201. How to bounce back when work & life falls apart (our true story)
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What would you do if you had 48 hours to pack up your home, vacate your office and essentially get out of the country? This is the country you call home. Would you panic? Would you embrace the challenge? Would you even believe it's happening? On Wednesday, we were told exactly this. We were told we had to leave Bosnia and we had two days to do it. Today, we'll tell you what happened.

how we responded and why building your resilience every day is critical to managing the most unexpected moments in life. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist. My name is Al. I'm a business owner. And we are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. We'll be back with the whole sorry story after this quick word from our sponsors.

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Okay, welcome back. We're talking today about resilience and when plans fail. Now, we've all been in situations in work where something hasn't gone our way. Hopefully, a lot of people have not experienced something catastrophic. And I just want to say at the beginning as well, Lee, I think it's important to make this clear that we call Bosnia and Herzegovina our home. We've been there, you know, a length of time. We will tell you why we were asked to leave in a second. It's nothing nefarious or weird.

But there are people in the world who have to leave their country for much more serious reasons. And so...

Whilst this was very traumatic for us and it taught us quite a few lessons and we learned quite a bit about our own resilience, just want to be clear, we're not likening ourselves to those families who unfortunately have to leave a contribute to war or political regime or change or something like that. Yes, we know we are incredibly privileged to have a strong passport, to be British, to have the resources we need to manage situations like this when they come up.

Psychologists distinguish between trauma with a capital T and trauma with a lowercase t. We're definitely talking trauma with a lowercase t here in our situation as we do most situations in

in the workplace, normal everyday situations. So by no means we are comparing ourselves to the millions of people that have been displaced over the past two years due to war, climate change, famine. It's really just sharing what happened to us. So you know we're human. You know that we too have to use our psychology to work our way through challenges in life just as you do every day in your life and your work.

Yeah, so the more observant of you will have noticed there was no episode on Thursday. That's because we go back to last Wednesday. We were, just to set the scene, we aren't permanent residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina just yet. We're applying for permanent residency.

But we essentially, for the last year, we've been working towards that. So we had a professional lawyer. I'm going to use the word professional to put some little rabbit ears around it. We had a lawyer, shall we just say, whose sole job was to basically get us our residency. And he went through some steps and then, by all accounts, just didn't do the rest of it. So...

We got a note about a week ago from what they call the Foreigner's Office, which is essentially immigration control, in our house, which was a bit weird. They'd come round to our house. We were actually in Mostar at the time, saying, please call us. We have some questions. And so Leanne called them a couple of days later. I think they left on a Friday. She called them Monday.

And what did they say, Leigh? They said they just need to see our updated working licence. As Al said, we've been going through the process of applying for long-term residency in Bosnia and Herzegovina for some time. A key step of that is obtaining a working licence. For various reasons that aren't particularly interesting, it took us a little while to get all that paperwork together and a little while for that paperwork to be processed in Bosnia. That came through. We have a valid working licence and that's what they asked for. So...

When I spoke to the person at the immigration office, I said, of course, I understand it's been a bit delayed. Coming to us, I have it now. I'll be in your office tomorrow morning with Al. And we were at nine o'clock.

So we thought it was just a question of handing over the license. We should have known really thinking about it because the license was issued to them. So why would they want to see it again? But anyway, they did. So we went in there, we sat down, all smiles like, hello, how are you? To be fair, actually, we did wait outside for maybe about 15 minutes before and we're like, that's strange. Why were they doing 15 minutes before they saw us in order to check our licenses? But up until that point, we thought everything was fine.

And then the woman said, you've overstayed your tourist visa. Now, in most European countries, you get a 90-day tourist visa, after which you have to leave and you can't re-enter for another 90 days. We know that. People who followed our other podcast, Sideways Life, we did it for about seven years. We traveled around the world, usually moving on every 30 to 90 days. So we know how visas work.

The difference was this time that we were told that our lawyer had been preparing for permanent residency. We'd got everything we needed for permanent residency. This working permit was the last piece in the puzzle and then we could finalise that process. That wasn't really... Well, that wasn't the opinion that they took. No, and we've reflected at depth on the process and the pieces of paperwork that we had and that we didn't. And...

We were unlucky that we received some bad advice. But anyone will know. Who has to trust an expert? If it's something that's not in your field, you do your research, you get recommendations, you find someone you think can help, who says they can help, that they deliver certain things for you, you trust them implicitly. And that's probably the mistake that we made. The Department of Immigration isn't wrong. We did technically overstay. However, the key mistake we made

we made was believing that whilst we were in the process of application for our residency and working permit we had a right to be in bosnia and herzegovina and that is that is the loophole that was not not the case no unfortunately so what we tried to do today is we we sat down um this is this is thursday's episode which is probably going to come out monday we sat down over the weekend and we obviously cried our eyes out a little bit um we felt very sorry for ourselves and then we were like well hang on a minute what have we actually learned from this and we look back at what we did and

We were kind of proud, love, weren't we, about how we dealt with this. And we thought, this is kind of like a really good, interesting way to talk about how resilience at work, how you can build resilience at work. Because this isn't sugar-coated. We're going to tell you exactly, you know, the low points. We're going to tell you the time that, I think on Wednesday, we sat down and drank about four beers in about an hour because we were in so much shock. And, which obviously is not a healthy coping mechanism. I don't recommend that. But,

But yes, we're going to go through. So we kind of worked out there are sort of eight things that we learned about ourselves over this period of time. And I think these eight are tips in how you can build resilience in your work. And hopefully not something like this never happens to you where you literally are ripped, not literally, but metaphorically are ripped from your workplace and have to go and work abroad. Yeah.

