Hi there and a very warm welcome to Season 6 Episode 43 of People Soup, it's Ross McIntosh here.

In this episode, I welcome Yass Rad to People Soup. Yass is the founder of 'We Were Unpublished', a part-time consultant at Affinity Health at Work, and a PhD student researching perfectionism in the workplace and ACT interventions for well-being at City St. George's, University of London. You'll hear Yass shares pivotal moments from her academic and career journey, discussing her unique combination of interests in psychology and art. She reflects on her early work experiences, the challenges she faced, and how they led her back to academia. The conversation touches on her personal values, her creative pursuits, and her current research involving a four-week online ACT training program for individuals struggling with perfectionism. In fact - there's an opportunity for you to take part in the current research, so if you feel you have perfectionistic tendencies you might want to get involved.

For those of you who are new to People Soup - welcome - it's great to have you here - I aim to provide you with ingredients for a better work life from behavioural science and beyond. For those of you who are regular P Soupers - thanks for tuning in - we love it that you're part of our community.

• Connect with Yass on linkedIn
• We Were Unpublished.
• Yass Rad - Art, research and more
• Building better teams with Ross McIntosh - Contextual Consulting
• Leading with purpose with Ross McIntosh - Contextual Consulting

There is a transcript for each episode. There is a caveat - this transcript is largely generated by Artificial Intelligence, I have corrected many errors but I won't have captured them all! You can also find the shownotes by clicking on notes then keep scrolling for all the useful links.

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Yass Rad - Master

Yass: the words I use to describe my values are, freedom being one of my strongest, and that sort of taps into what you were saying about adventure and flexibility.

curiosity, which is the thirst for learning, which you said use the words I obviously used to describe them, but very similar concept development, which is the sort of learning and moving forward. It's. Self-development, but also just evolution in general. And then the last two, which are the ones that are probably not as obvious externally unless you, unless you I guess, maybe see me in different settings over time, but are beauty and love.

p Supers. In this episode, I welcome Yaz Rad. Yaz is the founder of We Were unpublished, a part-time consultant at Affinity Health at work. And a PhD student researching perfectionism in the workplace and ACT interventions for wellbeing at cities St.

George's University of London.

You will hear Yas share pivotal moments from her academic and career journey discussing her unique combination of interests in psychology and art. She reflects on her early work experiences, the challenges she faced, and how they led her back to academia. The conversation touches on her personal values, her creative pursuits, and her current research involving a four week online ACT training program for individuals struggling with perfectionism.

Thanks for tuning in folks. People Soup is a podcast that mixes stories, science, and a sprinkle of daftness to explore what helps people thrive at work and beyond. Our mission is to give you the ingredients for a better work life through insights and stories grounded in behavioral science, especially acceptance and commitment therapy, and other evidence-based approaches.

Thank you Michael for listening and for your reflections. We always welcome reviews and as you've just heard, I tend to love sharing them with the peace supers. Speaking of Joe Oliver, I'm presenting two courses this year and collaboration with Contextual Consult. The first is called Building Better Teams, where I present a practitioner approach to pro-social and act based collaboration in a three hour workshop on the 11th of February, which happens to be the day this episode is published.

The pro-social approach offers a cutting edge evidence-based framework that integrates the principles of ACT Evolutionary science and Eleanor Ostrom's Nobel Prize winning core design principles.

I will introduce you to the approach, my experience of using the approach as recently as last week and the core tools. The second is called Leading with Purpose Act, strategies for Resilient and Authentic Leadership. This one is over three sessions in May. And in it I'll introduce you to fresh and practical approaches to support leaders. I'll show you how key skills rooted in behavioral science can help them develop and sustain their authentic leadership style.

Ross: Yass Rad. A very warm welcome to People's Soup.

Yass: Thank you very much. I'm so, so honored to be here, Ross.

Ross: Well, it's a delight to to see you. And Yas, you'll be familiar. I've got a research department and I've done a bit of digging about you and I'm gonna share what they've found.

Yass: Oh, okay.

