FROM:TODAY
Hosted by Jonny de Mallet Morgan, Chief Vision Officer at leadership and communication consultancy FROM:TODAY, this podcast is where leadership meets inspiration. Join Jonny as he engages with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators who share their dreams, challenges, and the stories behind their leadership journeys. With a passion for people and business, Jonny uncovers candid insights and experiences to inspire both current and aspiring leaders.
Each conversation serves as a powerful resource for anyone looking to grow, lead, and create meaningful change in their organization.
Mini-Series Feature: The With INTENT: mini-series, led by Chris Wickenden, Chief Creative Officer, offers a weekly dose of inspiration. In 5-minute deconstructions of the latest business and leadership trends, Chris sparks new thinking and encourages practical, constructive action.
FROM:TODAY is a leadership and communication consultancy dedicated to building high-performing teams that thrive on strong communication and a shared purpose. We help organisations create environments where people feel they belong, grow, and deliver their best work. Whether you're tackling talent retention, engagement, or burnout, we work with you to provide the tools and strategies to future-proof your business and elevate your culture. Learn more at www.fromtoday.com.
FROM:TODAY
Living Through Values: Dr. Mollie Marti on Resilience and Transformation
Unlock the secrets to a values-driven life with our special guest, Dr. Mollie Marti, a lawyer, social psychologist, author and visionary behind the Worldmaker Resilience Institute. Mollie takes us on a journey through her personal transformation, revealing how aligning her goals with her core values has been a game-changer in both her personal and professional life. We discuss the powerful difference between achieving goals and living through values, and how the latter provides a more sustainable and fulfilling path. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, especially for those striving to foster resilience within their families and businesses in today’s complex social media landscape.
Discover the intricate process of identifying and refining core values, both personally and in your organisation or team. Mollie shares practical methods for connecting with intrinsic values through introspective exercises and collaborative discussions. Learn why values should be viewed as fundamental guiding principles rather than mere marketing tools. Through rich anecdotes and professional stories, she illustrates how values shape our decisions and actions, whether in individual pursuits or within organisations like Worldmaker, where collaboration, intentionality, and innovation are the bedrock principles.
We also tackle the pressing issues of parenting in the digital age, providing strategies for setting boundaries and creating supportive networks among parents. Dr. Marti offers invaluable advice on building resilient communities and supporting children through the challenges posed by smartphones and social media. With practical tools and motivational resources, this episode is your guide to fostering a resilient and value-oriented next generation, ensuring not just survival, but thriving in today’s world. Join us for this deeply enriching conversation and walk away with actionable insights to transform your life and community.
Learn more about Mollie and her incredible work: molliemarti.com
So this week, Chris and I got the opportunity to interview Dr Molly Marty. Molly is a truly incredible person. She is a lawyer turned psychologist, resiliency expert, celebrated business author and founder and CEO of Worldmaker Resilience Institute. Every single time I get the opportunity to spend time with Molly, my life is enriched. She is so knowledgeable, so experienced and incredibly generous. Within this podcast, we discuss resilience, we discuss the value of values and why it's never too early or too late to start the work. We discuss how to create sustainable, resilient businesses and be a high-performing business, and we even delve into what it is to parent teenagers through this very, very difficult time with social media and decay in mental health, and how can we, as parents and adults, help create a resilient new adult. Enjoy, hi, molly. How are you Welcome?
Speaker 1:Thank you, so good to see both of you.
Speaker 3:You too, hey Molly.
Speaker 2:So I've known Molly for about five years. Chris and I have done a bit of work with her NGO, world Maker International. They're fantastic. Please, please, check them out Now. One of the reasons I wanted to host this conversation with Molly is because every single time I have a conversation with her in no uncertain terms, my mind is opened and blown, and I don't mean that hyperbolically. So, molly, for all the conversations we've ever had before, thank you very much, and for what we are about to receive, I am truly grateful. Hey, thank you, molly. Something that's always inspired me about you is the fact that you're so rooted in values. It feels like you've got a really hard line. It feels like you've got a really clear compass in your life which is dedicated or dictated by the values that you live by. Right from an observation have you always been values-led or has that been something that you have grown into?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question and hopefully it's a hard line with a soft touch. You know I'd say a conviction or a clarity in my relationship with my values is what I seek. You know it was a process. I mean. The thing is I had values and I was a very goal-driven person and had not connected my accomplishments or my goals to those values until I went to graduate school. So my first career was as a lawyer, then went back to get my master's in PhD in personality and social psychology.