I mean, again, we're incredibly fortunate because it was last minute. Leanne managed to get this beautiful apartment just on the Bay of Cotter. In fact, I'll move out the way and see if the camera will focus on it. If you're on YouTube or Spotify video, you'll be able to see a beautiful view in a second.

Things could be worse. You know, we are lucky. But still, at the same time, this is not where we want to be. This is where a lot of people want to be, but this is not where you want to be. We want to be in our home, in Hertz governor, in our beautiful studio, with all our equipment, with all our books, with all our stuff around, with our two little dogs being idiots in the back garden. And we're not there. We're not. I can't say in all honesty that each of the

the tips we're going to give you we're completely conscious of in the moment. Some we were because we've been in not the exact same situation but similar situation in the past and what Al and I are always saying

Always conscious to do is when we've been through an event that feels big, feels like a lot, we sit and reflect and we reflect on the moment, how we reacted, what we did well, what we didn't, what we're proud of, what we'd want to do better in the future. And we've done that consistently probably over the last year.

seven eight nine years and i think it's this reflective practice that has subconsciously embedded these things in our psyche so when we're faced with this situation we we react um so this is our well these are our reflections of our most recent challenge um how we reacted to it what worked some were conscious in the moment others were not

But as I said, this is our reflection and hopefully some tips that we can give you to perhaps help the next time you're in a bit of a pickle. Yeah. So I think the first thing we maybe subconsciously did, I don't think we consciously did this, was allowing us to acknowledge this shock.

So it happened like nine o'clock. We were literally walking into the foreigners office, nine o'clock, all smiles, walked out at 25 past nine and I worlded just like collapsed, uh,

And also just, I mean, this is going to sound so privileged, but, you know, we were so excited. We live through the winters of Herzegovina in Southern Europe, which are not great. We live through them so we can have the summer, the July, August, September, where we have, we fill the pool and we work half days. And of course that sounds so privileged. Some of you may have just pressed stop on this podcast right now, but we work hard for that and we pay for it. So we pay, you know, an inflated rent.

for probably October, November, December, January, February, March, April, so that we can pay the same rent and have this beautiful summer. So our entire summer, which we were so looking forward to, just disappeared. And so what I think we could have done, and in fact, perhaps I wanted to do, was go, right, okay, well, this is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to do, and, you know, we could do this, we could do that. But both of us recognised that we needed a good, probably a day, just to acknowledge the fact that this is terrible, get angry about it, and...

allow ourselves to process what's just happened which sounds a little bit sort of therapy and you know a bit wanky but I think that's really that was really importantly yeah and we didn't have a day to feel that I think in a in a different situation yeah taking a day giving yourself time to just absorb that um would be a good thing to do we didn't have that we had about an hour to feel that and we did we sat we went to a cafe and

I think I'm, I don't think we even spoke for the first 10 minutes because there's so many things that, that rushed through your head. And I think one of the things that we did do is verbalize the big stuff. So I said things like, this is actually really bad. And I'll be like,

Yeah, no, it actually is really bad. And we probably didn't get any deeper than that. But just kind of reflecting the, I guess, the headline feeling and knowing we were both on the same page of the devastation, which again sounds dramatic. But when you're told that you have 48 hours to leave everything behind, there's a lot of logistics in that as well. So yeah, a quick pause to gather your thoughts. And we probably did have about the maximum of an hour left.

Because we'd actually already had an appointment with a new lawyer set up because we didn't really trust our other one. And we had an appointment with our accountant that day as well. So we had stuff to do. So we took about an hour, talked to each other about headline feelings, paused for a moment, and then very quickly had to prioritize our media actions. Yes, I think that's tip number two is that we prioritize what was really important in that moment.

And there was lots of things and it's kind of difficult because you have to use your gut instinct in this situation because you can't sit down and write a list of all the things that are important and then, you know, mark them one to five and then do a spreadsheet and all that. You just have to go, right, okay, what's important? And things which were important at seven o'clock that morning, like, oh, we've got to make sure we get enough milk in. We're going to make sure we go and get this. We're going to go and get some dog food. Suddenly we're like, just not at all important. So the important things were, okay, right, is there a way we can stay? And at this point, we didn't know that this was,

We suspected that this was a final decision, but we didn't know that. So the first thing we did, we went to see our accountant. We explained the situation. Our accountant is a lovely, lovely guy called Velimir in Mostar. He's just, he's just like, I see him as like a brother. He's probably about my age. And, um, he's just looked after us from day one, never tried to screw us over. Went over and explained the situation. He's like, I'm so sorry. This is terrible. This is terrible. Um, oh, by the way, the, the, the background to this is we're buying a parcel of land in, um, in, in as a governor. Uh,

Um, and so that was due to complete the week that, you know, the following week. And of course we had to be there to sign for it. Otherwise we lose this piece of land. It's me. The purchase has been going through for a while. So he said, right, go and see my friend, the lawyer. This is the one who he recommended to us. And just by happenstance, we had an appointment with him like that morning.

