Bringing an Olympic Mindset to the Trades
WorkReady Podcast Episode 11
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Speakers
Dr. Jim Bauman | Olympic Sports Psychologist
Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity -
View The TranscriptWhat do Olympic champions, Navy Seals, and workforce athletes have in common?They all rely on mental toughness and purpose-driven hard work to succeed in highstakes environments. People have toknow their job. There's going to be a lot of things that come up that can take you away from knowing what are the fiveor six things you need to do to get this job done here today. In today's episode, Dr. Jim Bowman shares the techniqueselite athletes and warriors use to manage pressure, maintain focus, and perform when the stakes are highest.You can literally begin to disengage from all the distractions and all thenoise and really tap into who you are and what you can do. This is the WorkReady podcast.At the end of the day, it's not just about getting through another shift. It's about having enough left in thetank for your family and building a career that lasts. That's why we created the Work Ready podcast. If that's thekind of life you're working towards, subscribe and walk this journey with us. Every episode is one more step towardsretiring strong, not broken.Welcome to the Work Ready Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kevin Rudol, and I'm so happy to be joined today by Dr. JimBowen. It's such a great pleasure to have you on the Work Ready podcast. Jim, you and I had the privilege of servingtogether as members of the US Olympic swim team uh sports medicine staff from 2012 through 2016. And one thing that Ialways remember about you is how you related to the work ethic and mental toughness of these athletes to workforce athletes. uh you used to bring a hard hat in a lunch box with you and set it on the pool deck and this was avisual to everyone that it was time to get to work. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?Yeah, my um my dad was a construction worker, you know, kind of growing up. And I remember mom actually packing hislunch, you know, for him to go to work, you know, and he would have that at work and he would always come back justincredibly tired, you know, to a point where I mean he'd even have a hard time talking about his work day. But, youknow, from from that time on, it just sort of like the lunchbox to me as it was sitting around the house reallysymbolized hard work, sweat equity, you know, and that sort of thing. And the lunchbox represented the hard work, butit also represented maybe a break that he could take during the day, you know, to also just sort of recover, you know,and get ready for the second half of the day. So, I'd been using that lunchbox, Kevin, probably from the time I was atWashington State University. you know, and working with football uh from the early 90s, you know, through gosh, 99. Iwas there for about 10 years. And so the lunchbox was kind of that idea that I took to the Washington State Cougars,you know, back in that day, the football days. And because I'd also used that, you know, in the in the 2004 OlympicGames, you know, in the 2008 Olympic Games, you know, so coming into the 12 and 16, especially the 16 with Rio, um Iwanted to do something different, you know, rather than just the same old lunchbox. So I decided that um I'd bringin kind of the hard hat. And I found this red, white, and blue star, you know, sort of patriotic uh um hard hat,you know, that I wanted to kind of change things up a little bit. I still wanted to be symbolic of hard work,construction worker kinds of people, sweat equity, that it was work and remind them of it was work that got themthere, you know, it was it was work that will keep them there. and we're here towork, you know, because there's so many distractions as you know at the Olympic Games, you know, there's TV, there'ssocial media, there are celebrities coming to the back, you know, to the ready room where we're at, you know, solots of distractors. So, I wanted a constant reminder of remember now folks, we're here to work. We're here to work.And I love that too because swimming is such a grind. I mean, you think about some of those practices, it's like twoto three practices a day, maybe five to 8,000 meters each and every day. And so,and you're just going back and forth, back and forth. And so, that reminder of work and the purpose uh was also a bigpart of it. Why is it important to have purpose beh like married with hard workfor success to happen? Well, I think we know from research and even you and I, Kevin, you know, from just our ownexperience that unless we have a direction or a purpose that we're going to, it's like not having a compass ornot having your GPS or not having in the old days, you know, like a Ram McN orsomething like that. You know that, you know, we need to have kind of an endpoint of where we're going. You know, otherwise we just mindlessly move aroundand really can't keep track of our progress. So I mean having a purpose youknow that I think that's the difference between people who sort of just go through life you know versus people whoare in life and have not an end goal but maybe a next stop point you know where they can start up again for another endpoint. So we want to make sure that people have direction and and sort of that guidepost that they're going for.And with an Olympic team it's all the same. you know, it's make an Olympic team, just go to the Olympics and Imean, swim your best or run your best or throw your best or whatever with an end goal of so for some people just makingOlympic team is is what they want to do. For some people it's about getting any medal, they don't care. But then you andI both have worked with people it simply was if it's not a gold medal, it I didn't I didn't get done what I neededto do. Jim, I love that you're uh come fromsmall town roots and you came from a hard work ethic. What took you down thepath of going into sports psychology? Um I I really have kind of two lives,Kevin. I mean, my my first career, which was probably about 18 years, uh and that started withwith college, you know, at um back here in Washington, Eastern Washington State College. And it was during that timeduring the late 60s, early 70s when the Vietnam War was going. So I went to school and got into the ROC program aswell. And um graduated, was commissioned a second lieutenant, you know, in themilitary. Went to jump school, jump master school, you know, kind of all those sorts of things. And then my firsttour of duty was actually over in Germany. And at that time, we still had the east west German border, you know,there. And I was stationed way out on the border in an air defense missilesite. I mean, we were isolated, you know, out there. And so, you got to know everybody, you know, in that 125battery. Well, but in 1972 when I was over there, the Olympic Games were in Munich. My wife at that time and I wedrove down to Munich and uh as we're driving down there on the air or the airthe the network the radio network they talked about the Palestinians you knowsort of raiding the Olympic village and taking over uh part of the Israelidelegation of athletes there and um we were actually at a small little kind ofguest house or a place where they sold sort of you know beer and hot dogs and that sort of thing and there were lots of athletes gathered there. We couldliterally see the balcony, you know, in the um um the Olympic Village with theterrorists kind of leaning over and masked and stuff like that. So, we we watched that play out. We watched, youknow, them eventually in a couple of days leaving, you know, with a big convoy behind them out to the near airbase where there were further sort of tragic deaths, you know, and that sort of thing.And so, that was my first really experience with Olympic group, kind of going to that game. when I uh continued,you know, my tour there and then went back to Texas and finished up my tour, I decided this wasn't what I wanted to dofor the rest of my life. But I did go to night school while I was in the military. So, I got a master's degree inum psychometrics and psychology. And so when I graduated or when I graduated andthen left the military, I went into forensic psychology for about uh nineyears, I'd have to provide expert testimony on whether or not a particular person in court would go to prison or bereleased and just supervised in the community or would go to some sort of mental health program to kind of helpthem deal with their issues. And so after about seven years of doing that, I decided I need to do somethingdifferent. and I, you know, I need to get better at what I was doing. So, I applied to both law schools and umpsychology programs. I was uh then accepted into Washington State University psychology program. Umwent down there in 1989 is when I was there. um and was really thinking about doingresearch on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder because many of the people that I was dealing with in court were Vietnamvets, you know, who had gotten involved with drugs or alcohol or something like that and then eventually the law. So, myresearch was all set up to do PTSD work and and and research and develop ideasabout how to work with that group. Well, one of our our instructors was an adjunctprofessor. Her name was Julie Dupel and she was