Alexis: 0:05

Hey, I'm Alexis Booth and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I was a senior manager at Google. I'm a wife and a mother, and I learned the hard way If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation, because I want to help you break out.

Alexis: 0:40

Hey, welcome to the Breakout Booth. I'm Alexis, and today we are going to explore some of the lesser known, or at least lesser discussed conditions of being human. I mean sometime before I turned 40. Because, despite the fact that I hold a college degree in psychology the stuff we're going to talk about today, which literally focuses on fundamental human psychological responses none of this was part of my college curriculum. It also never came up in any corporate training I ever took. These are things that only came to light after I was already more than 20 years into my working career, and when I look back and think about how far I'd actually gotten when I finally started learning about them, part of me is actually shocked, and surprised, because, while I know I've always done the best I could in whatever setting I'm in and I'm not a person who stews in regret I do truly wonder if I could have done even more had I known some of today's topics and practiced some of the things we're going to discuss, like could I have been a better manager, a better leader, could I have avoided having some fallouts with friends, or maybe could I have even avoided hitting a state of burnout altogether? And there's one of these human realities in particular that I will share a personal story about in just a bit that, when I look at my life in the rear view, I realize it held me back in a lot of ways. It led me to avoid making some bolder moves and having hard but really beneficial and productive conversations. That would have saved me a lot of work and probably helped the people around me too. Now, what ultimately changed my situation is I started working with a career and life coach named Kori Linn, and we will talk to her later in this episode, so get ready.

Alexis: 2:48

But also, to be clear, she wasn't actually the first coach I'd worked with. I'd actually worked with two before her. One of them was a colleague who was exploring the idea of coaching in her spare time. It was kind of a passion project. The other one was actually a certified coach, but it was through a work program. She'd been assigned to me and you know she did really help me in a lot of ways but we never really clicked. I also felt like she was always following some kind of a script and you know, like when the client says this, you say that and I don't really think I got as much out of the experience as I could have. But Kori and I clicked like right away to the point that I've actually worked with her for over three years continuously and apparently this actually isn't super standard.

Alexis: 3:47

But the reason that I've worked with her for so long is she's opened my eyes to so many things and helped me unwind so many different areas of my life. She's been a core part of me, making moves and setting up my life in a way that now actually brings me so much more fulfillment and joy. But let's be clear this is not easy stuff. Kori has been the bearer of quite a few rude truths, largely dealing with me, realizing many of the realities that are there, simply because I am a human being, and over time she's helped me realize that a lot of the things that I struggle with are not only things that other people struggle with too. They're actually the result of things that our bodies and our brains are hardwired to do in these kind of predictable but often suboptimal ways, because most of these are actually things we inherited from our cavemen ancestors. They were survival mechanisms and part and parcel of what we now share as the human condition, and when I say these things are suboptimal, I mean like they don't serve us in the world we live in today, most current day, humans are no longer roaming the continent harvesting berries and fighting grizzly bears with our bare hands. We now spend a third of our lives hunched over in an office cubicle and we are hunting for protein in the frozen food aisle of our local supermarket. Now, the most profound realization I had in this area of human reactions actually happened in my very first call with Kori.

Alexis: 5:18

I was describing a really difficult conversation I'd had with someone at work that I still had not made sense of, and this was months after the fact. Basically what had happened was a co-worker had given me some really direct and challenging feedback, but it wasn't just the matter of like hearing hard words. The conversation itself actually took on a kind of combative tone and it basically felt like a personal attack. The person was yelling at me and throwing blame at me in a really disrespectful way. So I'm describing the situation to Kori, and one of the things I said was that I felt like I froze in the middle of all of this happening, and I specifically described feeling like I was a deer in headlights, and I remember Kori responding almost nonchalantly, saying something like oh, sounds like you had a stress response. During the conversation, the next words that fell out of my mouth were huh, what the hell are you talking about? And as a sidebar, I have subsequently had all sorts of conversations with other people, like friends, family, colleagues. They have no idea what the hell this thing is or that it even exists. This is astounding to me now that I know about it, because now that I know it affects me in such a profound way being able to do things differently. So, in case you're like I was or any of the people that I'm talking about who didn't know what Kori meant when she said stress response, you're not alone and I'm happy to clue you in Now.

Alexis: 6:56

You might have heard of the term fight or flight before. Basically, it's this thing that developed in our cavemen ancestors as a survival mechanism, and it would give them a jolt of adrenaline and energy so that when they came into contact with like a lion, they could fight it off or run away, or maybe do both and manage to live another day. Now, I will admit, I do recall hearing fight or flight somewhere in my childhood education, but I don't recall the follow-on bit, which is that this response mechanism is not ancient history. It was actually passed down to all of us as human beings, like it's coded in our DNA somehow, and so, because we are humans, these kinds of reactions happen to us or inside of us. Our bodies do things autonomously. They are not choices, they are a reflex reaction that happens to us. And also, while fight or flight is a pretty common phrase, those two reactions are not the only ones that our human bodies might have to some form of a stressful trigger.

Alexis: 8:10

There's actually four primary ones, and some people even talk about a couple others. I'm going to stick with four and I will walk you through them quickly. By the way, for the sake of the exercise, I think it's helpful to talk about it in the context of a scenario. So we're going to pretend that a honey badger has just come into your field of vision and you know it's kind of cute. But you are also aware that honey badger don't care and honey badger is naturally armed and dangerous. By the way, honey badger is also capable of surviving an attack by six lions concurrently. I found the video to prove it. I will put it in the show notes for you, but we're going to move forward with this now.

