Jason Cochran: You shouldn't have to feel burned out to be successful, but you've also got to work for it. You've got to prioritize it, not just in words, but with actions. You've got to set realistic goals around it, just like you would for your physical health. Tim Spiker: Leaders set examples by what they do and don't do. If you are not prioritizing your mental health as a leader, not only will it affect your performance, but it will also provide a bad example for the leaders you're developing. I'm your host, Tim Spiker, and this is the Be Worth Following podcast, a production of the People Forward Network. On this show, we talk with exceptional leaders, thinkers, and researchers about what actually drives effective leadership across the globe and over time. You just heard from Jason Cochran. Jason is a psychologist and a co-founder of Dulead. Dulead is an organization that creates leadership development solutions aimed at fostering environments that people never want to lead. In this episode, Jason and I's talk about the societal shift away from merely working for a paycheck, the role that organizational culture plays in creating great companies through psychological safety, and how important it is for leaders to make their own mental health a priority. But before we get into all of those details, we're going to start with a story of tragedy in Jason's childhood that led him to a career in psychology. Jason Cochran: When I was 10, unfortunately I got the news while I was in school that my grandfather killed himself. I lived in Indiana at the time, still live in Indiana, and he lived down in Kentucky. And I remember being in the classroom and the principal coming down and requesting that I come out of the classroom. My mom worked over at the high school, which was just down the street in the same hometown. And they said, "Your mom's coming over to pick you up. You're getting ready to leave school. There's a family emergency." And so I get my stuff, I wait in the office, mom comes and picks me up. She's in tears and we hop in the car and we're heading straight home. And I asked her what happened, and of words that came out of her mouth were, "Grandpa committed suicide." And as a nine, 10 year old boy, I didn't know what suicide was. And so I asked her, I said, "Well, what is that?" And she said, "He took his life. He's no longer alive. He's not with us anymore." Jason Cochran: And so we made the trip down to Kentucky and everything, and I just started asking a lot of questions of my mom and dad, and blessed their hearts, they were trying to focus on grieving. All of a sudden the loss of this person that you loved that was a giant in the family, and I'm asking them basic questions of what is suicide? Why would someone do something like this? I didn't know why someone would do. I'd never heard about it before or knew that these kinds of things happened, let alone to someone in my family that I loved. And long story short, and unfortunately about a year later on that same date actually, my aunt also took her life from despair and depression, and she was [inaudible] daughter. Jason Cochran: And so early on as a 10 and 11 year old boy, seeing these events happen just really made me ask a lot of questions about who are we, where does joy come from in life, where does purpose come from in life? And I knew at that point, even though I didn't know that it was psychology, once I got to high school, I took psychology classes and I knew that that was my calling, was to be someone who was going to be a healer in the world, and to help people tap into their calling, because I didn't want anyone to feel the shame or feel pain and depression so much that they would want life to not go on. Tim Spiker: As I think about us moving forward today into our discussion, not only is it, I think helpful to know what thrusted you in this direction, but also to hear you talk about literally using the word calling. And I just want to point that out to everybody that as we move forward in this conversation today, you're hearing from somebody who has the deepest of passions around something that's very important and shows up in a variety of places of life. We're going to focus specifically on leadership today, of course, but that is such an amazing lens to hear what you're going to share with us today Jason. So thank you for your openness around that. Thank you for sharing that tough story about what got you launched. So let's talk about where you are today, and then we're going to dig in to this idea of mental health related to leadership, which you have so much experience in. So share with our audience here, what it is you spend most of your time doing these days? Jason Cochran: Most of the work that I do now, is through our company Dulead, I'm one of the co-founders and we focus a lot of our work on continuously growing people. And so that means we come alongside organizations and we help them tap into aligning purpose for every single person, so that everybody's pulling in the same direction, that people feel like they're valued, they're bringing meaning to the organization. As an employer, you're creating an amazing employee experience, because that's what it's about now. We are in a labor market where a tremendous number of people, whether you want to call it the great resignation, a great