Kris Safarova  00:47

welcome to the strategy skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com and we have some gifts for you. You can get five reasons why someone is ignoring people in meetings, and that is something you can find at firms consulting.com forward slash on the room. You can access episode one of how to build a consulting practice at firms consulting.com forward slash build. And you can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies at firms consulting.com forward slash overall approach. And actually one more, you can get McKinsey and BCG winning resume example, which is an actual resume that led to offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firms consulting.com forward slash resume PDF. And that particular template works for any level of seniority. We have used it for many years with clients, and it works really well. And today we have with us Nidhi Tiwari, who works with Fortune, 500 companies in the areas of work, culture, well being, communication. And her clients include LinkedIn, Warner Brothers, discovery, bediva, world academic forum. And she’s a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, and was featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Mindy, welcome.

Nidhi Tewari  02:10

Thank you for having me. I would love to

Kris Safarova  02:13

start with a few questions about your own career, and then go into discussion about your current work, looking back at the start of your career, what do you think you misunderstood about people that you see very differently now,

Nidhi Tewari  02:30

I think early in my career, something that I misunderstood was what my role was within the organization, in the sense that I started off my career as a therapist, and I worked for 13 years with high performing leaders on helping them to navigate burnout, stress, trauma, anxiety, and I think I took on a lot of responsibility within different workplaces that were not my responsibilities to own, taking on leadership tasks that were not Something that was dictated by my title, working above the wage that I was making at that time, and being able to distinguish what was, what were my projects to own, versus what were tasks that other people should have been taking on themselves. So I think now, at this stage in my career, I very clearly understand when companies hire me, who I am, what I’m hired to do, where my work ends and where their work begins. And those boundaries have been incredibly helpful in my career progression.

Kris Safarova  03:30

Do you remember when you realized you needed to set boundaries

Nidhi Tewari  03:34

absolutely all throughout my career, I burnt out three different times because I was constantly saying, Yes, I am a recovering people pleaser. I’m somebody who always tries to step up and help out. But unfortunately, that led to my own emotional decline, because my stress levels were perpetually high, I was being spread very thin, and at the third time of burning out, you would think I would have learned something the first two but I didn’t. The third time of burning out, which was in 2018 when my best friend passed away from brain cancer. That was the wake up call for me that I ended up in the hospital. My body became very sick. My chronic illnesses were flaring, and I realized that burnout was not just a psychological condition caused by stress. It was also a physiological condition that was affecting my health and well being. So once I had that realization in 2018 I became very clear and very firm on what my boundaries needed to be within the work that I

Kris Safarova  04:35

was doing. And I’m so sorry about your brand. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Nidhi Tewari  04:39

It was a very difficult time, a sudden loss, but one that I learned quite a bit from, and it was really the impetus for me to start helping corporations to improve their own work culture.

Kris Safarova  04:52

And they feel that there was a belief about success that you had, that you had to unlearn Absolutely.

Nidhi Tewari  05:00

Think the biggest belief I had to unlearn was self sacrifice is what’s needed to be successful, that I needed to deprioritize my own needs in order to help everyone else around me, and that actually was to my detriment. What I learned, what I’ve learned now, over these many years since that time, is that when you have a really clear understanding of what your role is. People actually see you as more of a leader, and that self sacrifice is not a mandate for success, counter to what hustle culture teaches us, that there is a way to have it all. There’s a way for you to have a successful career, to be able to work with the dream clients that you desire to work with while still taking good care of yourself. And so that was a huge learning for me. Was learning that self sacrifice is not a necessary ingredient for success in your career.

Kris Safarova  05:52

Someone listening to us right now and they are recognizing themselves in you them. What would you tell them?

Nidhi Tewari  05:59

I would tell them to really pay attention to what your mind and body are communicating to you, because we often override these subtle cues that our psychology, our brain and our bodies communicate to us. So for example, as I reflect back, I missed that I was actually spending a lot of time sleeping. I was trying to recover from this exhaustion, from the burnout. And I just thought that I was tired because I had, you know, I was paying attention to my social life, my relationship with my husband, my career, all of these things and balance my family. And I assumed that that was normal. But in in reflection now I see that plopping down on the couch every evening and taking a three to four hour nap and being too exhausted to function should have been a signal to me. So don’t override those cues. Don’t neglect those cues that your mind is going to send you, and then your body, your physiology, is going to let you know certain signals as well. So I didn’t recognize it at the time, but my resting heart rate was actually 10 beats higher during those periods of burnout than it is now, when I’ve gotten to a place of better self care and better self management, subtle things like that, we often tend to just Miss. And my advice to people is just really pay attention to what’s happening within, as opposed to disconnecting and pushing through, which is what we’re often trained to do.