And so instead of going to see him about buying a plot of land, we went to see him about power of attorney. Yeah. And that's where, you know, as part of this process, we identified our urgent tasks. At that point, we had 48 hours to leave the country. Otherwise, we were going to have our passports taken off us and be deported. This is the severity of the situation. This isn't a, let's just see how it goes over the next week. No, you're getting deported on Friday if you don't voluntarily leave by that day.

So as much as we would have liked to have looked into all of our legal options to stay, to pick through the holes and mistakes that our former lawyer made, we didn't have time for that. So at that point, it was how do we protect what is important to us and what is a big element of our future? As I said, we're looking to buy a pass of land to build our home. We needed to protect that. So all of our focus then went on to write how do we protect our

that this will happen through parent-return, through calling on friends there who can help us manage the process in our absence. And then very quickly on to, right, well, what do we do about the house that we're living in? What do we do about all of our stuff that's in there? What about, you know, our studio? We usually, the studio you normally see is on our house. There's, you know, a lot of stuff in there to potentially move if we had to. So how do we secure our future? How do we secure the house and

that we're currently in and all the things that we have um and then what next where do we go and i think that that was the important thing was this prioritization because um if you're an employee and you go through something like this then there's obviously initial shock and we've already talked about tip one is just you know allow yourself to be in that shock but but then

We looked at our studio and we're like, well, we can't take it down because it took me four days to put it, put it up. There's so much equipment in there. We literally, if we put that in the car, we couldn't fit anything else in. So we were like, okay, we can't take that. All right. So we made an immediate decision. Then we're like, okay, well, what about our beautiful, you know, all our stuff in our kitchen? And you know, we've got all, Leanne's got loads of ingredients for cooking amazing stuff. What can you take? Nope. Can't take that.

So that thing was, you know, that prioritization was really important. I think if you're an employee, then I think they're just allowing yourself time to get out of the shock and then prioritizing, okay, what is the absolute essential thing? If you're a leader,

rather than sort of going, right, here's, I'm going to drop a bombshell on you guys. You fix it. I'm off out. You know, help them find out what is important to them. Help them find out what is urgent versus what can wait. And also just expect that, you know, they're going to be overwhelmed. So I think that was kind of like our tip number two, which was just identify what's important. Yeah. And again, carrying that over to organizational life, it's what's important in this moment, what needs to be protected in order

in this moment and in the next moment and being fairly as I said brutal about what is necessary and what's not um because ultimately they're the things that are going to matter in a week's time when you've got more clarity and the blood is rushing back to your free frontal frontal cortex prefrontal cortex after the shock I'm still in shock I can't get my words out um so yeah and that's the other thing as well as part of this overwhelming understanding what's important is is

And as hard as it is, because for us, we talk about it a lot and understanding what is happening to your body in that moment. Physiologically, your body is going through a lot. It's in its threat state. Your blood is rushing away from your prefrontal cortex. The part of your brain that makes all the logical decisions is rushing to your amygdala, your emotional brain. You become irrational. You become angry. You become fearful. All of these things are happening and it's knowing that

That is how you are feeling, but this is how you need to think. I think this is something we did subconsciously or unconsciously, but I think this is something that we both felt because in the immediate reflection, like the three, four hours after we'd left Bosnia-Herzegovina, Al and I were talking about how it felt like an out-of-body experience because I felt like my body is panicking. My mind has to take over in this moment. So I think even just having an awareness of what is happening to you physiologically can help in these moments.

these moments of panic. And then moving on to the third tip, flexibility, staying flexible. Once you've identified these priorities, there's going to be some that need to happen exactly the way they need to happen.

There's others that need to be a bit more flexible. Yeah, and I think this is where also it's going to link into tip four as well, because we were like, okay, well, we need to leave and we need to go and find a place for three months. Now, if anyone's ever booked anything over on Airbnbbooking.com or any of the other platforms,

For three months for July, August, September, you are talking around about €4,000 to €5,000. That's probably about the same in dollar, US dollar, per month minimum. And that will get you likely an apartment. That's not going to get you a villa with a pool. It's not going to get you anything like that. It's not going to get you a particularly nice apartment. No, because those are the months that everyone makes money. Those are the months where they're a grand a week to rent out.

And then you're also, our plan was, well, we'd go and find someone for three months. Where is there somewhere that's decent in the world or in Europe, Southern Europe, really? Where is someone decent that is still available on the 30th of May for three months over June, July, August, that is going to be nice and within budget?

You know, that's just criteria. So we originally thought that's the perfect plan. We'll go and find that. And then we were like, this isn't going to happen. So we started splitting it down. Leanne found two weeks in Montenegro because it was very, very short notice, like literally three days. I think it was two days. We got, Leanne managed to get a really, really good price on this. Well, there was a little step before that wasn't there in terms of, as you said, leaning into tip four, which is to

to very much leverage your support network. Everything we know about resilience, everything we know about happiness, everything we know about our well-being, it's been so much better if we have positive, effective relationships in our life with friends, with family, with colleagues.

