We’re launching the Mental Spinach Work Life Handbook!

We’re delighted to release the Mental Spinach Work Life Handbook! This free and valuable resource is designed to sit alongside your copy of Mental Spinach as you navigate your work and life. It highlights thought-provoking questions on ten common and important challenges and is based on the Mental Spinach Four Lenses framework.

Who is this Handbook for? 
 
The Handbook is great for use individually, or in a team context as a conversation guide to shape mentoring, coaching or team conversations. Its questions can help you find your way through immediate challenges or opportunities, and it can serve you as an ongoing reflection tool.
 
If you’re a team leader or an HR executive or someone just thinking of friends, it's a great present – a copy of Mental Spinach, plus a link or copy of this free downloadable Handbook.

The Mental Spinach Bulk Book Deal

You may be trying to find a meaningful and simple gift to share with your team or community. A copy of Mental Spinach for each member of your team or for your clients could be the perfect answer. In advance of the festive season we're offering a bulk order special deal. We are selling Mental Spinach copies for $5 per book for orders over 25 books (and $7.50 for international orders). So, you could buy Mental Spinach for 25 people in your team for only $125, or even (if you’re really feeling the festive spirit) buy 100 copies for $500. What a bargain! To make the most of this deal, please email us directly by clicking on the below blue button.

2021 highlights for the Mental Spinach Team

2021 has been another year of extraordinary events and new experiences for everyone. Even with the challenges, we've been proud to achieve: 

• Working with one of our readers Jackie Werdeling on this Handbook after she enjoyed reading Mental Spinach so much. A big thanks to Jackie for her mammoth effort in putting this together with us

• Facilitated workshops on some of our favourite topics like navigating unwarranted perfectionism, wellbeing and growing your career

• Facilitated a month of learning content around work-life balance for Digital wellbeing company Springday as part of their annual calendar of events

• Ian was honoured to be appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant contributions to business and the community

• Ian featured podcasts including the UltraHabits Podcast and the Women on Boards Podcast, and continued his work on a range of boards and coaching senior executives through Foresight's Global Coaching

• Jess continued her work with mwah. moving more deeply into the culture and leadership space. She also released her first full-length music album, featured in the Kate Spade Fall collection and sung in the movie awarded Tribeca Film Festival's audience choice award, Blind Ambition

• We made the list of the all time top 10 Actuaries Institute's Podcasts

Thanks as always for your support!

All the best and we hope you have a wonderful festive season ahead and start to 2022.

Jess and Ian Pollard 

Ian on the Women on Boards podcast series

“The principles haven’t changed, but the speed has increased and the expectations on executives have gone up, because of greater connectivity and responsibilities”.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to chat with Claire Braund from Women on Boards around my story and to share some reflections on business and personal development. From reporting upwards and leading a team effectively, through to dealing with wider stakeholders and my belief in the need to think boldly and to take a strong stance on promoting diversity in Australia businesses, this wide ranging conversation was interesting and enjoyable.

As a collective Jess and I both really enjoy contributing through podcasts and it is always an honour to join the list of featured guests. I would highly recommend subscribing and listening to a range of the other episodes published by Claire and the Women on Boards team.

Podcast Show Notes

 This week, Claire talks to the ever-talented Ian Pollard, Director, well-known Chair, Executive Coach, actuary, statistician and author of six publications. With multiple degrees ranging from corporate finance to French and philosophy, Ian also played professional tennis, which took him to the USA at 18 in the Davis Cup squad. Injuries to both legs halted his tennis career and saw him return to his true love, academia.

One of six children, all actuaries, Ian talks fondly of his father, who played a pivotal role in shaping the person that he is today. In fact, Ian’s father was one of the first professors at Macquarie University and started the first ever actuary course there in the late 1960s.

Ian’s first job was a wonderful opportunity at Sydney’s first bank, Development Finance Corporation, which exposed him to the world of investment banking and led to his first Chair role at age 25. Since, Ian has served on countless boards and has passionately coached senior executives in leadership roles for more than 20 years. His deepest single interest, however, is how people, teams and organisations grow. Alongside his daughter Jess, Ian has co-authored books on the subject and together they lead workshops.

Hear about Ian’s wide and eclectic interests, the importance of improving our diversity in Australia and why corporations should be investing in their human capital.

Ian’s feature on the Ultra Habits Podcast Series

I had a great time joining RJ Singh in the studio for his Ultra Habits Podcast. I have long been fascinated by the recurrent impact and compounding power of habits and mindsets. In this long-form conversation we covered a lot of territory. RJ truly lives his values through this podcast to share the ultra-habits needed to achieve peak performance in all areas of life and I was honoured to share some of my own contributions to this space. I would highly recommend subscribing and listening to a range of his other guests.

Congratulations Ingrid Anderson and thanks for the Mental Spinach shout out!

I was so excited this week to see Ingrid Anderson of BWX named CEO Magazine’s 2020 HR and Recruitment Executive of the Year. After having worked with Ingrid at Billabong it wasn’t surprising to see her great work celebrated – she is a passionate and innovative People and Culture leader who made a significant contribution when we worked together.