Kris Safarova  07:23

What do you think people need to understand about their own nervous system?

Nidhi Tewari  07:28

I think a lot of us walk through the world with dysregulated nervous systems that we have just gotten accustomed to being in a state of high intensity, high stress. And so I think that something that we need to understand about our nervous systems is that when it’s pushed to the limit for too long, it ends up causing long term damage, and we end up being in this state of hyper vigilance, meaning that we are constantly on edge, looking for the next threat, the next stressor, the other shoe To drop, or we navigate the world as shut down, disconnected, depressed, almost in this frozen state. And so if we’re able to just notice that, okay, I’m in this state of dysregulation, I have control, and I can learn some skills to be able to move from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state, meaning going from a stress state to a restful state that is a huge game changer for people in their careers. And these are things that we’re often taught in regards to our personal lives, right? Like we tend to recognize our triggers and these points of reactivity in our interpersonal relationships, with our partners or with our parents or, you know, with our siblings, but we don’t pay attention to it as much in the work sphere, but those same challenges are going to exist in the work domain in the same way that they do in your interpersonal life, too, outside of work. So recognizing that we are often moving through a state of dysregulation, even in the workplace, and it is affecting the way that we show up and do our work, as well as how we can connect to the people around us.

Kris Safarova  09:05

If someone feels that they might have dysregulated nervous system, what can they do to start healing

Nidhi Tewari  09:13

a helpful framework that I talk about in the book is the reset framework. So these are five steps that people listening can take to be able to recognize what’s happening, develop self awareness and to then manage those emotions. So the R in reset is to notice your reaction. When you have a hysterical reaction, something that feels disproportionate to the situation at hand. For example, you receive an email from your boss that says, Can we schedule a meeting at 12 o’clock? And they don’t give you any additional information, your brain is going to fill in those gaps, and you’re going to react from a place of anxiety and fear, because we jump to the worst case scenario. When we have these hysterical reactions, we have to recognize that they have historical roots, meaning that this reaction is not just about what’s. In the here or now. It’s also rooted in past experiences. So just noticing what those reactions are, does my body get tense? Do my shoulders tend to rise up towards my ears? Do I notice that my heart is racing or that my breathing is quickening? That type of recognition of what the reaction is is an important first step, then ease for emotion. So once we notice what’s happening in our physiology, we need to be able to pin a word to what we are actually experiencing from an emotional standpoint. So is it that you’re scared, anxious? Are you embarrassed? Are you feeling vulnerable and exposed? Being able to name the emotion is a critical component of being able to tame the emotion. Then after we recognize the emotion, S is for soothe. So before we can rationally think through the problem and and tease out what is causing this type of reaction, we have to be able to calm our nervous system down. So you can use techniques like 478, breathing, five senses, grounding, being able to just observe your surroundings and orient yourself to the present. This is how we’re going to be able to soothe the nervous system and get get back into that regulated state. Then E is for explore. So the next E is going to be about exploring what was actually happening there. What was the past present connection that happened in that moment? How have my past experiences with receiving vague emails or vague communications from friends or family led to conflict or or the experience of, you know, maybe being fired or rejected by them, that’s going to play into that initial response and that reaction to that email that you received with no context, and then the T is for tell talk about it with somebody, share it with someone who’s able to hold space for you, who you feel like you can be safe to be vulnerable with. And by being able to share the experience with somebody else, we can then make sense of the experience, which is really critical for synthesizing the information that reset framework is absolutely essential for regulating your nervous system, and

Kris Safarova  12:02

in terms of the step of actually using five senses or breathing, what is your go to?

Nidhi Tewari  12:07

Yeah, sure, my go to is 478, breathing. I love that one, because when I start to notice that my heart rate is amplifying, that my breathing is starting to get quickened, that my body is becoming tense, those are going to be your initial cues before the emotion hits and before the thought hits your system, right? So that 478, breathing, where you breathe in through your nose for four seconds, you hold in the breath for seven seconds, and then you exhale through your mouth for eight seconds, and do that as many times as you need to. That will help you to feel grounded, and it’ll lower your heart rate, it will reduce your blood pressure, provide more oxygen to your brain, into your organs, so that you can then think through the situation from a more rational standpoint. It’s a great technique.

Kris Safarova  12:51

Yes, I read about it when I was a teenager. I was using it since then, but it was 448, what is the logic behind 478? Instead of four? So the middle one when you hold the breath.

Nidhi Tewari  13:02

So what research has found is that when we hold the breath in, that’s really allowing that oxygenation to happen, that’s what slows the heart rate down. So they did some studies on this, and they found that that that sequence of 478, is actually the most effective when it comes to helping to reduce stress levels and to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system reactions, and so yeah, holding in that breath a little bit longer, and then it’s important to breathe out through your mouth for eight, right? So we’re breathing in through the nose, then we’re holding it for seven, and then we’re exhaling through our mouth for those eight seconds. And that sequence is really important when it comes to providing all of the benefits that I described a moment ago with this breathing technique.