Speaker 1:I was doing research in grad school and I came across the research on the power of values and I started to do the work. I was creating and co-creating performance psychology programs at the time and so I was applying it in my own life. And then, how do I teach this out? And I remember, just kind of walking around in a daze, when I started to really intentionally ask some questions and get clarity about what were those most important things in my life, what were my North Stars and what was I going to really commit to. And I remember the moment that I thought, oh wow, this is powerful. Is my husband. This was probably around 1997.
Speaker 1:I had a little guy, my son. I was pregnant with my second. But my husband said what are you doing? You're different, you're showing up in a different way, you're a better wife, you're a better mom. He's like what's going on? And I hadn't shared that values work with him directly and that was such a powerful mirror and I thought, oh wow, I'm going to stay on this journey. And so, um, you know, I used to teach values on one of my earlier books too. We'd have lists of them and circle and what ones resonate.
Speaker 1:And now I've created some really um, interactive ways to help people do that, uh, excavating in their life and um, and and and let me say another really powerful thing that I've experienced with values, because I read it from the research but when you experience it, it really brings it to life. And that's that once we accomplish goals, our energy level drops. Our brains said, okay, goal accomplished, you don't need to produce more energy done. And whether that is an athletic performance or you know, my at that time I was experiencing an academic performance. But if you connect what you're doing to your values, you're growing those in it, even if you hit setbacks. So when you hit setback and you can fall back on those values, so when you know, I was an undergrad, as an example, I knew I wanted that 4.0. I knew I wanted to be valedictorian. I had that goal and I accomplished it.
Speaker 1:I walked across that stage, johnny and Chris, and that empty feeling, it's just like what now? It was so empty because it had been my goal for three years. I graduated in three years and then it was just done and I thought what next? What now? I had nothing inside of me. Fast forward 10 years. I had done the values work On paper it looked the same, graduated with my PhD, early, top of my class.
Speaker 1:All those things on paper looked very similar. I danced across that stage because I knew what I valued and I had connected it and I knew that the path I was on was the outlet for value. And you never end that. It's not like one day I get to a point and say, wow, I was really a justice seeker today or wow, I just showed a lot of integrity in that situation. I'm done. Values don't work that way, goal work. And so when you can identify your values and link your goals to those, then even if you're an athlete and you blow out a knee or military and you get injured or whatever life brings. To all of it, you have that foundational fallback and it makes it easier to get back up and what?
Speaker 2:what are the exercises that you've developed, then, to help people?
Speaker 1:yeah, I, I like to keep it's so experiential my trainings that I don't just want to say, okay, we do this and we do that. Um, because especially the values piece is one of my favorite pieces. Um it, you know you want to go mind blown and put through some of these exercises. Um, but people can start anywhere they. You know. You can get out of the internet, you can look at books. There's lists of values. So if you start nowhere else, that's where I started. Um, just you know what's more important and okay. Then I start with 30 things that are like, okay, these are really important things, they're all good, but these really have a piece for me. And then down to 20, and then you know, usually eight to 12 is where people end up. So to really hone in a couple exercises people can do and this overlaps too with that ideal self things like writing your obituary and working backwards can be really powerful.
Speaker 1:One of my favorites is a 75th birthday celebration or retirement party. Envision yourselves at that party and you have, you know, these people that are really dear to you, three people, and you see that and what do they say? You know, how did you impact their lives? How did you inspire them? What is their toast to you? That they're saying I'm better because you've been in my life and you've shown me this, or you made a difference in this way and you've shown me this, or you made a difference in this way. You know, there's exercises you can do that way that are really a fun way to bring this to life.
Speaker 1:But I actually I do a values where I force people. Sometimes they call me a masochistic psychologist. I'm like putting really good intentions. People are pounding the table. I don't want to, but I have an exercise where it's a refinement exercise. I'm putting really good intentions. People are pounding the table. I don't want to, but I have an exercise where it's a refinement exercise and you need to let some things go, not even talking about values at that time, but talking about experiences and people and then connecting that to values. So it's a fun way to bring that forth. But there's a lot of different ways to get there, and it's not the type of work you do once and you're done. I've been doing this various work. I'm going on 30 years, since I had dug deep into it in grad school, and I'm still in a refining process.
Speaker 2:So interesting. I feel that I'm certainly refining my relationship with it. I'm refining my relationship with it. I'm refining my relationship with it through sort of private contemplation, but also because I come up against opposition to the concept of defining it relatively regularly through contact with clients, where they look at it like a marketing exercise as opposed to a sort of an intrinsic discovery exercise and uh or or that or or, like something they have to do to attract talent and not something they have to live by, if, if that makes sense and therefore getting quite robust conversation.