Alexis: 8:51

So reaction one that you might have is a fight response. You might attack the thing or take aggressive actions toward honey badger, like kick it, punch it, yell at it. Reaction number two is the flight response. You might try to literally run away or avoid honey badger entirely. Reaction number three is the freeze response. Your body would essentially play dead, so honey badger doesn't see you as a threat, or maybe they won't even notice that you're there because you're not making movements to get their attention. And number four is the fawn response, which is where you might appeal to honey badger saying things like don't hurt me, I'll do whatever you want. It doesn't really make sense in terms of the honey badger, but if you do happen to be a natural people pleaser, like I am, you might find you are fawning in all sorts of different parts of your life.

Alexis: 9:55

So when Kori said that I had a stress response, what she meant was that I experienced a stressful situation. I felt like I was being attacked, I was the recipient of yelling and disrespectful words were being thrown at me, and my body reacted by playing dead. This was not a thing I chose to do. My body did it by itself. Caveman Alexis came to the rescue to save me from a personal attack in the form of mean and loud words, and the goal was to have this person stop and leave me alone, because they'd notice I'm no longer a threat to them. Unfortunately, this is not a helpful reaction in the workplace. This is a person that I saw on a daily basis. We were assigned to work together and, unless one of us was going to quit or get reassigned to a different part of the company, we actually needed to function together as normal work colleagues. And this is also not even the end of the deer in headlights moment, because one of the things you should also understand about stress responses is they go beyond simply having a physical or extreme emotional reaction in the moment.

Alexis: 11:17

Another thing that happens when you're in this state is that your rational brain, your frontal cortex. This is the thinking part of your brain. It effectively goes offline and you stop being able to have rational thoughts. Some people call it the amygdala hijack, because that tiny little part in the center of your brain actually takes over and your thinking brain is no longer calling the shots. So let's go back to the scene, because there is more to digest here.

Alexis: 11:50

I've just received a verbal attack by my colleague. I'm trying to respond. I want to reduce the tension of the conversation, but my body is now playing dead, and not only do I look frozen, my voice has been silenced and I cannot form a complete sentence. So now the situation actually escalates even further, because me not responding actually pisses this person off. So I am now receiving additional yelling at increased intensity and I'm clamming up even more. Eventually I was able to get out some phrases like I hear you, I'm sorry you feel this way and perhaps, more importantly, can we pick this up in a follow-on meeting so that we could actually exit this conversation.

Alexis: 12:45

And then I was hit with two waves of different follow-on reactions. The first of these was a state of confusion and embarrassment, because I literally did not understand what had happened to me in this moment I actually thought I was really good at dealing with these high tension discussions. It's something I did all the time in my job, and now I was, like, totally uncertain about myself. I was terrified of the idea of my manager or other colleagues knowing that this happened. And the second wave was this overwhelming desire to go crawl in a hole and avoid ever talking to this person ever again. It had a physical manifestation too. I had a pit in my stomach for days. I couldn't eat normally, I couldn't sleep, and that was me actually having a flight response to what had just happened. I literally wanted to run away and my gut instinct was to avoid this person at all costs. Now I did ultimately work through the situation. Although we were much more distant after it happened, we did figure out how to tolerate each other. I also fessed up, not only to my own manager, but some other people as part of me, trying to figure out how to navigate the broader situation. And because I had some of those conversations, something I wound up learning was that there were multiple other people who had also been on the receiving end of this and, in case you haven't realized it, this person was prone to having fight stress responses.

Alexis: 14:33

Now, the reality is you probably experience multiple stress responses every single day. They're natural human reactions, although not all of them and hopefully not too many of them actually hit the same magnitude of this deer in headlights moment where I actually lost access to my rational brain entirely. Some examples of what you might go through you know you're trying to get out of the door in the morning and you're late. You forgot to set your alarm. You might have ripped a hole in your jeans. This might have been something that happened recently. Or you spilled coffee all over the counter and you are pissed.

Alexis: 15:14

Guess what? You just had a stress response. Maybe you're at work and you are getting ready for a really important meeting. You're going to pitch this big new proposal to a potential client. Your palms are sweaty, your heart is racing. That is a stress response. Or maybe you are taking your little kid to their annual physical. You've just parked the car at the doctor's office and your kid has realized where they are. They are now screaming at the top of their lungs no shots, no shots. I don't want to go.

Alexis: 15:51

You close your eyes you bury your head in your hands. You might notice a tightness in your throat as you try to say something that is a stress response.

Alexis: 16:03

Stress responses happen all the time when something unexpected happens, when you're stepping on stage to talk to a crowd of people, when someone else in your life has a stress response which causes you to have one too. But there is some good news about all of this. The physiological purpose of a stress response is to manage an immediate and typically short-term danger. Once the threat is gone, your body was built to return to a state of equilibrium. This is called completing the stress response cycle, and there's actually things you can do to accelerate the process. And there's actually things you can do to accelerate the process. What you need to do is complete the physiological loop of what is happening inside your body, basically flush a bunch of hormones and chemicals out. The most obvious thing you can do is actually go on a run or do a really intense workout this is like literally having a fight response no-transcript and do some deep breathing or meditation. Emotional connection is another one. I have a question as to whether or not a big hug needs to be seven or 20 seconds long, but whatever, a nice long hug could be great with your partner, with a friend, with a pet. You can do something creative Draw a picture, cook something, go in the garden no-transcript. And the last one is to get a really good rest. Getting sleep is so important for getting your body back to where it needs to be.