reset, people are fed up of just showing up and going through the motions of a job. People are searching for meaning, fulfillment, purpose in their life, and work should be something that helps shape that. Jason Cochran: And unfortunately, what we are dealing with now is decades and decades of people just pushing through and viewing their job as something that's transactional, I have to do X in order to get my Y, which is my paycheck, just so I can provide for my family. And what we are now in is this awakening process where people are saying, "No work can be more than just something that gives me money. Work can be fun. Work can be passionate. Work can help drive impact and purpose in the world, and change things for the better." And more people I believe are starting to open their eyes to this reality, and they're asking themselves these very important existential questions of who am I and what impact do I want to have on the world? Tim Spiker: From your perspective, somebody who leans into these kinds of things, I'm wondering as you look at this, again, whether you want to call it great resignation, great reset, what is your perspective about what's going on? Do you feel it might be a little bit of an overreaction right now where people are just kind of, okay, a lot of people are taking these leaps of faith out of their stable jobs, or do you think this is actually representative of how much correction was needed in the marketplace for people wanting to have a more satisfying work life? Jason Cochran: Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of the economists and experts in this area that look at the trends and make forecasts of the future in terms of what the labor market's going to look like, they're making it very clear, there's two more waves that are going to hit in 2022. So this is not just a blip on the radar, this has stirred something within a lot of people. I can tell you, some people I've had conversations with that have done the same job for 20 or 30 years and they're looking for something new now. They're looking for something that brings fulfillment and meaning to their life. Jason Cochran: And I could tell you this isn't research, but just in my sphere, the people that are looking at those things, they've had major upheaval in their life. They've lost loved ones because of COVID that were taken way too soon. And so that idea of carpe diem sees the day. Literally you better make each day count because what we've learned now is that nothing's guaranteed in life. And if you are not doing work that helps express joy, that doesn't make you feel fulfilled each day, but if it's work that's giving you the Sunday scaries or making it difficult for you to sleep at night, then they're starting to ask those questions of is it still worth it? Tim Spiker: There's a part of that story, Jason, that I really love from a leadership standpoint, because it seems with this great resignation that the idea of being circumstantially locked into a situation that you don't like is that the curtains coming down on that, that people are saying, you know what? Either life's too long or life's too short. I don't know which it is. But one of those two things means I'm not sticking around here anymore. And Sarah Turner who works for us brought up the greatest point a couple of months ago. And I just keep saying it over and over again in my head. But do we honestly believe that people are quitting working for exceptional leaders? Tim Spiker: I mean, it just doesn't make any sense, right? Because if I'm growing and we're succeeding and I'm moving forward, and oh my goodness, they're actually paying me to be here? Those people are not nearly as susceptible to, hey, I got to go do something else. I think it's a huge accountability check for leaders to say, "If I not a great person to follow, if this is not a great place to come to work every day, I'm going to be held accountable and people are going to vote with their feet." It was always true that people could do that, but these circumstances around COVID seem to me it's up the ante, it's not just the doors cracked a little bit, somebody's holding it open and people are saying, "Oh yeah, I do have choices, and I'm not working for you anymore. I'm going to go." So I love the accountability that's coming along with this. Jason Cochran: Absolutely. And it's something that's been sorely needed. I mean, 89% of the workforce reported being burned out in 2021. Let that sink in, 89% of the American workforce report symptoms that were consistent with clinical burnout. By the way, burnout is a clinical classification. It's in the International Classification of Diseases, The 11th Edition. Tim Spiker: 89% burnout, that's an astonishing number. Jason Cochran: It is. And then this one's going to blow you away too, this ties into leadership. 