I found out later a sportspsychologist. I had no idea what a sports psychologist was in 1989 even though I played sport, you know, in alittle bit in college and also in high school. So I began talking to her about that after class one day and she beganto tell me that she was a sports psychologist for the athletic department. And remember this was 1989.There was like nobody, you know, really. There was a handful of people in D1 universities, a few people inprofessional sport, nobody in the military services, and nobody in business really. So, here we were atthis small school in the Pack 10 at that time. And they had a sports psychologist there for their for their studentathletes. So, as soon as I visited with her, Kevin, I changed my researchproject into performance psychology. I began to work with her for a couple of years under her supervision working withathletes and then uh she left and another person came in by the name of Chris Carr. He's not a full-time sportspsychologist with the Green Bay Packers. And so he mentored me for the next couple of years and then he left to takeanother job and then I kind of moved into that job at Washington State University and continued there for sixmore years before I went to the US Olympic Committee. Lamosity is more than training. It's asafety and readiness platform trusted by companies to keep their field professionals strong, healthy, and readyfor the job. Now, we're launching something new, the Work Ready Community. It's the first online community builtexclusively for field employees. A place to connect, learn, and lead the future of our industry. Join us and be part ofthe movement.And what a incredible journey. And how have you seen sports psychology and evenuh support for veterans and PTSD uh folks advance since the late 80s, early90s? I mean, it's a totally different ballgame now than it was back then. But what are some of the things that you've seen really change and advance over theyears? Well, I think just the number of people and the diversity of people going into the field, you know, back then in the80s and again the handful of people that were doing this, I I truly mean a handful of people, uh, were all whitemales. And so what I've seen over the years is clearly way more women andwomen and men of diversity, you know, coming into the field. Uh, as we take a look at sport, we can even see thatdiversity is a major part of sport. Uh football for an example, the majority ofplayers playing football, African-American. Um the soccer, we get a lot of peoplethat are Latino, you know, people playing soccer. Women's sport has come along an awful lot, you know, with TitleN and that sort of thing. So, the kinds of providers have changed just in termsof gender and uh cultural, racial kinds of differences. Um, I think professionalsport, Olympic sport, the military and even business has began to see sportspsychology and mindset work and that sort of thing becoming more of a necessity rather than a nicething to have. And so we're seeing I mean almost every division one schoolnow has a sports psychologist either full-time or on contract. Uh the US Olympic Committee when I was there wehad three people there. And now I think there's 12 people, you know, at the headquarters. Plus, people are also outat the national governing bodies of that. Um, with sport and all of my workwith the Navy Special Warfare Center down in Coronado, uh, the Army, theNavy, the Marines, uh, the Air Force, all those people are taking advantage ofsports psychologists now. And the business world too, it's spreading more into the business world. So, it's got init's just way more diversified and there's way more opportunities in this profession now than what there was 35years ago. And you've always been involved withlike Wounded Warrior Project. I know that that's something that's big for you. You've uh worked with the NavySeals, different branches of the military. And a lot of our audience actually has a military background. Andso what are some of the things that you see that relate to that population and professional athletes? How are how areum combat veterans uh very similar to elite and professional athletes?Yeah. And you know, I'll be I want to make sure that we're correct here. I really have only worked with the NavySeal population. So I haven't worked the Army or the Air Force or any other services. Uh like I said, I was in themilitary, active duty for 5 years and um uh was in the reserves for 13 years. SoI know the army personnel, you know, from just doing the work of themilitary, you know, when I was there. But in terms of working and doing mindset work and that sort of thing, itwas really with the Navy Seals. That was the only population I really worked with. And that was over or a period ofabout 12 years, Kevin. Uh when I was down at the San Diego or Chula VistaOlympic Training Center, um we initially took a group of um about 43athletes who were either going to be on the Olympic team or were on the Olympic team in 2000 for the Sydney Games. Andso we wanted to expose that group to a different population of people, youknow, people who literally work hard. I mean, they work harder than any Olympicteam that I've worked with in terms of just physical exertion and mental challenges because that's the line ofwork that they do. Um, their b their their business and mission is really about life and death.I mean, it truly is about life and death. Whereas Olympic athletes and many other athletes feel like if they have agreat performance or not a great perform, it feels like life and death for them. So I really wanted to get them more grounded in their perspective, youknow, and then over the next gosh eight years, I think I took maybe 15 different Olympic teams, you know, out to the NavySeal best to train for a day with the Navy Seals and expose them to thatdifferent line of work and that different perspective. And so in in terms of comparing thosetwo groups, you know, even though their business and their missions are different,it's still there's still a very similar mindset that goes with being an elitespecial forces warrior and and somebody who who really is goingto be an elite athlete at the professional level or an elite athlete with the USOC. So there's somesimilarity in the mindset. They also um there's some physicalinvolvement with that. And if we take a look at maybe I don't know quote unquote the normal population, one of the things that drives people out of being a greatathlete is the physical work that you have to do. You know, there's some there's a mental piece there too, butdefinitely the physical piece is what drives people away from that. And you know, a lot of people hear thethe term psychology or psychologist and they're like, I don't need help. I don't need to see a psychologist. But there'slike performance psychology and sports psychology. Can you help uh talk aboutthe distinguishing factors of um just psychological help versus psychologicalperformance? Sure. If we take a look at at the fieldof psychology, there's really two fields there. One is clinical psychology and one is counseling psychology.The clinical psychology curriculum really deals with um you know peoplewhere their clinical issues really take them out of the workforce you know Imean they they really are not so much able to do that. So there's a lot of psychopathology that goes there. We'vegot some serious mental disorders that people are dealing with. You know, people that you do find in prison, people you do find in uh psychiatricfacilities, inpatient programs. Um even in outpatient programs, they need a lot of attention, a lot of work. You'll finda lot of people that are also on medications, you know, for their disorders and that sort of thing. Thatdoesn't mean that clinical psychologist only work with those kinds of people, but that is that curriculum. Thecounseling psychology curriculum really kind of gears the work more at peoplewho have life circumstance issues that come up. There could be some mood disorder kinds of things. There could besome personality disorder kinds of things, but they're still able to be in relationships. They're still able to goto work, you know, those kinds of things. And then we get into the performance psychology, you know, whichreally deals with people who may not have either of those things going on. you know that life iswonderful for them. And now what they're looking for is a different way to think about what they do and to come up withdifferent um cognitive strategies to deal with the stress or the anxiety orthe workload or whatever that might be that kind of comes with dealing with sport. And even as a performancepsychologist in my world, I will still see athletes where I'm going to be doingsome counseling psychology with them, you know, because they may have some non-sport issues that they're dealingwith or even some sport issues that they're dealing with. maybe their contract is potentially going to come toan end or they're not getting playing time or they're injured or something like that where we have to deal withsome psychological issues to help them through that sort of traumatic timeframe. So again, you know, with the universities I've worked with, um, itwas probably more mental health and mental wellness. When I'm dealing with the Navy Seal population and many of theOlympic athletes, it tends to be less of that and more of the performance work