Alexis: 18:07

Anyway, I have shared this rather lengthy story because I wanted to set the stage for an even broader discussion about the conditions of being human.

Alexis: 18:18

Stress response is one of many things we acquired from our caveman ancestors and, in my very personal experience, while it may suck to learn about some of these rude things that our bodies do to us, I'm so much better off knowing about them and, more importantly, perhaps, what I can do to navigate them. And the way I look at these things now is they're inevitable, but they're predictable, and if you know about them, you can prepare for them to happen. But on the flip side, if you don't know they exist, they can surprise you like hidden traps and ultimately they can hold you back. And with that, I welcome you to join me for a conversation with a very special guest of mine, Kori Linn. Kori is a career and a life coach and a generally amazing human being who has helped me navigate so many twists and turns in both my work and personal lives, and she also happens to be a prolific podcaster in her own right. She has over 200 episodes of her Satisfied AF podcast. Welcome, Kori Linn.

Kori: 19:32

Hello, hello, hello. Thank you, Alexis, so much for having me on your podcast. I'm so excited to be here and have a conversation with you.

Alexis: 19:40

Yay, well, how are you doing today?

Kori: 19:42

I am doing very well. How are you doing today?

Alexis: 19:49

I am doing very well. How are you? I'm good, Although I'm much better being indoors because it's like actually overnight there was a wind chill of negative nine degrees. I'm in Chicago. The weather was being rude Wow.

Kori: 20:00

So I live in Sacramento, California, so we're not having any of that. It is overcast today, but this time of year it's still often sunny and definitely well above freezing, Although I really have been craving snow, so I'm just a fraction jealous.

Alexis: 20:16

Come on over. We had snow yesterday. It wasn't too much, but kids were playing with it. Well, now that I've rambled a bit, do you have any particular thoughts or reactions to my lead-in?

Kori: 20:30

Well, I just think this is such an important conversation and it's so interesting to hear you talk about it, because I talk and think about stress responses all the time in my work and with my clients and sometimes I forget that there's a lot of people who have no idea that that's what's going on and that's what they're experiencing.

Kori: 20:47

So I'm really excited that you're bringing this conversation to people and I think it's just so important to know that, like you were saying, this is something that just happens. It's just part of being a human being and, like you were also saying, you don't have direct control over it when it's happening. But one thing I did want to add is that as you come to understand your stress responses and what's actually going on there, you can slightly influence them, which is not like really having the ability to turn them off. It's not like that. You're a human being, you're going to have stress responses. It's more that you can guide those stress responses or have awareness of them when they're happening. That can help you have a more intentional experience of them and fight less against what's happening and kind of more. Go on the ride, complete the stress response, not beat yourself up about it, and then get back to your daily life.

Alexis: 21:41

Well, yeah, Well, before we dig in too far, I did want to make sure that we have a little bit more background on you. I did give you a nice call out in my lead in, but I've known Kori now for a little over three years. She is my career and life coach and she has helped me grow so much. I actually found her through a former neighbor and I remember, looking at your website, there's like a quote on it of life doesn't have to feel like such a constant struggle. That was something that really spoke to me and I was like, wait, I need to reach out to her. That was really the start of our relationship. But, Kori, is there anything else that you want to highlight in terms of your own background or what you're excited about?

Kori: 22:24

Yeah, I would just say I have a background in creative writing, freelance writing and corporate IT, which is like kind of an interesting collection of things to then go on and become a life and career coach.

Kori: 22:37

But part of why I do the work I do is because I was really interested in people's thoughts and feelings about work Like why are people who have great jobs with good pay and good benefits unhappy and not all of them are, obviously, but I do think there's a wide group of people who have objectively excellent lives but they're not having a good time?

Kori: 22:59

And I was just really interested in that and what was going on there and how people could have a better experience. And I actually think it's my background in creative writing and being an extremely obsessive bookworm reader that I was very interested in the stories people tell about their lives and about what's possible for them and how things are going. And that's what first led me to understand that perspective has a huge impact on our experience of our life and career. But then, as I got my coach training and various certifications, I learned about all of these other factors as well, things like stress responses and brain biases that really push us in directions that we might not want to go in and if we don't realize they're going on, could lead to a lot of dissatisfaction.

Alexis: 23:48

All right, well, thanks again for being here. This episode is all about the conditions of being human. Can you talk about some of the hidden traps that you know about that can hold us back as human beings?