82% of leaders reported burnout levels last year in 2021. Now, those things are scary. What I'm about to share with you, okay, we're going to go down the rabbit hole a little bit more. I don't want to scare your listeners. So they're reporting this, right? These are on anonymous surveys from Deloitte, great research company. Okay. Here are the next things that are going to scare you. Of those 82% of business leaders, 96% of them said that it's caused a decline on their mental health significantly. So nearly all of them, which was 82% of leaders, nearly all of those 82% are saying that it's caused a significant decline in their mental health. Jason Cochran: What does that mean? That means they can't sleep. They can't eat. They can't make decisions, highly irritable, depressed mood, anhedonia, which in psychology means a loss of satisfaction and pleasure in the things that you used to enjoy doing. Basically it's impacting their entire quality of life. And here's the part that's really concerning about this too. Half of them said that they would find it difficult to ever acknowledge or accept having a mental health challenge and being able to share it with someone. And that's where this whole idea of mental health stigma is something that we have got to solve throughout the world, but especially in this country where this idea of you need to be strong, don't be vulnerable or show any signs of what's perceived as weakness, pick yourself up by the bootstraps, we must evolve and move past this kind of thinking if we are going to have healthy leaders and then also have healthy followers as well. Jason Cochran: Because here's the other thing that we know research is very clear on this, that is most people are going to follow the rule and the model that's set forth by leadership. So if we have leaders who are fearful, or ashamed, or embarrassed of admitting that they may have some mental health challenges, or the stress is getting to be too much for them to cope and handle, then that sets the tone for everybody else in the organization, because they're not going to raise their hand to seek help and ask for it. And it's going to create a culture where you just push through it. I call it, push through it culture. And that is you just get to work, you keep your nose to the grind, and you don't talk about that stuff, you just deal with it. Jason Cochran: And that's the kind of stuff right now that we are trying to combat and that we've got to get over, is to remove the stigma and enable and equip leaders, and then subsequently the rest of people in organizations to not be ashamed or embarrassed to ask for help when it comes to mental health or burnout. Tim Spiker: Walk us through this. We talked about the idea of a stigma. Take us where you take your clients next who might be sitting here saying, okay, I hear the statistics and they don't surprise me, they match up with some other things that I've heard. We need to have healthy people leading our organizations, but okay, so now what? I hear the stats, Jason, I believe them, but what do I do? Jason Cochran: Yeah. And before we get to what do we do, I think it's important to understand why are there are stigmas. And the reason that there are stigmas, there's two primary drivers for it, particularly in leadership. One of them is, is shame. It's well known that leaders are leaders for a reason, and it's because they're high achievers typically. And sometimes that comes along with some perfectionism traits. And this can make it very difficult in recognizing and admitting faults because of shame. And so there's this shame cycle and it's grounded in some limiting beliefs. And some of those limiting beliefs are I'm weak. If I admit that I'm having a mental health challenge or I'm experiencing burnout, internally they're thinking I'm weak or I have to be perfect. I can't let someone know that I've got a chink in my armor and that I can't handle this. I got this, I'm a leader. Jason Cochran: That's one of the first drivers that is a big issue we've got to try and tackle. The other thing is what we call in psychology, a personal fable. A personal fable is a belief system where we believe things happen to other people, but not us. In other words, other people are made of Velcro, but we as leaders, are made of Teflon, things don't stick to us. I'm resilient, I don't need any of that extra support because I'm strong. Those two drivers typically are the things with leadership that we have to start having a real conversation around in order to make progress, in order for them to start seeing some of these irrational belief systems that they may be holding onto that are holding them back from getting the help and support that they need. Tim Spiker: I just want to make one comment related to perfectionism. I don't know that this will help anybody who's listening, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it. If you are in a leadership position, the people that you are leading already know that you're not perfect. I'm just going to put it out there. They already know that. They are not going to be surprised to find out that you're not perfect. And so I know that that's a simple thing, maybe an easy thing to say, but it really is true. By the way, people like to follow other human beings. They're not that enamored to follow robots. Tim Spiker: And podcaster, Carey Nieuwhof said it as well as anybody that I've ever heard, he talked about followers admire their leaders accomplishments, but they connect with their failings. Now mental health challenges, I would not put into the category of failings, but I think there's a similar concept here to say that people connect with leaders, humanity. And as I share that, I'm wondering, what do we do now? What do we do with these two kind of barriers that are in the way of better mental health