How do you bounce back fast when markets are tough?
In this episode of #ThoughtLeaderConversations, V2's Head of Strategy Roger Courville, CSP connects with Michael, Licenblat, CSP. Michael's the author of Pressure Proof – How to Thrive in Times of Disruption, Change, and Pressure, a veteran speaker, a resilience expert with a background in psychology, Shiatsu therapy, and 35+ years of martial arts experience!
As you listen in you will:
Learn why simply "coping" under stress is no longer enough and how resilience must evolve into transformation to stay competitive.
Explore the concept of anti-fragility, and how adversity can become a fuel for growth and higher performance in marketing.
Identify practical resilience-building strategies that help marketing teams stay adaptable and productive, even in high-pressure environments.
Examine the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone to create market differentiation, and how taking calculated risks leads to growth.
Gain insights into the psychological barriers that prevent marketers from trying new things and how to overcome them.
Recognize the importance of managing energy and focus as part of a sustainable resilience strategy for long-term success.
Discover how personal vulnerability, self-awareness, and feedback can lead to greater success in marketing by identifying and improving blind spots.
And more!
Learn more about Michael's work at: http://bouncebackfast.com.au.
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Series: #ThoughtLeaderConversations
Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com
Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/
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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: How do you bounce back fast when markets and marketing are tough? Well, hello and welcome to Thriving in High Pressure Marketing Environments. My name is Roger Courville and welcome to another episode of Thought Leader Conversations, sponsored by the crew here at Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team with this really experienced crew.
That helps you focus on something other than tech and logistics, but we're not here to talk about us. And I'm excited to welcome to the virtual stage, Michael Leisenblatt, CSP, who wrote this book that I really want to get out of his head. Pressure proof, how to thrive in times of disruption. change and pressure.
Michael's a resilience expert. Uh, he was a pioneer in building a natural therapies business, has a background in psychology and Shiatsu therapy and 35 plus years in martial arts experience. This is going to be fun. Welcome to the stage, Michael. Tell us a little more about yourself.
[00:00:56] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Hi Roger, lovely to be here.
Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Look, my area I'm absolutely passionate about is in high performance. How we do better when conditions are tough, when we don't get what we want, when we're dealing with tough markets, high pressure, when we're dealing with setbacks, changes and problems, which is really kind of the new normal nowadays.
How do we draw out the best quality engagement, the best quality marketing, the best quality sales? Thank you. when we're dealing with adversity. And so the whole concept around the work that I do is not simply to cope and get through and to manage, but about high performance. What is your competitive edge when things are tough and rough?
And that's what I do professionally.
[00:01:34] Roger Courville, CSP: You know, in a world of noise and arguably the world is noisier than it's ever been, that competitive edge is, is, is critical. Michael, I know that you work with a lot of different types of executives and teams, but, you know, for today we'll kind of sort of focus on marketers.
What are you seeing in your work today that complicates their lives?
[00:01:58] Michael Licenblat, CSP: So there's a couple of factors that are making a massive impact. Number one is the speed of things is it now there is, we want more in less time. There is a kind of a go, go there. The space to get things done has just been shrunk tight and people are feeling stretched in and somewhat drowning in those expectations.
So speed is definitely a factor. Another factor is the fact that people. Uh, output is now stacked. We're now not just dealing with one challenge or another, but there are several stacked. So the capacity is now expecting you to do more with less and fewer resources. So as an individual you've got to be more, um, streamlined and effective on how you handle pressure.
The, the old way, Roger, of simply putting your head down, tail up, and just getting through is now leads to getting overworked, run down and stressed out. So whilst that's a good work ethic, the nature of pressure has changed so much that we can't simply just work through it. We've got to be more intelligent.
And we've also seen now that the rates of change are a lot faster and less time. I think that one of the studies I saw that 2016, average organization expected two planned changes in the calendar year, fast forward 2022, there were 10 planned changes. plan changes in the calendar year. Then that's like taking into consideration all the other unexpected changes.
Um, 2016 engagement in terms of how people responded to change, 78 percent go, yeah, we're, we're okay with that. Fast forward 2022, uh, 34 percent going, eh, maybe, you know, we're, the, the embracement of change, we're a bit change fatigued. So because of that, the, the pace and the capacity and the change, it is impacting not just the way in which we work, but the quality of work that's, that's coming out as well.
