The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:18 - 00:00:32:00
Kevin Eikenberry
You know about resilience and you know that optimism. Today we're going to put those two things together, backed by science. Why? Well, to help you and your team sustain a positive mindset, even when times are tough, even when things are uncertain. If you stay, I promise you will have a new insight and how you can lead in a more positive way and get better results.

00:00:32:02 - 00:00:57:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping organizations and their leaders grow and lead more effectively to make a bigger, positive difference across their teams, communities, and the world. If you are listening to this podcast, you can join us in the future. Live on your favorite social media platform and you can find out when a future episodes are happening so you can get that information sooner.

00:00:57:11 - 00:01:25:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And, you can do that by joining either at our Facebook group or LinkedIn group. Two of the channels, one of these, live stream and just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to get all of the scoop and get all of the inside information. If you want to get more from this episode and any and every podcast you listen to, download my short Practical Action guide.

00:01:25:07 - 00:01:51:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to Kevin eichenberg.com/get more. And while you're doing that, even if you had to pause to do that I'm going to bring in my guest. Her name is Michelle Gillan and she is a positive psychology researcher, a keynote speaker, bestselling author, and a former national news anchor. For more than 15 years, she has studied how optimism shapes resilience, well-being and success, especially when the pressure is high in the path forward.

00:01:51:10 - 00:02:21:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Is uncertainty. Like that never happens to us. She is the author of Broadcasting Happiness The Science of Igniting and Sustaining Positive Change, and the forthcoming Resilient Optimism The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times. And that will be our focus today. Previously, Miss Michelle served as an anchor on the CBS Morning News. She is an executive producer of The Happiness Advantage on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah's Happiness Course.

00:02:22:01 - 00:02:44:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Her research has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, and the Harvard Business Review. And now, the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. She's worked with leading organizations including Google, meta, Microsoft, and many more. She holds a master's degree in applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in computer engineering from Tufts. And she's our guest.

00:02:45:04 - 00:02:47:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Michelle, welcome. Thanks. Well.

00:02:47:09 - 00:02:50:13
Michelle Gielan
Thank you so much for having me, Kevin. I'm thrilled to be here with you.

00:02:50:15 - 00:03:06:03
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, it feels to me like we can have a whole conversation about how you started as a computer engineer and up, as a national, anchor on the national news and then go back to school. But that's probably for another day. Maybe I should have asked you that before. Well.

00:03:06:05 - 00:03:22:18
Michelle Gielan
You know, I, I should tell you some of that because I think it relates so much to the theme of the book Resilient Optimism. So, so, yes, I was a computer engineer. I dreamed about being a network news anchor broadcasting from New York City. But, you know, you don't start your career in New York. You start anywhere.

00:03:22:18 - 00:03:42:09
Michelle Gielan
They'll take you. So I worked my way up. I went from El Paso to Chicago to New York. When I got to CBS news, it was actually just ahead of the recession. So then the recession hits. I'm anchoring the CBS morning News and another program, we're airing one story after another about people losing their homes and their jobs and the retirement savings.

00:03:42:15 - 00:04:01:19
Michelle Gielan
So it's like, it's a really hard time to watch for America, a hard time to cover the news. And my whole goal there was to gather information that was important to people, package it in a way that engage them, and hopefully help them live their best lives. So at at the height of the recession, I pitched this idea to my producers called Happy Week and they're like, whoa!

00:04:01:20 - 00:04:20:07
Michelle Gielan
The overnight hours have finally gotten to rain. What are you talking about? But the idea was in the midst of feeling as if the external world was spiraling out of control. How can we take back control of our happiness? We had all these segments that were solutions focused. So if your home is facing foreclosure, what do you do if you're fighting with your spouse over money?

00:04:20:07 - 00:04:44:16
Michelle Gielan
How do you have better conversations? We got the greatest bureau response of the year. And for me, as a former engineer, I was curious about what is it about the mindset that predicts the ability to see that next move, to believe that hope is possible, that positive change is available to us? What is it about our mindset? There was a guy that wrote in from Oklahoma and he said, my home was facing foreclosure.

00:04:44:16 - 00:05:02:23
Michelle Gielan
I had no one to turn to. My one family member lived just 20 miles away from me. My brother and we had a fight about two decades ago, and we stopped talking, and it was actually the fight over money. Anyway, he hears through the town grapevine that his brother's home is facing foreclosure. At the same time, he ends up doing nothing originally.