for leaders? Jason Cochran: So after we acknowledge that those are the drivers, the next thing that we've got to do is we've got to determine as leaders, what are our cow paths? Here's what I mean by that. If you've ever driven anywhere and you've gone by a field and there's a whole bunch of cows, if you ever notice this, in the field, there's a lot of grass and then there are just certain paths, right, the cows take all the time. They're not going to venture off into the really deep grassy areas, they're going to take the path at least resistance. And the same thing is for leaders, for any human being, we all develop coping mechanisms, habits, behaviors, whatever you want to call it, ways that we deal with stress, ways that we deal with feeling burned out. We have to identify what are the ones that are healthy, what are the ones that aren't healthy? Jason Cochran: And then we also have to paint a clear picture of what does good mental health look like for me? It's interesting to me how few people ever put pen to paper to say, "If I could draw up what good mental health looks like for me, this is it." If you ask them on physical health, a lot of people don't, but some of them would at least be able to say, "You know what? Well, I'm trying to hit this target weight. I want my cholesterol to be this and that. I want to drink this much water per day." But if you ask someone what's that picture of great mental health for you, you get a lot of stunned looks and it's because we're just like those cows out in the field and we're just going through the same cow paths all the time with our mental health. Jason Cochran: We often just keep using the same tactics, the same thinking, regardless of what comes our way. And we have to be prepared, and many times we need an outside expert or a group of mentors, a people that can help us think through with that outside perspective and say, "Hey, have you thought about trying to come at that challenge or this problem this way instead?" Or, "Hey, I'm not sure what to do, but tell me what you're are going through and I might know somebody that I can get you connected with that can help you with that." But it's very difficult to get off of our own cow paths unless we have someone helping us do that. And so that's one of the things that we've got to do, is we've got to understand and take stock, almost do an audit of what are my coping mechanisms? And then you've got to start painting that picture of, so if this is where I am now, where do I want to be? What does good mental health look like for me as a leader? Tim Spiker: You lay it out and it sounds challenging, but not impossible. And certainly you started to kind of take away a little bit of the mystery of this thing that sometimes feels a little bit amorphous and I can't get my hands around it. But do you have any examples that come to mind around this idea of defining mental health success? Jason Cochran: So I would use myself as an example for this. So I have targets for me in terms of how often with my kids, I yell at them. So just to little background on it, I have four sons who are ages eight all the way down to one and a half. Tim Spiker: And you got to double in there as well, right? Jason Cochran: That's right. The youngest ones, the one and a half year olds are twins. And so they often help each other get into things. Tim Spiker: It's so amazing to me that's the first thing that you mentioned. Because honestly, as I'm over here evaluating my own life, as you're talking about at that, being short with my kids was the first thing that I thought of as a potential marker for where I am mentally. So that's encouraging to me to hear that that's a marker for you. Jason Cochran: I'm glad you mentioned that because one of the things I'd recommend, if you're a leader don't necessarily start thinking in terms of work, in terms of mental health, think of home first, because that's when you let your guard down and that's when you're your true self. And so think about your mental health at home first, because that's going to transfer over to work, but maybe not the other way around. Because you're going to put up the veil that everything's okay at work, but whenever you come home, there's a greater likelihood that's who you truly are. And so that's why I say for me, that's where I'm starting is my wife brought to my attention a few months ago, "Hey, it seems like you're a lot more irritable. You are yelling at the kids more often. Let's talk about that. Are there some things going on at work that's causing more stress?" Jason Cochran: So for me, that goal is directly tied to the number of outbursts at home. That's one of the indicators, one of the lagging indicators of, okay, am I doing what I need to do with my mental health? Now, here's the other thing, the contributing factor of something that happened. And this goes to show psychologists need counselors too. I'm currently in counseling. I'm in some grief counseling for several things. I lost my mom to breast cancer a few years ago, so she never got to meet my twins. And then here, most recently, one of the twins nearly died in my arms. December 23rd, just this last December, we are at dinner. My wife is at the dentist, so I'm home alone with the boys and we're having dinner. And I look over at one of the twins, his name is Ford, and he