interms of helping them deal with the performance stress, the ongoing neverendingum increasing performance year after year, year after year, those kinds of things.Where can some of the tenants from sports psychology and performance psychology have overlap with workforceathletes? So this could be utility, construction, maritime workers. Like how do some of those tenants uh relate tothem? Yeah. Like in in sport, we know we've got individual sport and we've got teamsport. And so those are different too, you know. So an individual sport, it'slike you are the guy, you know, or you are the lady. Spotlight is on you, you know. It could be tennis, it could begolf. Um, it could be an individual even an individual swimming event, even though it's kind of a team event, youknow, or a track and field team. Those are still individual events there. But if we're talking about soccer orfootball or basketball or something like that, there's other people there, you know, so having other people thereversus by yourself might also relate to some of the workforce positions that wehave as well, where people are working by themselves, but maybe on a team. We could have, I don't know, a a power linegroup for an example, I guess, where we've got one guy at the very top of the pole doing the work and somebody else ishandling, you know, the groundwork to support that person up there. It's a team, but the guy at the top of the pollis the one that's doing the work that could be dangerous, you know, to them.And and even in sport, Kevin, as you know, because you've worked with a lot of people there, there are sports uh forexample, in the winter sports in the Olympic world that I work with, the downhill skiers, uh the aerial skiers,uh the mogul skiers, the bobsled, you know, um the skeleton where there'sspeed where people get hurt and there's some fatalities to some of those sports as well. So, we've got individual, we'vegot team sports, we've got some sports where you're likely not to get hurt, playing golf, you know, for an example,versus other sports where there could be, you know, some serious injuries. So, as we take a look at the frontline people, there's probably combinations ofthose as well. An individual person or a team of two or three or four people,very much like a Navy Seal team kind of going out. And it could be dangerous interms of height or electrical work or water work or something like that. Steelworkers um where there's some risk, you know, some physical risk to that as well,whereas others might not be. So there's real combinations that are similar between the two.Yeah. And getting real practical, like what are some key takeaways that people can um if they're an individual andthey're working in a high-risisk situation, what are some things that they can do to be cognitively present umfocused and ready to perform at their their highest level? What what are some easy strategies or ways to think aboutthat? Great. And and that's a great question, Kevin, because that's something that we talk about with the Navy Sealpopulation. And we talk about with lead athletes and the first thing that that comes tomind is people have to know their job. I mean if you are a frontline worker couldbe could be in the ambulance it could be a firefighter. It could be a police officer or a lineman or any or aplumber. I mean pick a job. You have to know what your job is and what goes intothat. You can't kind of know it. You have to know what your job is. And you do that by knowing what are all thedetails. What are the things that I need to do in order to get this job done?Because there going to be a lot of things that come up during the course of doing that job, which I call noise ordistractors that can take you away from knowing what are the five or six thingsyou need to do to get this job done here today. And so, uh, being able to separate whatis noise versus what I need to do to get this job done is a key thing. Whether you're anOlympic athlete or a Navy Seal or frontline worker, it's knowing what is your job. What are the things I need todo to complete this task right now and then staying focused on that, you know,and being able to either minimize or eliminate the distractors. So, for an example, Kevin, uh let's saythat we've got an outdoor sport. Maybe it's football, you know, or maybe it's skiing, you know, where they have todeal with the terrain and the temperature and weather conditions and that sort of thing. Even though that isthere, they still have to do their job, you know, they still have to get to the finish line as fast as they can. Theystill have to know the course. They still have to know when to lean, you know, when how much give to to give thegate, you know, and they they get feedback during a race, for an example, in a downhill race about the course. Andso they may have to change, you know, what their plan was for that course in terms of dealing with the weather, butthey deal with the distractor and then come up with another plan, you know, so that's not a distractor. They can stillfocus on their job, you know. Same thing with somebody, I don't know, uh, again, maybe the power line people wherethey're usually out there in terrible weather, wind blowing, rain, you know, all those kinds of things. But eventhough that's there, they have to be able to disregard that and put that noise out of their head and stay focusedon, okay, what are the five or six things that I need to do in sequence here to make sure I get the job done.Yeah, thank you for that. And you know I again as you're saying that I just thinkof so much correlation. I mean the voices that people may hear the in their head the stress that's going on in theirlife outside of work. I mean very similar to an athlete who is about ready to perform and someone's shouting at himfrom the stands and using derogatory like there are just all these these forces that are you know impactingpeople. But how do you lock yourself in and actually remove yourself from thosevoices when you're getting ready to perform? Like again, if if you're getting ready to do high injury risk joband you're like, "Okay, I need to be laser focused before I go out there to do that work." What What is it like evensome real practical things where people can remove themselves from that situation, get in the right head spaceand mindset before they do that work? And people have probably heard of thisword before, but I call it compartmentalizing. So right now, Kevin, right now in this discussion right now, you know, as we'retalking because you brought it up, now I got to think about other things, you know, but to compartmentalize my jobright now is to have this conversation with you, you know, and before you got together today with me and before I gottogether with you, we had other things going on in our life. We've got other things going on in our life after this.I mean that's just today but in our life we have other things going on as well but for right now you and I both have tocompartmentalize this and think about only what our discussion is here right now so we can we can stay on track withwhat we're doing you know and some of the things maybe you did or I did beforethis interview or even later on tonight there may be some stressful issues there that we have to deal with but if I'mthinking about those things as we're visiting right now then I'm compartmentalizing and I'm going to losemy my track of what we're talking about here if my mind goes into the future orinto the past. So, it's so important again whether you're an athlete or whether you're awar fighter or whether you are um an ambulance, you know, provider that's atthe scene of an accident right now. It's like being right there at that present time and nothing else matters at thatpoint in time. You know, you have to be so focused on what's going on right now.And there's a couple of a couple of things that people can do to kind of keep them in that present moment aswell. Yeah. And I remember you giving anexample one time because a lot of this is also stress management at the time, like how how am I remaining focused sothat I not being distracted by stress. And I remember you telling a story about how you used to go to junkyards andyou'd get tachometers from old cars and you'd actually bring that out and you'd use it as an example to people of likehow to manage stress and thinking about some type of visual and so that when they were in a stressful situation theythey had something to go back to to say okay I need to I need to get that stress back under control so I can maintain myfocus which kind of falls all into this uh compartmentalization. Yeah. Yeah. UmI I like to have fun with what I do, Kevin, you know, and tell stories and maybe even educate people not only aboutmaybe stress management, but about daily life, you know, as well. If I can find anything in daily life that people getexposed to and I can use that to teach them more more about that item in daily life but also maybe how to utilize thatin a symbolic way to help them in stressful situations in sport. I'll do that. So for an example you mentionedthe tachometer. So, I'm not sure what the age group might be of the people listening to ourconversation here right now, but I would I would be I think I could guess there'sgoing to be a high percentage of people that don't even know what a tachometer is, you know, and so that's if you're anathlete, you know, that