Ross: So it says here, Yas Rad is the founder of We were unpublished, a part-time consultant at Affinity Health at work, and a part-time psychology PhD student at City St.

Yass: Indeed he is.

Ross: How are we doing so far? Yas? Does this sound okay?

Yass: Yeah. All great.

Ross: One of the things we're gonna talk about is one of your PhD papers, which we'll come on to shortly, but just to get people excited as I am. The title is Effects of Workplace Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Programs on Psychological Flexibility Sub-Processes, A Systematic Review.

Yass: It is quite a mouthful, wasn't it?

Ross: Yeah, I'm quite impressed I could say that in one go.

Yass: So I

Ross: So, yes, my research department also came across some other interesting facts about you,

and I dunno whether you can confirm or deny these, but they've discovered that you have a strong creative side in your life

and that you paint.

Yass: I can confirm. yes.

Yass: I can confirm, but I have no idea how they would've found out about that.

Ross: Well, the roots of my research department run wide and deep.

Yass: see.

Ross: not in a kind of threatening, spy like manner, but just they, they're careful notices.

Yass: Hmm. I like it. I.

Ross: So, yas, I've introduced a little bit about you, but I wonder if you could talk to us about your career to date. Maybe tell us how it's evolved, how you've got to where you are now, and some of the pivotal moments along the way.

Yass: Sure. it feels hard to know where to start really. But for some reason when I was thinking about Pivotal moments, it brought me back to A Levels, um,

So I had, psychology, biology, which I loved, but then also. Art at a level, which I also loved. and then at as, I dunno what they call them now, but I had, um, English literature. So I loved, it felt very pivotal for me to be able to have that range at that point. And then I obviously went on and carried on into psychology for my undergrad.

And that, I was gonna say, that felt pivotal and it was great to learn about the foundations of psychology. I think it was very purist. The course I did and I loved it for it. I learned a lot about the sort of classic psychology. but the masters in organizational psychology at City St. George's really was, a life changing course for me.

a big shift because yeah, it just, it signified a sort of pre and post finding my niche that I liked. Um.

Ross: Hmm.

Ross: Ooh yes, please.

Yass: and it came to obviously, I think like most people, my own personal experiences in the workplace.

After I had graduated as a fresh bouncy undergrad and I went to to, to the big city to find a job and ended up doing jobs that were not remotely psychology related. Just I was kind of, I thought I was done with psychology. I thought I'd studied my degree. I was ready to enter the working world and just find a job and earn some money and live my life.

however, none of the jobs I was doing for a variety of reasons ever felt quite right. It might have been I was struggling, you know? With the sort of the job itself and maybe it wasn't so entertaining to me or wasn't feeding me how I needed it to. Obviously some workplaces can be quite tough to be in.

And then I realized if all, all my joy and all the time I was spending outside of work was reading about about these things, and I was missing psychology, obviously it made most sense to. To go ahead and do a master's now that I found an area I was really interested in. So yeah. Then I found City St.

George's because of their Center for Excellence in Mindfulness. That's what I was loving then was mindfulness.

Ross: Thank you. I've got lots of curiosity now emerging in my head. I wonder how it was when you were doing your A Levels, how accepting were the teachers of this mixture? I.

And obviously most of my time was spent on art even, even though probably 70% of my, work that year was in the art department, and then the rest of it was on the other two subjects to get them through. Um, because that's just the nature of art, just takes a lot of time. but they were accepting of it.

I, I did have a conversation to try and convince them to let me do all four a a levels to last to the bit. I didn't wanna drop English basically, but that they said that would not be a smart idea and I should stick to the three subjects at a level and not overcommit. But I think that's become a trend in my life

Ross: and I'm interested in the roots of your art and your creativity. Is there a time in your life when you just realized, oh, this is a bit different from others? I am. I'm continuing to, to draw or paint or create.

So I think that was actually more recent than you would've thought.

Ross: Wow. Okay. So was the, hiatus between a point after school and delving into the world of work.