is starting to slunk to the side and his eyes are rolling in the back of his head, he's choking to death. Jason Cochran: And so I immediately flipped him over on my knee, started to do the back thrust. And I threw my phone to my oldest son, who's eight years old and he called 911 for us. I won't get into all the details, suffice to say, he's completely fine. There's no residual effects. The feeling of your child feeling completely lifeless and dead in your arms, that nearly broke me. Even though in that moment I had the CPR training and I knew what to do and I did it, my reality was splitting in two. And those thoughts of what would life be without him here were racing through my head. So even though he's okay, the trauma of that situation, I knew was going to be too much for me to just talk with friends about it or just sweep it under the rug and say, ah, he turned out okay. Jason Cochran: I knew for me, I needed to go see a counselor and I needed some help on this so that it wouldn't consume me, so that I wouldn't perseverate on it, and that it would incidentally affect my mood throughout the day, affect my ability to do my job, affect my ability to be a dad for the other boys too, and be a husband, and be there for them. And I'm lucky in life that I had a dad who wore his heart on his sleeve and told me it's okay to feel your feelings. I thought that's how everybody grew up. And then as I grew up and got older, I realized that's a really odd thing to have a dad who does that. I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have had that experience. Jason Cochran: And so for me, these things that have led me down the path of becoming a psychologist, it's okay to admit that you're not perfect, you don't have to be. Just like you mentioned earlier, leaders, your people know that you're not perfect. In fact, if you ask them, they'll let know what some of your faults are, if you're open to it. But ultimately it's about, you want to be happy, right? You want to be satisfied in life and you deserve to have the mental health picture and to not be burned out. It doesn't just come with the job, you shouldn't have to feel burned out to be successful. But you've also got to work for it. You've got to prioritize it, not just in words, but with actions. You've got to set realistic goals around it, just like you would for your physical health. I think everyone should have a coach, counselor, psychologist, whatever you want to call it, we all need someone like that in life that challenges us, challenges our assumptions, helps us see our blind spots and work on those things. Tim Spiker: Going back to the story with Ford, I would just say, praise God, thank God that he is okay. But I think I just want to remind folks for a moment, and you've said it very well here, but there's another edge to it that I want to bring in here, is you're a psychologist and you're saying I'm not perfectly fine on my own. And I remember you sharing this with me as we were talking about, previously to today, when we were talking about the situation with Ford, that you were proactive. You're like, "This is not going to be something that I just shrugged my shoulders and say, okay, I'm glad he's fine." But the experience that you had is marking and if not addressed could create other challenges in your life over time. So the idea that you are well trained, but so well trained, I guess, in a sense to not say, I'm just going to handle this on my own and that you're proactively getting help with that. And I think that that's a really good lesson for us. Tim Spiker: On top of that, I just want to remind everybody that Jason is one of the founders of his company Dulead. What I mean by that is he is a leader, he is a leader in the organization. Sometimes I think people hear from counselors and psychologists and they say, well, they're into that, so they believe everybody should do it. I think there's more to your story because you are also a business leader. You're coming at it, not only from the passion of psychology, but you see yourself rightly so as somebody who's leading an organization, who's responsible for, not only your family, but other people in the business and you want to be your best. And I think that's an important part to remember about your story here as we're specifically talking about the issue of mental health with leaders, you are one. So I appreciate you sharing that story with us. So the cow path, how do we address the unhealthy cow path that we're walking on so that we can move towards greater mental health, which leads us into greater impact and performance over the long haul? Jason Cochran: I think you've got to have a constellation of people in your life that are going to tell you like it is, they're going to be honest with you, they're not just going to tell you what you want to hear. And so that means maybe there's someone at work that you pull off to the side and say, "Hey, I know we have a work relationship, but I also want someone to help me be accountable to check in with me on a regular basis may be like once a month. How are things going, really?" And put in that really. Or a trick that a lot of psychologists do is they'll ask you three times. Tim Spiker: Same question three times? Jason Cochran: Yeah. And they'll let you go on for your two minutes or whatever, you're