And as a marketer, you've got to be on your A game all day, every day, every, you know, every week. So it's not like I can just rest on my laurels on what's been done. I've got to be able to stay fresh and get cut through and pressure can either lift you or it can drop you.
[00:04:03] Roger Courville, CSP: When I was at Microsoft and this is a long before 2016, we could count on a reorg twice a year and literally a joke internally at the time was the minute you land in wherever you are in the, in the org chart, you're starting to look for the next job.
You're networking internally and figuring out how you're not one of the ones that gets reorg out. And, uh, that. I mean, that was a lot of long time ago, and now I can only imagine the rate of change. I know people there that, uh, were laid off and rehired three times, and it's not because of performance. It was just because of that rate of change, and sorry, you're just expedient, you know, it's not expedient to, uh, to keep you on right at the moment.
I'm curious, since you brought up that, uh, rate of change in technology and consumer behavior and, um, you And how organizations manage, how can building resilience help people stay adaptable and thrive amidst all these changes?
[00:05:06] Michael Licenblat, CSP: So we need to understand what that actually means. See, the whole concept of resilience was born out of survival.
And it was said, you know, that those, it really came from studies that were dealing with kids that came from dysfunctional families, difficult and hardship families where they've experienced a lot of adversity. And despite all of that, they came out relatively well adjusted, good, contributing members to society.
And the whole thing was, oh, they've, because of what's happened, they, and despite that, they've come out as resilient. So resilient was akin to survival. Then what happened is that that term started to stretch in its definition and we started to see particularly through the 60s and 70s terms like resilience meant you're tough, you know, toughen up, get over it, get through it, was kind of going through that.
Very army like terms. Not, not wrong, but it just meant that Resilience was about my endurance. How much I could take on before I fell apart. And we started to see that term being thrown around of let's have resilience training so that we can give you more work and you can take on more and you can complain a little less and have a little less stress.
That was the thinking behind it. So resilience was really a thinking of stretching capacity. What we're seeing now is that resilience needs to be more than just coping. In fact, if we get stuck on going, I need to cope better, all we're doing is building a bigger, stronger band aids to be able to stay where we are.
We need to be able to use resilience to expand, to get better, to improve, to become better under pressure. Otherwise, all we're doing is we're running fast to stand still. And the trap is we are designed to be resilient. by nature to cope and to manage and to adapt. But what that does is it means that I plateau in my world.
I don't improve. I cope and I can actually get a little complacent, lazy, and even bored in what I'm doing because I'm resilient, because I can take it and get through. And we need to evolve that that resilience should be transformation. How do I transform something difficult into something good to create a competitive edge?
How do I, um, Find a resourceful approach to a situation to solve it and create a better outcome that I've, I'm able to achieve things fast, I'm able to sell more in tough markets, I'm able to get cut through so that I use my circumstances as fuel to get better. And so I think that's the, uh, most important first step.
[00:07:41] Roger Courville, CSP: What specific resilience building activities would you recommend for a marketing team or somebody dealing with some, you know, some level of change and stress?
[00:07:51] Michael Licenblat, CSP: So the first thing that they need to consider is just getting comfortable with the way that your brain is designed to work. And this is where we get in trouble when we try to deal with change or uncertainty because the brain is wired in one or two ways.
It's wired for consistency. Our brain likes to keep things the same, which is why that we can walk, talk on the phone, drink a coffee at the same time and not fall over because the brain will put those sort of things into subroutines. Once it's worked out what the thoughts are, Or is like it would do that.
I don't have to think about that. I can drink, I can talk and I can have my attention elsewhere. So it love to go. Great. I know how that's gonna do. That's predictable. I can put that into a subroutine. I can rely on that. And so when it's presented to say, actually that subroutine needs to change, we now have a new software program.
We now have a new approach. The terrain is changing. It means that. I've got to now move what I knew to be true, which is why uncertainty tends to bother us, why we resist change, because I just want things to operate so that I can free my head up to do other things. In the same night, in the same way. The brain is also primed for change the way that it is designed.
The neuroplasticity is designed to learn new habits and reform new connections so that it can adapt to a changing world. So it actually is always, regardless of age, and they say, Oh, you can't teach an old dog to read. New tricks. You actually can because your brain is forever designed to make new neural connections.