I'm working with, I might say something like, "Well, Kevin, do you know what a tachometer is?" I'm going to guess that you do. youknow u so if you do tell me what a tachometer doesyeah it measures the RPMs it measures the stress that's being placed on the engine well yeah it's it maybe maybe not somuch the stress but it's an indicator of that for sure and it's that it's that that gauge we have in our car thatpeople have got no idea what it is they might just see it kind of flopping around a little bit but it does measureRPMs or revolutions uh per minute of the engine And when the engine's off, well,none of the gauges are reading anything. But when you start the car up and it's just idling, that tachometer is usuallyat about a one or just right below a one. And usually that tachometer has like anywhere from 1 to 10, you know, onit. And so when we're at idle, when the car is just barely running, you know, it's doing like 1,000 RPMs, just barelyrunning, you know, and if you went ahead and put it in gear, you know, with, you know, at at without giving it any gas,well, you're just going to creep along. You're not going to go anywhere. So, we have to give it some gas and shift through the gears and get up to acruising speed. So, if we're doing 70 m an hour on the freeway, I'll ask people,"What what RPMs is your car showing?" you know then and usually they'll say well it's right below the three or rightabove the three or something like that. I said and you're just cruising down the road at that point in time. I said haveyou ever seen that needle over on the 8 n or 10 where those numbers are orange or red? And they go I really never have.I' I've never seen it there. But if you put that in park or something like that and just push down on the gas you knowit would fly up you to the red mark. And it's orange and red for a reason. It's like we don't want the needle to bethere. We don't want to put that kind of stress, you know, on the engine. And so I said, think about this in terms of,you know, when you're competing, you know, if you can think about maybe as a swimmer, what's it like at the warm-uppool? What's your RPM? Are you are you at a one? Are you a three? Are you afive or a six? You know, thinking about your engine, you know, what's your engine doing? And a lot of them willsay, "Oh, geez, this like a six or a seven or an eight before I go out there." And as they get to start tomove, maybe it goes down a little bit, but as soon as they get behind the blocks, you know, their RPMs are skyhighagain. And I said, "So, we need to talk about some techniques, you know, of sort of keeping your RPMs down. But first ofall, you have to have a scale that you can use that we can talk about that tells you and me how excited are youright now? How stressed are you? And if I know that you are a seven or an eight, you don't swim for two more hours, Iknow we have to do something about that right now to get your RPMs down, so you're not burning up all of that energylike you would be for your car. That's a great example. Thank you so much for expanding on that. And youleading into this section, you talked a little bit about your work in PTSD working with the uh military community,but we do have a lot of first responders that that listen to this. We have, you know, even utility workers might be thefirst on the scene um when a power pole gets hit. And uh often times you ha theyhave that experience, but there's not a whole lot to help them process that. andand it becomes something that that definitely impacts um just life andthought process. And so what are some actionable things that people can do if they have had an experience like thatand how do how does someone get the help that they need uh in that situation. Sogoing beyond performance psychology to addressing some of those you know thingsthat may be more clinical uh need. Yeah. My experience with with people whohave been in those situations, you know, whether they are, you know, um car accidents with serious injuries orfatalities or firefighters or police officer, the military people or in somecases in in athletics where there's a serious injury, you know, and potentially fatality that that the firstline responders seem to just simply do their job. They just do their job. Andmost of those people are amazing at that. You know, let's say again, theaverage person who doesn't do this on a regular basis would probably freeze just out of that that that fearflightresponse, that psychological response where your body just freezes. These people don't seem to do that. You know,they've got training, they've got experience, they got supervision, and and and they do their job. I'm I'm soimpressed with how they're able to do their job with so much going on right now that could be distractor for them.And I think what you're talking about and what we're talking about is okay, what when that's all over with, you know, when when you know the accents arecleaned up or whatever it might be and we're going back to what might be normal for them, you know, how do they processthat? And you'd mentioned earlier that we hear the word psychology or psychologist well then people kind oflike shove back from that you know that they don't want want the help you know for an example in the military for thelongest time and in some cases it still is that when people would reach out forhelp you know psychological help uh that really wasn't great for their community I mean for their promotions and so theywouldn't do anything they'd stay away from that completely because they were being seen as weakminded did and notbeing able to do that. I think we've come a long ways like we talked about earlier what's happened in the field.It's also in the field of psychology where more and more people are now willing to get some help for that andthat the organizations the various organizations may actually have somebody you know within the organization or theycontract with somebody in the organization who can relate to the kinds of circumstances these people face youknow. So the kind of person who might work with firefighters could be different than police officer, could be different than the people out on thelines, but somebody who can relate to that job and the kinds of things thatthey face, a professional person, and then be able to have that accessible tothe people, you know, who were there and um and just get that conversation goingso they can begin to kind of unload, you know, some of that trauma that that sticks with you. And and if we don'tsomehow professionally unload that and deal with that, it tends to come up, youknow, at other times, which could be problematic for sure. We definitely have some people listeningto this who may be in a foreman type role. So maybe they have a crew that works underneath them and it's kind oflike a head coach. And you know this, like when you're in the huddle at the start of the day or at the start ofpractice, you can see when a team member is just off a little bit. And what aresome things that uh foreman might be able to just look for in their team toknow that, hey, this person might need some help. Maybe I need to pull them aside and just talk with them to see ifthey they might need some additional help. Yeah. And I'm just going to guess too, you know, we might have foremans thatare like the variety of coaches that we've got. You know, I mean, some coaches are incredibly open and awareand uh insightful in future, you know, thinking about, you know, dealing with the mindset of people and keeping themin a healthy space. We also still have some coaches today that think that's not necessary, you know. So, I think ifwe've got foreman people, it's like, are are we in either one of those categories? You know, are you in a category where you understand sort ofthe mental wellness and fitness of someone is clearly important for the kind of work that you do? Not only forthemselves, but also in the safety for themselves, but the safety of maybeother people on that team or maybe even the safety of the people that they're trying to treat and kind of help, youknow, out there. Or are you one of those people that just don't sort of get it yet? you know that no, you just need tokind of like put your head down and get to work and do 50 more push-ups or something like that and it'll all go away. you know that we have to we haveto be helpful I think even with the foremans you know like I'm helping with coaches to see things in a little bitdifferent light you know and I think with more emphasis on mental wellnessyou know let's say as opposed to mental health mental wellness and talk about okay this is what I do you know this ishow we help people these are the kind of things that you can be helpful in looking for and almost on anyany traumatic kind of event there's going to be some downplay play that people need to deal with there, you know, and there'll be some people whoare very good at sort of um disguising, you know, kind of what's going on.There's also people who can handle that much differently than others, too. There'll be some people that will be involved in similar kinds of situations.And really, Kevin, depending upon their kind of genetic makeup, you know, andwhat they've experienced in life, you know, what they've experienced in work, they just have created these ways ofdealing with this that kind of surprise you sometimes. You know, it doesn't stick with