Kori: 24:03

Yeah. So the one that I'm always going on and on about is negativity bias, and this is the idea that the human brain is like Teflon for positive experiences but like Velcro for negative ones. So this is an idea that was made really famous in Brene Brown's first viral TED Talk, in which she said you get a performance review and they say 32 nice things about you and one constructive criticism, and then all you can think about is that constructive criticism. So in understanding why people are dissatisfied, that is a huge factor, because if you have a life where 99 things are going well and one thing isn't working, or if in your career, 99 things are going well but you get that one piece of constructive feedback, it could really shift your perspective very starkly in a way that actually does not match up with reality, and this has been shown in a lot of different ways. There are these famous relationship researchers, Dr John and Julie Gottman. They're actually married to each other, which I love, and they've found in their research it takes five pieces of neutral or positive data or interaction between a couple to balance every one piece of negative information or negative interaction between the couple, and so I think about that and talk about that a lot with my clients and in my work, but also for all of your podcast listeners, Alexis. It's just understanding that, through no fault of your own, your brain is going to be a little bit well, a lot of it 5X more obsessed with what's not working than it is going to be appreciative of what is working, and that's why one of the main focuses of what I work with people on is helping them notice and enjoy the things that are going well, even as we do all the moves we have to do to make the changes that they want to make, Because generally, when people aren't happy or when they hire a coach, there's things that do need to be changed, but there's also a lot of other things that are working that we need a bit of a perspective shift on so that we can actually get the enjoyment out of them.

Kori: 26:06

It's like this untapped wealth that we're just not having access to because of the way the brain developed, and it's also like we're not trying to get down on the brain. The brain probably developed that way because if you thought something was a problem and then it turned out not to be a problem, you were alive and fine, but if you thought something was a problem and then it turned out not to be a problem. You were alive and fine. But if you didn't think something was a problem then that it became a problem you probably got eaten and your genes didn't get passed on. So it's like a feature, not a bug, but it's a feature that you need to understand in order to work with it so that you can still have a delightful experience of your life and career, even when there are inevitably those things that aren't working, because of course there will be, because that's also part of being a human is, you know, not everything's going well all the time.

Alexis: 26:50

Yeah, I remember one of the things that you had us do.

Alexis: 26:53

One of the things that I've done in three years of working with you is I was in your SAF group coaching and one of the things you've done is you set up a Slack channel for us called Celebrations, Wins and Delights, and literally the purpose of the channel was to simply post things to celebrate victories, at least highlight wins even if they weren't necessarily celebration worthy, and also call out delights, things like, ooh, I got my nails done today, or, you know, like I did this beautiful weekend. You know, it's not necessarily the thing to celebrate, but it's that you actually had this moment of delight and joy and I think having that experience for it was like a six month kind of a period, right, Getting in the habit of actually noticing those things and having other people witness me noticing them that was super, super powerful. And I have since, when we moved back into one-on-one coaching, I send you celebrations all the time and it changed my vocabulary and even again, even just noticing these things and it's so wonderful.

Kori: 28:01

And that is exactly the point. What I'm trying to do with things like the Celebrations, wins and Delights channel, or even just talking about those with my one-on-one clients, is create, basically, a positivity bias, going in almost manually, right To create a positivity bias that's going to it's not going to 100% balance out the negativity bias, but it's going to give you more data to also be aware of, which is going to help your brain not fixate and focus so much on what's not working. And I even had clients I don't know if it was in your small group or another one where one of the clients said, like oh, now in the morning I get online and I scroll the Celebrations, wins and Delights channel instead of scrolling Instagram, and she was noticing she was having such a more positive mood throughout her day because that's where she was starting with this attention to celebrating what was going well for her, but also what was going well for all of the other people in the group. And that's exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to do with that kind of activity.

Alexis: 29:00

Yeah, and actually one of the other places where this has shown up for me more recently.

Alexis: 29:06

I have two kids, I'm married and my husband and I are working through making some adjustments in our parenting styles, and so that's us working together through this.

Alexis: 29:17

I think there's a lot of times where I'm able to quickly notice and identify and call out things of like oh my, my gosh, and this happened and this was great and this happened, and Jeff also does that. But I do think that I probably have a higher volume of the things that I'm noticing. There's been multiple times where I call something out and he's like, oh well, I hadn't thought about that, which is like a normal thing, because we don't always notice all the things because we are, you know, we have our own brains and biases and whatever. But I do think that this is one of those places where it's almost like a reckoning or like a moment of me reflecting on like, wow, I'm actually I've grown in this way. This is a skill, or maybe it's not a skill, maybe it's more like a habit that I've actually developed over time, simply because I'm practicing it and I got used to it and I liked it, so I kept on doing it.

Kori: 30:11

I would argue it's a skill and a habit, because you develop the skill of looking for things, but then you've also made a habitual use of the skill, which means you continue to use the skill, which, for one, means you're going to get better at the skill. But it's also it's reinforcing, right, and it's enjoyable. It's creating more positive emotion in your life. It's helping you actually capitalize on the things that are going well and I realize capitalize is a very corporate capitalism word but it's helping you actually access the wealth of joy and delight that is all around you. And that's the point of it, right.

Kori: 30:44

If we have a great life full of great things, but we don't notice them, that's just not very enjoyable. I'm like let's notice and enjoy those and you've developed that. And then by building the habit, it kind of runs, you know, sort of on its own, which is what I love about habits If you can get them set up and get them going, then they're kind of self-reinforcing and it doesn't take as much willpower In the beginning. I do think it takes willpower to make the shift and that can be hard for people, but you're in the payoff phase, which is a great place to be.

Alexis: 31:09

Yeah, actually it was also funny. My actual reaction to that channel was I was like, oh, what the hell is this thing? And it was actually only by virtue of other people posting in there, me reading things, I think. Honestly, coming to it, I was like, yeah, okay, but like, eventually I think you gave us an assignment of like, okay, I want to make sure that you post at least one thing on that channel this week. And I did and I was like, oh, okay, and then I think I stopped for a while, but then at some point it like kicked in and I started to really really enjoy it.