What was surprising, was seeing her very kind reference to Mental Spinach as one of her reference books of choice. One of the very difficult things to quantify as an author is the difference that your words make in the world, so it was lovely to read that our little green pocketbook is still making an impact! Thanks for the shout out Ingrid and congratulations on the well-deserved award.

For the full article you can click here:

'Stories From Seclusion' - COVID-19 and navigating uncertainty

We were delighted to contribute to the Actuaries Institute's 'Stories From Seclusion' blog series this week. In this article, alongside other contributors including our friend Martin Mulcare we considered the potential influence of COVID-19 on our mental health and some strategies for navigating change and uncertainty.

We found it interesting to consider what have been our anchors and engines through this strange time and how we can use these going forward? What have been your anchors of certainty and your engines of momentum? 

Self-motivation – one key to life’s trajectory

Human motivation experts like Deci have long studied the impact on individuals of external rewards or controls as compared with that of self-motivation. Some of the findings include:

• When self-motivated in doing something, people typically embrace it with a sense of interest and commitment. This emanates from their true sense of self, so they are being authentic. In this mode, they typically thrive.

• When externally motivated or “controlled”, and consequently acting without a sense of self-motivation, people can reasonably feel alienated and much less effective.

Self-motivation and your Freedom Hours

Our earlier blog “Finding and leveraging Freedom Hours, even in the fast lane” introduced our concept of Freedom Hours and highlighted three big levers which can impact your life’s trajectory:

1. increasing your Freedom Hours,

2. using them well and

3. making each of 1. and 2. enduring habits.

Freedom Hours present the perfect opportunity for self-motivated activities and consequently can be the most valuable in generating the creativity, responsibility, healthy behaviour and lasting change Deci refers to in the quotation above. Hence a Freedom Hour is potentially much more valuable than a “controlled” hour.  Your Freedom Hours also present a big challenge because their value depends totally on what you decide to do with them.

At the heart of all three big levers is self-motivation because:

• typically, nobody else is going to find you more Freedom Hours (unless they fire you from a job or take away some other responsibility or expectation);

• nobody else is going to tell you what to do with your Freedom Hours (the moment they do, those hours are no longer Freedom Hours); and

• most of all, nobody else is going to change your habits – that’s totally in your court.

With these multiple dimensions of leverage, Freedom Hours can be major determinants of your life’s trajectory.  And so much of it depends on your self-motivation and self-discipline. 

And what about the inevitable “controlled” hours?

The concept of “control” can have many faces, like:

• having to comply with rules, instructions or others’ timetables and priorities,  

• being micromanaged,

• deadlines and evaluations

• incentives ranging from gold stars at school or home to financial rewards contingent on performance of a work task, 

• an excessively competitive environment,

• peer or social pressure and being overly concerned with what others think

It’s inevitable that we’re controlled or lack autonomy in some of our activities – probably in the majority of them as we take on further work, family, financial and social commitments. Even someone who chooses to run their own business finds that its success depends on them being responsive to others’ needs and timetables. Some constraints on our autonomy are important in a well-functioning relationship, family, organisation or community – so they are inevitable.

Increasing your self-motivation in “controlled” hours

Even in these inevitable “controlled” hours you can take steps to increase your own autonomy and self-motivation. And conversely, when you’re the one leading someone else, you can take steps to increase their autonomy and self-motivation.

There are many tools or strategies to help this quest for greater self-motivation – most depending on a healthy balance between some necessary control or direction and sufficient autonomy and buy-in.

The most effective strategies will vary widely between individuals and relationships but some opportunities include:

• limits being set as wide as possible,

• being given a choice (and the relevant information to make an informed choice)

• a healthy relationship between your competence and the challenges of the task

• focusing on the journey and learning as much as the outcome

• being involved and listened to when the path forward is being considered or decisions are being made

• incentives and praise being communicated in a non-controlling way (eg “you’ve done very well” as compared with “you’ve lived up to expectations” or “you’re doing as you should”)

• competition but without a “winning is everything” mindset

And you’ll inevitably get exactly the opposite outcomes from spoon-feeding, highly prescriptive behaviour, micro-management or external discipline. So if you see benefit in increasing your and others’ self-motivation:

Ask yourself:

• Do I place enough importance or value on my autonomy and self-motivation?

• In which activities or responsibilities do I feel both competent and autonomous? Which of my activities interest me so much that the joy of the task is its own reward? Am I motivated to increase my Freedom Hours so I can devote more time to these rewarding activities?

• Am I motivated to use some of my Freedom Hours differently? What other activities may give me great joy? How can I best experiment with them? Who could help me do so?

• In some contexts do I care too much about what others think? Is it affecting my self-motivation in contexts important to me? How can I change that?

• Are organisations or people offering me rewards for investing my time, energy and attention in the direction of their goals (including their goals for me) but inconsistent with my own? Does that affect my self-motivation? What should I change or suggest someone else changes to increase my self-motivation?

• Do I empathise enough with others’ needs for autonomy and respect the value of their self-motivation?

• In roles where I am leading others (eg as boss, project leader, parent or teacher) or collaborating with others (eg partner, sibling), am I supporting their autonomy and self-motivation? Conversely, what am I doing that is “controlling” them and risks diminishing their self-motivation? What should I change?