them. They're kind of teflonylike that. But other people, the person right next to them may have more difficulty. So, it's kind of knowingyour your crew people and how they handle different situations and beingwilling to have that conversation, you know, as opposed to are you okay? When whenever I hear somebody ask thatquestion, you're okay. Well, they clearly have seen something that would indicate they're not okay. So, don't askthat question. It might be how can I help? Can we visit for a while about that? And so, it's an ongoingconversation foreman should have with the people they work with. And you probably grew up in a time when,you know, everyone was tough and you just rub dirt on it and you don't talk about emotions. You don't do any ofthat. And I hear that often times when I'm talking with people in the trades. They're like, "Man, we just have thisculture that uh is still very old school in this mindset." And so if if ifyou were to give advice to someone who's maybe younger, they're coming up and they'relike, "Man, I really want to change the culture here in my organization and and talk more about, you know, mental healthor even mental performance." Like what are some things that you would encourage those people with to help shift theculture? Well, it's it's going to be a challenge, I think, for for a younger person comingup, you know, to change the culture except for over a long period of time,you know. It's like as as they're coming in, maybe they can help change the culture at the level that they're at,you know, and then as maybe they get promoted, they can begin to change the level that they're at there as well. So,culture change doesn't happen overnight, you know, it it it takes time. And I think that person can also look forother key people in an organization who think the same way that could be at the same level or even even a higher levelat that point in time and begin just having those conversations. You know that uh for an example Kevinthe I think sometimes we can just change the language it can be very very helpful. So when I was working with theNavy Seals, kind of along this same thing that we're learning about, they were seen as the most mentally toughpeople ever, I mean, ever. as I begin to work with them and, you know, be on thebeach with them down at Coronado and, you know, go through hell week with them down at Coronado and just be amazed athow these people were able to undergo, you know, that that constantrace, that constant pressure, that constant being cold, that constant being sandy in and out of the water, tired,sleepy, all but they were still able to perform. It's like, how do they do that?And mental toughness didn't fit for me. I'm kind of It just didn't fit. It wasnot not describing that characteristic that I saw. And so I happened to also beat that time be be looking at this for some sports as well. And I literally washaving this conversation with this architect engineer from San Francisco who I knew. And we're talking about thisissue. And I said, you know, you design buildings, you know, like in San Francisco, you know, so what's differentor is it different about how you build buildings in San Francisco today versus 20, 30 years ago? He said, oh yeah,because of the earthquakes, you know, that they have down there. He says, it used to be we just put more steel andmore concrete into it and make it as tough as we possibly could. Well, that created more problems, you know, becausethe seismic energy would simply cause more vibration and things would simply come down. And he says, "So, in order tobe able to resist or sort of minimize the seismic, you know, kind of energy,we built in flex and bend, you know, into the buildings. So, the buildings wouldn't be stiff. They would beflexible and they would bend and kind of and not fight that seismic energy butkind of bend with it but kind of come upright again. So if you to take a look at the underwater pictures of the styonsof the bridges and stuff like that, they all flex and bend underneath the water down there, you know, and the bridgeshave these incredible like shock absorbers that they can go back and forth this way too. So the bridges willmove and sway and that sort of thing, but they won't come down anymore. And I went, maybe we could apply that. Maybethat's what I'm seeing with the Navy Seals. I'm seeing this flex and bend andthis what I call pliability, you know, with them, you know, that they are ableto flex and bend with the stress that they feel, but they still come upright and they're back where they were atagain. So, I began talking to the Navy Seals about pliability. you know thatyou're pliable much like much like a ski is today or a snowboard is today whereit bends and moves with the terrain rather than being long and stiff. And so the more we can build in thatpliability, you know, then uh we're talking let's be more pliable what we do. Let's bend andmove and be flexible with all the stress that we feel rather than digging in, you know, and kind of fighting it. Martialarts is the same. they use the energy of the other person, you know, to throw as opposed to bat that down. So, part of itchanging the conversations about it's not about being mentally tough anymore. It's about let's be pliable. Let's bephysiologically pliable. Let's be mentally pliable to deal with the stress that we have to that comes at us all thetime, but let's not lose our place, you know, of where we are.What are some of the fundamentals of that pliability? What are some things that people can do to start to to buildthat trait? Um, I mean, we we take a look at gosh,um, it's about attitude to begin with. You know, it's about having a more pliable, flexible attitude and not beingso stuck in your ways. And we find a different way of thinking that'scompletely counter to what we were thinking before and being open to that. you know, and say, "Okay, I will trythat." You know, so being open to other ideas to being um kind of more moreadaptable. Um it's about being more umsolutionoriented rather than being stuck on the problem, you know, all the time, you know. So besolutionoriented, you know. It's like we can figure out a way to deal with this thing, you know.Navy Seals will do that. They'll figure out a way, you know, to solve this problem. uh great athletes will figureout a way to solve this problem. Great line workers will figure out a way tosolve the problem rather than uh this is something we can't we can't deal with.Do you think people self- select into like the Navy Seals or because they havethose traits or do you feel like these are things that people can actively work on, grow, and what is a toolbox um thatpeople can maybe start to implement uh or at least strategies to build thatopenness to new ideas to build uh that persistence or grit is sometimes whatit's called. Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about the Navy Seals, all those people self- select. They all raise their hand andvolunteer to go, but most of them also self- select to get out of it, you know. Um, so I mean, the attrition rate for aNavy Seal class is pretty high. When I was down, it was like 74%. So, you had a class of 100 people and 74 don't makeit. I'm I'm not sure what it is today. Hopefully, it's not that high. Um, butout of that group, there's only a a few of those people, you know, that would leave the training because of a physicalinjury that would eliminate them completely. Most of the people would self- select out. They're kind of going,I'm not going to do this. I just I can't do this today. I can't see myself doing this for another week. I certainly can'tsee myself doing this for 59 more weeks. You know, that's for sure. And so whenwe're we're facing these daily challenges and again we talked about earlier about being kind of at thisplace at this point in time being focused right now what my job is. I mean that's how those candidates in thatbasic underwater demolition school get through their week is they don't think about the whole week. They don't thinkabout three days ahead. They don't think about one day ahead. They think about this moment in time. And they go frommoment in time to moment in time to moment in time. and pretty soon you've got an hour out of the way and pretty soon you've got a day out of the way. Soagain, it's kind of like chunking things, you know, that's one thing that can be very very helpful is I've got alot of things on my plate, but the only thing I'm working on is this right now, you know, and that's it, you know, andwhen that's gone, I can move to something else on my plate. Kind of back to that compartmentalizing we talked about before, Kevin.And so it's again, it's just it's to begin narrowing your focus on what needs to be done right now and staying in themoment until that job's done. Then you can kind of look up and go, okay, what's my next job? And then you get to thatone and stay with that one until it's finished. Great suggestions.We talk a lot about athletic readiness in sport. It it's the physically beingready to perform. So it could be the hydration, the nutrition, the sleep, therecovery, all those different aspects. And then we talk about the mental readiness and it's having your head in the game ready to perform. Uh but I meanthere's some real uh things that people have to, you know, overcome on a dailybasis. Fatigue, I think, is a big part of that. If you're working a storm, you