Tazmin and Sarah are back for Season 6, and in the first episode of the season, they talk about resilience in the workplace and beyond, covering what it is, why and where it is important, and also give actionable strategies for developing your own resilience.

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Resources used for episode

• We chat to Roxana Stingu all about Self Belief | The SEO Mindset Podcast - The SEO Mindset Podcast
• Taking charge of your Inner Chatter | The SEO Mindset - The SEO Mindset Podcast
• Differences Between the Fixed & Growth Mindset [Part 1] - The SEO Mindset Podcast - The SEO Mindset Podcast

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Hello everyone. Hopefully you didn't miss me and Tazmin too much. But we are back with season six. How amazing is that? I mean, I'm excited. Tazmin, are you excited?

I'm doing my little victory dance.

Yeah. Can you? But I can't quite believe we have done five seasons and we're back with season six now. Yeah, I'm very excited to bring you yet more episodes and very excited for the conversations that we're going to have between ourselves, but also the guests that we've got lined up for this season. So really excited to be back. Now, this week, our very first episode for season six, we are talking about resilience in the workplace and beyond. Okay, so really important topic. I mean, I feel like I say that every time because we only talk about really important topics. But before we get into this week's episode, just a reminder of the ways that you can support the podcast so you can donate, so you can give us a one off donation and support us so you can follow the links in the show notes to do that and you can subscribe to the podcast as well. So if you want to be notified about new podcasts, the best way to do that is to subscribe to the SEO mindset. And again, there will be a link in the show notes for you to do that as well. Hello, Tazmin. I know I've already said hello to you, but hello.

Hello. I'm so happy that we are continuing to do this and we are getting more and more listeners and people are enjoying the episodes. So super exciting. Let me tell you the news. Are you ready for the news? I have three hoodies. Three hoodies now.

Three hoodies.

I know, I'm a changed woman. What can I say?

You started the podcast with no hoodies.

I had.

Now you were the owner of three.

I know.

That's growth, personal growth is about all manner of different things, right? Who do you use? It is for you.

Yes, I've embraced that element of my life now. But yeah, going on to the topic, so resilience, why did I choose this one? It's an important topic, as you said, but I was recently on a webinar talking about mental health with a digital agency owner and somebody else, I think it was OMG webinar. And we were talking about mental health and resilience. And he said resilience is like an elastic band. The more you use it, the less give it's got. And I thought, is it though? I don't think it is, not necessarily. Resilience can also be like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. It all depends on what you feed it. So that's the angle here. So we'll be talking about resilience, what it is, blah, blah, blah, but how to keep it strong.

Okay, so kick us off then, Tazmin. What is resilience? Why should our listeners be paying attention so why do we need more of it? What is it?

Okay, so what is resilience? It's the capacity to withstand or recover from quickly, from difficulties and challenges. There are multitude of challenges that people are going to face, whether it's in the workplace, your social life, your family life, and the ability to cope with that, or even if it's difficult for a bit, you can recover really quickly is something that's going to mean that you get on with the next bit of life and the next bit of life. Otherwise you end up being really stuck. And we don't like stuck, right? We want to move on 100%. And it's also not just individuals, but the ability of individuals, teams, organizations, to adapt and recover. Because in the workplace, again, there are going to be challenges. And if the organization is going to move forward, if that team is going to move forward, they're going to have to have an element of resilience. And the more resilience they have and the better they look after themselves, the tougher they're going to get and be able to thrive. And we're all about the thrive again, are we not?

Yes, we love to thrive.

So this isn't about not having the challenges or avoiding the challenges, it's about facing them. And we don't always call it resilience. Some people call it adaptability, some people call it flexibility, persistence. There's different ways of labeling it. But the crux of the matter is, when you are knocked over, you can quickly get up and keep moving.

This is going to be a weird reference for people. Not everyone will get this, but there is that song, isn't there? I get knocked down, but I get up again. You never going to keep me down.

I don't know if I know that one.

I mean, do you know what, not everyone will. And I just subjected people to my awful singing.

We've got all sorts of talents on this show.