And it was at that point when we realized this was a really hard problem to solve. And as well, it's understanding where are the quick wins? We get the things sorted. Bobby needs to go to the vet. So we did that quickly. This was a bigger problem to solve. So we looked at our support network. Who do we know? As I said, we've traveled a

frequently for the past 10 years who do we know on our network who might be able to help wherever we stayed previously we might be able to go back and that's where I remembered we have a lovely friend in Bulgaria who has rental houses so we contacted him initially looking for a couple of months to give us some time to be closer to Bosnia and Herzegovina should we need to get to be near to sign paperwork and and whatever else in Croatia in Montenegro we cannot re-enter Bosnia.

um and that's when we secured the two months for july and august with a friend um so that's kind of the big problems then it's like okay well then let's look at the flexibility we have in terms of that first month that's why we managed to get a pretty decent place for a

And I think as well, is once you get over that initial panic of checking in with people who have your back, is they share that shock with you. They share that anger with you, that fear with you. And that in itself really does help to dilute the feelings because somebody else, particularly in a short time scale, it's almost like, right, I've offloaded the anger.

to a couple of my girlfriends so they're going to be angry for me for the next 45 um 48 hours whilst we um get things in place that's really helpful as well to let other people in it's not a sign of weakness the people that love you and have your back are going to share the things you're feeling they're not going to challenge you they're not going to go oh why didn't you know and how did that happen and and also with a you know a good litmus test in terms of of who the people who really do have your back are in those moments

Yeah, good point. So that tip number three is staying flexible with plans. And so if you're part of a team or an employee, then I think the key is that there are going to be constraints already thrown at you by the problem, by the disruption, by this bombshell that's been dropped on you. So just don't assume that nothing else can't be done. So don't say, well, we can't do this because that won't happen. Go, well, could we do that? Is it possible to do X, Y, or Z, even though in the past it hasn't been?

Um, and then this sort of tip for is to lean on your support network. And, uh, that's what we said. We just phoned Nico. Um, who's, uh, who's a good friend of us, crazy Bulgarian guy, amazing guy, just the sweetest, sweetest guy. Um, and he was like, yeah, no problems. Bring me at seven o'clock tonight. We'll sort something out. And he was like, yep, absolutely. So I think for, for,

you know, if you're in work, in a traditional work environment, then don't be afraid to go back to mentors. Don't be afraid to go back to previous managers. Don't be afraid to go back to previous teammates and go, this has happened. I really need help. If you listen back about four or five episodes, we talked about someone queuing up for the photocopier.

and a study they did, a photocopier, and they're saying, can I jump in front of you because I need to make some copies? And then, can I jump in front of you because I'm late for a lecture? And both those got the same sort of response, like 93% of people said, yeah, of course. Which shows that 93% of people are willing to help you out if you can give them any reason. And if you know someone personally...

then if you are open and brave and tell them what's happened, there's a very good chance that they will help you out. Yes. And a good reminder as well for everybody. And particularly when, you know, we talk about personal relationships a lot, professional relationships are also worth cultivating and worth nurturing and checking in with people and helping other people out and they need it as well. It's part of a critical part of

of your professional brand that's what networking is it's not how many people you know it's not what they can do for you it's as much about what you can do for them because you never know when those relationships will be really important to you um we will be back with a few more tips after this very quick break

Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. Okay, so before the break, we were saying that essentially the tips were acknowledge the shock, then prioritize immediate steps. Then we said stay flexible. And tip number four was lean on your support network. The tip number five is really focus on what you can control. And that is difficult. Leanne talked before about this whole idea of threat. From a psychological and a physiological point of view, you're being chased by a lion across the savannas of

of africa um so it's really difficult to do that but i think it's really important to think about okay this is the entire problem what can we influence what can't now what we can't influence is the decision from you know the the ministry of foreign affairs we couldn't influence that um but what we could influence was well where can we stay in europe as i said before we was rather than thinking well let's find the neighboring country we're like well where else now to be fair

you know, Bulgaria, I think it's 15 hours, 16 hours drive from Mostar. So it's not exactly, oh, we'll nip down to Bulgaria. But because we were looking at what we can control, i.e. we don't have to live near Bosnia, that's what led us on to thinking slightly outside the box and ultimately finding the solution. And within the financial constraints that we have, being completely honest, if we had tens of thousands of pounds of

or we were willing to spend. We could stay in Croatia, we could stay in Montenegro just two, three hours away from our home in Mostar, but we don't have...

that much cash we're willing to spend at the detriment of other things. Like we said, there's other things we're trying to do at the minute. So it's within the financial budget and constraints that we have as well. And I say that more for, again, as a business, you're going to have constraints, you're going to have financial constraints, you're going to have resource constraints. So sometimes it's thinking a bit, as I'll say, outside the box and being a bit more flexible in terms of what can be. And just to take the context, we're still paying rent.

on our place, which we're renting before, as we're buying our house, still paying rent there. So now we're doubling up on rent, you know, so it's not like we're going, oh, you know, we might have to spend a bit of extra money. No, we have to double up on rent and it's going to be significantly more if we lived somewhere like Croatia. So as you were saying, Alan, in terms of focus on what's in your

control at this point as well you know speed is really important when you're going through this type of shocking change people don't

People can deal with ambiguity if it doesn't stay around for long. We had to figure it out quickly. But I know that if we had a week to have gone through this scenario, we would have equally got to this point as quickly because the ambiguity doesn't suit either of us, doesn't suit anybody, but it really doesn't suit us. And we know ourselves and each other well enough to know that it doesn't. So it's moving at pace when...