talking about your sports games, your kid stuff, and then they'll ask you again, but how are you? And then you'll get another layer [inaudible]. And then usually by the third time you're asked a question, but how are you really, then that's when you can start to get some of the real stuff out. And so constellation of people, whether they're confidants, mentors, whatever that is, it's critically important to have outside perspective to also be able to see how you're doing, because we like to think we're pretty accurate on our self appraisals, but we definitely have blind spots. Every single human being does. Jason Cochran: And let's be clear here, we're talking about behavior, okay? Behavior is more indicative of how you're really doing than what you say. My parents used to have a saying, if you want to know what someone thinks, ask them, if you want to know their truth, watch them. And it's so critically important because you can't always just be observing your own behavior, but there's other people that see you in certain moments, in situations, that'll be able to give you an honest assessment. Tim Spiker: I think about folks listening that have leaders reporting to them, it's not just their leadership that's at stake in the organization, but they are a leader of leaders. And you just said something really important. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of, okay, so we're saying that mental health is not only important for all of us, but we're especially here talking about leadership today. I've got six leaders that report to me, making up a number, I need to be concerned about their mental health, but I'm not a psychologist, I'm not trained in this. I don't know what to say or do, and I sure don't want to mess somebody up. What would you say to that person? Jason Cochran: I would say go ahead and do some surveys around burnout so you don't have to do complicated assessments or anything like that. Within our company at Dulead, with our clients, we do a one question survey, quarterly. The responses are anonymous so that you can get a feel for, okay, are we seeing a lot more people experiencing burnout in a certain department? So that way you can be smart. So instead of just going up and asking somebody, hey, are you having any challenges around mental health, obviously we don't do that. We don't make those assumptions. But you need to have data and insights inside your organization, especially the bigger that it is in order to know what really is going on in your organization with your people in terms of how they're doing with the work ecosystem, how they're doing with the workload, all of those different factors that have to do with the humanness of working somewhere, that have to do with behavior. You've got to get some good assessments in place and do that consistently to have a really good picture of what it's really like to work inside your organization. Jason Cochran: And then just encouraging people again, reminding them, EAPs don't solve everything, those are employee assistance programs, but they're a wonderful resource and it's anonymous. And just making sure that whether it's your HR department or you as a leader, reminding people that they have these resources that are completely free to them. And then some other organizations on top of all of the benefit that they get, some of these companies are now prioritizing mental health and saying, by the way we above and beyond paying for your insurance, we are also going to pay for you to have a counselor, and for your spouse to have a counselor, and for your kids to have a counselor. When we talk about transforming the way we think about business, and we think about work, and how it fits in people's lives, and how we create healthy connections, that is a powerful example of how you step up to the plate outside of the way that you're typically used to doing business and you prioritize something and you take care of your people. Jason Cochran: And absolutely you don't do it for the sole reason of it's going to help the business, but guess what? It ends up helping the business. And isn't it an amazing time in life how, when we do the right thing, does it usually turn out bad? No. Usually when you do the right thing, everyone flourishes, from the person making the right decision to the people who benefit from that right decision. And that's what we have to get clarity on is, we have to be innovative in the way that we think about this, we can't just say, well, we pay for your medical insurance so go get help if you need it, but mental health is something that isn't our responsibility. We cannot operate that way anymore. And let me tell you, we were talking about the labor market and how this isn't going away, that there's going to be at least a couple more cycles this year of labor shortage or people shifting jobs. Jason Cochran: This has everything to do with employer brand too, whether you're a place where people want to work. And more importantly, as a leader, I want leaders to hear this, the part that you're responsible for is creating a speak up culture, where people feel that they can acknowledge these things and ask for help. If they don't, including yourself, that's your first step that you need to take, is you've got to start creating a culture where people don't feel like they have to hide