Kori: 31:47

Okay, I love that you pointed that out, because I think that is so classic where there's always a coaching tool.

Kori: 31:53

When I have any client where they're like I don't want to do that, I don't like that, that doesn't appeal to me, I'm not that kind of person and then eventually they try it and they're like oh my God, Kori, this feels good and I'm like interesting, that's so interesting that that feels good for you, cause like that obviously was the point.

Kori: 32:13

But we have to sometimes come to things in our own time and I think there's also like an interesting cultural thing sometimes where we have like and I'm not saying this is you, alexis, but just definitely it's been me and a pattern I've perceived overall is like we sometimes have an attitude problem about the very things that would like actually make us feel better, and that we have this secondary thing where we know something will make us feel better, but we just don't want to do it.

Kori: 32:34

I was just coaching a client about this yesterday where she was like I know, if I took a walk, I would enjoy the walk and I would feel really good for the rest of the day, but she just wasn't doing it, and I actually think that's a lot of why people hire coaches, too, is they're like I need to do this, but I'm not. And then I'm like cool, let's break down why you're not and let's encourage you to do it. And so I love that you pointed that out. I think that's just going to be so relatable for everybody of like, oh my God, I don't want to pay attention to things that are going. Well, this is great. It's like yes, let's reinforce all those things that we want to feel and believe about ourselves, our lives, our careers, et cetera.

Alexis: 33:13

Well, it's funny because I'm having a forked reaction even to what you're saying there of I know I'm supposed to do something and there's two parts. One of the things that I actually have gotten very good at and I think this is where it's become a habit which is going to the gym and the thing that I say to myself whenever I'm like it's like okay, but I'm going to do it anyway, versus. There's also all these other things, whether it's having difficult conversations with people or literally just spending time doing other things that I know I need to get done and I'm like I just don't want to do it.

Alexis: 33:48

I am both things, of course, so you know of course so just because you're doing it in one place doesn't mean that you're doing it in all the places, and I mean, I guess that's also that's normal. But the other thing that you just called out there or that I feel like is underlying some of what we're talking about and we've discussed this before which is you know, I didn't tell you my reaction to you asking for the celebrations, wins and delights was like, or even the reaction to the stress response was that this was me actually fawning and having. It's like a behavior all its own, whether it's necessarily a stress response or it's just almost like habitual behavior that I've developed because I'm a freaking people pleaser. Oh my God Can't stop that.

Kori: 34:35

Well, okay, I think you can stop that.

Alexis: 34:37

Actually, you're right.

Kori: 34:39

We'll put that aside for a little bit. But just because it's still a habit you have now doesn't mean it can't be stopped. But also we can't work on everything at one time. So, kind of to circle to what you were saying before, it's like, yeah, you've developed a really strong gym habit and that's incredible, and there's so many people out there who want to do that. And of course, there's still some other things in your life where you're like it would be useful if I could do this. But I'm just it's like myself on that. You know, we have to prioritize sometimes. So I think that's so important that we can see. You know, there's certain things where we really are having our own back and doing the things that are going to help us feel good. And, of course, there's always going to be gaps, because we live in this world where we have all this knowledge of all the things we could do and there's more things we could do than we have the ability to do. So that's always going to be a thing.

Kori: 35:24

But to circle back to the fawning thing, I think that actually happens a lot, and so I didn't do this, alexis, when you started coaching because, like you said, it's been three years. But something I learned from another coach of mine was I now start all of my client packages by telling my clients here are the stress responses. Not only are we going to talk about how you have them in your life, you also may have those stress responses to me and to the coaching and I want to put that out there so that can be understood that that's normal and common. And Fawn is the stress response I worry most about with coaching, because what we want coaching to do is to help the client get the results that they want and have an improved experience, whether that means getting a promotion or developing a gym habit or finding a life partner, whatever it is that they want. But because a coach is an authority figure in some ways and because of how we're socialized, a lot of people will kind of people-please the coach.

Kori: 36:20

And I think it's really interesting, like what you brought up, like when is fawning a stress response versus like when is it just people-pleasing? But I think the real question is like is there a perceived threat? And if there's a perceived threat, then arguably it is a stress response, even if it's a mild stress response. And I think usually what feels threatened is the relationship and that's why fawn is.

Kori: 36:41

It's a relational stress response, it's a social stress response that is generally going to happen between people, although I'm certain that happens between people and their pets too, just because of the relationship we have with animals. So it's like if you perceive that their relationship could be damaged if you tell the truth, you might find yourself fawning without even thinking about doing that or without planning to tell a fib. And that's why I think it's useful to see it as that stress response and to normalize that so that, like especially for my clients, they can come back and say hey, I told you I love that idea and I thought it was really smart, but the truth is I hate it and I don't want to do it, but I felt scared to tell you the truth in that moment. And then they can have this experience where they come back and kind of replay the interaction without that like stress response taking over.