00:05:02:23 - 00:05:26:16
Michelle Gielan
Then he saw a segment on rethinking financial challenges. He ended up calling his brother. They patch things up. They pulled their resources and saved one of the homes and moved in together. And that was the moment for me, where it crystallized like some people have access to seeing that next step more than others, and a lot of it is about the information that's upstream of you and then the choices that you make.

00:05:26:16 - 00:05:38:06
Michelle Gielan
And so I left and went to get that master's that you were talking about at Penn. And I've been working for the past 15 years to to study mindset, performance, optimism, resilience and success.

00:05:38:08 - 00:05:56:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And so that's why we're here today to talk about resilient optimism, the title of your new book that if you're watching, for those of you that are lucky enough, you watch it. You can see it over your shoulder. My my question is why? Why this book? You you framed sort of your, your mission and and sort of what got you to this general area of focus.

00:05:56:08 - 00:05:58:00
Kevin Eikenberry
But why this book specifically?

00:05:58:01 - 00:06:26:11
Michelle Gielan
Yeah. Well, there is such compelling data that as I see it being played out, with, at companies and organizations and professionals, I work with the hospital systems. I just, I was like, this is it. So we've known for decades that optimism fuels performance and well-being. I mean, you're if you have a positive and optimistic brain we've seen in studies 31% higher levels of productivity, 37% higher sales, 40% greater chance of promotion over the next year.

00:06:26:11 - 00:06:50:14
Michelle Gielan
And it's literally a driver not only of how we feel, but also how we perform. But what I started to see, though, is that it is not simply a mindset, although a lot of it is a mindset. It's it's, resilient. Optimism is built on a pattern of behaviors that help us stay steady when challenges strike, when the first plan fails or things aren't working out how we hoped for.

00:06:50:16 - 00:07:12:20
Michelle Gielan
So where we can just have, optimism in the beginning, like, you know, we're so good at new beginnings, of new project, new school, new year, new, new job or a new marriage. We're so optimistic in the beginning. But the resilient optimism that that's a set of behaviors that help us sustain it through that messy middle period when it's more challenging and we need it most.

00:07:12:20 - 00:07:33:12
Michelle Gielan
And so I looked at all the research behind that and identified five key behaviors of resilient optimists, because, I mean, today, why this book now? I mean, I think this this we are experiencing some of the highest levels of anxiety, burnout, loneliness and depression that we've seen. And we're not living in a period of time where, hey, we have some change and then things get better.

00:07:33:15 - 00:07:41:12
Michelle Gielan
It's constant change. It's exhausting and so we just need different tools. And we've, I believe, ever needed before.

00:07:41:14 - 00:07:58:19
Kevin Eikenberry
So, you don't know this. Some of my, some of our listeners might know that I spend a lot of time talking about three things. And this book talks about all three of those things, mindset, skill set and habit set. This book talks about three of those things. And we're going to we're going to talk a little bit about each of the three.

00:07:58:19 - 00:08:18:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I just want to frame it around those things. Because if is if it is if resilient optimism is a behavior which, you clearly make the case and certainly matches with my experience, then we have to get to how do we actually not just how could we do it? How do we make it a habit? So we're gonna get to all of that before we're done.

00:08:18:14 - 00:08:33:02
Kevin Eikenberry
But I think we should probably take a minute to say, okay, we know what resilience is. We know what optimism is. But when you hook them together, as I promised in the open, like, what is it? What is resilience? Optimism actually. And and maybe what isn't it.

00:08:33:04 - 00:08:58:18
Michelle Gielan
So resilience. Optimism is optimism that stays strong when it's tested. And it's it's built on those behaviors as opposed to waiting for the feeling. Because how often I mean, I've been through this many, many times in my life. This is something I know everyone's going to resonate with. You are not feeling optimistic, and yet, if you could behave like an optimist where we expect good things to happen, we believe our behavior matters.

00:08:58:20 - 00:09:24:01
Michelle Gielan
We absolutely would get better outcomes. It gets us out of bed in the morning. It gets us thinking about the next meaningful positive action we can take. It gets us to connect with other people, to ask for help when we need it, or to rely on resources that are available. It's a mindset that allows us to see positive, possibilities and progress in the midst of not feeling as optimistic as we can.

