you can still rub circles on your palm but that way round and then people can't see it. Yeah. So if you're in a meeting, you can just sit and do that or just pop your hand under the desk and you can still do it and people don't need to know that you're doing it. You know, the other thing you can do as well is to pinch this point here.

Michael Venner (46:29)
People can't see, yeah, just see it. Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Katie (46:48)
There's a pressure point there that if you pinch that, that's really good for calming as well. Yep. And you've also got, what's the other one I was gonna say? You've got your pressure point there. Oh yeah, tapping. So you may have heard of EFT or emotional freedom technique. So tapping, again, pressure points. You've got them here, you've got them on your chin, you've got all different places here. You've got them. But if you are very anxious, say you were like almost...

on the verge of a panic attack, so I used have panic attacks, or like very, very overwhelmed and stressed. You can make two fists and punch, no, you make two fists. You've got the pressure points in your wrist, so you can tap your wrist together.

Michael Venner (47:24)
I was waiting for that!

You

Okay, yep.

Katie (47:33)
And

that's a way of kind of moving the energy and tapping literally into those pressure points. So that's some of the the physical stuff, but even going back to basics as well, know, looking, I'm not sitting here preaching to anybody by any means, you know, I need to lose a hell of a lot of weight, but looking at the nutrition side of things, you know, are you getting enough fruit and vegetables? Are you getting enough water? Are you having enough vitamin D in your diet? Because vitamin D affects our mental health and wellbeing. And that also can come from sunlight.

Unfortunately in Northern Ireland we don't get much of it so every day I'm like, little vitamin D supplement! It is good, you know, it's giving you that little thing that you haven't got basically, you know. So, doing things like that then you've also got seeking the professional support if you need it. You know, I went through specialised trauma counselling and that's probably a whole nother podcast so I won't get into...

Michael Venner (48:01)
I mean I'll take vitamin D supplements.

Katie (48:24)
I won't trauma dump anybody at this stage, you know going through that specialized counseling that was somatic therapy, so looking at the body and the mind together, spending time with friends and family, doing things that you enjoy and people think you know our self-care or kind of looking after myself has to be big long practices, you know I've got to carve out a whole day or I've got to set aside an hour to do this, but it's the little bits as well.

You know, that mindfulness could be when, I don't know, when I'm letting the dogs out for a wee in the morning, just stopping and looking at the sky, noticing the sounds of the birds, maybe taking my cup of tea out when it's not raining and sitting out there. Not often, yeah. So twice a year. But those little things, you know, or even doing a little breath work activity that doesn't have to, again, be really long. You can do it for literally a couple of minutes.

Michael Venner (49:03)
often.

Katie (49:16)
or do it while you're doing something else. Like when I'm driving again, if I'm thinking, right, I need, I need to actually like properly kind of calm down or de-stress here. I'll do a bit of breath work whilst I'm driving home. Obviously don't close your eyes when you're doing it, if you're driving. But one that's really great is I don't know you've heard of it, the four, seven, eight breathing.

Michael Venner (49:35)
No.

Katie (49:36)
So it may have heard of it as triangle breathing. So, like I just know to breathe. But if I said to you, Mike, take a big deep breath in.

Michael Venner (49:39)
No, I just know normal breathing.

Katie (49:46)
Right, what part of your body moved?

Michael Venner (49:48)
the chest, obviously as I'm filling the lungs.

Katie (49:49)
where else moved.

Michael Venner (49:51)
My shoulders came up, my stomach went in a bit.

Katie (49:54)
Right,

shoulders. That, you're actually doing shallow breathing because your shoulders are moving. So that's what most of us are existing on all the time in our work days and in our lives. We're always shallow breathing. We're not actually doing proper diaphragmic breathing is the proper name for it. I've just come on to let you Mike, that's all it is. So, you know.

Michael Venner (50:14)
getting in trouble again. I know, know,

you're telling me off.

Katie (50:23)
You're like, why did I get everyone as a guest again? Remind me. But we're all guilty of it. All of us, you know, we breathe most of the time from this shallow place and we're not actually getting a proper breath. We're not diaphragmically breathing. So we're very stressed all the time. Our shoulders are going up and down. So when we take a proper breath, a belly breath, a diaphragmic breath, whatever you want to call it, our shoulders should actually remain in the same position. And it should only be our chest and our stomachs that are moving.