Speaker 2:Also because I think it's quite difficult to, because it's not a quick exercise, it's not like, as you said, it's dumb and even when I was on holiday recently, that whole identity with I never really know what to call it, whether it's purpose or whether it's a why which is obviously being made very famous, or whether it's like your primary motivators in life, however you want to articulate, I don't really care how you want to articulate it, as long as you connect it sort of intrinsically. I feel that, even though I'd be mixing lyrical about this kind of stuff for about seven years, even two weeks ago on holiday, I was like I know, I'm good, now I know what it is Now. I know what made it make me. So it is really difficult. When you first started Discover Amir, was it a solo project or did you have support?
Speaker 1:D1 athletes a lot at the University of Iowa and then over time worked with athletes up to Olympians and world competitors, and so that was the context of me doing that work is then teaching it out through performance sciences and also the corporate work with performance sciences, and so there was a lot of back and forth with him. And then once my husband made that observation, you know, and that he started his work, and so that was a lot of back and forth with him, and then once my husband made that observation, you know, and that he started his work, and so that was a lot of great deep conversation. Initially it was solo, like I really remember, just walking around. It was baffling because it was just so big and I would, I would see things. It's not that I hadn't had those values, they didn't just show up once I did the work, but I wasn't being intentional about them. So, as an example, one thing I'm a justice seeker, you know.
Speaker 1:I wrote a book Walking with Justice. You know me to seek justice. I want that for everyone, but I brought a bat for the most vulnerable among us and that's why I became a lawyer. I mean I was 14. And that's why I became a lawyer. I mean, I was 14. I witnessed an injustice. I just thought that's not okay and I'm going to go to law school and I'm going to do something about that.
Speaker 1:But I didn't know that that was one of my values, and same with you know now that I know that, and same with you know, starting Worldmaker, it was one of those not on my watch moment where we were losing teenagers by suicide. We lost three within six months. More kids were going to the hospital and I thought this not, in what kind of world is this? Okay, it's not. And so I'm going to entail some solo work. You're digging and you're really excavating, but it's really a. I'd say it's a beautiful process because it's a self-discovery process and you're like, oh, that's why you start to see these decisions that from outside in make no sense to many people, and you've done this and you did this, and then from a done space, it helps weave that all together.
Speaker 3:Something we get asked quite a lot, and have been recently, is around some work that we do on values, around whether it should be aspirational or should it be something that's already the truth or should it be something that's already the truth?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's going to be true because it's your inner truth and, organizationally as well, you want that to be true and really woven into the foundation. I mean, you guys were with us when we did the work for Rolemaker. What are our organizational values? And you get leaders like Colonel David know, colonel David Richmond and General Dr Cannon and Special Forces Veteran Kirk Ferguson I'm thinking about the people that were on the table right, they all have a clarity of value and that conviction to live by that, and so they bring that and we're like well, table, what does this organization look like? And and so it's always going to be true, because values are, you know, sure they're not your values, um, and there I think there is going to be aspirational because they, like I said, they don't have, uh, um, an achievement point. You always are continuing to grow in them and find new outlets. I think Chris's most best answers in life yes and both. Is that one or the other. Then the question is how simplified do we want to be? How do we want to hone down?
Speaker 1:With WorldMaker, we knew we were collaborative. We said we're collaborative, we're intentional, we're trailblazing. That was that innovation piece, and we do everything with integrity. We're dedicated to do everything with integrity, so we called it upstanding. But that can be put into one sentence. You know once you're like okay, what do you stand for? You know we're intentional, collaborative trailblazers who are committed to integrity. So it stands for a whole lot more. But I believe that values should be that practical. You should be able to kind of put them in your pocket, because, I mean, we're living in a world where our values are challenged all the time, day in and day out, and sometimes in little ways and sometimes in bigger ways. But you want to be able to know what that compass is, or what the bumpers are to help you make those decisions as you go. Does that resonate with where you guys have ended up with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it does. I think it does. There is always that. I mean the list of people that you just reeled off on the board of Worldmaker. We know some of them very well and you have. This is the point I'm trying to make.
Speaker 2:We work quite often with the young successful companies, the list of people that you've just said. Uh, have experience, they fail, they've succeeded a lot and they know what makes them tick right. It's one of the reasons that they're attracted to working in your sector, working with you. Quite often you're working with people relatively new to their careers. You know, sort of 30 and under, who are in a company which may be exploding. I mean that positively growing incredibly quickly which may be exploding. I mean that positively growing incredibly quickly and to try and guide senior leadership to not only that self-reflection but also mutual communal reflection can be a process, can be a process and it can take some time. So, yes, what you say totally reflects, but I also what we experience. But also working with people who haven't had the experience of, say, david Richmond, of leadership challenges, which he's faith, yeah, harder to argue yeah, well, we were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd say we were all 30 something sometime, right, I mean, that's when I I started my own work. I, I was green, I was, um, I was, I was a go-getter, right, I was gold German, but I had not done this work and it was new to me. So, whether you're working with someone on an individual basis and they're going to do probably one of two things within that organization they're going to get their own individual clarity of values and be able to thrive in that organization, probably do a player leading up and find their own path or they're going to say oh this isn't the place for me, and then they'll go to another place where they can be supported in their values.