Kris Safarova  13:44

And they know why. Some breathing techniques also include not breathing. So you breathing in, holding breathing out, and not breathing for a few seconds and then breathing in again.

Nidhi Tewari  13:56

I would imagine that it’s a reset, right? It’s like an opportunity between the different moments of this technique to be able to recalibrate. Typically, what I will do is I’ll do the 478, I will give it a second or two, and then I’ll do the next sequence of 478, breathing. And for me, that tends to be effective because it gives my heart rate and my breathing a moment to just restabilize itself, because you’re having to be intentional, right with this technique. It’s not the way that we would typically breathe. But by taking that brief moment, those those couple of seconds to be able to shift gears and then move back into the breathing technique again, it just gives your nervous system and your body a moment to just reset before moving into the next set of the 478, breathing.

Kris Safarova  14:39

Very interesting. Maybe it also has to do something with your breathing deeper, because you’re waiting for it longer. But it’s breathing is so interesting, so powerful, we need to use it more in corporate world as well. Absolutely, if somebody is at the point in their life where they had so much stress, especially if it is. Somebody who had stress from childhood, and their system is really deregulated, so they can have reactions even based on nothing, or reaction can continue for days where the body shakes inside, for example, in a situation like that, what would you recommend? Can they heal?

Nidhi Tewari  15:17

Absolutely. I think that healing is always possible. It takes more work when you have complex trauma, which is what you’re describing, like multiple experiences of trauma that compound on themselves and create a persistently dysregulated nervous system. The good news is that absolutely there is opportunity to heal. It will often take going through therapy to be able to process through the traumatic experiences. So for example, after my best friend passed away, I had a very dysregulated nervous system. Stress levels were so high all the time, it was hard to function day to day. And so I had to go through what’s called EMDR therapy, that stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. And it helped me to be able to move through not only the thought processes, the emotional component of this trauma, but also the physiological symptoms, the way that trauma was held in my body. That technique helped me to be able to recalibrate my nervous system to the place and to the point where now certain triggers that were affecting me eight years ago don’t phase me at all. It fundamentally shifted the way that I respond to situations. So, you know, it was not easy. I don’t want to make it sound like this was a simple process that only took a couple of months. It took six to eight months for me to really work through all of the layers and the complexity of that experience. But coming out the other side, it gave me such great relief, and I now am able to function at a completely different level that I didn’t have access to before. So, you know, these techniques are very helpful, the ones that we just talked about a moment ago, but really the deeper work has to happen, where you’re processing through the experience, especially the somatic components of the experience, to get to a place of resolution.

Kris Safarova  17:02

I’m so glad you mentioned that treatment. I read about it, and it is considered to be potentially the most effective one in a situation like that. Could you tell us more? For someone who is listening to you now and thinking, You know what, I need that, but I would love to learn more, sure.

Nidhi Tewari  17:20

So I actually specialize in EMDR in my clinical work. And essentially the idea behind EMDR is that when we have a traumatic experience, those memories are not stored in a helpful way. So in your day to day life, we have a multitude of experiences and memories that form, and the hippocampus is the part of the brain that just kind of files them away. Think about it like a filing cabinet. It organizes them alphabetically, right? It puts them in time and place. But when trauma happens and traumatic memories occur, those memories cannot be filed away in the same way. Instead, what happens is that they tend to be evoked at inappropriate times, and they carry an intense charge with the thoughts, the emotions, the body sensations, the beliefs about yourself that form in that moment of trauma. And what EMDR does is it helps the brain to reprocess those memories using a protocol that we go through. And by doing so, it helps those memories to be stored in an adaptive way. It also brings the memory and those components that are really unhelpful and triggering to a place of resolution to where they don’t come up at inappropriate times, and you have a bit more space between that triggering moment, and you can choose then your response. So that’s the simplest way to describe it, is it’s basically helping to reconsolidate the memories and store them in a way that’s helpful and it reduces the intensity and the charge that is held with these traumatic

Kris Safarova  18:45

experiences as you were going through that treatment yourself. Are there certain things you discovered that make this therapy the most effective therapy in terms of how you as a patient, playing your part?