Michael Venner (50:25)
You

Katie (50:53)
So we're breathing in through our nose. You have to almost concentrate when you're doing it first of all to make that connection. It is to connect that part of your mind and your body. So you're breathing in through your nose. Sometimes it can help if you put your hands on your stomach so that you can actually feel that movement. So as you're breathing in through your nose, you'll feel it like a balloon expanding and then out through your mouth as if you're like blowing out a candle like like pursed lips. And you can feel the diaphragm coming back.

Michael Venner (50:55)
Yeah, I was going to say this sounds tricky. Yeah, go on.

Okay, yeah, I've got it.

Katie (51:22)
in and up them and contract them. So that, that is, that's the proper breath, that's the diaphragmic breathing. Okay. But most of us don't do that. We're just existing in this all the time. And what happens is on like a biological level, the more carbon dioxide you have in your blood, the more stress and anxious you feel. So that's why it's really important for exercises like this four, seven, eight.

Michael Venner (51:25)
Yeah, suppose. Yeah, OK. Feel the difference.

Okay.

Katie (51:49)
You breathe in for four seconds. You hold it for seven seconds. I'll just keep talking and you, and yeah. And you breathe out for eight seconds. So if you're struggling to do four, seven, eight, you can do three, five, six or five, seven, nine. The most important thing is that your in-breath is your shortest. Your hold is the middle amount of time and your out-breath is the longest. That's the crucial bit because.

Michael Venner (51:56)
I'm doing it as you say it, go on.

Katie (52:18)
when you're breathing out for longer, you're getting rid, you're expelling the excess carbon dioxide that's in your blood. So that is what brings your stress levels back down to normal because you're getting rid of the excess. So that's the important thing is to breathe out for longer than you're breathing in. And that can help you when you feel very overwhelmed, when you can't concentrate, when you feel like you can't go over to sleep. Try the four, seven, eight, try that technique.

And hopefully you'll see but again, you meant to do sort of like 30 of those, to start to see the full effects. But even when you do three, four, five of them, you can already start to feel like a shift or something happening in your body.

Michael Venner (53:00)
interesting yeah because I must admit I'm not a great sleeper

Katie (53:03)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (53:04)
and things like that. Okay, so it doesn't really take that much out of anyone's day then really just to try and get into that right frame of mind, I suppose, to allow for that growth mindset and bring down your anxiety and things like that.

Katie (53:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, it would be remiss of me to say that, you know, I hate when people go, if you just get your mindset sorted, everything else is going to be okay. Because again, that diminishes all the other challenges and barriers that people are experiencing. You know, it's not just a case of get your mind right and everything else will be okay. But that's one piece of the puzzle.

Michael Venner (53:38)
It's the underlying cause, isn't it? Really? It's getting down to that root of... Yeah. The mindset's just the front end of it, I suppose. It's the underlying issues that impact that. Okay, yeah.

Katie (53:43)
Yeah, absolutely. But there's all the other stuff, exactly. That's it, because you're going, know,

how can I get my mind right if I'm, you know, struggling with anxiety, I'm living in poverty, I'm worried about paying the bills, I've got to go to work, I've got to walk the dog, I've got to cook dinner, make the kids pack lunches. You've got all this going on. And then you've got even...

kind of beyond that, you know, further like systemic barriers for people that identify as women or as non-binary, for people that experience disability, people that are neurodivergent from ethnic minority or global majority backgrounds, you know, there's so much that people are contending with, but the mindset part is key, but it has to be in tandem with the other things. you know, to help me recover from the bankruptcy, for example, it was...

I always credit growth mindset. I say it's three things, growth mindset development, looking after my mental health and wellbeing by getting the specialized trauma counseling and having a good support network around me and people that I could talk to. So it wasn't just, you know, our growth mindset solved everything, but it was definitely a major part of that puzzle.

Michael Venner (54:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, because I've spoken to a few business leaders in the past and they've said it's actually quite lonely being a business leader. It's strange because you do feel like you haven't got anyone else to talk to. So I think finding that network of like minded people, I suppose, and just sharing and getting things off your chest. And well, I before we started that I go to a networking event once a month.

Katie (55:18)
Hmm.

Michael Venner (55:19)
about 70 people in the room and the host stands up and he says next time someone asks you how you are and everyone always responds yeah yeah how's things yeah good how's busy yeah okay yeah tell them the truth because it's not be honest with yourself be honest with others because we all go through it i think we just we we fool ourselves i think and i don't know if it's that just as business leaders you're trying to

Katie (55:34)
you

Exactly.

Michael Venner (55:46)
keep that positive mindset but actually, no it sucks.

Katie (55:50)
Yeah, there is a lot of challenge and there are times

when it's bloody difficult and you think, why am I doing this? I should just go get a job.