Speaker 1:And then, ideally, you are talking top-down, because that's when you get into culture, that when you, you know, are creating that organizational structure that is interacting with and supporting individuals and their values. Um, you know, and I used to have a reputation when I would consult, you know, I did a lot of consulting, but especially within university of iowa, a lot of their professionals and their leaders, and it was probably more times than not that people, after they worked with me, would make a decision to retire from there and move on to something else, or not retire mid-career right, make a career change. And people are, like, what are you telling that? Like, are you saying University of Iowa is horrible? I'm like no, I love the Hawkeyes, I believe the black and gold. You know I am taught there, have my degrees from there. It's not about the university specifically, it's about who they are, what they value, what they want and where their role is. So sometimes they could do a shift within the university. Sometimes, you know, they would move from university administrator to an NGO or to, you know, opening up their own consulting firm. So it's that process, but I think that we're working both Because, yeah, I gave that example of seasoned leaders that helped shape the NGO that I direct.
Speaker 1:We were all, we've all been there. We weren't born None of us came into the world knowing exactly who we were and what we valued, and so I would just I think that's a great time to be doing this. Values work the earlier the better. But I think it's a great time to be doing this. Values work the earlier the better. But I think it's a common time as well, those late 20s, early 30s, and then, because you are young and you have that life ahead of you, you know how do you want to design that and what are those values that are going to be guiding you forward.
Speaker 2:I'm really interested in work that you've done with high-performing individuals, whether it is within the corporate world or whether it's an Olympia. Within sports, and when you get people who are so goal-oriented, show goal-oriented, how do you prevent the crash post-success? I know you spoke about your own experience first masters versus second masters but when the success is so tangible and held in other people's eyes if I win an olympic medal, right, you can't say that that goal isn't there and once I achieve that goal, I achieve that goal. If you say, sell my business for x amount of pounds and I sell the business for x amount of pounds and I sell the business for X amount of pounds, how do you stop someone crashing, even if their values are about curiosity and joy and kindness, right, you kind of think, well, I still don't have a race to run, yeah yeah, in my experience, you can help prevent that crash by the values, by understanding that this was just an extraordinary output of the values, an extraordinary opportunity to live them to a high level.
Speaker 1:But what next right? What? What? There's more to accomplish, there's more in it to do, and and what does that look like? So you know, and it's that you know, we know from the study, uh, one flight we put up in our training with the negativity bias and how our brains club onto the negative. Um is the silver medalist. You know, we have all these photos of olympians and the gold medalists are happy and the bronze medalists are happy. Silver medalist, we have all these photos of Olympians and the gold medalists are happy and the bronze medalists are happy. Silver medalists are the ones we really need to be tending to, because they're looking at what they almost had and didn't, where bronze is just happy that they made it onto the platform. No-transcript, you and um. So what? Let's deal with this. The, the silver medalist, um, but we can also, or do you want to stick with the gold medalist? That can go either way in this, but you're kind of talking about the gold medalist, but which?
Speaker 2:one, let's go. So which I? That's interesting.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the silver medalist? Are they making it personal, like I am a loser, I'm not a gold medalist, I'm bringing it to them? Or are they reframing that to say you know, I fell short on this competition and I'm disappointed, but it's about something outside of that external locus of control, right, it's something that doesn't change who I am as a person, but just it fell short on this one. And then are they going to say, permanent, I'm never going to achieve what I want to achieve, I'm never going to be on that ultimate platform that's most important to me. Um, so are they using that? You know I always. You know I knew this would happen. I always was fall short. So you're using that. Never always should be of an indication.
Speaker 1:Yet the look at that reframing and then it's a pervasive. There are some medalists that say, not only am I not, didn't get my gold, but I'm a bad husband or wife, I'm a bad parent, I'm a bad athlete, I just pretty much suck at everything. Right, you start to go. Because this is what our brain does when we hit the setback in life we pull it inward and we make it personal. We think it's just going to be forever. Not okay, this was today's performance. I am going to find a way or ways to turn the page and move forward. And we start to let it herniate our being and how we are across all these different avenues in our life. And so there's things that you can do. You know, if you do find yourself after a success, doing some of that, there's reframing that you can do.