may be working 18our days, seven days ina row, and so you're barely getting enough sleep. So, how do things like fatigue, sleep deprivation impactdecision- making, even just our mental readiness to perform that job safely?You and I both know and probably most of the people who are watching this podcast know it affects your performance.There's no question about it. you know that um one of the things that's very interesting is um our daughter is anurse and and they do 12-hour shifts, you know, and they'll do backtobacksometimes. And it used to be it used to be hospitals and places like that hadthree shifts, you know, you'd have a day shift, an afternoon shift, and a night shift. And then to save money, you know,most of these businesses have gone to two shifts, you know, and that's it. Uh I just hope if I go to the hospital I'mgoing at the beginning or toward the middle of a shift as opposed to the 11th hour and 58 minute, you know, of ashift, you know, because again, uh there's we know that that there'sthere's part of your your shift where you're most productive and that's usually the first part of your shift, you know, where you're most productive.And then as you kind of move further into your shift, you could potentially become uh unproductive, you know, andtoward the end of your shift, you could actually be counterproductive, you know, depending on what what's contributing tothe fatigue, you know, that's for sure. Um, and even in sports, you know, in terms of every day you've got practice,we talked about the swimmers, you know, before. They know they've got another day coming. And so that that time thatthey've got from when they leave, you know, their job in the pool or their jobout in the field, you know, or their job fighting fires in that day that when they when they're finished with thatpart of it is to take full advantage of whatever recovery time that you've got, you know, that's when you can mayberefuel like you really need to refuel, you know, maybe that's time you maybe catch a quick shower, I don't know, or kick off your boots or whatever you do,you know, or lay on a cot, you know, whatever. But to take full advantage of that, I would also suggest that peopleput their phones down, maybe even turn them off if they have to because again, one of the big disruptors of people'sroutine, it's being interrupted by phone calls or, you know, or emails or textsthat makes that phone beep. So this little snake box that we carry around that we call our phone, you know, issomething that if you've got time to rest, then rest the phone as well. Youknow, maybe pick it up. I mean know after right before you go to work to make sure there's no emergency calls orsomething like that. Um but we've got to we got to get rid of these distractors which uh and in that cell phone it's abig one you know to put that aside and simply say I've got three hours to you know kind of rest here for I'm going totake full three hours you know to maybe hydrate a little bit maybe eat a little bit maybe sleep a little bit and thenI'll check my phone before I go back out again or something like that. but to put that that snake box away, you know, soit doesn't interfere with your recovery time. We have to do that with athletes all the time.And what's maybe one thing that someone can do just from like getting their mindto quiet during those moments so that they can take full advantage of rest? Do you have uh I don't like the term hacks,but is it is there a mental hack that someone can do to really focus on the mental recovery? so that they're in theright space. Other outside of like phones, I mean, there's a number of things thatpeople can do. I mean, uh, but again, depends on how much time you've got, Kevin. You know, kind of in betweenbeing off and and and and starting all over again. But, I mean, there are things like massage, there are thingslike um um music, there's things like meditation, there's things likemindfulness kinds of exercises that people can do. So, it all depends on how much time you've got and what resourcesyou've got available, you know, for that. Um, one of the things that that I've usedwith athletes because athletes once they show up to compete, it's pretty fastmoving, you know, after that. I mean, you should if we take a swimmer for an example, they show up at the pool, youknow, they have their snacks, they talk to people, but then they're in the pool kind of warming up maybe for their event or something like that. And when they'reout of the pool, they're getting ready to go to the competition pool to swim again. So there's not much time formassage in between there, you know, and so um there's things you can do to kindof calm your body, you know, with massage, you know, and and music. And you'll see people wear head headsets orearbuds all of the time to kind of cut away with the distractions and just pay attention to what's going on. Sorelaxing music, you know, not not ripping hard rock stuff, you know, or heavy metal stuff, but relaxing musiccan be really helpful. And that can be with earbuds or headphones, anything like that, because usually if people gotearbuds in or headphones, people leave you alone. They won't talk to you, you know, and they'll let you have your space. And that's important to have yourspace. So just music can be something that can be helpful. But if you don't have that, one of the things that I'veused with athletes, have we got time for a story, Kevin?Absolutely. So, this was over in London um in 2012and um I was with swimming, you know, there as well. And as you remember, atone end of the pool, that's where all the coaches are at and that's where they've got their little workout thing on a piece of paper stuck to the side ofthe pool so they can see what they're going to be doing. But all the actions down at one end of the pool and then 50m away is the other wall that they kick off of and come back. And so kind of after a set, they're all going to beback down there at that wall, you know, where the coaches. But in this case, there was a young swimmer who didn'tcome back to the wall. This athlete stayed down at the other end of the wall. And that's very unusual.So I walked down to the other end of the pool to see what was going on, and shewas just kind of crying her eyes out. And so I said, "What's going on?" She said, "Oh my god." She said, "I got somany things going on. I can't even talk about it right now." I said, "Would you be willing to come out of the pool with me so we can talk about it right now?"And she said, "Yeah." So I kind of waved at the the coach at the other end. I just said, "We're going to leave for aminute." And they just kind of nodded their head because they knew something was wrong, too. You know, we you talked about that Thorman, you know, earlier.What do you watch for? You know, well, this is an example of what the coaches were watching for. And they saw that wasnot routine. and that was something unusual. So, we're always looking for something unusual. So, I took her to aside room. We began to visit and she began to talk about what washappening with her. And she said, "You know, I'd been to the Olympics four years before in Beijing and I didterrible there. And here I am four years later after all of this work. I'm right back here again. I swim in two days andI'm worried about that happening all over again." She said, "But that's not all." Shesaid, "My mom was supposed to be here at this uh at this Olympic Games becauseshe couldn't make it to the one before, but she was definitely going to make it to this one if I could make it." And andso she's and I made it, but my mom passed away earlier this year. So, she's not going to be here. And she felt likeshe was just loaded down with this history and with mom. And she was a fairly spiritual person as well. and shesaid, "I think I've sort of lost my faith in God. You know, this is too much. I can't handle all of this." Shewas also a team leader. When this person would walk into the room or the deck orsomething like that, she had this amazing smile, an electric face and energy that would light everybody up andthat was gone. And I said, "Well, you know, let's just talk about that for a little bit. Yougot some things kind of going on in your head." And we call these things triggers. So if we talk about PTSD, PTSDhas got triggers as well. Usually sensory triggers and some of those might be something that a person might hear orsmell or see or touch that would bring them back to a previous traumatic eventand they'd reexperience that as if they were there all over again based upon this trigger. So, as we're working withPTS people, we have to identify what their triggers are so we can know what's happening in their life that might setoff this cascading event, you know, that puts them right back into the same kind of dark space they were at before. Andso, these were her triggers, you know, being in the pool again, thinking about mom, other people's parents being there,lots of triggers there that were lighting her up in a very negative way.And so I said, 'Well, triggers are very, very powerful, but triggers will remind you ofnegative traumatic experiences like they are here right now. One of the things we can talk about are what I call Q's. C US, right? So, we can make those very powerful as well, you know. And so if wethink about, you know, kind of talking about your mom situation, your spiritual