when you can within the constraints that you have. One thing that really helped with that as well and in terms of finding calm during that initial period of action, and this is going to sound so basic, but write a to-do list. Write several. I think we had about six going in terms of what do we have to do in terms of the office, what do we need to do in terms of the house, the dogs, the landlord, the lawyer, the this, what do we need to pack, what do we need to bring, what do we need to make sure that we have.

having a list just made it feel more controllable. And that's actually the last thing that we did. So we had two days to sort all this out. We had to leave on day three. What we did at the end of day one was make this mammoth to-do list because it felt like if we could get everything out on paper, then it would be more manageable. And the psychology knows that this is true as well. So if you're dealing with immersions or

too many thoughts rushing around your head and it's all just a manageable writing on paper neuroscience has shown us through very sexy MRI imaging that actually again transfers the energy from our amygdala to our prefrontal cortex so it actually helps us process the emotion and generate more coherent thoughts so that mammoth to-do list might sound simple but

But actually, it was one of the best things that we did and could have done because when we woke up on day two, we knew exactly what we needed to do. There was no discussion. There was no, oh, what now? We knew exactly what now is. And then having that to-do list, that very granular to-do list, that one step at a time to-do list just helped us get through that very, very difficult day. Yeah. And basically what we did was we chunked it down.

That's basically the long and short of it is we took a huge big task, which is move out of our house, our home, our office, take our two dogs, go and find somewhere to live and do all that essentially in 48 hours, probably less at that point, probably more like 36 to 24 hours. That's huge.

So like Leanne did, she just chunked it down. So she's now got a packing list. She's now got a list for the office. I had a list because I tend to deal with the tech stuff. So I was like, okay, right. I'm going to break down the office, put it together into a, this is the recording studio, put it together and then put it back together in the office, test that everything works. I've got all the cables and then cool, pack it up. So stuff like that. And so I think if you're a leader or a manager and this sort of, you're having some kind of like

drama at work, some catastrophe, some crisis. This idea of

creating manageable chunks, staying steady and saying, guys, let's just concentrate on one foot in front of another. So I suppose we did call this originally focus on what you can control, but maybe it is actually more likely just chunking it down into smaller tasks. But into those tasks that you can control. Yes. You know, that's the link there. And after having that list, delegate who's responsible for what.

and I decided right I'll do this you'll do that we'll both do this together and have those check-in moments it sounds so cheesy and it's probably people listening going you didn't do that I promise you we did after about three hours on that first day we sat down with the cup of tea went right let's go through the checklist let's go through to-do list what have we done where are we at do we need help with anything is there anything that actually realized isn't that important now anything that's come up that we need to add to the to the list how

having those check-in moments has helped us, one, check in with each other and make sure we're okay. Two, make sure that we were on track. And three, make sure that everybody knew what they were doing in this very short period of time to make sure it all got done. Absolutely. I think what Leanne was saying there is sort of working out what needs to be done and what doesn't need to be done. That was sort of like tip number six was,

Don't be afraid to break commitments. Don't be afraid to make a won't do list. I come from a family where, uh, if we used to get rid, read the Pied Piper of Hamelin every single night for a, for a bedtime story. And that was like, well, the, the, the moral of the story is that once a promise has been made, it shall never, ever be broken.

And so I grew up probably the first 30 years of my life going, I cannot break any single promises. And then I started breaking promises and realizing you do it in the right way. It's okay. So as I alluded to, um, certainly I think before actually, um, we had an interview booked for that Wednesday afternoon with a lovely guy called Jeff. We teased it on the, um, on the Tuesday episode. We, it was tight. It was short, but we knew Jeff was cool. We'd had a sound check with him. We're like, great. We'll record it on the Wednesday. I'll edit it on the Thursday and then we'll put it out on the Thursday afternoon. We

We had to cancel it. Yeah, because again, in that moment where workload is high and time is short, and that is a scenario that I know every small business owner listening will be familiar with, it's important to reduce the workload where you can to make the rest manageable.

Because if it's not manageable, it's going to break. And at that moment, that moment of crisis, you don't have the luxury of breaking. You don't have time to break. And as I said, it's communicating that quickly, clearly, honestly, apologetically, with the tone of, I'm mortified to have to do this. This is the general reason why. Do you...

you know, is that okay? And can we rearrange this for another, another time? It's making it sure that people know this is extreme circumstance. This isn't business as usual. This isn't how we normally do things. Yeah. So the email I sent to, so we had three or four sound checks booked in and two or three interviews. And this was the email I sent and

I said, hi, name. I'm so, so sorry to do this. We've had a bit of a domestic issue. Nothing bad, just really freaking inconvenient. Again, adding a little bit of humor and brevity, a levity to it. This means we have to spend the next few days sorting that out. So I'm gonna have to cancel our upcoming chat and ask that we reschedule. I'll be in touch early next week for some alternative dates. As I say, I'm devastated and seriously wouldn't reschedule if it wasn't 100% necessary. Please don't lose interest. We really want you on the pod.

This person replied, no worries, totally understand. Take care of yourself. Chat next week. And every single person replied in the same way. Every single person was like, I hope you're okay. These things happen. Just let me know. And that was such a lovely thing because we respected their time so much. We didn't just cancel it.