Speaker 1:But I've experienced it and I've seen it many times, that the value of value, the ability that if you fall short, you can still even I mean, how many athletes have I had that asked? You know ACLs or MCLs. They're injured, they're on the bench, they're out for the season, they might be out for two, and if they have those values defined and they still value excellence and they still value hard work and they still value being a teammate and they still value all those things, then that question comes with the curiosity that you mentioned, johnny. How do I show up in this now? What does it look like to be a teammate from the bench? What does it look like to be dedicated to my work ethic?
Speaker 1:It starts to show up in rehab and recovery. It starts to show up in different ways. It you know, the more closely aligned you are with those values. I think this the softer, the landing, um, but to the extent that you know you have a great success and then you start thinking, oh, that was it and nothing else. You know, that was my glory. It's all downhill from there that that becomes a matter of reframing the narrative.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, and if you yeah, I mean I sort of relate so much to what what you've said personally and and through the professional uh you know working. I really love that idea that, if you're being able to fully articulate the value that you live your life by, the only question when you hit a bad patch is to ask how do I show up now? It makes so much sense and it's such a liberating question. Right, all right, well, I know what, how I tick, so how do I show up? And I think that, yeah, sorry well, I should.
Speaker 1:I think you're bringing up a great point. I think that values and authenticity and I'm like that, right because you should. When you know what you value, you do have a freedom of expression and you have a freedom from letting other people's judgments impact you. I make you very little what other people think of me, because I know what I value. And I remember when I said I danced across the stage after I'd done the valueless work and I graduated.
Speaker 1:I started at Crowborough when my oldest was nine months old. I had two daughters along the way, so my baby youngest was three months old. But I remember my graduation party and family, but there'd be professors stopping by and I was barefoot. I just remember that. I just remember I don't want you, I just I had such a sense of freedom and celebration that shoes just felt like too confronting. So I was wearing this sundress and I remember Monty and a couple of people you know be like my dad was there and you know a few people asked me during that day like don't you want to put your shoes on? You got the chair of the department here and I'm like no, I really don't, and I think that's just a little, you know silly story, looking back of that dance, that weaving, interweaving of values and authenticity. Because when you know what you value and one of my values isn't how I appear to others or I don't know what values that fall along there, but clearly they're not on my list.
Speaker 1:And so there is that freedom. You mentioned that, so that just came up when you talked about that freedom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems to be the way that you sorry, the way the way that you described, you know, running, dancing across that stage barefoot and that freedom that you feel felt. It seems to be so different to so many people's experience within their organizations and I just think it's often over at that point around authenticity, that freedom, the inclination, the surrounding support to actually simply show up as yourself and I love the way you describe it because it sounds so, it's effortless and it feels that at the moment, to or free too frequently to be oneself in an organization seems to be fraught with too much risk. Um, it feels like an effort to do that and I wonder what your thoughts were around how important authenticity is to performance within an organization.
Speaker 1:I think it's central for people to be able to be themselves, to be fully themselves and to play to their strengths. To know their strengths and to play to their strengths. I think that's where you're going to see high performance and we're really, you know. Then we're talking about culture. Right is where you go pretty quickly when you talk about what does that organization look like that not only supports but welcomes and celebrates that? So I think that's where, then, we're talking about. Culture is where this conversation is heading for us. How do you create that organization that welcomes everyone, supports them in understanding what their strengths are, gets them into a position as quickly as you can that they can play to their strengths and start to be building that culture and that organization that can work in that way. That's peak performance. You're going to see the outputs of that.
Speaker 2:So culture is key to high performance, right? So that's the obvious statement, because I come across again anecdotally, but I come across a lot of leaders, pretty antiquated views, who make the statement I don't care about the people, I just care about the results.
Speaker 1:And do you say? And who produces those results?
Speaker 2:What's your turnover star flag? What are they saying about you? Not that we care about you know. Not that that matters necessarily, but yeah, no, very interesting you've heard this getting.
Speaker 1:We haven't here in the states, but culture eats strategy for lunch. Have you heard that?
Speaker 2:saying, yeah, ken, right, so we're having a really, for me, fascinating conversation about um business resilience, really, but your work at the moment isn't primarily focused on business resilience. I know that you do that and you deliver that. How, why the? Why the gear change?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was teaching I was an adjunct at the University of Iowa Department of Psych and I just had my the book Walking with Justice was just released and doing my consulting with athletes who were corporate and in 2010, 11, my small community here in Iowa lost three teens by suicide. Within six months, we lost three boys. We then had more kids going to the hospital with a temp, including some girls getting in trouble, and it just stopped me in my track, my track. It was just one of those not-on-my-watch moments and one of those moments for me to again check in with my values. And you know, where did I want to be, giving my limited time and energy? At that time, I thought it would be one year. I asked my husband you know, what do you think of me stepping back from all kind of money-making activities and just help stop this loss of life and help this community recover? I think I can. You know, help them with some tools from my performance psych world. Um, and I, he said, go. Yeah, you're helping kids, you're helping communities, we're okay, just go. And one year has turned into 13 and um, because we got pulled on so quickly by other communities, so very quickly.