But we have this tug of war, Roger, where we've got one part of our head going, I just want it to stay the same and one part going. I wonder if we could do, and there's a seesaw effect. And so as a marketer, you need to listen to which voice is yelling the loudest. So that mean in terms of kind of different voices in your head, but which part of your brain is the most dominant in your decision making?
Is it that for consistency or that to embrace new? because it can do both, and it can be a bit of a paradox at times.
[00:09:58] Roger Courville, CSP: We are talking with Michael Leichenblatt, uh, from Melbourne, Australia, which is a beautiful thing. So, if and when you get a chance, go to Michael's website, bouncebackfast. com. au Don't forget, bouncebackfast.
com. au, and, uh, you can learn a little more. Uh, Michael, let's talk about standing out in a crowded market. So we could be talking about marketers and marketing, but in a way we could be talking about You know, personal branding. What do I do? Particularly, uh, when like, at least here in the States, job markets are getting tougher.
So, in today's saturated market, how, how does somebody differentiate and cut through the noise?
[00:10:36] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Yeah, so this is about standing for something and about actually taking a chance to be a little different. If we look at how, Resilience kicks in to output. One of the challenges we've got is that the moment I risk doing something that's different, there's going to be an aspect of my brain that goes, hang on, you got your back to make a mistake there.
Don't do that. Your brain is designed by nature to keep you safe. And that means, you know, so that you don't touch hot stoves or run out into traffic, that kind of safe, but it's also designed to keep you emotionally safe. So if you're about to do something or say something or engage in a conversation that possibly will end in a failure, looking stupid or looking unprofessional or not getting the outcome, part of your brain kicks in to keep you safe.
Don't do that, and it will divert you with a narrative, oh, I'm not ready now. I need more preparation time. Oh, I, I don't, I, I just need to do a bit of this first, or I just need to call it a different day. Not, not this time or this day. All your brain is doing is it's job. It's keeping you safe, but it's also keeping you emotionally safe.
So when it comes to doing cut through, we need to stand for something. We need to try something a little different. We need to have a bit of conviction in a particular area. But we will sometimes not do that because your brain is giving you reasons and excuses why you should do same same. Keep going what we've always done.
Keep doing this way. Hey, you know, it's just about the persistence. Got to keep knocking on those doors. Yes, but maybe you've got to do it differently and that your brain is telling you reasons, excuses and justifications as to why I should stay a little safer. And the risk with that, Roger, is that eventually your comfort zone becomes your prison.
And we tend to not look at beyond what I'm good at. And the excuses that we surround that with, Oh, it's just, I'm too old now. Or I just, it's always worked. Or I don't know, or I'm not good with technology. Whatever the excuses stops us from trying something new. And that's where the trap is, is that the, the, The growth comes from stretching out of your comfort zone.
The resilient will do well with what they know. The pressure proof will stretch the comfort zone, risk failure to grow, learn and get better. And you need to step into that second space.
[00:13:07] Roger Courville, CSP: Quite a bit of image. I love the imagery. Your comfort zone becomes the prison. Just out of curiosity, can you share an example of how somebody kind of moving into that new space can, has, you know, has turned a challenge into an opportunity?
[00:13:24] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Yeah. So one particular group that I worked with recently, they're a sales team.
There was nationwide. Um, and I know we, we talked previously about virtual presentation. This entire training was done virtually. And one of the beautiful things about that is I get to do one on one work virtually with people in that process. This individual new to sales was given some tough training.
Contracts to work with some low spends and no spends and really needed to get out in and establish his connection establishes Understanding a relationship of the client challenge was is that before him people had really hadn't done a good job and That it was a market that was fairly saturated with people people coming in and pitching.
So what he needed to do was do one of two things. He had to put his ego to the side and understand that he's going to deal with a bit of pushback and failure. It wasn't personal. It was just the nature of the industry. And secondly, he had to be a little creative with how he dealt with that setback. And so what we did is we explained, we reframed the pain.
We say, okay, when you get a pushback, what we actually say Let's call that an unanswered question because what do you mean? Cause it's a question that someone hasn't asked properly or hasn't been answered properly. And what you need to do is to reframe the question. So when you pitch something or turn up and they're pushing back, what they're saying is, I actually don't understand what you're doing.
I actually don't understand what the value is, and that your job needs to be a little more creative, a little more concise, and different to be able to articulate value. And so what we focused on was, what value do you bring beyond what everyone else is doing? How are you positioning what you do that's not same same, and how can you get cut through?