We had a little bit of an altercation with a guest this week who, in our opinion, kept cancelling and rescheduling. And then they got quite arsy when I said, dude, I'm not sure you're for us. But this is the thing. We were like, look, I'm so sorry. And so I think it's okay to pause. It's okay to postpone. But honesty by explaining, I'm not just binning you off. Something's gone. You don't have to tell me what's come up, but something has come up.

wouldn't otherwise do this. So I'm really, really sorry. And again, it's protecting those relationships, those relationships that mean a lot to us that we want to continue to build on. I've had people who I've been in

fairly long-term professional relationships with and got to a point where I'm assuming they're in crisis I don't know because they never told me but I just have meeting after meeting rescheduled cancel rescheduled can you know when you do it through automatic link on zoom to the point where maybe they did that four or five times the last time got cancelled and I never heard from them again despite my my attempts to check in and follow up um so there's different ways it's ghosting essentially you could ghost these people but probably not going to serve you in

in the long run um and i guess going on to tip number seven in terms of these i guess modeling these boundaries is behaviors that this is how we normally do things so we'll be open and honest when we can't do it that way is setting yourself some boundaries in terms of of your own ability to feel this and deal with this give yourself a break be kind to yourself know that this is hard

I think one of the things I kept saying all the time was like, this is a lot. Like, this is a lot. And I could tell when I was looking at you, Al, when I said that, you'd be like, okay, I know this is, you're starting to feel it now. So let's just take a moment. One thing that Al and I have always done very well, but probably more so well since we started working together maybe three or four years ago. And this is not something we did automatically. We had to learn about setting our own boundaries and checking in and

And one thing we said to each other at the end of day one was I said to Al, we're going to be really silly with each other tomorrow. I was like, we're both going to be stressed. We're both going to be grumpy. We're both going to be devastated. We're both going to be tired. I said, we're going to be unintentionally mean to each other tomorrow. I said, let's just give ourselves permission to not beat ourselves up if we say something we didn't mean. Try not to take it personally if somebody said something that they didn't mean. Give us each other permission to walk away if it's just getting too much and too heated in that moment.

um and almost making those those rules and boundaries ahead of a situation getting even more stressful can be quite useful did we stick to them entirely no not necessarily but because we'd had that conversation we we had that that ability to go so you know before when I walked away and it really pissed you off that was just my attempt to remove myself from that situation because I could feel myself let's say oh right yeah okay I understand it's that constant dialogue and that

kindness to yourself and also kindness to the people you're in this with and I think particularly any team that's gone through a stressful situation is going to see their see their teammates react in stressful situations differently um and just give give people a break give them a free pass you know if things are particularly stressful um you don't have to pull up people on

every little bit of bad behavior if it is in a very stressful situation yeah so i think our tip seven is self-compassion just be be nice to yourself be nice to your other teammates

I think just one other thing I want to add to that is that, and I know that I talk a lot about gender here, but what I try to do is sympathize with listeners who are maybe my age and my gender, because we are struggling to learn what the new world is expecting of us, what is acceptable, what's not. And I think if you tend to be sort of a middle-aged male,

of a certain age, then your temptation is to fix things, to go, well, I'm the fixer. And in a marriage, you know, often that's what happens. This has gone wrong. You know, I've got a puncture. If it's people of my age, they'll go, well, I'll go and fix it for you. And so it's really difficult because you can't be the fixer because you've got just as many skills in this situation as the other person. Not always, but in this particular situation, we did. We both had skills like that.

So, you know, not jumping into the, I'm going to go and save the day because sometimes, as I learned with Leanne, any particular, even just a smaller problem, she was like, well, I've got this problem. And my instinct is to go, well, why did we do this? And I've learned with Leanne, I need to stop and go, so tell me the problem again. And she outlines the problem again. What are the ideas of solving this problem? And often all she wanted to do was talk it through.

then she'll just go, okay, no, that's fine. No, I know what I'm going to do. That's fine. And equally, I've learned when I can, you know, sometimes start on this, this way of coaching, essentially, if I can feel myself pushing against it, I know that I'm not ready to solve the problem yet. And I'll say something like, oh, do you know what? I was just having a moan. I'm not ready yet. And actually at that point, they'll just give me a hug and we'll,

We'll go about our day. Heard, helped or hooked. That's a key thing. If you can have that kind of conversation with your partner, what do you need in this minute? Do you need to be heard? Do you need to be helped? Or do you need to be hooked? Absolutely. So tip number seven was be compassionate with yourself. And if you're a leader, then model this. Don't

you know be compassionate be have be self-compassion i'm sure you can be self-compassionate but you know what i'm trying to say because your team will follow and if they go you know he's locked himself in the office or shut himself in the office because she wants just an hour to herself maybe maybe that means i can take an hour to myself maybe i can go and have a cup of tea or something or a cup of coffee and just go this is this is a lot isn't it tip number eight i think is just look for silver linings um lee what are your thoughts on on this it's so important and it's

Oh, it sounds really cheesy and cliche, doesn't it? To look on the bright side, where's that silver lining? Every cloud. The fact is that this is rooted in positive psychology. This is rooted in what we call psychological capital. What's our hope? What's our optimism? And these are key things that build our resilience. So yes, looking for growth or opportunity in a moment

when reflecting on it, is really positive. Being grateful, being thankful. We've acknowledged multiple times in this conversation how grateful we are to have the resources and support network we do, how lucky we are to be British citizens with a strong passport, how lucky and privileged we are that we're talking about a mistake at the immigration office, we're not talking about asylum or displacement. All of these things are really important to

to build a positive mindset, which is really good for our own wellbeing. It's also really good for our resilience, for our problem solving. And also from a point of the relationships we've talked about,