their true selves or things that they're being challenged with and struggling with. Tim Spiker: I would lean into that and say, if there's a particular cultural reality that you're after, including this idea of a speak up culture, you can tell other people to do it. But what is true of culture always is that the leader's actions are going to speak the loudest. So if you really want to get towards a speak up culture and you don't feel like you're there yet, I would suggest that one of the best things a leader to do would be the person to go first. Before we wrap up, there's something that I'm so glad to have, a psychologist with us, talking about mental health and leadership. Because there's a question that I'm dying to ask, which is this idea of mental fortitude, mental toughness, to phrase that, which does not kill you, makes you stronger, which there's a lot that's not true about that. Tim Spiker: But I think many of us have an intuitive understanding that growing our ability to deal with things, both mentally, you see it physically in the world of sports all the time, is that there is something too that when the tough things come that's a refining fire that helps us get tougher. So there might be somebody out there who's saying, this feels like a conflict of messages where we know that adversity can make us better, but if we never accept that adversity is a little bit a part of life, then I'm in a counseling session every time that somebody doesn't agree with my idea at work, to put it in a funny context. So as a psychologist who focuses on leadership, how would you coach somebody who said, I feel like a contradiction with these ideas? Jason Cochran: I would say, they're right and they're wrong. Here's what they're right about. This is not, and I hope people don't take this the wrong way today, but this talk is not about eliminating all the stress in your life. It's going to happen, and there is no perfect workplace, that's not what we're after here. But what we are after is creating a place where people can still offer their best and feel satisfaction. And so the pieces that they're wrong about is there is an organizational responsibility on these things. And so the analogy that I often use is the Canary and the coal mine. You don't blame the Canary for dying in the coal mine. You don't look at the Canary and say, "Well, you know what, Canary, if you would have just been a little bit more resilient, maybe you would've been able to withstand those toxic fumes a little bit more in the coal mine." Jason Cochran: No, we look at the coal mine. We say, we've got some work here to do, we've got a toxic environment. And it was a sign to the coal miners of you better get out because the same thing's going to happen to you. And so it is a two-way street. When we talk about these models of how do we successfully prevent and over overcome burnout, how do we create places that are good for our mental health when it comes to work in our lives, it's a two way street. There's work that people have to do no doubt. And so here's the thing, we have to make sure we're building the right skills as people in order to be able to adapt, cope, and ultimately thrive in change, not just survive, but thrive. Jason Cochran: And so working on adaptability skills, having an adaptability program in place at work can help people with that. Having mental health pieces in place, where people have a coach or a counselor that they can go to, to deal with things that happen in life, whether it's work related or not work related, losing a loved one, grief counseling, trauma that they've had in their life, whatever those things are, they need to be able to not only cope, but then move on. There was a great psychologist in North Carolina, I forget his name, but he found this concept called post traumatic growth. And you can look it up. But basically his research showed, people do grow out of things, bad things that often happen in their lives. Certainly there are some people that do go the opposite direction, but most people do grow whenever they go through a challenge of some kind and they learn things, but you got to have the right supports in place. Jason Cochran: So definitely people have a responsibility for themselves and making sure that they're working on the right skills and muscles to be mentally flexible, to become adaptable, so that whatever comes their way, they've got the right tools, resources in place and things to be able to come out of that healthy on the other side. However, there is also organizational ethical responsibility to create cultures that help people with these things as well. No longer is business simply going to be a transactional thing. Millennials and gen Zs in particular will not put up with it. As one gen Z influencer told me a few months ago, "We have eyes and we have ears everywhere. We know where the good places are to work and that have the good leaders and you can no longer hide and we will not work in those places." Jason Cochran: And so this is not simply just about a thing about surviving today, it's about thriving. If you want the top thinkers, you want to be an innovative culture, you want to create value moving forward, it's all about setting that right culture and making sure you have the pieces in place to help prevent people from becoming burned out or that