00:09:24:05 - 00:09:44:07
Michelle Gielan
But one thing I should say. So I've run into a lot of definitions of optimism over time. And, and I think sometimes there's been a misconception. So my husband, who I know, you know, his work, we were talking about this earlier, but, his name is Sean Achor. He's very, very funny. And he came home one time from a talk and he said, you won't believe what happened.

00:09:44:07 - 00:10:01:02
Michelle Gielan
I love his stories. Right. So he comes home one time and he's like, so I get I go to give this talk at this company. On the power of optimism. The CEO comes up to me after the talk and says, I love this research. I want to figure out how to more deeply embedded in my organization. Can I give you a ride to the airport so we can talk about it along the way?

00:10:01:04 - 00:10:15:04
Michelle Gielan
So Sean says, yes, of course, sure. And he gets in the guy's car, clicks on his seatbelt, and the CEO gets in and he doesn't put on the seatbelt. So after a while, the seatbelt bells going off. And again, Sean very funny. He thinks he's making a joke and he turns to the guy, says, oh, so you two more seatbelts?

00:10:15:06 - 00:10:39:12
Michelle Gielan
The guy's like, nah man, I saw your talk. I'm an optimist. Sean's like, no, you're something else, right? So optimism doesn't stop cars from hitting us. It doesn't stop reality from negatively affecting us. What we talk about in this research is having rational optimism as the baseline, taking a realistic assessment of the present moment while maintaining the belief that our behavior matters, especially in the face of challenges.

00:10:39:15 - 00:10:57:23
Michelle Gielan
So resilient optimism starts there and it says, yes, I see the challenge. I understand the problem. I've taken a deep look at it, and I believe that my behavior will make a difference in solving it. Having those two components is what predicts our ultimate success.

00:10:58:01 - 00:11:19:11
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, my observation in just in life, but also in working with leaders is that everyone will agree with that. Everyone agree with, well, yeah, everything else being equal, better to be positive, but then they're stuck on. But I have to be realistic and I have to but I don't and I don't feel it. So I mean I know you hinted at this a little bit.

00:11:19:12 - 00:11:35:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Let's say a little bit more about that. But before we get in, how do we make the shift? Like how do we help people, get past that, but that a lot of people, even people that are listening right now, might be saying, that all sounds good, Michelle, but.

00:11:35:03 - 00:12:00:04
Michelle Gielan
I don't feel it. Yeah, and you know what? That is the most freeing part of this research. You don't need to feel optimistic to behave like an optimist and strengthen your resilient optimism and lead your team to see an optimistic path forward. Since this is a set of behaviors we can practice those even when we're not necessarily feeling it.

00:12:00:04 - 00:12:12:20
Michelle Gielan
And then hopefully, I mean, the hope is that our feelings will catch up as our brain starts to open up to progress and possibility. And our we are reminded of the agency that we have in life.

00:12:12:22 - 00:12:28:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Behaving our way into feeling. Yeah. So Albert Einstein said, the most powerful idea in all of human history is compound interest. And you say that, optimism, optimistic behavior, compounds. So yes.

00:12:28:22 - 00:12:53:09
Michelle Gielan
Yes. Okay. So it compounds over time as your I mean, in, in many, many domains. Right. If you're a sales professional and we there was a fantastic study done that found that sales professionals at this was at MetLife many years ago by my former professor from UPenn. They found that optimistic sales professionals, they outsold their pessimistic counterparts by 37%.

00:12:53:09 - 00:13:17:22
Michelle Gielan
The follow up study was 56% there. What they did is they actually tested people who are being hired for the job to find those optimists among the pool. And then that 10% of the workforce, that was kind of the experimental group of highly optimistic people. They outsold the other 90% by 89% that next year. And why? Because you you believe your behavior matters.

00:13:17:22 - 00:13:32:13
Michelle Gielan
So even though call 4 or 5 and six said nope, nope and nope seven, eight, nine or so possibilities. You believe that if you get on the phone, you have a chance of, you know, you might pivot, your behavior might make changes, but you have a chance to make the sale. And that kind of behavior compounds over time.