Singing is not one for me. Okay, right, so, yeah, I mean, crystal clear then, what is resilience? And yeah, I've definitely heard the other terms. Flexibility, adaptability, persistence. That's a new one. But, yeah, I get that. How that's in the same bracket. But why and where is it important?

So we sort of touched on it a little bit. In life, you are going to have challenges that could be, like I said, in your relationships, in your social life, financial difficulties, but I believe that all of those challenges are there to grow you, to chip away. If you think about a masterpiece and piece of art, or a sculpture, I suppose a sculpture is a piece of art, isn't it? But you get what I'm trying to say.

All of this in the beholder, eyes.

Of the beholder, but they take a million of little strokes or little chips and all of that over time creates the masterpiece that it is. So in life, when you've got those challenging situations, those difficult conversations, being able to deal with them with resilience is further shaping your character and it's going to make you that much better at dealing with the next one at work. It's really valuable because again, you've got even more, you've got the economic environment, you've got the social environment, the political environment. All of those are going to cause the pandemic. Let's not forget that if you can adjust your strategies, adjust the balance in your team or the skills in your team, again, you'll be better equipped to handle uncertainty, which there is plenty of at the moment. Resilience is really good for your mental health because if you can see that angle, that mindset shift is, this is growing me. You can continue to have a good relationship with life and smile and not beat yourself up because you got it wrong or it didn't work. All of those, that attitude isn't good for your mental health. And again, growth, we're all about the growth. You're learning all the time. And if you can learn through challenges, then that's only going to serve in your favor.

And I definitely think the more that you challenge yourself or the like, it's about, I suppose, getting comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Yeah, because that's when you do learn and you do develop. Like if you keep doing the same things in your safety net, that's great and serves its purpose. But I think sometimes we do need to push ourselves a bit, don't we, allow ourselves to grow. But I think if we're doing that, then resilience is so important because we don't want to be put off, do we? Or we don't want to try something and be like, oh wow, do you know what I mean? Resilience is so important because resilience helps you to continue to grow and it's life. We're humans, you're going to find yourself in tricky situations or situations that are hard to navigate or situations that are uncomfortable. But having this resilience is definitely going to help you, isn't it? And help you be healthier and your mental health as well. That's so important because that underpins everything, your life and your work, doesn't it?

And you said get uncomfortable with feeling uncomfortable. You could even take it a step further. Get excited about feeling uncomfortable because you know that that's where the growth is so often. I know impostor syndrome is something we speak a lot about and it's not just an inner game. There are things that organizations can do to increase that sense of belonging which will impact that feeling anyway. But say you're in a meeting and you think, I don't know what I'm doing here, I don't feel that I can add anything. Maybe you think, actually I've got nothing to lose. Why don't I just say what I want to say and almost treat it a bit like a game? So I was in a situation recently where I was really scared of doing something, because I thought, oh, they're going to say no. And my friend said to me, right, I want you to make 20 phone calls and I want you to get ten no's. And it became a bit of a game.

To get the nose.

To get the nose. Because I thought, yeah, I can get those easy. And she said, Go on then. I want you to get ten no's by the end of the day. And it just reframed it and took the pressure off. So then I was excited about doing that thing because I'd reframed and a different way of looking at it.

Oh, 100%, yeah. And I suppose it's about self awareness, isn't it? And knowing you obviously like games, like you like a challenge, and I think there'll be lots of people like that as well. But yeah, because I thought being comfortable with feeling uncomfortable was like a good play on words. But yeah, no, you're completely right. Get excited by feeling uncomfortable because you don't know where it's going to bring you in the end.

Even if you've got to step on the stage and give a talk or stand up in front of your team and give a presentation, a lot of the time you're putting that pressure on yourself. But if you take the spin off, you know what, I'm strong enough to get here, I'm strong enough to get through it. And actually, I've got everything to gain and nothing to lose. Just go for it and find those situations, find those opportunities to get there.