Every time you get pushed back, what is the unanswered question? And to his credit, he took that on. dealt with a lot of pushback, but still managed to secure a decent deal in an area that no one else was able to do. Simply because he was patient, he asked different questions, and he didn't personalize the pushback.
He reframed it and go, Oh, let's see, what's the question that hasn't been answered here? Oh, the question might be, I don't know you. Or the question might be, um, what value do you have that's different from anyone else? You're the same as everyone else. So he needed to start answering those questions, and it wasn't just a no, it was a no End conversation
[00:15:54] Roger Courville, CSP: just for our audience's, uh, understanding of this Next question for you, uh, Michael, like myself, is a CSP certified speaking professional, which means that you've done more than 250 paid speaking gigs and a bunch of other hoops that you gotta jump through.
It's the highest earned designation in, in our respective, um, speaking associations. So I want you to know that because. Before we push the record button, Michael was talking about one of his own experiences with regard to presenting virtually. And I'm just curious, Michael, when it comes to how you have even adapted to, you know, COVID or before COVID, how have you adapted your own presentations and coaching when you, when you move into zoom or the equivalent thereof?
[00:16:43] Michael Licenblat, CSP: So I've had the experience when we had all the situation with COVID and we had to go virtual, I had, I wanted to, okay, we've got to do this well. And I had exposure to people who did it well, and those that didn't do it well. And I noticed that those that did virtual well, didn't talk at me. they talked with me.
And even through camera, they spoke as if I was sitting right there in front of them. What I started to notice Roger is that when I was delivering virtual presentations, if I could talk with you and look you down the barrel, you mentioned before, and it was a wonderful phrase, everyone has a friend. That way everyone's right in front and I noticed that when I would have a group in this bit, particularly of those in maybe higher levels, maybe like the CEO, CFO level in an organization.
If I have them in an actual physical room in front of me, there is a degree of, ego or reputation, uh, that comes with that, that no one wants to look less than the person next to them. So if I'm asking them to have discussions or feedback, sometimes there's a bit of reservation around that, or there's a bit of accolade that comes with their, their responses.
When I'm on zoom or in virtual, what I'll do is I'll actually pick out someone and have a chat just with them. And they will actually sometimes forget. that they are in a room that they're just actually talking with me and the beautiful thing is I might say so Roger tell me a little bit about what is happening in your organization right now because I know that you and I chatted before and we spoke about the challenge with staffing that you're having.
Is that something that you're still continuing and how are you managing that? And in that moment Roger what happens is that they forget about the others and they're just chatting with me. We'll organize the screen of course so we'll just pin the two videos on that way so they could they're less. I guess aware that there's others there, but all of a sudden the, the vulnerability, the openness and the honesty comes through and that then starts to impact others.
And we have really a great, honest coaching, mentoring, training conversation that sometimes you've got to work a little harder in an open room to get.
[00:18:59] Roger Courville, CSP: I love that. And yes, I did say everybody's got a front row seat, I think, and I just mean this as a point of reference, not as a, not as a brag, but I think it was the first CSP, whoever did it, uh, with a predominantly virtual business model, at least here in the States, NSA used to, used to say 75 percent of your gigs had to be in person.
I actually the president at the time going, Oh, you know, I'm making a living that most speakers would find very comfortable. Um, are you telling me virtual doesn't count and it's not a right or wrong. It's a, it's a different. And that's one of the things that I think you just illuminated brilliantly is that that different context might bring out different aspects of those that you're working with.
And, uh, I love how you do what you just shared there.
[00:19:49] Michael Licenblat, CSP: In fact, I have a part of my business that I only keep virtual, particularly the mentoring, the coaching, um, the, the group mentoring and some training, you know, to get people nationwide together to do training program. You often have to wait for the annual conference where they'll get together for a day, maybe two, and you've got an hour, maybe 90 minutes.
To be able to impart some context. And quite frankly, in that timeframe, the best you can do is you can stretch thinking, you can impart a couple of tools, but you can't then work with them to implement and, and really it's the week or two post conference, that's what the rubber hits. The value they get about what they implement.
And so I've found now with virtual I can get a nationwide team together every say two weeks. We sit together for a 60, 90 minute zoom conversation. I can recapitulate some of the content that we've done before. I can do some one to one and I can get them into breakout rooms and talk about what they're going to do.