00:13:32:13 - 00:13:56:19
Michelle Gielan
But I saw very clearly in the data with a group of women that we worked with these surveyed women through conference for women, which, and we asked them a handful of questions about, first of all, their optimism. So we used a validated scale to see how optimistic they are. And then we asked them about how likely are you to get a promotion or a raise if you do, what's the percentage raise?

00:13:56:21 - 00:14:26:10
Michelle Gielan
The national average worker gets a 3% raise per year typically. And so we were kind of comparing it against that women. The women fell into five groups year of optimism. And so we just took those women who were in that top 20%. You know, they scored a five in optimism. And what we found is those women got significantly higher raises over time, as compared to even the fours and the threes and the twos.

00:14:26:12 - 00:15:04:08
Michelle Gielan
And so in the moment, what we see is that optimism pays, right? Okay. You're more optimistic. It's linked with higher raises. And so therefore higher salary. But we did some modeling. And if you take two women the national average worker versus a five on the optimism scale, they both start at $50,000 per year. And then you look at that 12 to 13% raise that these women who are fives are getting if they just get it for the first three years and that's it as compared to the national average worker, if they were to take that difference in their salaries, just don't adjust their lifestyle for three years, stay put and just keep pretending like you're

00:15:04:08 - 00:15:30:17
Michelle Gielan
only making 50 K and put that that extra money you're getting into a very conservative, investment account. We found that they could they could retire with $1.4 million more just from that early bump in their career. And so that's a great example of it. Compound over time, your optimism can make such a difference in your performance at work, how much money you're making.

00:15:30:17 - 00:15:43:21
Michelle Gielan
And then if you make some just smart moves again because you believe your behavior matters, you can create incredible results for it. Now that's just a model. But I mean, we've if these women are getting these numbers, it should happen.

00:15:43:23 - 00:16:03:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Absolutely. So, one of my it's hard for me to pick a favorite part of the book. One of my favorite parts of the book is you talk about a concept that I've read about before, and I've seen in other contexts, and it's the idea of being the positive deviant. Because what I have to say, we've been talking about this from what does this do for me perspective.

00:16:03:23 - 00:16:24:19
Kevin Eikenberry
But this is a leadership podcast, and this idea gets at the point of how what we can do to impact others. This doesn't have to be a leader, but since we're leaders, we'll talk about it that way. What what the heck is a positive deviant? And how does that what's the good news there for us as leaders?

00:16:24:21 - 00:16:46:08
Michelle Gielan
So positive deviance in its traditional form and I so this was a concept that other researchers have come up with. It's a look back at the past and saying, okay, so we created some really positive outcomes in this community or at this job. And and so let's look at the person who's the positive deviant that helped create that.

00:16:46:08 - 00:17:10:20
Michelle Gielan
Right. But it's a it's looking backwards. This is looking forward. How can I become the positive deviant. And the way we become a positive deviant? I give concrete examples in the book like spread positive gossip and really try to change the communication styles of other people. But basically you're what you're looking for. Are those opportunities to rewrite the social script that's around you.

00:17:11:02 - 00:17:47:00
Michelle Gielan
You are a leader. You have a disproportionate amount of influence over the people that are on your team. Question is, do we wield it for good or do we not take advantage of the full opportunity? I've seen time and time again, when leaders look for those small moments where they can not only broadcast a mindset that is positive, hopeful and optimistic, their team and solutions focus, but they're also creating an environment where those team members can speak up about the good things that are happening, the wins that they've had, the progress they've made, all the stuff that helps fuel the brain, the culture changes dramatically.

00:17:47:01 - 00:18:04:09
Michelle Gielan
Case in point, we work with a financial services company. This is also a sales team. I'm leaning a little heavy on the sales right now, but we have lots of examples. But there I mean, this can literally be applied to any office. They're they were they were doing the same kinds of business practices all day long.

00:18:04:09 - 00:18:24:13
Michelle Gielan
So think about your day. What are the 5 or 6 major things that you do all day long. And what they did is they applied positive psychology onto those, those, actions. And then we track them over time. Great example, they redid the morning meeting. Morning meetings can be life giving or soul sucking, depending on how we do it.