Michael Venner (55:56)
I used to work at McDonald's when I was sort of as a student through college and stuff like that and I still get dreams now that I'm working back in McDonald's and always wake up feeling great. You know, people think what an awful job, but it was brilliant. know, no stress, not caring well, clock in, clock out, just flip the burgers and I still think nowadays, that was a...

Katie (55:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yes!

Yeah, no stress. Just go in, go home. Yep. That's it.

Michael Venner (56:23)
tranquil time of my life. And I think as adults you're always telling the kids stay in school, do this, but the kids want to grow up and be adults and go out and I'm like no, definitely stay in school. It's, you know, I don't...

Katie (56:24)
No, it really is.

Mm-hmm.

Look, that's what you used

to think, didn't you? Oh, it's the best time of your life and you'd be like, oh, why you always said to me that? And now you get older and you're like, now I'm saying that? Like...

Michael Venner (56:44)
Yeah, but

I do think though that at the time children, that is a big thing for them. know, obviously bullying is bad or anything, but they get stressed at school and things like that. As adults, I don't talk to anyone from my school ages, you know, if you're a bit lonely or things like that. I always think, I kind of try and tell my kids, it doesn't matter, don't worry about it, just get through the...

16 years whatever because none of that ever matters but I suppose when you're in the situation and the moment as children are they just want friends or they want to go play or things like that it's a big part of their lives at that time and I suppose as we get adults actually none of that mattered but at the time it mattered big

Katie (57:27)
Well, this is the thing.

Absolutely. And that's the thing, even like with the growth mindset stuff, when I do sessions with, you know, parents and teachers to support them with their students and young people, is that we see their world as like a mini adult world. But it's not, it's completely different. You know, because they, we look at their problems and think, so what if Stacey isn't talking to you? It really isn't the end of the world.

Michael Venner (57:47)
Mm.

Katie (57:55)
But for them, that's their whole world. So we're basically saying to them, your whole world doesn't matter to me. It's not important. I'm dismissing what you're saying. And it comes across as dismissive, you know, and it's a challenge, you know, because we have to remind ourselves that they're not mini adults. They are children. Like it's a different thing. You know, our brains don't fully develop till we're 25. So...

Michael Venner (57:56)
Hmm. Yeah.

Katie (58:22)
You know, we're trying to, yeah. You're like, was that meant to have finished by now? But we do, we project like adult expectations onto children. And it's the same like in the workplace, you know, we're saying about projecting our expectations onto other people.

Michael Venner (58:24)
don't think mine fully has yet, to be honest, if I'm being truthful.

I'm supposed to be matured and...

Katie (58:50)
that people have different needs, people have different ideas, people aren't mind readers. And if we don't communicate effectively, you're never going to get anywhere.

Michael Venner (59:02)
Okay, so how can business leaders, I know we're getting on a bit, how can business leaders then support, or managers, doesn't have people at the top, how can they support others then in the workplace? Is it about being aware and just being aware of emotions and identify when people are getting stressed? Is that some of the things that they can do?

Katie (59:06)
No, you're okay.

Yeah, I think it's important to keep those kind of open lines of communication. But again, it's that thing of, know, actions speak out of the words. So a lot of people are very good at talking the talk and doing the tick boxy stuff, you know, of, well, we had our review meeting and I asked them if they were okay. And I asked if, you know, the workload was too much. So that's the end of it. But it's actually the day to day stuff. So somebody comes to you that you're not going to them. Why can't you do that?

you know, it's do you need some additional support with that? So just reframing the way that we ask questions, because a lot of the time, if you put why at the beginning of something, it automatically sounds accusatory.

You know, and because I know I do it and I have to catch myself on and go, right, reframe that word that in a different way because it sounds like I'm coming after you. So there's a difference between having a growth mindset, modeling a growth mindset, and then encouraging a growth mindset in other people. Because you may have the best growth mindset in the world, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're modeling it. And it doesn't mean that you're encouraging it within other people.

So it's giving people that time and space to make mistakes. obviously, you know, especially the nature of your work is around risk and like mitigating risk. But you're almost doing that from like a human perspective then, you know, because their risk is I'm going to make a mistake. So yes, that's okay. But how do we mitigate that then? Do you need to learn something? Do you need to go on a training course? Do you need to be given a different role in this assignment? Do you need more time to work on something? Do you need to be shown in a different way?

that makes it more clear for you, you are you a different type of learner? Do you learn kinesthetically rather than through reading something? You know, it's about that creative kind of solution finding. But also encouraging them to do that personal development as well. Encouraging some sort of break throughout the day. you know, I find it hard to switch off. Most business leaders will.