work is exacerbating the mental health challenges, and it is a two-way street. Tim Spiker: What I heard in that answer is the really important work of determining whether or not something is toxic. If it's toxic, then we don't deal with toxicity by pushing through. If you deal with toxicity by trying to push through you die, and just using the coal mine as the literal example. And so I think we've had a tendency to look at almost everything as if it's not toxic, almost everything as if it's just something to push through. And that's a mistake. There are some things for us to weather the storm on and get stronger, but we should take a lot of care. Don't weather the storm when the Canary falls over. So I really appreciate that analogy. I want to encourage everybody to follow Jason Cochran. You can find him on LinkedIn, Jason Cochran, C-O-C-H-R-A-N, and his organization is Dulead, D-U-L-E-A-D. I encourage you to follow him there. I follow him there. He posts great stuff all the time. As far as folks tracking you down by other means than LinkedIn, where would you point people if they want to follow up, get some more information from you, Jason? Jason Cochran: They can also check us out at dolead.com, that's D as in dog, U-L-E-A-D.com. And then every week myself and my co-host Ira Wolfe, we have the Geeks Geezers and Googlization sho, and we talk about the future of work. And one of the things we talk about is adaptability and mental health, and how do you cope with change if you're a leader and prepare your people for it. So you can always catch us each week there. And would love, if in addition to subscribing to the Be Worth Following podcast, also give us a look and a listen too, because we talk about some similar subjects as well through different lens. And can I leave your listeners with a quote before you wrap up? Tim Spiker: Absolutely. Jason Cochran: Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers was one of my favorite shows as a kid, and also was somewhat of an inspiration to become a psychologist. And I can't help, but whenever I hear his voice and read the things that he spoke, that it makes a kinder and gentler world for all of us, including leaders. And so a quote from him that I'll leave with everybody today, "Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary." Tim Spiker: Well, I'm so thankful for Jason walking us through the ideas around mental health, helping us to be in the dialogue about it around leadership, which really that alone is a forward I think in so many ways. There are a couple of things that he said that in particular I want to key on as we wrap up this episode. There are two huge things that leaders need to be in order to be their very best and most successful at producing results. It's being inwardly sound and others focused. And so much of this episode was about what does it mean to be inwardly sound? And within that concept of inwardly sound, you heard this over and over again, there are two particular aspects of being a leader worth following that show up connected to this idea of mental health. Tim Spiker: One of those ideas is being holistically healthy. Leaders need to be holistically healthy, and that includes mental because that provides all of the energy, all of the mental clarity that enables us to make great decisions, both with regard to strategy, relationships, the whole of it. So being holistically healthy is what causes up to show up with every kind of energy that we need to be as leaders. But there's another aspect of being inwardly sound that this touches on as well, and it's the idea that we call being secure and settled. And especially I want to key on the back end of that, the idea of being settled. Are you the type of person that gets hit with adversity and you feel like you're insides ends up in your throat and I'm wrestling internally because I just live life in a space of being unsettled? Tim Spiker: If that's you, first of all, there's no shame in that, but it is something that needs some work. It needs attention because we would be lying to ourselves as leaders, if we think that unsettledness doesn't show up, that unsettledness has an impact, not only on us, but the way that that comes out, not necessarily directly, but the way that people feel around us, because the environment we create when we're unsettled. You've probably had the opportunity unfortunately, to follow and be around an unsettled leader. An unsettled leader, unsettles everyone around them and that makes achievement, that makes dealing with problems, that makes being strategic, it makes every aspect of organizational life more difficult. So throughout everything that Jason shared with us, I heard over and over again, themes that lean into helping us to be inwardly sound leaders by helping us be more holistically healthy, and more secure and settle. Tim Spiker: So the question I want to leave everybody with today is are you prioritizing your own mental health as a leader, and are you talking about mental health with the leaders you're developing? I'm Tim Spiker, reminding you to be worth following, and to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. If you've heard something valuable today, please share our podcast with your colleagues and friends. And if you're up for it, leave us a five star review. Thanks for listening.