And I've al always done that, but it was more, it would leak out. It felt like I couldn't not, whereas it was never something I put a lot of effort or energy into except for when I felt out of control. And it's something I come back to, um, for myself to sort of ground me in a sense of self, which is now I, what I've realized, that's why it's a return to me.

but I did spend less time on it for the past 10 years. And now, as of last year, I've realized that that creative. A child, child is having a tantrum and would like some more attention now that I've spent some time, dedicating and obviously building my experience within sort of science and academia and, and work.

So yeah, now's a good time to do a bit of both. I love the way it was a more of a recent return to self. I really like that expression and I love the way you describe it as leaking out.

It felt like creative self and research self were separate. Whereas now I like to think of it all more holistically, which has helped a bit.

Ross: Thank you. And I'm curious about your decision to do the Masters and the your attraction to the Center of Excellence for mindfulness. Tell me a bit more about how you decided you want to do. Organizational psychology and tell me why it was City St. George's.

And that's what I had. Sort of started cultivating the practice of, in my own life. So I did some sort of silent meditation co retreats and courses and things. I was trying to learn and see how that would help my own me sort of wellbeing and, and, and mental health. And so when I was looking at, studying organizational psychology, I wanted to make sure that that was part of the course because I wanted to learn more.

It was still something I hadn't, I had learned from an experience perspective, but not from a sort of theory and research perspective and evidence-based perspective. So really when you look into it, city St. George's and are sort of the great members of department, are specialists in that area of blending mindfulness and workplace and, you know, mindfulness based interventions too.

Ross: Yeah, so we're talking about people like Yuta, Yuta, Tobias Mortlock. Yeah.

Who's doing incredible things with mindfulness at at the group level and anyone

else.

Ross: Totally agree. Thank you. Just curious about this, this time you had in the workplace, it sounds like it was in more than one organization, more than one sector, but it sounds quite turbulent. Is that, is that fair to say you found that transition from, you need to, to work

quite

turbulent.

Yass: Oh, definitely.

Ross: Would you mind just expanding on that slightly?

Yass: Yeah, sure. I definitely found it turbulent. Not at the very start,

but quickly after. It was a, it was a, a great, a, a quick snap to, to it. and so yeah, it was, I did, I had a couple different grad jobs, let's say. And before this, I'd obviously had part-time jobs throughout all of school and university.

and the roles were different too. 'cause I guess when you come out, you are kind of a, you are, you don't really know where you might wanna specialize if at all. You are kind of more of a generalist and you're just looking to work and learn on a job. And, um, I'd say what I noticed was that. I, there was pros and cons to both environments, whether it's a smaller startup or a, or a bigger corporate.

I met great people in both and, and sort of struggled with different things in both. And so I think I was looking to myself to say, is it me? Am I the problem? 'cause it's now a few different jobs that I'm struggling. Am I, what's what? I was essentially thinking, what's wrong with me? Why can't I seem to be mentally well in the workplace?

Um, because I was kind of starting to think maybe, obviously there's, there's factors within these work contexts that are not. Ideal for me, but it also might be something within me that's kind of rubbing wrong, the wrong way against this. so I was, you know, what do I have control over, sort of supporting myself with?

And that's where I kind of landed. And so yeah, it was, it was, it was turbulent, but very formative and a lot of what I come back to for lived experiences from them. Those experiences,

Personal values

Ross: I see. Some values. So clearly I wonder if I could share them with you to see if they

Now that's just my observations on knowing you a bit, having presented at conferences with you, chatted to you, but also in this, in this very conversation. Do any of those resonate with you or, or how would you describe your own values?

Yass: they resonate very well. Obviously with values. We all know we, we use different words depending on what resonates for

Ross: Of course.

Yass: So, but, but you've really, obviously, you know me very well, Ross, uh, because I think, well, the words I use to describe my values are, freedom being one of my strongest, and that sort of taps into what you were saying about adventure and flexibility.

And so I think the, the creativity comes out in those a little bit more. But it's weird 'cause I don't have creativity as a word because it just feels like it's innately within all of those values for me. So yeah, freedom, curiosity, development, love and beauty on my, my personal values.