Alexis: 37:33

When I think about fawning, actually I don't really think about you and me, although it definitely has shown up in that. The place I think about it more with is like senior stakeholders that I had to work with at work. The concern wasn't actually damaging the relationship, it was actually that me saying something and pushing back and saying no, that it would turn into me actually getting like bad feedback, not only directly, but like my manager would get through the grapevine like oh my gosh, alexis, she's so bad, she's terrible, you shouldn't even have her on your team. Like I could get fired over it or demoted or something. So I do acknowledge that it can be a damage to a relationship, but in the context of a workplace I actually think it is probably more a matter of trying to not look bad and have negative consequences because of it.

Kori: 38:29

Right, almost like you're like oh, my reputation is at stake. Right, like senior stakeholders currently think I'm great but that's endangered. Right, it's like part of you consciously or subconsciously believes you have to behave in a certain way to ensure the safety of that reputation. And that is how people can wind up, you know, with a great reputation at work but feeling severely burned out because it feels too unsafe to do things like set boundaries or pushback, you know, on deadlines and stuff like that. So I think that's a really great call out and it can look different for everything. I mean in interpersonal relationships like dating.

Kori: 39:04

People also struggle with this too, because, like fear of loss of love and support and I mean even with people like parenting their own children. It's a fear of like well, what if, like, I damage the relationship with my child or I get some other kind of consequence? And let's be honest, consequences do sometimes happen. So I'm not at all saying like, oh, you don't have to fawn because everything will be fine. That's not real. Sometimes there are consequences. Sometimes there are also consequences even when we fawn. We fawn and the person still perceives us as a way that ends up being unfortunate to whatever. The outcome is that we want. But I think it's understanding that that can be a pattern and then just thinking about, like well, how do I want to engage with that on purpose, even if you do exactly the same thing when you switch from oh, I have to do that, to like well, I'm choosing to do that for this reason, even that can feel like a really powerful shift.

Alexis: 39:58

Yeah, and I do think, though, in all of the examples of me eventually having conversations where I have pushed back on, like those stakeholders that I'd been fawning to, I like literally nine times out of 10, I wind up being surprised by the outcome. It usually winds up not only being like as good as the best possible outcome. They actually typically wind up being even better than that. But I do think that one of the things that I usually try to like hold with that is that I do feel like you need to have some form of a win before you are starting to push back on some of those kinds of things, and it's a dangerous thing because it's also if you have suddenly been thrown way too many things to go and do like how do you get a win? And also say like, hey, this is too much. I think that's something to navigate, but my actual reality is that, when I have pushed, it winds up being great.

Kori: 40:55

Well, I think that's a great point. And that brings up something that I talk also a lot about in coaching, which is getting real world data, because sometimes we're like, well, I could never possibly say no, because this is what will happen. But if you've never said no or anything that even gets close to no, you don't have any idea what will happen. All you have is your catastrophizing worst fears replaying over and over again in your brain. And while sometimes those things do come to pass, or sometimes you're not worried, and then something blows up in your face. I've certainly had that happen to me. Something blows up in your face. I've certainly had that happen to me A lot of times.

Kori: 41:29

Especially if you word things thoughtfully and if you present a business case well and if you can bring an even keel, people are much more receptive Not always, not 100% of the time, but a lot of times they are, because they're human beings with limited bandwidth also, and they can even, like you said, respond more positively If you're like oh, I want to do absolutely everything I can to get all of these projects taken care of, but I feel like I would be remiss as a project manager if I didn't point out that there's a risk because of X, y, z. I think we really have to prioritize. People could be mad that you're not bonding and doing everything, but a lot of leaders will actually be like, oh, that was intelligent, you saw a risk, you know you're being proactive and so sometimes like that can actually turn out better than trying to people please and do the impossible and bend over backwards.

Alexis: 42:20

So we've talked a lot about stress response and negativity bias here. Are there any other hidden traps worth talking?

Kori: 42:27

about. Oh my gosh, you know there's like more hidden traps than we could ever talk about in one podcast or even in a podcast series, but like, just to name a few. There's things like recency bias, there's the arrival fallacy, there's confirmation bias. I'm recently very obsessed with the arrival fallacy, which is basically the idea that once you hit your goal, everything will be better. And this happens once I get the promotion, or once I graduate from college, or once I find a partner, once I get married, but it can also be once I get divorced. And basically this just sets people up for so much unhappiness because, while goals are beautiful and you can achieve them and one of the main jobs a coach does is help you achieve them when you get there you will still be a human being, which means you will still have stress responses, you will still have mood swings, you will still have bad hair days, you will still have irritating events that arise in a surprising manner, and if you think that getting there is going to fix everything, when you get there, it's gutting, it's absolutely crushing. And an interesting thing about this fallacy is even people who know about it still fall in the trap of it. It happens to me all of the time I'm like, oh, I'll just do this. And then it happens and I'm like, oh yeah, that didn't magically fix everything. Huh, okay, rude. So like I'm telling, I get my own rude awakenings also.

Kori: 43:49

Alexis, to circle back to something you said earlier, so I think that's a really important one to know about, because so many people are like waiting. They're waiting until they hit the goal to have a good life, but you won't magically develop the ability to enjoy your life when you arrive at that goal. So that's why one of the things I teach a lot is like let's learn how to enjoy your imperfect life now while we go after your goal. Because even when you hit your goal, when you write your novel, when you get an agent, when you're on the New York Times bestsellers list, you're still going to be you, with whatever habits you have. And if you didn't develop the ability to notice those celebrations, wins and delights, if you didn't develop the ability to notice those celebrations, wins and delights, if you didn't develop the habit of feeling satisfied with what's going well even while you work on what's not going well, you will not magically have that just because your goal has a checkbox next to it, much related to the arrival fallacy.