And just another example as well is, and this is going to resonate with a lot of people that work in SEO is things do go wrong. Like, things break in marketing, like, things don't go to plan. Something all of a sudden decides to break, like, rankings. Something happens with your website, visibility goes down. There's so many examples of where things can go wrong, where you need this resilience to know, okay, what do you do to A, get out of your pickle? How do you get out of that situation? But also, how do you communicate with stakeholders and people within your business and your team? Because, yeah, with this resilience, you have such an opportunity to show, do you know what, you can trust me. I'm a really valuable player. I'm a really valuable employer employee. Sorry. Because when things go wrong and inevitably things go wrong, you can count on me to work on it, to get it fixed right. So you can definitely prove your worth in that sense as well.

And to yourself. How good does that feel when you think this went wrong? I kept my head, especially if you're a leader and you've got a team to look after, I've helped them navigate through it and at the end of the day, we're up and running again.

Like, it 100% right. Shall shall we take a short break? I feel like this is a nice place to break, isn't it?

That sounds like a good idea. Thank you.

What have you got for us for part two? Let's entice people to continue listening.

So we've talked about what is resilience, why it's good to be resilient. Then I'm going to tell everyone eight ways that you can improve your resilience.

I mean, eight ways sounds lumin wonderful. I mean, loads of ways that we can implement that resilience. So, yeah. Join us back for part two. Welcome back to part two. Right, I'm very looking, very looking very much looking forward to hearing your eight ways that we can implement more resilience into our life. Tazmin.

Right, so I say eight, but the first four, if you can fuse them together, is where you're going to get the most impact. So though they're individual ones, the aim is fuse them. So don't chuckle at me as if I've just made something. Okay. Number one, growth mindset. Embrace a growth mindset. That was our first episode and I have to say it was still our most listened to episode, how to embrace a growth strands of it. So if anybody wants to go back and listen to episode one and two of the first season, you'll learn more about that. But the growth mindset can I just.

Sorry, can I just say we'll put a link in the show notes if you want to continue.

Yeah, thank you. So, growth mindset. Your mindset is basically your perspective on the world. It's like putting on a pair of glasses and you'll see it in a different way. If you look at the world as that life is full of opportunities to learn. When you are faced with a situation that hasn't gone so well or as you expected, that's what you'll see. This is somewhere where I can learn something. So number one is embrace a Growth mindset underpinning that have a belief system that supports that growth mindset. So belief is what you think of yourself and say things like, each learning is preparing me for a future opportunity.

Yeah.

Or Failure is another step towards success, is another great belief to have.

Yeah.

Now the next thing I'm going to talk about is values. And some people get beliefs and values merged and in a way they sort of are. But values are like your moral compass. It's what makes you decide what you're going to do, even if you haven't really thought about what it is. There will be your core values. If you have a core value of personal growth, that then further solidifies. So again, you're in a situation, things haven't gone quite right, you see it as an opportunity. You have a belief that every opportunity is preparing you for a future opportunity and you have a value of personal growth. You are going to see it so much differently if you didn't have those three elements in place.

Right? Yes.

All of that then will feed into your Inner Chatter, because instead of your Inner Chatter saying things like, it's all gone wrong. What are you going to do? I told you not to do that. You've created such a mess. Which then perpetuates that negativity, you will say things like, I'm strong enough to do this. I'm learning every day. I can find value in adversity. I can figure anything out. So when your mindset, your belief system, your values and your Inner Chatter are fused like that, you're tough. Does that make sense?

You are. No. I always answer questions like, no, you're completely yes was the answer. It makes complete sense. And I completely get why you were saying that you need those four things to become as one. But yeah, as you were saying them all, I was definitely nodding like, yes. And it just so happens that you know how you spoke about Inner Chatter? That's another podcast episode that we've done as well. So, again, like that other podcast episode, that link will be in this episode, Show Notes as well. So if you want to know more about Inner Chatter, because we go into more detail on that as well, and.

Beliefs, because I did an episode with Roxanna on self belief.

Oh, yes, that was a great episode about self belief. Do you know what? It's the podcast that just keeps on giving.