Speaker 1:We heard. Once people heard you know I was doing this work. Another community had lost two teens in Iowa, another lost a child and then a Wisconsin community had lost four and Illinois lost one, and all these states right across the states. I was hearing from people so I thought, okay, me, we're stepping into these needs and I need to understand them. Um, and I think we benefit from having a non-profit and NGO that we can kind of um have a way to be serving people. So we founded that um looked around the world at where I could learn the most quickly because I had been doing resilience work but I'd been doing it with the top 1-8% of performers thinking that was resilient. So I learned a lot to step into trauma and community-based work and the needs of mental health, initially with our teens and the needs of mental health initially with their teens, and so I took a team to study with the Israel Trauma Coalition.
Speaker 1:I started creating some models and a few years into that work a researcher from the Warrior Project came and asked for my help with post-combat stress recovery. I am from a multi-generational military family. It just really resonated with me. I had an uncle who didn't go home from the war and saw that impact on my mom. But my dad served and military has been good to us. My uncle met in the Army and my sister and brother-in-law had an Air Force, so it just it resonated and I wanted to give back.
Speaker 1:So I started that work and then I think, because I brought you know, I'm not a clinician, I was performing psychology and social psychology a strong emphasis and understanding of connection and how we're impacted by each other and norms and those norms in culture work. So I think I brought a fresh look to what had been largely winicolized before or for whatever reason. The work really resonated with people and it grew. So now we have worked, you know, educated people through a pandemic, virtually over 150 countries, but we're broadly, as you know, in the UK, in the US, but I've been up to Canada and down to Australia and just globally with this work that I was going to do for one year. That's the career change and I'm just steering the ship and it's really making an impact.
Speaker 1:I lost count, I've never counted one by one, but everyone is precious but those experiences I've had of being that person where someone says I wouldn't be here, I don't want something for this work. You know I had a plan I was going to take my life. I thought nothing to lose, just go to this training one day, not going to go home and do it. And they're still standing there and then getting the help you know the need. And one woman just had come back and had an experience like that about a year ago. And then I was back in that same area and she came back to a follow-up training and she you know, we, we had a really amazing conversation. So to me that it's such a privilege and an honor to be in that position to help people when they are so vulnerable and then and not to stop there. Right, we don't want people just to survive, but how do we help them design their lives and create those environments where they and their families can thrive? So that's my day job.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's so wonderful, and anybody who's had the misfortune of experiencing someone close to them taking that own life will um, who knows how important the work is that you're doing so on behalf of everybody. Thank you for that. My family had that experience, so it's truly special work that you do. As a parent, I'm fascinated by resilience and the importance of resilience, and I'm petrified of my children moving into their teenage years right With how social media and the rest of it is affecting them and the fact that there is no break from peers ever because the peers are always in their room on their phones. What advice would you give to a parent to try and foster resilient teenagers?
Speaker 1:try and foster resilient teenagers. Yeah, I mean, first I would say, be really careful about having their peers in their room with them, or strangers, even worse, predators. You know, I hear from a lot of parents and we do an educational piece around technology and social media, but a lot of parents come with that attitude of, oh, I couldn't look at their phone or I couldn't you know that would be a violation of privacy, or I can't take their phone, that's theirs. And none of these are really young children and I think would you just drop your kid off in the middle of New York City or London and say, okay, you know, I'm not going to make your privacy, just do your thing. We really need a wait-and-call appearance and our Surgeon General here on the US side has recently issued social media, you know, is a public health issue and issued a warning against it.
Speaker 1:But some common sense I mean the delay and my kids were, you know, um growing along the technology sweep, so it was a bit easier with us on the older one, um, but my son didn't have the smartphone until senior year. I was going off to college. Our daughter had her flip phone and then she got into a lot of leadership stuff in half grade and you know strings of 25, 30 people on text and she couldn't keep up and we're like, okay, I mean she was responsible with it and so she. You know, I see, kids, you need to have them earn their smartphone. And more and more I'm seeing these parents to collaborate because it's easier when you have a group that says no, because your child say I'm the only one who doesn't have a phone. And so find your allies, you two together.
Speaker 1:Your kids are about the same age. When they're clamoring for that phone, you can say no, tony's kids don't have it yet, chris's kids don't have it yet. Phone you can say no, you know, tony's kids don't have it yet, chris's kids don't have it yet. And find other people, other parents, who will just put some common sense practices in place. Phones don't go in the bedroom of the kids. Phones get charged in a family docking area every night down in the kitchen. Phones don't come into the dining room. You know when you have your meal and do have the family meal.