You know, it's hard for us to step away and to fully step away from something. But even if it is just for that half an hour to make yourself do it, because I used to struggle with it because I used to almost equate busyness with my self-worth. I used to be like, if I'm not busy and I'm not productive and I'm not doing something, that means that I'm not achieving, which means I'm rubbish at everything. That's...

That is probably irrational, but that's where the thought process would have gone. So now I have to go, well, actually my self-worth isn't based on how busy I am and detaching those kind of two ideas. So yeah, there's a lot that can be done. think a starting point is definitely getting to know yourself, spending a bit of time with you and how you behave, recognizing your triggers. And if that is happening then in the workplace.

looking at what can be done to mitigate that essentially what can be done to reduce that trigger or do you need to make other people aware that look when this happens this is how it makes me feel or this is my response if this does happen in future this is what i'm going to do so it could be that i need to go outside and get some fresh air i need five minutes to be on my own to decompress i need to

take notes in a different way. You know, maybe I use an AI or scribe or something. Maybe I physically have to have things written down. Like it's working out what makes people tick, but also what isn't going to tick you off. I'm going to use that in a future session. I like that.

Yep, thank

Michael Venner (1:02:58)
Claim that one.

Katie (1:03:00)
you. But definitely encouraging the self-care as well. You know, because people are... We're so likely to burn out. Especially as business leaders because we just keep going and keep going and keep going. And it gets to the point where it's like, actually if I don't invest in me and I don't take care of me, then I'm not taking care of my business.

Michael Venner (1:03:04)
Yeah.

Katie (1:03:25)
And that was one of the big things that I had to learn through the bankruptcy, especially was, you know, I had stopped all that self care. was doing easy a hundred hours a week and still coming home with no money. And that was just ruining my mental health. You know, it was just exacerbating the mental illness.

Michael Venner (1:03:39)
Yeah,

yeah, because I can imagine you, you're like, I'm doing all this, I'm doing that, I keep doing this, keep doing that, nothing's happening. But you were forgetting to look after yourself, I suppose. Yeah, that's a big part.

Katie (1:03:51)
Yeah. Absolutely. And

that is the thing, it's really key, you know, and it sounds, everybody always says, you know, about put your own oxygen mask on first, and you can't pour from an empty cup and all these sayings. But the reason they're cliches is because there's truth in them. You know, there is. Yeah, exactly. It's like, why do people always say it? Because it's true. You know, if we think of ourselves, we'll take that cup example.

Michael Venner (1:04:08)
Okay, okay. It's come from somewhere, isn't it? Yeah,

Katie (1:04:18)
If we're just constantly pouring out and pouring out and pouring out, what's left for us at the end? I've got nothing left for me then, you know? I'm very much like, obviously I'm just gonna sound like an absolute mother Theresa a saint when I say this, but I'm very like a giving person. You know, I love to support other people and I always give all of myself, you know, to try and help others and support other people. But I've had to learn to do that.

not at the detriment to myself and actually learn to like put myself first sometimes and that's okay.

you know is there anything you do mike is there anything you have like on a daily maybe daily basis or weekly base or anything that you find kind of like really refreshes you

Michael Venner (1:04:52)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, basically running. I run pretty much every morning. I had big race and I've taken a bit of a step back but I've noticed that I'm not as calm as I was. I'm not anxious but I can feel it in myself. I'm forcing myself to get back in. Once I get back in the habit I'll be fine. I'll be running every day. But yeah, I did notice the difference.

Katie (1:05:02)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (1:05:23)
So

getting back into it just to, it was kind of took a winter hiatus, I suppose, but it was probably to the detriment of my own wellbeing because it is my time to, because I do it every morning, it's my time to, I don't know, reflect. I get lost in myself a little bit. You know, I might listen to a podcast or a book or most of time I'm not even listening though. I'll just, my mind's drifting and you know, often I think of things that are a business problem as well.

Katie (1:05:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (1:05:53)
a run usually solves it to be fair but yeah I definitely feel better after a run. Yeah so I suppose that's what I do really personally but yeah I suppose you've got to find what works for you everyone's different.

Katie (1:05:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Exactly, that's

it. know, and people always think, you know, you have these people that come online and they'll be all, you've got to get up at 4am and you've got to be grinding, you've got to be killing it every day. And you're like, well, sometimes I just want to get through the day. That's a win. Yeah, sometimes I actually want to rest and that's okay too. Like people think of rest as something that they, people equate rest with being unproductive.