Alexis: 44:44

I was really pushing for a long time to get a director promo. I was up three separate occasions. Every one of them was like nerve wracking and, by the way, I never got it. So I actually never got there. But the last time it happened it became clear that unless I actually went and sought out a different role, like there wasn't room for me to actually get that promotion. There wasn't a business case. I didn't have a big enough team, the different things that they used to rationalize it. They just weren't there.

Alexis: 45:19

And I remember that was one of those things.

Alexis: 45:22

So I'd been chasing after this like big career goal I mean honestly, since I had been out of college, if I really think about it, like that was the aspiration of where I was going to and suddenly I finally got the rude feedback of you need to do this and I was like I don't actually want it that much, like I have a lot of other things that are going on in my life.

Alexis: 45:46

And that was actually the beginning of a different sort of part of the work that we did together, which is like okay, that's fine, like what else do you want to do? And in fact this podcast was even born from that. I remember I've talked about having a couple of these moments I call them idea fountains where suddenly I have this big idea and stuff is spewing out of my brain. I do recall you saying, hey, make sure that you write it down, capture it in a doc somewhere, and I'm so glad that you gave me that advice, because that is something that I have come back to time and time again as I've played with this. But anyway, it is very interesting because also, when I think back I guess this wasn't a rival fallacy I'm now talking about a totally different topic but it's also when I think back to other times that I actually did get promoted or did have these other things. I have definitely felt all of those.

Kori: 46:44

Okay, I remember the idea fountain. I remember that phase of time it was like beautiful to watch. You were just like ideas were just literally fountaining out all of the time and I'm so glad you did make that doc and capture those and I think that's good advice for everyone out there. Like, sometimes we're just in phases where we, our brains are like boom, boom, boom with ideas. Write that. Brains are like boom, boom, boom with ideas. Write that stuff down. Because there are other phases where we're just like I have no ideas, I don't know anything about anything. Yes, you do, but you're just not always in that headspace.

Kori: 47:15

And to circle back, I actually love that you told that story about the director promo that never came to be, because I think that's the kind of thing that could have been haunting and for you it just hasn't been. And I think what that's about is giving yourself permission to change your mind before a goal is realized. And I actually do think understanding the arrival fallacy could be part of what gives people permission to get off of the treadmill, because sometimes we do pursue a goal for a really long time, because, for whatever it's like, maybe we used to actually really want that, maybe we never wanted that, but we just wanted the idea of it. Or it was the arrival fallacy where we just thought, well, if I can finally get that, that's when I'll feel good about myself, that's when I'll be happy. And so to realize I'm actually not interested in doing the work, I'm not interested in paying the price that that ride costs, I'm not interested in going down that path and giving yourself the space to be like well, what do I want to do instead? I think that is an incredible thing to give yourself and it's going to be an opportunity for so much joy and creativity, Whereas I think so many people have been socialized with the idea that if you set a goal, then you have to complete it. But listen, I like to do what I said I would do.

Kori: 48:29

I love follow through. I do believe that that's really valuable, but following through with a goal, that is not what you want anymore. I think sometimes it's like we took the point too seriously. In that case, right Of like well, what was the follow through for? It's not just for follow-through sake. It was because you're willing to go through the hard times, but it's also okay if you decide that you're not. I think the ability to pivot is so adaptable and so helpful for living a satisfying life and also just understanding, in a world where we're so aware of how many options we have, it was like I was saying before there's always going to be more options for what you could do than you actually have time to do them. So I think for you you were like, yeah, I'd be a great director and that was a goal I had, but I don't want to do that work right now and there's a lot of other things I could do that would still be satisfying and fulfilling, and it's okay for me to change my mind like chef's kiss.

Alexis: 49:27

I love it give you one there, um. So when we think about these, you know human conditions, uh and, and these reactions we have, um, actually, one of the things that I love to think about is, like, what you can do to hack them, and we talked about at some point. There's one of these that I've used you call it a different thing the doorway effect. This is actually something I have used effectively as a hack with my own kids. So the idea of this is that when you move from one room to another literally the act of walking across the doorway threshold, another, literally the act of walking across the doorway threshold you close off all the thoughts that you had in the previous room and literally, like you lose them. They go into, like long-term memory storage and you free up the opportunity of having whatever new thoughts you need to or want to or whatever. This was something I learned about Actually, a colleague had talked to me about it and I wound up using it as a real hack with my younger kid, who, at the time, they were still a toddler and they had a lot of difficulties with transitioning, of moving into the car, getting to daycare, um, or going to whatever thing it was, and I remember one of the things I started doing is I would physically pick my child up.

Alexis: 50:53

When they were they they like didn't want to get their their shoes on their coat whatever. I would physically pick them up and walk them outside and they went from a screaming mess to huh, what's going on over here. I could put the shoes on them, I could put their coat on and suddenly we had this like happy, easy walk over to the car and we could move on our way and do whatever it was we needed to do. But I think that's like this beautiful idea of there is this actual thing that our brains do on their own, and I kind of tapped into it and was able to use it in a creative and really helpful way. Do you have any other examples of things like that?