00:18:24:15 - 00:18:42:12
Michelle Gielan
What they decided to do is keep it short because the sales professionals make their sales on the phone they need. They got them off the phone just ten minutes. They wanted to share two things successes from the past 24 to 48 hours that the entire team might not have heard about. So little things. And then, and this is brilliant.

00:18:42:14 - 00:19:08:19
Michelle Gielan
If anyone needed a little extra support that day, their colleagues could rally around them, give ideas and solutions so they were encouraged to speak up about the challenges they're experiencing. So success, successes and solutions. And then 18 months later, we found that their new insurance application rate went up by 237%. Their gross revenues went up by 50%, which for them was $300 million.

00:19:08:21 - 00:19:25:18
Michelle Gielan
So the president gave a little bit of pushback, like, why are we talking about, soft skill, like optimism at work? No. Now he's one of the biggest proponents of positive psychology because not only did it see what it does to his business, but he also saw what it did for the well-being of his team.

00:19:25:20 - 00:19:42:14
Kevin Eikenberry
See, the beautiful thing about this is both of those things happen concurrently. It's not like we're doing one thing to build, to sell, have bigger book of business or to have be more efficient or more productive and then something else to be, to chase the holy grail of mental health. We're getting both at once.

00:19:42:20 - 00:20:14:03
Michelle Gielan
Yes, yes. And that's where we see, dramatic changes I worked with. There's a school district in Chicago. It's in Schaumburg, Illinois, SD 54. The superintendent, he's he's incredible. His name is Andy DeRose. He decided early on in his career before he was superintendent, that it was so important to put actually well-being first, because if you put well-being first, then you're also going to set the child up to be in a good state, to perform high, high academically.

00:20:14:04 - 00:20:38:15
Michelle Gielan
So, anyway, he got shot down a bunch of times, and then finally he got his shot at the superintendency. And he has trained the entire school district, all 20,500 educators on how to create and sustain a more optimistic culture. So they did it in three ways. They hired for optimism. They did learning groups around optimism, book clubs and whatnot, and they train the entire school district on the seven main principles of positive psychology.

00:20:38:17 - 00:20:57:18
Michelle Gielan
And so our our training team did not even interact with the students. This was just an initiative with the educators. Anyway, the results have been remarkable. So not only did work and life satisfaction of the educators rise dramatically over the years, it became one of the, you know, rated one of the best places to work and wanted to be there.

00:20:57:21 - 00:21:22:20
Michelle Gielan
But this is fascinating. The school district was redistricting during that time. So there were the number of kids or the percentage of kids that went were qualifying for free and reduced lunch programs went from 8 to 33%. At that same time, they did all these initiatives around positive psychology and optimism. They went from the 73rd percentile academically to 95th percentile in the state.

00:21:22:22 - 00:21:43:12
Michelle Gielan
And it's because the environment there completely changed. And mental health emergency calls dropped, suspensions drop all of these important metrics. It's because they started with well-being first and then said, now that we we're here, we're going to continue working on our academics through this, but it's going to also bolster our academics at the same time.

00:21:43:14 - 00:22:01:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So this gets at this idea of, of what our priorities are. And, and it's kind of not on the order of what I was going to ask next, but I'm going to do it because it ties together. One of the chapters in the book is about triaging our commitments, and newsflash, most of us have too many of them.

00:22:01:16 - 00:22:32:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? And so it's the same thing. So too many commitments, too many priorities. And I think the the big picture story that you just described there, and we just talked about it in the book, is that when we get the right priorities, that foundation, then we can build everything else more effectively so we don't have to. We could have done the whole show on triaging commitments, but give people a couple of quick ideas about why that's so important for what we're trying to do in terms of creating the habit of being a resilient optimist.

00:22:32:23 - 00:22:55:01
Michelle Gielan
So the overarching idea with triaging or commitments is that a lot of us these days have we're responding to urgency as opposed to looking at impact. So, if we can triage our commitments, we get a clear idea of what actually moves the needle, what helps us move forward. This is also I'll explain the framework of it.

00:22:55:01 - 00:23:20:08
Michelle Gielan
But this is all so much easier when we sit for a minute and we get really clear to your point about our values. What is most important at work, what moves the needle, what are what are we actually striving to do? I'm not saying you get to do it all the time, every day, but when you have a clear idea of what your your personal true mission and then your organizational mission is, this all falls into place much easier.