And it's a wonderful process of traction where you take an idea and you anchor it in the practicality of what we're going to do. Cause you can combine that with, Hey, last week I did that and I can mentor them in real time. And in fact, can I tell you what one of my greatest joys of doing this is that we'll have a slightly longer session and we'll put in a boiler room to say, right, so let's now take 30 minutes.
Go out and contact three clients. Let's have, and let's see what comes from that conversation. Use some of the strategies or some of the mindset we've just spoken about. Go out and contact them, come back, and let's debrief a bit of that. So we actually get real time coaching from real time situation and that they can go back and dollarize the outcome from.
So it's not a sit and learn, it's a sit, do outcome process. And it's, it's exciting because, you know, In person, it's just a lot harder to get people together on a regular basis.
[00:21:49] Roger Courville, CSP: When you're talking to a leader, what are you helping them with when it comes to saying, do I have a problem in my team? When you're coaching a leader to watch for signs among their own team that they really have um, a resilience problem. What are they looking for?
[00:22:11] Michael Licenblat, CSP: So they need to understand two things, what a resilience challenge looks like, what are the behaviors, but there's another component to that, which is what is their leadership style doing to either keep that where it is or to lift it up from that?
Because There's a sense of, you know, if the team is doing this, I'm trying to motivate them to do more. And I said, well, that may be part of the problem. I want you to think of it in terms of three types of levels of resilience, where you have the low level of resilience, where under pressure, I'm worse. I fall apart.
I, I, I'm fragile. I get fractured. I find that pressure wears me down, burns me out. And the language that I will use are things like, Oh, I can't do this. This is all too difficult. This will never work. I find that there's fatalistic language, um, and self doubt language will come out of that. And the leader needs to listen for that, to see, am I hearing more of that?
this lack of belief in myself, this sense that it can't work. It won't change no matter what I do kind of language. Then we look for the language in the next section where people are actually a little more robust. There are resiliences at a medium level. And under pressure, what happens there is that they stay the same.
They can cope, they can manage, they can stretch capacity. However, it sometimes comes at a cost. And the cost might be, I get it done, but I'm not going over and beyond what I need to do. And they'll notice that, that people are competent, but not necessarily ambitious. And so we need to see, and the language would be, it's good enough.
Yeah, it's done. It's fine. And there's a sense of benchmark, but not higher than that. We'll also see in that area there, conversations around stress. Um, I'm taking on so much because another part of that coping is that I lean in and I take on and I do everything and you can throw anything at me and I will manage.
but it's really stressing me out and I'm working early and late and it's costing me something. And in fact, the language we listen for is the word busy. How are you doing? Oh mate, I'm busy. There's a lot on, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And we use busyness as our badge of honor of how productive we are.
So when a manager hears that, we're going, we're hearing kind of, I'm competent, I'm doing, I'm getting it done, but I'm busy on this. We go, okay, there's a, there's a base level of resilience, but if that's not evolving, then they are going to burn and churn themselves out. And either one thing they leave or worse, they stay but drop in terms of their effectiveness because you can only go at that pace for so long.
And then we look for that high level where under pressure we get better and we start to listen for terms of some kind of language like, okay, how do I solve that? What do I need to do? How do I, Adapt to that. We're looking for solution based language. We're looking for possibility conversations.
Conversations like, so if we were to get better, if we are to create that edge, if we are to, what do we need to do? Those kinds of things. And I want to help my people have different language that lifts them up. And the other part of that question there is what the leader does. And if a leader is more than there where we kind of persecute problems, where we persecute, where persecute is a strong term, but that's what happens when I punish people for not doing the right thing.
Oh, what? I blame and shame. It keeps people in that low level. It's like, Oh, what's the point? All I get is told off. I don't, what, why, why would I possibly bother? But there's another risk here is that when I over support, When I mollycoddle, and it may come from the goodness of their heart that they just want to overhelp and support and just be there, but it does foster incompetence if it's done too much.
And they need to notice the balance of being over supportive at the expense of outcome and standards. So the, you know, that balance there of conviction to do with compassion. And it's not saying don't be compassionate, but don't give up your spine in the process of doing that. And that can sometimes foster a lower level of resilience.