Kori: 51:33

Yeah, first of all, I love that one, and I think there are so many, and people are coming up with new hacks all the time, so that's also something that's wonderful, and you listener can also probably maybe come up with some of your own that are unique to you. The ones that I use over and over again. One is do-overs. This is specifically something I use in interpersonal conflict with my partner, because I do think it works best when there's kind of a level of comfort and a shared vocabulary, and so this is like if you're having a conversation and then one of you starts to get snippy and you can tell like this is going to fightsville real fast and I don't think I want to go there right now. So one of us will just look at the other one and say like, hey, I don't like what I just said. Can we have a do-over? And so what's hard about this one is you need a sense of responsibility. It doesn't tend to work as well if I look at my partner and go I don't like what you said, why don't you do a do-over? That's probably just going to make the fight worse. But for me, when I'm like okay, I can see that I said that off the cuff and it wasn't my most thoughtful and I don't want to go to fights, phil. So let me back up and be like what did I actually mean what actually matters actually want to have? And then that's eliminated so many conflicts with my partner and we love it and we laugh about it. Now it's like an inside joke of like ah, time for a two over. So then it adds this lightheartedness which helps even more to get away from fight spells. So that's one Another one I call too small to fail and it's basically the idea that if there's something you want to do and you're not doing it, make it such a small increment that it's like laughably tiny and it's actually easier to do it than it is to avoid it.

Kori: 53:17

Because, like, avoiding things actually like people think that like is like you know, in a snap you've avoided it. But a lot of times when people are avoiding, they'll kind of lament for a while about like how they don't want to do it and it it's going to be like a pain. So an example was when I was trying to start a daily yoga practice years ago. I decided I started with one yoga pose a day and then it was five minutes a day and everyone else, because this was when I worked in an office and they all thought that was real silly. But I developed that daily practice and there was a period where I was doing like 20 minutes of yoga a day and that's something I'd never been able to get going before. And if I had tried to start with 20 minutes, I for sure would have done it probably zero times and then been like, oh, it's too hard, so that's too small to fail and it works for all kinds of stuff. But it's especially good, I think, for projects and habits. So a project you want to complete or a habit you want to get going. A lot of times with habits, people are just they're trying to start with too big of a chunk and they can't get over the hurdle or they like hurt themselves. That happens when people are trying to start like exercise habits. If they start with too big of a chunk, sometimes they actually cause a bodily injury.

Kori: 54:22

Okay, and the third one actually circles back to stress responses, and that is when you're having a stress response to pause or after the fact, if you're not able to pause in the moment.

Kori: 54:32

A lot of people aren't able to, and that's okay. You can pause and ask yourself what feels threatened here, like what feels endangered? Because if we take the idea that a stress response happens when you perceive subconsciously or consciously a threat, then you can look at well, what do I think is being threatened, and then you can act in response to that, versus letting your body do whatever it's doing Now. Obviously, like we said, sometimes the prefrontal cortex goes offline during a stress response, so you might not be able to do it in the moment, but later you can assess the situation and then you can use that to either go repair if the stress response led to a situation you didn't really mean for it to, you can repair with the other person or you can also use that to like kind of make a plan and a script for, like, the next time that sort of thing happens.

Alexis: 55:20

Well funny that you should bring us back to stress response. It's almost like you have brought us full circle. Unfortunately, we are at the point here where we need to wrap up for the day, but this has been such a fun discussion. I love it. Want to play back a couple of the things that we have talked about.

Alexis: 55:38

The topic du jour today has been the conditions of being human. I started us off with a pretty deep dive into the stress response, which is an inborn human response to stress, and it's one that you experience every single day. It is not something that you can stop. It is there, get used to it. Here's your rude awakening in case you need one.

Alexis: 56:05

But we brought in Kori and she has helped us walk through a bunch of other physiological responses. In particular, she has talked us through negativity, bias and the arrival fallacy. We also tapped into a couple reactions that you can actually hack. So one of them is the doorway effect. Especially if you're a parent, there's a nice little tip there that might be helpful to you. But we also talked about do-overs too small to fail. Kori, in particular, was talking about if you're able to notice being in a stress response, you can actually come up with a plan for how you will complete it, so I hope that this has been a fun and enjoyable episode for you to listen into. It's definitely been fun for me at the mic, and hopefully you, Kori, as well.

Kori: 56:54

Oh, it's been so fun and thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I think it's going to be so useful for everyone listening.

Alexis: 57:01

Awesome, thank you. Well, thank you all for joining us today. I'm Alexis Booth. This is the Breakout Booth. If today, I'm Alexis Booth, this is the Breakout Booth. If you have liked what you've heard, please subscribe to the podcast or you can head on over to breakoutboothcom and sign up for notifications. I also want to say another thank you to Kori Linn. Thank you for being here. You can also check her out over at korilinn.com or tune into her podcast, which is Satisfied AF. I don't know, Kori, if you have any parting words here.

Kori: 57:33

I think my parting words would just be life is too long and too short to not have a good time. So take some of the advice that Alexis and I talked about today and turn up the dial on satisfaction in your own life, both as you work towards the goals and with all the things that are already working in your life Very well put. You work towards the goals and with all the things that are already working in your life Very well put.

Alexis: 57:52

Thank you so much, Kori, and I'm going to talk to you next week, which is awesome, so perfect. I look forward to it, awesome. Well, thank you everyone and have an awesome day. Thank you.