If you're, you know, if we've been talking to Nico, a friend in Bulgarian, going, this is awful. It's the worst thing that's ever happened. I can't believe it. Summer is going to be awful. I can't believe this is happening to me. Like, dude, I've just offered for you to come and stay in my house. Is it that bad? You need to kind of be mindful of kind of what you're saying and the emotions you're projecting. Is it going to impact other people as well, particularly those that want to support you? I think it can also help to shift that mindset as well from,

from that place of panic and loss to actually new opportunity and moving on. And again, this takes more time than we've had. We're going to continue to flip-flop back in these conversations over time. And that's okay as well. And particularly if you're doing this with a team, with a partner,

it's being mindful that somebody might need to have the same conversation more than once and that's going to feel really frustrating if you've already dealt with that if you've already transitioned through that somebody who is still talking about it hasn't made that transition yet that's your sign that's your signal they're still they're still struggling with that transition with moving on the key to to whether this is effective and productive and whether you should indulge it a little bit more is

is when you're having this same conversation are there new bits of information coming to light are there new bits of reflection that are coming through and I had a conversation on Sunday and it probably was been in the fourth fifth conversation like it we'd had in terms of a certain sequence of events that happened on our lead up to leaving and

I noticed that we were both coming up with new reflection points. We were going back over old ground and being angry over things we'd expressed anger over before, but we were starting to come up with new bits of like processing and in a way acceptance and the whole grief model, bargaining and depression. And if somebody's repeating themselves, ask yourself, are they actually repeating themselves or are they...

bringing new bits of information new bits of reflection to this conversation if they are try and have that patience and hold that space for them because this is part of their processing if they're not and they're purely just repeating themselves then do what i said before and try and coach them coach them forward to to look forward and look back more positively yeah and i think the other thing is like with this whole idea of silver linings and you know um is that

And oftentimes you look back on stuff that was like, seemed at the time like a disaster and the best things came of it. It wasn't a disaster, but Leanne and I were in Thailand for three months. We did it for like three consecutive years. I think we was in Thailand for three months, January, February, March. I'm going to really feel sorry for you now. I know. I know. I realized that.

We didn't live in like, you know, massive luxury, but... We were working. We were working, of course. Yes, yes, yes. But the other thing is that we went to renew our visa. Oh, this is a visa thing. Visa story again. I just realised now. Went to renew our visa and the visa office was shut. And it involved literally a taxi to the ferry, a ferry across to the mainland, then another taxi to the visa office and it was shut.

And we were like, well, that's really unlucky because that's been like four hours now to get here. So we have spent another four hours getting back. On the way back, we jumped on the back of, in Thailand, they have these van taxis where you just can, you can get 600 people in the back of a van and everyone pays about two baht and which is about 20p and you get home. But it stops off everywhere and drops people off.

And this was, we take to this beautiful resort and we're like, where's this? This was only like maybe about 10 minutes down the road from us, but where's this? Ended up staying there, ended up going there. Grumpy couple in front of us who are from Yorkshire, nothing against Yorkshire, I lived in Yorkshire, but grumpy couple in front of us and they were like, I expected a welcome drink. This is the worst service I've ever had.

The receptions came over to us, we were waiting very quietly, and said, we've given you a complimentary upgrade. And we suspect that complimentary upgrade was meant for the grumpy Yorkshire couple, but they were grumpy, and we weren't. We were just sitting there, quietly waiting, and we got this beautiful, beautiful thing for about a third to a quarter the price it should have been for a week. And so all that came from the fact that the visa office was shut, and we got a bit more panicky, like we've only got three days to renew our visa. Yeah, and there'll be all sorts of scenarios that you'll...

You'll look through, you know, if this hadn't happened, that wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have met this person. There's so many sliding doors moments in life that might take years before you actually realize the connection. But the fact is, the important thing is, you're constantly looking for that connection.

Because if it's all just random, it's all just chaos, then we struggle to find meaning. We struggle to find any sense of control. And that's when our psychology can suffer, our mental health can suffer more.

it's a case of again it's rooted in in positive psychology and lots of cool research on it but yeah positive thinking isn't something anybody does innately it has to be mindful it has to be trained it needs to be intentional um this is where gratitude journaling comes from this is a root of it all it's not so you can sit there showing off in starbucks with your

your oat milk latte and how awesome you are and balanced you are for journaling it's to train this mindset so when you come to a situation like this then you have the resilience to deal with it so we'll recap those eight tips now but just sort of like

Almost like as a bonus tip, if you can prepare for something like this, almost like... So, for example, if you've got all your stuff, all your documents everywhere, just take an evening and scan them all into Dropbox or Google Drive or something. So you've just got a virtual copy. If you've got... If your documents for your project are spread out over different hard drives or different people, see if you can just get a copy of them. Just spend an hour getting them all together into one place so that if...

this person goes off sick for a long time. You don't have to worry about whether you're going to get that file or recreate it or anything like that. So, I mean, I know that this has been slightly abstract because this is not really, it is a work problem for us, but it's not your traditional work problem. But I think there's so much you can learn from this. I'll just quickly go through the eight tips that we wrote down. The first one was acknowledge the shock. Just allow yourself to

to acknowledge that something pretty bad has happened. Like Leanne says, this is a lot, isn't it? And allow yourself to go back to that once the immediate crisis is over. Yeah. Because that shock is going to take a while to process. We haven't fully processed that yet. No. That's going to take us a few weeks, yeah. So be willing to go back to that.