00:23:20:08 - 00:23:39:05
Michelle Gielan
And and the other pieces also, for those of us who are working parents, you say, okay, I don't want to be working all the time. I want a personal life or, you know, I want to be with my children. I mean, really for I mean, it's obviously for anyone who wants any personally, but but if you if you have your true north, this is either and then the actual triaging of your commitments.

00:23:39:05 - 00:23:57:17
Michelle Gielan
I've been through this process. I put hundreds of professionals through it at this point. I'm going back through it right now because I'm, you know, it's been a busy time with the book launch just to make sure make get really clear about what your high value, high impact activities are for your work. Put those on a list then.

00:23:57:19 - 00:24:14:05
Michelle Gielan
And this this is usually really easy because we're I'm mostly guided by this. But come up with what's your on your not to do list. These are things you do not think you should be doing, do not need to be doing, can delegate, can let go of that. You could use AI to completely get it off your plate all the things.

00:24:14:07 - 00:24:29:18
Michelle Gielan
And then there's going to be a middle list which is just the reality of business. This is stuff you need to do to keep your business going. It's just there's no there's nothing you can do with them. They might not be super consequential to what you actually want to be doing with your time, but you just have to do them.

00:24:29:18 - 00:24:52:03
Michelle Gielan
And that's, you know, I've got that. It's like some of the accounting stuff here. I it's got to be me. There's no choice. So anyway, when, when you get really clear on those things and a really quick example is I worked with a woman who is a therapist. She runs a therapy practice. She knows that her highest value activities are seeing patients who are teenagers and creating coursework for their parents.

00:24:52:04 - 00:25:13:02
Michelle Gielan
Outside of that, she's she doesn't want to be doing basically anything else, but she runs a practice with other people who are working there. You got to keep the lights on. You got to keep the, you know, everything going. So anyway, we went through the process and this became iterative for her where she started. Then as she worked through it to see even more opportunities to move things to the not to do list.

00:25:13:04 - 00:25:30:04
Michelle Gielan
And then it gave her, it gave her six hours back of her work week. First of all. And then it also gave her this peace and calm as she said, I'm going to I know what my priorities are, and I'm going to do them in the morning when I'm freshest, and then I'll move to the other stuff, as opposed to just constantly looking at her inbox and responding.

00:25:30:04 - 00:25:34:08
Michelle Gielan
And it's all feeling urgent and overwhelming.

00:25:34:10 - 00:25:37:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Busy is a four letter word. It really is.

00:25:37:16 - 00:25:40:02
Michelle Gielan
That is true. That is true.

00:25:40:04 - 00:26:02:03
Kevin Eikenberry
I used to tell, I told people, I said my grandmother mother would not agree with me. I'm confident. But it's the most dangerous four letter word. In many ways, yeah. So I want to take a second, because we do have all this stuff. We're busy lives. We're in and we're in the messy middle where we've got we got challenges, we got stuff, and we have to recharge.

00:26:02:05 - 00:26:21:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And there's a whole chapter on recharging. I'm just going to read something that I love. I guess I love it because I agree with it. I'm just going to read this, and then I just want us to talk about recharging for just a second. Right. It says, but vacations aren't the only way to restore our energy. The same principles that make time off so powerful can help us recharge within the rhythm of ordinary life.

00:26:21:15 - 00:26:41:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Over the weekend, after work, or even between meetings. Let's talk about recharging just for today. You can comment on that, or just in general and a little bit about recharging, because you know, we can be optimistic and we can, do all of the kinds of things we've been talking about. And yet, man, life takes energy and we have to we have to find ways to replenish it.

00:26:41:20 - 00:26:43:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So what do you want to say?

00:26:43:13 - 00:27:06:03
Michelle Gielan
Well, so, I, I did a study with Sean and us travel Association. I got very excited about this because I love traveling, you know, and I love vacations. And that I think that there are a lot of people that say, I can't take time off because I can't miss a day because and there's all these psychological reasons, which I go over in the book, if you remember, I had a lot of fun with that.

00:27:06:03 - 00:27:36:12
Michelle Gielan
It's like, oh, you know, you're talking to your future self. Like, I thought I could do this anyway. But the so we did a study that we published in Harvard Business Review. We found after surveying more than 3500 business professionals who have vacation days as part of their benefits package, they paid time off those who took 11 or more vacation days, versus ten or fewer, came back to work and were 30% more likely to receive a raise or a promotion over the next year.