Ross: Thank you. And I just wanna pause there and just reflect that for our listeners. Just appreciate what Yaz did there. You really used your own words, and I think that's something really important about values. We need to make them our own and have a word that really resonates with us, and obviously we can expand on that word and articulate it to what it means for us, but I think it speaks to the, the meaning behind these values and the deep personalization of them.

So thank you so much for sharing those with us.

Yass: Of course.

Ross: Hmm.

So, it really has, I mean, been invaluable to have or to be aware of. My core values because it made me realize, actually looking back now on those jobs, to bring it back to those jobs. For example, I can see why I struggled because I felt like my freedom was taken away. I felt like I wasn't able to develop it to a certain, in the way I wanted to, for example.

And so I've been very happy at work.

Ross: So you've, you've crafted this portfolio now of your work as a PhD student, your work with Affinity Health at work, your creative project of we were unpublished your own art, and that is satisfying those personal values in a more authentic and consistent way. Would that be fair?

Yass: Definitely, no, definitely would be fair to say. Which is, yeah, feeling like I'm feeding all of them and nothing's neglected, which is nice.

Ross: Nice. Now, yes. Tell me when you first discovered act.

I think it was the first module actually, and it was not far from the time I, I was introduced to perfectionism too. and I'm trying to think of, I, I can't remember the exact lecture. I have my notes still, I'm sure. But I just really remember learning that it felt like mindfulness, with some of the things that I saw such importance in like values work and I really resonated with how it felt and was a skills training rather than a meditation technique, let's say, that you would see more in mindfulness.

And that would stuck out to me and got me, got me interested in it. but yeah. And both of your tones of voice being so soothing, which sounds so, so, so, might not sound like important, but it. it experientially demonstrated how ACT interventions feel. 'cause in a way, by learning it, we were kind of going through an intervention in a way as well.

Ross: Thank you. And yeah, I hear you. It was exactly the same for me when I discovered it. Years before you, but in a lecture with Paul

Yass: Hmm.

Ross: and I was like, blind me. I think my first thought was this makes sense of a lot of things and also, and also wish I'd had this earlier.

Yass: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's exactly how I felt too. It just, it kind of was one of those areas that you're like, well, of course this makes perfect sense and feels really achievable as something I could do and practice more of. And it was, it was a bit of a mind blowing experience. I, is that how you felt as well?

Ross: Yeah, I remember. 'cause I wasn't expecting to. To get kind of hooked by

act.

Yass: mm

Yass: mm Oh, wow. What a change then.

Ross: And I discovered this and I was like, Hmm.

this is a pivotal moment for me.

Yass: Oh yeah. Many pivotal moments on that course, I'm sure.

Ross: Yeah. And I've got another pivot to ask you about, actually

Yass: Oh, please.

Ross: the pivot to do a PhD.

Tell me about that.

Yass: Yeah. It's funny 'cause it didn't feel like a pivot 'cause it felt like the natural extension of the masters. But I probably quite quickly after that lecture that we've just talked about, about act and then the one about perfectionism, I, I quickly felt like, oh, I'm sad those lectures are over. And so I was kind of scrounging to do anything, any of my essays, I could loosely link to either of those.

To be honest. A master's wasn't on my radar when I finished my undergrad. Like I said, I thought I'd left Psychology for Good, goodbye. so it was just, it surprised me that I even considered it, but it also, I just had the conversation and asked and asked if, if he would want to supervise, if it was, and, and what that even looked like and all this stuff.

And I really only want to do a PhD if it was at City with, with Paul and, and Co because it wasn't so much the PhD that I wanted rather than being able to continue what we'd started in the lectures with them. so it, it just felt like the natural, the natural progression of my interest in the area.

Yass: Oh, I'm It's funny, I didn't even think about it that way. Like I said, things I wanna do just leak out. It's almost like I can't stop them. So that was probably a, an a piece of evidence for that. It just, I don't think I even really thought about it. I think I just emailed him and he was also my supervisor in my formal tutorial group or whatever you would call them.