But it sort of shows you that those four elements, if you can get those right this whole being fact, about being self aware, about building your mindset, your belief system, your inner chatter. It just gives and gives and gives, which is, again, what we say, self awareness, self development is a key to mental health, is key to everything. Yeah, so those are those four. Another one is to cultivate a really strong support network. So this is people like mentors, managers, peers, allies, that will give you guidance, it'll give you reassurance that will encourage you when things don't go right. And a person that's just popped into my mind is an OD manager called Staff. So, years ago, I worked in a data team in a company that supplied magazines around the country. And we had this postcode file. This is years ago, you had to upload this postcode file every so often so that the allocating software knew where to sell ascend to the magazines. And I made a boo boo. So basically, all England stores the system thought was in Ireland and all the island stores were in England. It created a mess.

I can't imagine why.

And I remember that morning, the allocation team saying, oh, this isn't right, this isn't right. And I thought, surely I couldn't have done that. I mean, even I couldn't have done that. But I did. I had done that. Anyway, it took all day to fix. And I remember my manager saying, it's fine, you never learn anything until it goes wrong. So thank you for that. We've put another thing in place to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I love that.

She was brilliant. Another thing she would say was, we are only distributing magazines, no one's going to die. So thank you, Steph, for being one of the most wonderful managers I ever had.

That's so true, isn't it? I think making boo booze or making mistakes is definitely it's not just an opportunity for yourself, is it? But it's an opportunity also for the brand or the business or whatever. Exactly like your boss said.

Yeah. So have a really strong network around you who are going to encourage you rather than bash you down when things don't quite go your way.

Yeah.

Next one. Practice self care. So this, like we said, this is your foundation and if you are looking after your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health, if you are looking after your stress levels when things go wrong, you are going to be able to reflect properly, keep your head, you've got the capacity, you've got the energy. Whereas if you think about the times when things have gone wrong or you've snapped, it's usually because you've reached your stress capacity. So taking care of yourself will let you enable you to handle stress better and bounce back from setbacks.

Yes. And I suppose self awareness comes with self care as well. So knowing how to I'm very aware that I'm just sort of like saying that word and obviously it takes a lot of work, doesn't it, self awareness, and it's an ongoing journey, but if you can know, what is self care for you? So, for example, a bit of daily self care that I have is like going out to take my Benny the dog, always benny the dog, not my dog or Ben. Benny the dog, that's his brand. But every day I really enjoy getting out with him into nature because I try to be disciplined as well and not be on my phone or anything like that. But just find ways that you can put yourself first or something as well that I've not realized is I really enjoy cooking, so I make sure that there is a couple of times a week where I've got time where I can enjoy putting together and cooking a recipe or cooking some food. So, yeah, that self care is so, so important because yeah, it's another fundamental, isn't it, with resilience?

It is the number of times in the last few weeks I've said, self care is more than bubble baths and a glass of wine. It's not the thing that you do when you're about to break, it's the thing that you do every day. So you don't break or you don't break as easily. We all crumble a little bit and you've talked about creativity, so self care has different buckets. It's not just about the one bucket. You've got your creativity bucket, you've got your exercise and going outside bucket, you've got your emotional your social, your growth is also part of your self care. If you're not investing in yourself, then there will be times when you feel that. So one thing is that if people can get into the habit, if nothing else, before they go to bed, write down one thing that they've learnt and put it in a jar. Or put it in a book. I get people to put it in a jar now so that they can visibly see their growth as those notes keep on going into the jar.

I would like to add one more thing as well. There's only two things that you need to write at night. So one thing that you've learned but also something that you're grateful for. So it's great to see your growth, but also if you can look back and just say something that's made you feel good, say something that you're grateful for. Like, for example, tonight mine might be, I'm grateful for Benny the dog.

Yeah. No, I agree. And actually, when you're in that moment where you're trying to unpick a mess or solve something, look for something positive. Because we're predisposed to look for the negative. That's what keeps us safe. Whatever it is, the sun shining outside or somebody made you a nice cup of tea, whatever, however small. And also self care consists of, when you finish that day and it hasn't gone your way that day, reframe it before you go to bed. Don't go to bed with that negative imprint on your brain. Go with yes, this happened. Yes, I messed up here. However, I learnt this, this and this. And next time I will load the post code file better.

I think you shared that I would have a memory of that, of knowing this story. I think you've given that as an example before, but it's a great example.

That was one of the big boo boo.

Right? Tazmin time is flying. So I think I've got two more.