00:27:36:14 - 00:27:55:20
Michelle Gielan
So seeing those two things linked, it's like, well, of course we should take good vacations that help us cognitively restore. And I talked to a bunch of people that and everyone kept asking me, okay, but how do I do this on a daily basis? And I think, that that's that's really where it's at because we're not on vacation all the time.

00:27:55:22 - 00:28:18:22
Michelle Gielan
So, it's those small cognitive breaks and, and this can be applied to both domains. The most important thing is wherever possible is to truly disconnect, even if it's only for a few minutes. So a cognitive restorative break at work is not jumping off your computer and then sitting back at your desk chair and jumping on to your phone for five minutes.

00:28:19:00 - 00:28:20:12
Michelle Gielan
The reason is.

00:28:20:14 - 00:28:22:05
Kevin Eikenberry
That your email, right?

00:28:22:09 - 00:28:47:16
Michelle Gielan
Yeah, yeah. You're just changing the size of the screen. What is one after? So it's, and the reason it's so our brains, when we're cranking through emails or doing our stuff, it's in task positive network. It's using the task positive network. And that, when it's using TPN, we are it high engagement, high energy and hopefully high concentration.

00:28:47:18 - 00:29:11:10
Michelle Gielan
But there is no downtime. Whereas when we can move into the default mode network, this is a, part of state of our brain that's associated with restoring our energy, creative ideas. This is what we can experience when we put our phones away on vacation, and we take the time to really have a break. This is why we have such good ideas.

00:29:11:10 - 00:29:35:02
Michelle Gielan
Sometimes in the shower, it's because we're offline. So, I mean, it can be something as simple as when you're at work every couple hours, take your hands off the keyboard and just sit and breathe for two minutes. Just watch your breath go in and out. Try to clear your mind. That can take us out of that TPN into DM and and give us a chance to recharge.

00:29:35:02 - 00:29:54:10
Michelle Gielan
But we need to hold sacred some things weekends I think a Saturday. I mean, if you're if you're, you know, religious faith is part of your journey. That's the Sabbath. And that's something we've known for thousands of years. Those moments allow us to reset, recharge and return stronger than before.

00:29:54:12 - 00:30:18:09
Kevin Eikenberry
I agree, if I if I were to, ask you to share one thing that people who are listening could do next or do first, other than getting a copy of the book. What? And I'll hold it up while you answer. What's one thing you might encourage people to do today? Based on what we've been talking about?

00:30:18:11 - 00:30:40:14
Michelle Gielan
Yeah. So I think that a lot of this is modeling these positive behaviors with other people. But I'll give you what I think is a great starting place, which is something that I experimented with at the height of the pandemic. So this was in the busyness of all of it. When I was taking care of our children, they were 1 in 5.

00:30:40:14 - 00:30:58:12
Michelle Gielan
They were home from school and trying to keep the business going. And you know, all the things that everyone was kind of contending with. What I remember was putting my head on the pillow at the end of the day and being like, I don't think I remember all any of the good stuff that happened today. I mean, there had to have been some good, but it just it was such a busy blur.

00:30:58:12 - 00:31:19:20
Michelle Gielan
So I started a best moments practice where I told Sean, I'm going to text you just 3 to 4 good things that happen from the day and you don't need to respond. You don't need to throw hard on it. It's just so we have another phone that has this repository of good notes. So if one of us breaks our phone, but the idea there was just to write small, positive, meaningful things that happened during the day, I, Zoe gave me a hug.

00:31:19:20 - 00:31:42:04
Michelle Gielan
She made me feel so loved. Leo gave me, Leo and I played pickleball outside. I tried a recipe. It was great. And what I. So I kept the practice up every night for a few years. I mean, I have like 1200 notes by now and growing what I love about it is twofold. First of all, it trains my brain in the 23 hours and change to look for all the good stuff.

00:31:42:06 - 00:32:01:14
Michelle Gielan
I have a repository of all these mental triggers because if you're like me, I like forget yesterday I can remember, but when I have all these. So if I'm having a bad day, I can just go back to the best. I write best moments at the beginning so I can search and I can, look back and say, you know, hey, this is this is all the good stuff.