But when the leaders move up to be more effective, they actually kind of go into an area. They need to be a little more instructive and clear. To lift standard, they have to be clearer about what is required by what time frame before they try and motivate and empower just to have a clarity of what is required and the high performance leaders then can move into areas of empowering people and stretching a bit further to go, what, what else can we achieve?
And if we could do this differently, and how can you try something different? They need to be able to give space to fail. And to be okay to innovate and to empower their people to, I think it was Nelson Mandela who said the concept of leading from behind and let them, um, know that you've got their trust and space to fail.
So I know there's a lot in that answer, but there are those two, those two concepts, and it's, it's very different to the traditional thinking of resilience, which is just taking three deep breaths and going to a nice place in your mind, which is nice. But it's, it doesn't create high performance or it might just be the toughen up and get through.
That is an aspect of resilience, but it's one about coping and getting through. If we want high performance, we have to speak differently, to choose different language, different aspirations, and ask better questions to be able to achieve that.
[00:27:53] Roger Courville, CSP: Ask better questions. In fact, even as you were sharing there, a situation came to mind from, uh, from a previous organization that I worked with that, that, uh, well, I'll just throw it out there as a hypothetical team is really excellent at what they do, but they're also really comfortable.
with how they're doing it and, and, and don't want to change. Don't even as the market evolves a little bit, don't necessarily want to push the boundaries and take a step. How are you coaching that leader with regard to their team? Who's maybe on the border border of line of complacency because they're really comfortable with how things are.
[00:28:35] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Yeah. And so what will happen, it's not a case of whether they're doing the work or achieving the outcome. They might be, Hey, listen, we're, we're hitting our KPIs. We're doing what we need. You know, get off my back sort of thing. You know, we're comfortable, but the challenge is if, if the measurement of success is simply hitting an existing target, then a leader can motivate them as much as they want, but, um, if they are measured in a particular, just getting it done, then that motivation just falls on deaf ears.
What needs to happen is that. Measurement of success needs to have various currencies. Not just about what we do now, but what we look at that's a little out of our comfort zone. Where's our stretch target? What activity are we doing to move into stretch target area? One of the reasons why it's difficult for people to move into that stretch area is because they're not familiar with failure.
Failure becomes a difficult and it becomes a negative and quite frankly if you haven't had it on a regular basis it hurts a lot more like an open wound. Part of my background comes from martial arts and that's the aspect of what it's like. You can train and you can punch in the air, you can punch bags and you can do all your pre arranged, but when you actually do the sparring, the actual, the actual fighting bit and you get punched and hit, it hurts.
It provides you with a very unique life experience of what that feels like. All the training can go at the going out the window and you're dealing with the angst of, Oh my goodness, this hurts. And you then fall back into what you do, your fear reaction. What we need to do is help people get exposure to what that feels like when you fail, when you're out of your comfort zone.
So that doesn't shock you. It doesn't stop you and then you retreat back to what is known. Oh, that's too painful. No, in martial arts, you'll do that on a regular basis so that when you do spar, when you do fight, you go, okay, I know what that feels like. That won't shock me. I'm going to allow my training to catch up and to be able to apply that under pressure.
So if we want a team to be able to lift, we need to set a higher standard. And we need to help them get a little bit familiar with what it means to fail and to be able to be comfortable with that. And that, that explained that the reframing of failure, that failure is simply it's a step towards something which we're not good at.
It's a step towards a new stretch goal. Because the whole purpose of resilience isn't just to feel happy. I know it's important. Being happy is great. It's about implementing in the face of adversity. That's the purpose of resilience. If you can continue to implement intelligently and implement to achieve higher goals, then your resilience is like a power tool serving you.
Otherwise, your resilience of I can cope is actually keeping you stuck. And that starts with lifting the standard and getting more familiar with a bit of failure.
[00:31:35] Roger Courville, CSP: Michael, talk to me about your book, Pressure Proof, How to Thrive in Times of Disruption, Change and Pressure. I'm sure you've, you've been speaking out of that space The whole time we've been chatting, but tell us a little more about your book and where folks can get it.
[00:31:49] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Sure, the easiest place to get it is from the website as you've mentioned bouncebackfast. com. au It, mind you, the com will work, but com. au is better for us. The book looks at again, the, the differentiating between, as I've mentioned, between resilience being a high performance tool, but then it breaks it down to go, well, what, what, what are the qualities?