Right, I shall quickly say these last two. So develop your problem solving skills. So this could be creative ideas, this could be analytical skills. When you're faced with that situation, you've got the tools to be able to move it forward. Your decision making as well. Sometimes we overthink. So develop all of the skills that will turn a challenge into something that you can unpick and start moving it forward. Work with diverse teams. Learn from other people. Learn from mentors. Seek out opportunities to work on challenging projects. Practice, practice, practice. And desensitize yourself to oh, it went wrong.

Yeah. What is the very last one in the list?

So I suppose it's sort of linked. Seek continuous learning opportunities. So this could be formal or things on the job. Or from mentors conferences. Listen to podcasts that may be able.

To help you mindset podcast.

There's the boosting element, whether it's continuous learning or self care or practicing your skills. And then there's the more mindset stuff.

And with learning, right. It doesn't always have to be related to your work, obviously. Yes. It's good to continue to learn for things for your work, but don't just do that. There's other things that you can learn. So, for example, something that I've recently started up is kickboxing, right? Because I wanted to learn something new. What do you want to learn? Because there's lots when we're talking about seeking continuous learning opportunities, don't just think about it in the sense of like, what do I need for work? It's always great to learn and be working on that brain of hours and yeah, not only you get to learn something new and you never know something that's completely that you didn't think was relevant, your work or your job might end up being but you get to meet so many different new people.

Absolutely.

Surround yourself, like by positive people. So yeah, that was yeah, that's what yeah, I agree.

What I wanted to I agree.

Yeah, I agree. Right. So Tazmin, what is the key thing people should take away from today's episode, please?

I would say don't be afraid in any situation, nobody knows everything all the time.

Yes. And you can't know everything all the time and things go wrong. And just because things go wrong doesn't make you bad at your job, doesn't make you less valuable. But you've got an opportunity to show how valuable you are by being resilient and doing all the stuff that we've well, the royal way has been that you've come up with and showing that you are resilient and you are problem focused and you can find solutions. Right?

Yes, absolutely agree. Nobody should be scared. Everyone's learning.

And I want to go back to your earlier point of treat resilience like a muscle. The more yeah, feed it well.

Feed it well with all that good inner chatter, and it will get stronger and stronger.

Yeah. Because I suppose at the end of the day, you can't control when you're going to need your resilience, right? You can't control the uncontrollable. Listen to me with all my puns. Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. You can't control the uncontrollable. Definitely picked it up from somewhere.

Definitely.

But yeah, having this resilience, working on your resilience is like a muscle rather than a rubber band, isn't it?

It'll be the name of my next talk. Well, I hope our listeners have found that useful. I really do.

I definitely did, and I'm one of our listeners. So thank you so much, Tad, for that awesome episode. And I'm definitely going to listen back and look back at those strategies because they're really easy to implement. Do you know what's going to go on? My gratitude and the thing that I learned, go for it. So tonight before bed, one thing I learned, resilience is like a muscle. You just got to feed it, nurture it, work on it. And what I'm grateful for is you, Tazmin, thank you. Being a wonderful host and putting together an awesome episode.

I'm sure everyone has heard this story of how Sarah and I started our first conversation because I wanted to do a podcast on poetry, never having done podcast ever in my life.

Still time.

Still time.

Oh, I thought you're going to say, still haven't done the poetry podcast.

And what started off as that very strange conversation ended up into this. And I'm so happy. It is really happy. So. Thank you, Sarah.

Happy days. No, thank you. Right, before we go even more gushy there Tazmin, let's get on to the,

Business of the podcast.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Yeah, thank you for supporting us. Right, so we are back with season six. So hopefully you enjoyed our first episode of the first season. If you do enjoy what me and Tazmin are doing and what we're doing with the podcast, remember that you can give us a one off donation. So if you fancy doing that, there will be a link in this episode, show notes, and you can also subscribe. So if you never want to miss an episode, if you subscribe, then you will get notified whenever. Me and Tazmin have launched a new episode for you to go and listen to. So, again, there'll be a link in the show notes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Right, should we say goodbye? And until next time, Tazmin.

Goodbye. Until next time, everyone. Take care. Goodbye.