So he was someone I could, I mean, I would've done anyway, but yeah.

Ross: Yeah. Lovely. Now I wonder now, yes. If we just touch upon your current research, because you'll be looking for recruits to take part in one of your PhD studies and I wonder if we could just skip to that. 'cause I'd love for people to have a think to see if they want to take part and get access to a free intervention.

So tell us a

bit more about your research please.

so yeah, I'm running, I'm running these, they're four week. ACT training programs, they're all online, all asynchronous. So I just give you a link a week for four weeks with the modules that week. And so it's been designed to be somewhat brief. So obviously a lot of ACT interventions can be workshops or a couple days and they're lovely, but sometimes it's hard to fit that in amongst a a working week.

But the actual training itself is just four weeks that you can complete and hopefully find some value from. If you've never done any ACT training or you know, people who. Sort of might have experienced perfectionist tendencies that would find it interesting to trial something like act, and they've maybe only had exposure to other, other types of training or resilience trainings in the workplace.

Then do share it and or do reach out to me.

Ross: We'll make sure the links are in the show notes for this

episode. Yes. And tell us how, what's the time commitment to each week roughly?

So

Ross: So it feels, it feels doable for busy people out there, for busy perfectionists out there. So if you, would it be right to say Yeah, as if I have a, an inkling that I might have sort of perfectionist tendencies, this might be for me?

Yass: Yeah, I'd say so. And, and you don't have to feel like you call yourself a perfectionist because it's a label that you know is not necessarily always relevant to people. But if, if maybe someone's told you one point or, or you feel like at work, the things you struggle with might be. Sort of linked perfectionism.

Or I think one area is, do you find yourself hesitant to share your work with others? some, some, some things like that. If you've experienced some things like that or noticed that while working, some of those are impacting you now, and your mental health or wellbeing at work, then you might find this, this intervention helpful.

Ross: Great. Great. So p Supers, if you're interested and you want to get in touch with ya, you'll have the link in the show notes.

Yass: you very much. Please come along.

Ross: Yes. So, yeah. Just to finish off this, this personal reflection, thinking about Yaz, little Yaz at school from where you are now, would you have any advice for Yaz at school?

Yass: I do find this question hard. Do you find it as well, because, you know, the classic Well, I don't want to change anything 'cause I'm happy with where I'm at and I don't wanna, you know,

Ross: Yeah,

because you know, it makes sense to you. And the one thing I wish I was, was a little bit unapologetically me a bit earlier on, but I dunno how you can have that without, you know, I needed the experiences I had, but I think that sort of be weird. Be okay being weird and, and don't apologize for it. And sort of that would be the advice.

Ross: Thank you, and I think, I think that will resonate with many, and it's a lovely bit of role modeling for us as well.

Yass: I try to remind myself about this every day as well.

Yass: Well, this song would be by a band called Parcels, which anyone who knows me knows they are my favorite band. But this song particularly is kind of like a disco song and it just makes you wanna get up and move. But also, I dunno what the lyrics are supposed to mean, they're quite abstract, but it means that I've interpreted them in my own way.

Ross: Sold.

Yass: Listen to it.

Let me know what you think.

Ross: I will indeed. I'll put it on my disco list.

Yass: Oh yeah, please do. And invite me to the disco.

Ross: Of course. I think, I think we do need to find a disco tech to go to together.

Yass: I agree.

Ross: I'm quite big on eighties. I need to warn you.

Yass: Super, super okay with that. And very, very supportive of all eighties music.

Ross: thank you so much. I think that's part one.

That's it. Peace Supers the first part of my chat with Yas In the bag, you'll find the show notes for this episode at People Soup Captivate fm or wherever you get your podcasts. now more than ever. You can help me reach more people with the special people soup ingredients, stuff that could be really useful for them.

Peace supers and bye for now.

Yass: And the one thing I wish I was, was a little bit unapologetically me a bit earlier on,