Michael Venner (1:06:22)
Sometimes I want to lie in bed.

Yeah.

Katie (1:06:34)
But rest is actually a very productive thing to do because like not in that exact moment, but in the future version of yourself, you know, because if you're not resting and recuperating and reenergizing, how are you then going to give the best of yourself when you're down the line, you know?

Michael Venner (1:06:34)
Mmm.

Yeah, got you, got you, okay.

Katie (1:06:54)
God, sorry, I could just talk about this forever. Pretty too anywhere off here.

Michael Venner (1:06:55)
Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'm just trying. I've got million questions, but I think

we've probably spoken enough. Yeah, give me a breather, though. Maybe six months or something. I've got to get over this one first. Yeah, that's it. I don't drink, but I feel like I need to go and drink now.

Katie (1:07:02)
We'll do a follow up, Mike, if you can tolerate me.

Yeah I'll put you in for your next therapy session.

I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

Michael Venner (1:07:19)
No, it's been really good, really interesting. I've learnt a lot about myself and how I need to sort of maybe treat others. Just being, yeah, it's been really interesting. I've enjoyed it. Is there anything else you wanted to add or how can people get in touch with you or any other tips or anything? go on.

Katie (1:07:20)
brilliant.

Thank you for having me on, I appreciated it.

Good, me too.

Yeah,

to say, just to remember that practice makes progress. Your circumstance doesn't define potential. So don't think, know, just because of where you are at the moment doesn't mean you're always going to be there. And try and focus on those little 1 % improvements. If anybody does want to get in touch, please feel free to. I do work all across the world delivering mental health.

Michael Venner (1:07:41)
I like that.

Katie (1:07:55)
Wellbeing Growth Mindset and Enterprise Workshops and you can get in touch with me on LinkedIn Katie Matthews Furphy My email address is themindtribuk@gmail.com and across all the social media sites. It's just the MindTribe UK And I'm sure you'll do the whole link in the comments and all that so I can send you those. Yeah all that stuff

Michael Venner (1:08:12)
Yeah, if you want to ping them

to me, I'll make sure they're all in the comments. So you've got a training course as well for this, you said.

Katie (1:08:17)
That's perfect. Yes, yeah,

so I do different courses. I've actually got one specifically on Growth Mindset where we kind of delve a bit more into the specifics of it because obviously I know today we were kind of jumping around a wee bit but this is specifically on Growth Mindset development. That is in February and that can just be booked on Eventbrite. I'm doing it for a pretty decent price, that's £39, it's two and a half hour course. So you're going to get a lot from it, hopefully.

Michael Venner (1:08:47)
I sign up for myself for that. Is that an on-site one? Oh, okay.

Katie (1:08:51)
You're more than welcome. Yeah, yeah, it's virtual, it's online.

Yeah, so people can join from anywhere around the world and they'll get the recording afterwards, they'll get a copy of the slides afterwards as well and I also send around a list, a big list of 70 Growth Mindset books for all ages and stages. So it's broken down into like 0 to 5, 6 to 11, you know, all that kind of stuff. So all the way through. But yeah, definitely check out the courses, but check out...

Michael Venner (1:09:13)
Brilliant.

Katie (1:09:18)
Carol Dweck mindset book as well. I always say I should get some commission because I'm always recommending that. So yeah.

Michael Venner (1:09:22)
I'll put it on my list. So for

the training courses then, can they book that through your website? Can they or have just to event right?

Katie (1:09:28)
Just go to Eventbrite. On Eventbrite, yeah,

just type in either the Mine Tribe UK or Katie Matthews Furphy it will come up. Or even, you know, if you see it on any of my social media sites or anything. But I need to, that's the one thing I need to do actually. That's on my to-do list as business owners, put it on the website. Yeah. So I need to get that done. But yeah, definitely jump on if you can, you know, because there hopefully will be some value that people can take from it.

Michael Venner (1:09:43)
Yeah, because that's where I would have naturally have gone to book it. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, definitely. No, brilliant. Super. Yeah. No, thank you for your... I'm going to be doing that. I'm going be doing that. It's useful tips. Useful tips. Really appreciate it, Katie.

Katie (1:09:58)
No problem. Thank you very much for having

me and best of luck with Auva and everything that you're doing. I love your work and you're all fabulous people. So thank you for having me on.

Michael Venner (1:10:11)
Thank you very much. We do try our best. We do try our best. So brilliant. Thanks a lot and we'll catch up soon. Thank you.

Katie (1:10:18)
Thank you.