What allow people to be able to do more of that? And I've found that through the research behind high performance and the research around this approach of the anti fragility of what makes me better under pressure, that comes down to four kind of components. And I unpack this through the book in terms of a principle of them, what the steps might be.
And it looks at number one, your centeredness. And I don't just mean your om shanti, kind of being able to relax and meditate centeredness, but your ability to keep a calm, clear mind under pressure to make better decisions. Cause when you can take control of how you make better decisions, um, your emotions don't make you as reactive and impulsive in what you do, but you're able to make clear decisions based on what you need to do rather than what you feel like doing.
So centeredness is a massive one, particularly around, um, prioritization of time and energy and attention. Another aspect where the research came through was your tenacity. That is your ability to stick at something and what stops us, why we tap out early when things get difficult. It's easier to stay motivated when, when life is flowing well and people are giving you support.
Much harder when you're getting tired. Pushback or in sales, you're dealing with rejection after rejection or in marketing. You're trying to launch an idea and you're just not getting any love back from the market. People aren't returning calls and you have to keep your drive alive. There are some components there that's not just about having more coffee and more chocolate that you need to do to be able to keep that drive.
And we'd look at. The, the, the principles of motivation of what really the psychology that lights us up to want to try when we're faced with pushback. And we look first about the internal aspect about dealing with self doubt, aspects about some consistency, but mostly about removing the excuses, removing the narrative.
that keep us stuck as well. Um, the third component is certainly around adaptability. And this looks at how well I'm able to adapt and change when I'm dealing with setbacks. What's my relationship like with failure? How well can I embrace difference, learn from that repurpose? How do I lead people through failure?
And the fourth aspect's around sustainability. The way that I manage energy, the way that I manage, um, my focus times, how I manage tension has a massive impact to my concentration, my engagement, and the choice of words that I use, even when I'm in front of customers and clients. So those four components get unpacked, but they get unpacked not in a personal development way, but more about it.
It's about how we apply this in business and in work so that we can get better outcomes to achieve more when I'm faced with
[00:35:01] Roger Courville, CSP: Michael, I think we could talk for hours. I'm just, uh, I'm really appreciating what you bring to the table here. But as we, as we move toward wrapping up here, one question, are there any questions I should have asked you that I haven't?
[00:35:17] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Look, there's, you and I chatted before, there's a bunch of directions we could have taken this interview in and I would be happy to dive in any of those.
And I think the question that's a fun one to ask is, you know, what advice you would give to a younger self? And the reason why that's relevant is that I look back. back over the way that I've taught this process and the way that the research has come out. And I've noticed a massive shift from the whole concept of, Hey, we need to toughen up and get through to the new superpower actually comes from vulnerability, self awareness, and the willingness to improve.
And I think that's very much part of the, my journey as well. You know, I, I'm very kind of alpha male. I like to get in there, I train, I, you know, fight hard and all of that. And I, and I like that sense of bravado, but I've recognized that the real growth, the real ability to achieve more comes from when I kind of look at what I'm, what I'm doing.
What I'm not doing well, and when there's vulnerability and allow myself to improve on that. And I reckon if we can do a little more of that to recognize that it's the strength comes from the vulnerability and allows you to repurpose. That's where you're doing well. If I think of marketing, your ability to honestly take feedback and to look at, um, where you could improve, what others are doing better than you.
And that's an honest question. Where are others doing things better than you? Where is your blind spot in how you approach your work? What are you kind of doing out of habit rather than because of this making impact and have that feedback as a marketer, you grow faster.
[00:37:03] Roger Courville, CSP: Michael, thank you.
Thank you for, you, you dropped so many little wisdom nuggets there. I may have to go, just go back and listen to this, this all over again. You can connect with Michael at bouncebackfast. com. au Michael, any other place that you prefer people connect with you or is that the good, good place to start?
[00:37:24] Michael Licenblat, CSP: Oh, look, you'll, you'll find me on some of the social media platforms.
I'm on LinkedIn and a little on Instagram, but really the website's the best way to find me.
[00:37:32] Roger Courville, CSP: That's a great place to start. Again, thank you to Michael Leisenblatt CSP for sharing some, uh, some great wisdom here today. And, uh, thank you again to our sponsor, Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team.
And we will catch you on the next episode of Thought Leader Conversations.
All right, sir.
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