00:32:01:14 - 00:32:21:19
Michelle Gielan
So this stress or this negative event can't be as powerful over my mindset if I see all the other good stuff going on. So the thing about this practice, I think is powerful is you're not asking, was today good? We're asking what was good in today. And that small reframing has a big impact.

00:32:21:21 - 00:32:45:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Because they're always there. It frames how we're looking for them, what we're what we're looking for. And it's also not a yes no question. I've got one. Well, I guess I have two more questions for you. So, one you knew I was going to ask, and that is. What are you reading these days? And I know it's book launch time, so maybe not so much, but what's something that you've read recently or that you're reading today?

00:32:45:09 - 00:33:05:00
Michelle Gielan
Okay. So. Well, for many years I read children's books nonstop because my kids love me mom to read. So, and I've just more recently moved into my own reading phase. I loved my husband's book, of course, The Power of Belief, which just came out. And then, you know, I actually so I set a goal and I know this is a business podcast, but I'm just going to say it.

00:33:05:05 - 00:33:18:19
Michelle Gielan
I wanted to read the Bible, start to finish. So I listened to it in the car, and it's been a remarkable experience. I'm like two thirds the way through. I wonder how the story is going to end. I'm curious. So, no, but I think it's been, you know.

00:33:18:19 - 00:33:24:00
Kevin Eikenberry
How the currents. But I can tell you this. You got through the hardest part already.

00:33:24:02 - 00:33:46:16
Michelle Gielan
Yes. It's true. But I would, Yeah, I what I love about that is that it's, it's show some so many of the same themes that we talk about in positive psychology. It's the social connection with other people. It's, looking for the good around, understanding how you can put, a positive mindset into action to help other people.

00:33:46:20 - 00:33:56:02
Michelle Gielan
So, yeah, I it's been a very eye opening and wonderful experience. So, yeah. And then as soon as a book launch is done, I have I already have a list.

00:33:56:04 - 00:34:09:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So we have we will put the links to the both of those books in the show notes, as well as, Michelle's new book, Resilient Optimism. Where do you want to point people? Is there any anything you want to say about where they can go or anything that you want to say?

00:34:09:15 - 00:34:29:01
Michelle Gielan
Yes. So go to resilient optimism.com and we have the success scale and you can test yourself very shortly we will have what kind of resilient optimists are you. It's going to be an assessment that gives you your scores and an interpretive report to give you some idea of where you're starting off. Give me a week and it'll be up.

00:34:29:01 - 00:34:50:22
Michelle Gielan
And then, and then, we have a bunch of other resources there. My hope is that this is a dynamic process, and it provides a feedback loop for me. I want to hear your stories. I want to hear what how you put this into practice, what you're seeing with your teams. Because I can do this research all day in the lab, but it's only with champions like and partners like all of you.

00:34:50:22 - 00:34:55:07
Michelle Gielan
That's it that I get to see it go out into the world and that gets me excited.

00:34:55:07 - 00:35:15:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So resilience optimism.com. And you can go get the book anywhere. Yes. Fine. Books are sold. Before we go everyone, you know that if you've been here before and if you if this is your first time, I hope it's not your last time. There's a question I ask you every single week. It's two words. It's important question.

00:35:15:21 - 00:35:31:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And the question is now what? What action are you going to take? From what you heard today. So a big part of what Michelle and I've been talking about is the idea that optimism isn't just a mindset. It's not just a feeling. And it's not even just, oh, I could do this. It's. What am I going to actually go do?

00:35:31:18 - 00:35:49:03
Kevin Eikenberry
What action will I take as a result of having been here and I could give you a list of the things I wrote down as we went, but that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the thing that the thing that you take from this, that you will take action on. And I promise that when you do that, it will change your results.

00:35:49:05 - 00:36:05:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And I'm guessing that the reason that you come to a show like the Remarkable Leadership Podcast is you want to get better results, you want to be a more effective leader, and the only way we get there is by taking action. Michelle, thanks so much for being here. It is such a joy and blessing to have you here.

00:36:05:02 - 00:36:07:03
Michelle Gielan
Thank you.

00:36:07:05 - 00:36:15:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And with that, everybody, that's the end of this week's episode. We'll be back with another episode like every week, another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.