Speaker 1:We know those build resilience and we know that they're also a place where you tell those family stories and that has a unique resilience building place for children. They start to get a sense of who they are and where they came from. You know I can tell you, you know I grew up with that, but I know it from a really line of strong women, independent women, and that helped shape me.
Speaker 1:You know they didn't educate women west of the Mississippi. So my 17-year-old grandmother got on a train and went to Northwestern and got her education. So that was teaching me at a very young age we value our education, we're a strong, independent woman. You know you start to tell those stories, both of the wins and also the trials. That same woman was widowed with seven children. Later in life got into real estate and so all of these stories kids need to hear them and that's on the parents to provide those environments. So I have a lot to say about this issue. I'm not going to rant that I really encourage parents to get educated and get support and to create their own supportive network, because you are the primary gatekeeper.
Speaker 1:You know if a child doesn't have the money to have their cell phone subscription and payment and you know when they're old enough to get a job and cover that bill and that's another conversation. But that was part of how we also did that in our house. You know, if you want that, that's a privilege, it's not a necessity, and so you're going to help be responsible for that.
Speaker 2:And it requires the parents or the adult, the carer, to have the same discipline, because you've got to practice what you preach.
Speaker 1:And model and model.
Speaker 1:If you're the one that's on the phone throughout dinner, it hurts my heart. When we have the farmer's markets, and they're a beautiful day, and this young child, 18 months old, maybe just short of two, so much that parents could be, you know all the colors, all the people, all the flavors, all the smells, all the everything On this beautiful sunny Saturday that a parent could be engaging, and this child sitting in the back of the wedding being cool on watching a movie, sitting in the back of the wedding being cool on a watching a movie. And uh, yeah, I do just want to wake up, um, because and and I know it's hard, and I know there's this tidal wave, um, and and so we need to be intentional about it, but it's, it's worth it, because I, I can tell you, I see a big difference, even societally, um, culturally, where the development of certain social media platforms were released over time, um, so, yeah, so, where you, your kids, are now, you're going to really um, be called to be, um, intentional and diligent I was wondering, though, whether, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I woke up this morning and my wife had put our phones in the larder or the pantry, or whatever you call it, right at the back, and she was like children cannot get to those phones because our eldest is trying to look up a song or look up whatever it was. And she's like, from now on, every night, they live with the potatoes Good idea. And she's like, from now on, every night, they live with the potatoes. And I was wondering you know, maybe I'm too positive, but I was wondering.
Speaker 2:I look at my brother's kids and they're just 10 years older than my children, and the parents and the children were discovering social media at the same time. So the parents weren't, hadn't had that experience of the real addiction into into, say, instagram or another platform, to say, oh, I don't like this. Oh, I recognize the bad behavior myself. It was a family thing which they discovered together. I wonder, because there's just my children are younger. Obviously they're distant between the introduction of these technologies that our children are going to be like oh, get off your phone, come on, come and play music with me or come and look at this painting. I don't know, maybe I'm too positive and there'll be something new getting there caused by them do you see some of that?
Speaker 1:you know what old is new again? Uh, you know, and it can give you hope you know that that kids will want something different. Um, because they they'll grow to a point and appearing in a different way, and this growing teen mental health challenges and suicide rate. All of that intersect with their work as well, and we know the role that social media plays in that. So it'll be interesting, chris. What's your experience with yours?
Speaker 3:You have little. Yeah, so he said just over two and a half um, but you know, for me, the the thing to it's that reminder to myself, because there's, I would say that my phone and it's, it's amazing, it's probably even in the last two, three years, um, I would say that I don't always live out my values in relation to my phone and I constantly have to catch myself and go what are you doing? What are you doing? And it's that, even that sort of that automatic, which I never used to have I'd always sort of put my phone away in my bag if I was with anybody but that automatic reach to maybe turn your phone over and look at it when you put it down, you don't even go through it, but just the act and just being so aware of how absurd, you know, all kids are but Orlando's, we're picking up on absolutely everything and you think, wow, just how mindful, just how intentional to be around those practices.
Speaker 3:And same, as you know, the point that you brought up, john, is sort of putting it wherever in the, in the larder with potatoes, if it takes a physical act like that. Um, and I think with all of this stuff, the more intentional that we can be, the more aware that we can become, and then the practices that you can put in place to put the relevant barriers, to build the relevant habits, are so, so important. Cause, yeah, that's my experience as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking, wow, I just need to be more intentional, more aware and take action as a result of it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I have a quick, quick, quick it. Yeah, definitely I have a question. Yeah, great morning I interrupted. Did I interrupt you?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Right. So this is my question and it's it's uh, it's sort of circling back, but also being very, very, um, very clear about parenting as well. So we get asked all the time by our client, normally as an exasperated sort of senior leader goes. I just wish everybody would fail more. I wish I'd be braver and make more mistakes and we can move on. I wish I'd be braver and make more mistakes and we can move on.