orientation right now, thinking back ofkind of not doing very well four years ago, you know, are there some things that we can think about that wouldtrigger maybe a more neutral or positive kind of thing? And she said, "What do you mean?" I says, "Well, somethinglike, I don't know, a word or a symbol that would switch you from being so negative thinking to something maybemore neutral or positive." So, for an example, if we're talking about, youknow, kind of that big face you've got, you know, with the big smile that's kind of upside down right now. So, maybe asymbol could be just a smile for you that would remind you of the way you used to be. Is there a spiritual versefor an example you can think of, you know, that would kind of ground you back into being able to handle this oranything else like that? So, it could be a word, it could be a number, it could be a symbol, it could be anything likethat, you know, that will remind you of this conversation we're having right now. For an example, you're four yearsolder right now. You're four years more capable. This is a whole different Olympic games than what it was four years ago. That's different. You know,maybe your mom in some way or form, maybe she's here in some way. May maybewhatever you believe. Um, so there's something like that you can kind of come up with that would remind you of that.So I said, "Think about that tonight and we'll meet again tomorrow." So we did. We came back and what she had on herfoot and I said, "You need to have this visual reminder, you know, of this wherewhere you can see that at the most critical stressful point." And I said, "When is that?" She says, "Well, whenI'm on the starting blocks, you know, that's when things come cascading at me." Um, I'm not sure if you remember oryou saw the show with Kevin Coer in it, for the love of the game. He's a baseball pitcher on the mound, you know,and he's got the the Yankee stadium. They're yelling at him and screaming at him and he's got all this noise kind ofgoing on in his head. And then he says, "Clear the mechanism." So, he had thatauditory cue that he used to focus him back toward the home plate and nothearing all this stuff. So, the camera shows people yelling at them, but there's no sound coming out of their mouth. from the subway going by andthere's no noise there, you know, and he looks at the home plate and it's all he can see is the batter and the catcherand the umpire. So, he use an auditory cue to make that happen. For mostpeople, that doesn't work. Works for the movies, but you know, not not in real life. They got too much going on intheir head to think of an auditory cue. So, I use these visual cues. So, she came back the next day. what she hadtaken was a magic marker on her foot and she made a smiley face, you know, on herhand or on on her foot with two little eyes above it to get her to smile again.She had a biblical verse written down there that simply said, you know, something that read, I think, God nevergives you more than what you can handle in life. And then she had a heart that just had a line through it. It wasn'tbroken anymore. It was just a heart for her mom. And so she covered those three things, you know, that really botheringher. And I said, 'Well, let's practice those today in training. You know, when you're out there training today, let'sjust when things begin to kind of roll, think about, you know, your mom not being here. Think about you not being a smiley face. Think about having thisload, you know, that you got. Think about you not doing well before I could look at your foot, you know, rightbefore you go and see what happens. And she she got out of the pool and shesaid, "I think that kind of worked because I had to switch my attention, all the negative stuff to what I put onmy foot. It at least got me back to neutral. Maybe didn't think get me going pods, but it got me back to neutral."And I said, "Great. Great athletes perform the best they can when they're at neutral." And so she competed coupleof days later and uh meddled at the Olympic Games. And so she's using thesecues to kind of take care of that negative selft talk that was taking her out of action. And then later on in thatyear when we did the uh the November foundation thing, she came up to me and said, "You're not going to believe whatI did." And I said, "What'd you do?" She said, "I've got those tattooed on my foot now." You know, and I use them every day to remind me that I can be incontrol by switching from triggers to cues. And so that's one thing thatpeople can do is come up with cues where they can have them on the back of their glove, the back of their hand. So withbaseball players, I've got it on the back of their their glove. Uh with volleyball players, they've got it onthe toes of their their shoes because they're always looking down. Uh so wherever their visual field is, youknow, they can put that on axes, they can put that on their gloves, they can put that anywhere that's in their visualfield to remind them, okay, I'm back on the job here right now.That's such a powerful story and yeah, you you see that over and over again. The more you pay attention to toathletes, you see very strategically positioned tattoos or or messageswritten, you know, on the uh brim of a ball cap where they can look take itoff, look at it, and see that. And yeah, that's so powerful. And it seems like the cues have to be aligned with abelief statement about themselves or a bigger purpose. How how do belief statements or identity and purpose allkind of fit together with um having that resilient mindset? Yeah. And I think Kevin, I think I thinksometimes it I think it it sometimes deals with a with a misbelief or a misguided belief to begin with. That'skind of where I start. you know that that when people get off track for an example and you know it's it's basedupon maybe a um a disbelief or or or something that that used to be you knowit's based upon something that's happened in the past or could happen in the future as opposed to happening right now. And we get people thinking aboutright now it's it's less difficult to come up with a belief statement and a purpose statement that you might be ableto align you know with one of these cues you know as well. And I think what happens is that when people can createthese belief statements, whether it's a a pitcher, you know, in the ninth inning of the World Series with the Dodgersand, you know, the Blue Jays, you know, or you're a batter, you know, up to bat, you know, if if you can literally beginto disengage from all the distractions and all the noise and really tap intothis belief statement about who you are and what you can do, we see over and over again that that plays out that way.Yeah. One of my good friends works in the area of performance and he always says, "It takes no faith to believe alie, but it takes a lot of faith to believe the truth." And it's so easy for us to go down a path of you knowbelieving these false statements about reality or our life or who we are or youknow one person says you're ugly and we believe that even though 20 people justsay you're pretty you know it it's just I think it's it's human nature to tofall into that pattern. So, let me add one more thing too, Kevin, because you mentioned faith, and I think faith is important, but I I think whatwhat really grounds things for people. I mean, certainly have faith, but alsohave situations where it's actually played out like that. So, it's not about faith, you know, or hoping it happens orbelieving it could happen. It's like, no, it has happened before and I know I can replicate that again.Yeah, that's Yeah, that is key. You know, one thing about athletes isoftentimes there's an off seasonason, a time when they can recover, time when they you can mentally switch, but forworkforce athletes, I mean, there there really isn't an offseason. You get a little bit of PTO, but you know, you'reworking day in day out. So, what are some things that workers can do to buildsustainable rhythms over the long haul when they don't have an off season? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in this day and age,we're getting fewer and fewer off seasons even in, you know, for professional athletes as well, you know. So, for an example, right now, you know,the major soccer league is is kind of doing their playoffs, you know, right now. And unfortunately, our Sounders didn't make it through, you know, thisyear. Um, but all those soccer teams start in January, in mid January. And ifyou go all the way through the playoff, you're playing clear into December. And so you might have part of December andyou might have part of January kind of like off, you know, I guess. Um, but youhave to realize that that whole time from January all the way through to December, you're working every day. Imean, every day. Even if you had an off day, you were coming in for maybe injury rehab or something like that. So it wasnon-stop for the full year. And so, you know, as as people began to kind oflike, let's say, lose in the playoffs and get a little bit more, you know, time off. So the people who lose early,you know, kind of in the MLS or or MLS playoffs, they get a little more sort oflike quote unquote off time than the people who go all the way to the championship game, but they'll get alittle bit of off time, but they got to come back ready to go and ready for camp, you know, in mid January when they show up all over again. So they can takea little bit of a vacation, you know, from maybe the nutritional plan that they were on. you know, maybe they're not going to be lifting every day andthat sort of thing, but it's not going to be long before, okay, it's preeason, you know, again. So, we're almost goingfrom, you know, preeason to regular season to the end of the season back topre-season, you know, again. Um, if we're taking a look at like online workers, you know, that sort of thing,or we're taking a look at the military, you know, it's sort of like I think the organization somehow have to build inrecovery time for people, you know, and again, that takes money to hire more people. It takes all those sorts ofthings. But I think we have to speak louder to corporations, you know, and agencies and that sort ofthing to be able to have a workforce that allows people to work the crazyhours and days that they work, but also allows them to have some recovery time, you know, as well. And it shouldn'tnecessarily be at the end of the season. It should be like throughout the season, you know, that they they kind of get these breaks from that. Um, so that'sgoing to be one of the challenges that people face, I think, Kevin, you know, is it's sort of it's sort of the natureof the beast, you know, I guess in a lot of ways. And I think we have to begin taking a look at changing the look of the beast, you know, from a corporateperspective and an agency perspective as well because the human body can onlytake too much. We've already talked about fatigue. We've talked about lack of sleep. We've talked about how the body begins to break down, you know, andthat sort of thing. And so if if if I would have my way and could be king fora day, I'd be talking to organizations and agencies to simply say, "What's your staffing look like here, you know, andwe need to get more people in here?" You know, so people, you know, have have gut breaks that they need to maintainphysical fitness and health and mental fitness, you know, and health as well, you know. So what do we do in themeantime, you know, what do we do in the meantime, you know? Um, let me kind of reverse this a little bit. Kevin, whathave you seen in the industry? You know, what's the industry doing, you know, along that line? Yeah, it it's a it's a big strugglebecause work has to be done and right now the the number of qualified workers out there who have the background andexperience that are going into trades to fill the gaps versus the demands. Uh it's people are retiring faster thanthose slots are being filled. And so I I think that it is a situation right nowwhere people, you know, are working longer hours because the demand is so high. And so I think to your point, uh,companies are really trying to figure out how do we invest in the overall wellness of our workforce and supportthem in different ways uh to make sure that they they have what they need to tobe able to meet those demands. But yeah, we we need more people going into the trades is what I think we we needbecause uh there is a workforce shortage and um outside of just continuing to support people. Uh I think that that's amajor issue that we we need to solve for. Yeah. I mean for for the corporations especially in the kinds of areas you'retalking about here and we're talking about here today. My question would be what what do you do for recruiting? What's your recruiting program here? Howdo you get young people to come into this business? Do you go to the high schools? Do you go to the uh communitycolleges, you know, maybe maybe even the four-year because the military was having such a hard time recruitingpeople. Now they're recruiting people again, you know. So, how do these corporations handle recruiting morepeople to get in as opposed to kind of let the the market kind of uh well,self-report like you talked about before, you know, because that's not going to work, you know, it's just notgoing to work with younger people today because businesses that we work with umit requires fitness and physical work, you know, and kind of blood, sweat, andtears and um And so it's like how do we recruit this young group of people tocome into this way of working? I mean it's the trades are wide open for a whole bunch of people. Can we convincepeople this is a good way to go? Yeah. And I think a big part of it is just realizing that you know four-yearcollege might not be for everyone and there are different career paths that are unbelievable if you just pursuethose. And I think it's shifting the narrative to say, hey, there's a huge demand here and huge opportunity forpeople to be successful. And I I'm a huge advocate of the trades and just uhcontinuing to promote people to go down that route. And I think we we frankly we need to do that. And again, uh there'sso many different options, but uh trades is a great route. So I I definitely see a lot more recruiting happening forsure. Yeah. Yeah. And so and I think I think the recruiting we have to involve some of the younger people in the therecruiting um sort of plan you know because again sometimes the recruiting is being doneby a whole generation of different people that already there's some separation between the people maybe atthe end of their career and the people may be wanting to come in. So I think we have to include a younger population tokind of say how do we bring people in? I mean, how do we get people interested in this kind of a business and kind of askthe age population that question to maybe be helpful with that? Yeah, it's a great point. I think TopGun was really effective at drawing military recruits. So, maybe we need to Sure.talk to Hollywood and and uh get them involved in recruiting. And Jim, we're just so grateful for your time today andyour insight and the stories that you shared. Is there anything that you want to leave our listeners with?You know, I think um I think again using a sport sort of um analogy, Kevin,if if we look at at a basketball game for an example, you know, there are umor even a football game, there's there's a certain number of timeouts that a team can take and there are media timeouts,you know, that that can be taken. And um so if you're a coach, for an example,you know, you're going to you're going to use your timeouts um strategically and usually it would bestrategically in terms of if we're not if we're not doing something we need to do and the flow is going toward theother team we want to stop that momentum let's say in a basketball game and so I'll take a timeout you know or ifthere's something we need to do that's going to be different in a game plan we need to change I'll take a timeout but I'm going to use that strategicallybecause I think it's time for me to give them a message is it's time for them to get off the floor and let's just comeover here for just a minute. So, it takes them out of the action, you know, it slows things down, lets them take agulp of water or whatever they're going to be drinking and and just kind of let's let's talk about this for just asecond and then we'll go back out again. So, I think if we're talking about the workforce people, you know, in terms ofmaybe a message that you can leave, think about taking strategic time offs,you know, and again, that could be for 30 seconds, it might be for a couple of minutes, it might be for a half a day,or it might be a full day, but begin to think about, okay, I get timeouts, you know, they give me timeouts, you know,and some of those maybe I didn't need a timeout right now, but you're going to get one, you know, but think about timeouts that you can take, you know,that you sort of institute just to get out of the action for a while. Mayberegroup, get your momentum going again or maybe you just need a rest for a few minutes like you do in sport. You know,I just I just need to rest for a few minutes and I can go back out there again. So, I guess that might be it,Kevin. You know that there's so many things we can apply to sport, you know, with these frontline workers if we justthink about it differently in a different context. And so with sport, we take timeouts for good reasons. And somaybe that's something that the workforce can do too is when there's a timeout that they can take it, they cando that to reset, take a break, whatever they need. It's a great way to end this uh this conversation, Jim, becauseeveryone has the flexibility to take that time out and sometimes that reentering could be the differencebetween, you know, something really catastrophic happening if if they don't make the right decision. So I love that.uh take a second, refocus, and just know that you have those in your your pockets. Yeah.I might add too, Kevin, if I could. Yeah. If you take a break, don't take a break to use your phone.You know, turn the phone off. Snake box. We want to stay away from that thing. Snake box. That's right.Well, Jim, this was uh such a fantastic uh conversation. I've just appreciated your friendship over the many years andit's great great to reconnect with you and just bring these insights to the workforce. We we have so much respectfor the people the men and women out there who are on the lines every day uh putting putting in the work. So uh untilnext time, thank you so much for joining the Work Ready podcast and keep working hard and stay work ready.
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