And also, just like Leanne says, those five stages of grieving, you know, they're not linear. You go back and, I woke up this morning really angry at a very particular person who I'm not going to name because they did something which we felt was very unacceptable in our moment of need. But,

But then, you know, that's fine. That will fade. Tip number two was to prioritize the immediate actions. See what you can do right now. Tip number three is stay flexible beyond those immediate and concrete actions. Appreciate that things might change and keep your mind open to options and possibilities, which leads us nicely into tip four.

rely on your social network your professional network your friends your family everyone who loves you will want to help you in this moment and be prepared sadly that also in this moment you might find some people that perhaps aren't as good of friends as you hope they were absolutely tip number five focus on what you can control uh chunk it down

Make a won't do list. It's fine. Which then also, tip number six is don't be afraid to break commitments if you do it with grace and you do it politely and you give enough of a reason. Remember the photocopy, you don't need to give a valid reason. You need to give a reason.

then 93% of people will send you a lovely message going, it's fine, I hope you're okay. And tip seven, be kind to yourself. This is going to be a really stressful situation. Give yourself a break. Give other people around you going through the same stress a break. Don't beat yourself up. And leaders know that these feelings can spread. So be kind to yourself and be kind to everyone else because that means they'll try and do the same. And finally, look for the silver linings.

try that reflective practice in terms of what you learn what opportunities could be presented how grateful you are for for what you do have in your life it will help you in that moment in processing what has happened and in processing what has happened and it will help you in the future

to have the resilience to bounce back when you need to again. So there you go. That's our story. Quite a dramatic story. Not the most dramatic story in the world right now. There are people who are, we're fully aware. There are people who've got much worse lives than ours. And as I said, Cotor Bay in Montenegro is not the worst place to spend a couple of weeks, but still it's not where we want to be. So I think the main thing is that just, you know, you're going to come across problems.

resilience is how you fix them. And more importantly, as a manager, a leader or a business owner, by helping your teams and your managers to build resilience, that's how your organization is going to thrive. Because that's when, let's be honest, when what, when did any company go from zero to 10 million with no challenges?

It's never happened. And usually there's usually at least 10 to 20 to 30 points along the way where it's like kind of all or nothing. You have to put all your chips in. And that is the time. Sorry, I just banged on the table for emphasis and I think I might have just judged the camera. But that is the time when your team's resilience is going to save your company.

I think all of this can be summed up as well by a key word that I think we use a couple of times, but maybe not enough is empathy. Empathy with others. You know, there's a thing, you know, particularly when we talk about mental health, particularly people that might look more privileged or have more money.

oh, it's all right for them. What are they moaning about? They've got a mansion with, you know, X number of staff and they're famous and they've got their own business. And, you know, you might be looking at your business owner and leader going, it's all right for them. They've got all the money. As a business owner, you might be going, it's all right for them. They just show up and get a paycheck.

The fact is everyone has their own struggles. Everyone has their own perspective on things in the different elements of life and work that impact us positively and negatively. So, yes, some empathy in these situations is always a good thing too. Wonderful.

100%. If you've got a story like this, we'd love to hear it. We will be back on LinkedIn very shortly. Yeah, that got on my to-don't list very quickly, not going to lie. Exactly, exactly. So we'll be back on LinkedIn very shortly. But just tag us into something if you know of a story. If you know something that happened in your workplace that was tough and you're able to talk about it, then you can email us directly if you want us to have a chat about it. If you just want to just have a one-to-one chat.

then check the show notes. There's always a link to Booker Call, Willie Anne and I. And mainly a big thank you to you if you stuck with this and you've been like, I'm wondering why there is no Thursday episode. There's probably a very good reason. Yes, looking at you, the likes of Jeremy, some of our biggest fans, Rita, who've gone, well, there probably is a reason why. There was a reason why. And you didn't bust out.

proverbial challenge and thank you to all of our friends and family and colleagues and contacts um you've really helped us through these past few days i can't even tell you how grateful and i are for each and every one of you thank you so so much and a final word don't think

that we went through this process as cool and calmly as we have made out. We went through this process, but it was a bit more panicked and emotional. And did I break down into really ugly crying tears for about 20 minutes? Yes, I did. But then I picked myself up and got back on my to-do list and carried on. So like we've said, be kind to yourself. Yes, we're back on Thursday with an episode, as you can imagine, not yet planned out completely.

But if we can get things back in the diary, then we'll bring you a guest. Otherwise, Leanne and I have had a couple of ideas we've been pondering that we would love to talk to you about and get your opinion on. Yeah, so we'll see you on Thursday in some form or shape. And we will, of course, be back next Tuesday, our constant companion. This week in work with our news roundup, our hot take and our world famous weekly workplace surgery that I answer all of your questions if I can.

And she always can. See you soon, guys. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.