Speaker 2:And then this weekend I was going to say, before we started recording, my daughter had sports day at school and she was asked to do the cross country, the longer race, and it wasn't long, she's eight, it was a kilometer, if anything right and she and she's doing the second loop. She's not a fast runner, she's inherited my, my ability to run and, uh, on the second loop her shoe fell off and she fell over in front of, you know, 300 people and she was mortified, especially because she's really hardworking, really diligent. We'd gone out the weekend before and practiced the race together and learned about pacing and all that kind of stuff. She was really mortified and because she worked so hard and because she's smart, she succeeds a lot and there was part of me which was really happy that she failed. Obviously I wouldn't have supported her through that because I wouldn't have not heard.
Speaker 2:And I think it's like really connected to what I see in business, where people say I want my people to fail, fail but don't create an environment which it where it's safe to fail, and then as a society and as parents, we only ever seem to support success. We don't really support process or praise process or pray, you know, not hitting the mark with time or whatever he says. When you're a corporate mother, olympian, how do you in any position of leadership, whether as a parent or as a business leader, like, make it okay to fail? Failure is the only thing that you can ever guarantee it will happen. So how can you make it hurt less? How can you make it something which people are willing to do?
Speaker 1:So that's a great question, johnny, and I think you know. Speaking about the organizations, absolutely the, you know, fail forward, you forward, fail fast, keep moving. That's going to be an innovative, high-performing organization. With your daughter, two things come to mind. One, absolutely, is to be those parents who let their kids fail and support them, Someone that's going to be sharing your stories of what you learned and you know that you know uh from I'll play during the see.
Speaker 1:I I don't even use the word failure often, um, I call it a setback, I call it um I, I refrain it. So that's why I kind of trip on the f word sometimes, um. But you know, the the world judges. But you know, with your little one I would say the first thing is, you know, embarrassment, humiliation, those are really dangerous um emotions to go through alone. So I, you know, would just wrap arms around a child who's feeling not and and be tending to that and helping move through that emotion. But then there's a framework and so much of it is kind of like Disney movies are made for kids but they're really for adults.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the tools that I put into Thrive Training and other trainings for adults, a lot of those came from child psychology or kids. So a tool that I would encourage you as a parent to keep in your back pocket comes from growth mindset, but it's called I-K-A-N, and so when you have a failure or setback like that, the K stands for knowledge. What did I learn? The A action. What will I do different? Now that I've had that experience? And the N is network. Who are my people that can help me feel better and do better. And so, with your little one, you can say, okay, you know, setbacks are lessons. They're here to teach us, they're here to you know, give us a way to do better and to grow, because we can't grow without those experiences. But it through the rest of your life and always remember how horrible that felt and how embarrassed that was to you know, lose your shoe in front of 300 people. Right? So that's what you, you need to tend to that emotional piece and move through but say, okay, so what did you learn? Okay, and given that you know what, what could you try next time? You know, is there a different way where you can lace your shoes? Is there a different way? You know?
Speaker 1:So, whatever that knowledge piece is, and then say, and the most important piece is the network, and I'm in your network, and mom's in your network, and you know, name a couple other trusted adults, more trusted adults you can have in your wife. The more resilient they will be, the safer they will be. So maybe it's grandma or auntie, so you know. So who's in your network? And?
Speaker 1:And so if you, you know, are still feeling bad about this, you know who are you going to talk to or um, and, and so that just it's called I can, and then we usually pair that there's some great, just motivational kid videos, um, you know that that just help them hit more of a reset and say, okay, I will keep learning, I'll keep growing this. This well, you know I bet I'm turning the page. You know this isn't like a mistake that's going to define my life. It's today's lesson and I'm going to learn from it and turn the page and move on. So I think that that type of debriefing or breakdown is helpful in that tool. Anytime we can kind of package things up and that's something a kid can understand.
Speaker 1:That's my call and an adult. You can use these with your execs.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I'm going to use it on myself. I'm going to give it away to him, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, molly, to use it on myself. I'm not going to give it away to him.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, molly, thank you so much for your time, but we have run out of time, I'm afraid, but I thoroughly once again, thoroughly enjoyed every second of talking to you and I'm really, really grateful for your generosity. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I second that. Thank you so much, Molly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely my pleasure. Thank you, I really enjoyed our conversation.