Nidhi Tewari  18:59

Yes, I think that you know, what’s great about EMDR is, one is it’s highly evidence based. It’s one of the most evidence based techniques out there for PTSD, but also for depression, anxiety, OCD, many different conditions. But what was so important to me is that I didn’t recognize the beliefs about myself that had formed as a result of my best friend’s passing. So at the time, you know, she didn’t share a whole lot about her journey, especially in those final months where she was nearing the end of her life, and I carried a lot of guilt. I felt a lot of responsibility that I wasn’t a good friend, or that I didn’t show up in the way that maybe I thought I needed to in those moments, and I didn’t even know that these were beliefs that I held so deeply within myself and that were getting in the way of me being able to move past this traumatic experience and make sense of it. So that element of identifying those core beliefs that formed as a result of that experience was incredibly beneficial to me, because those core beliefs. Influenced the way that I made sense of the experience, and it affected the way that I was able to navigate it. Then going forward, getting to a place of resolution where I no longer believe that it’s my fault, or, you know, I’m a bad person because I didn’t show up in this way that this unreasonable expectation that I had for myself, and coming out the other side, seeing that I did the best that I could, that I was a really caring friend. I was a caregiver to her for the early part of her diagnosis, that information was not something I had access to when I was in the throes of trauma, and through the course of EMDR, I started to have access to that really helpful, important information. It brought perspectives in that I did not tap into previously.

Kris Safarova  20:44

What was the mechanism of how it helped you identify beliefs?

Nidhi Tewari  20:49

Well, so part of the protocol is that you go through a series of identifying different aspects of the memory, right? So the first part of the protocol is you’re going to identify and map out the memories that are tied to this experience, because once again, even though this was centered on the death of my friend, what I’ve also discovered through this mapping of memories was that I had earlier experiences with the loss of my grandfather, with the loss of relationships that evoked similar feelings, where I felt like it was my fault or I wasn’t good enough, right? And so we were able to map out these memories, including childhood experiences, that were feeding into this most recent experience. Then once we identified those experiences, what we do is we zero into one particular memory. So let’s say that we were working on this particular memory with my best friend, we would identify the worst part of the memory. What’s the image that represents the worst part of the memory? So now we’re bringing in the different components. What were we seeing in that moment where I was feeling despair and like I was a bad person? Then we identify the negative belief about yourself. So it’s my fault, perhaps, or I should have done more. We identify the positive belief that we want to work towards. So I did the best I could. Was what I tried to work towards. We identify how true that belief feels, and the context of that image. We gage emotions, how disturbing it feels, and then the body sensations. So all of these components, that’s how we identify those core beliefs, is we look at the different components of the memory, and we see what is the belief about yourself that is the best fit based off of this particular memory, and that also captures the thread from your past all the way to this present experience. And going through that process with your therapist, your therapist will guide you through that that’s not your responsibility to figure out. It’s very helpful and will help you to identify those core beliefs.

Kris Safarova  22:43

And could you describe what happens with eyes? So in the name of the technique, obviously you’re moving your eyes. Could you describe what it looks like?

Nidhi Tewari  22:51

Yeah, so you can either the therapist will either have you move your eyes back and forth like this. I would typically be sitting over here, and you would get a full range back and forth following the fingers, or you can sometimes do tapping, or sometimes you’ll have buzzers, like these tappers that you’ll hold that buzz back and forth. And the theory behind this mechanism is that when you’re asleep, right and you’re entering what’s called REM sleep, which is your rapid eye movement sleep stage, that’s when you’re dreaming, if you really pay attention to like your partner or a child, right? Your kid, when they’re entering the sleep stage, you’ll notice that their eyes start moving back and forth underneath their eyelids. And that’s the mechanism by which we dream. And so the idea behind the eye movement, or the tapping, which evokes a similar sensation, similar mechanism in the brain, is that we’re entering this, this state where we’re able to access this information. Part of what happens during REM sleep is that your brain is starting to file those pieces of information away, those memories away. That’s what I was talking about a little while ago with that memory consolidation and filing system that happens when you’re asleep. And so by using the eye movement, we’re evoking a similar mechanism in a waking state, fully controlled. You’re in the driver’s seat. It’s not hypnosis. You’re fully aware and fully focused, and the brain is going to be able to access that information and start to file it away in the way that it should have been filed initially, but couldn’t, because it was a traumatic experience. So that’s how the eye movement and the tapping, etc, works.

Kris Safarova  24:22

Do you think it is more effective than hypnosis?

Nidhi Tewari  24:26

Yes, hypnosis, and I don’t want to disparage any, you know, any other modality out there, but EMDR has 30 years of research behind it, multiple studies that have looked at the impact that this intervention has had. It is just better understood and has had a significant impact on 1000s of people. Even in my own clinical practice, I’ve helped hundreds of people over the course of my career, potentially even 1000s at this point, to be able to navigate trauma and heal from trauma. So just the evidence base alone, I think. Something for the intervention to stand on and makes it such an effective, you know, technique. It’s also recognized by the World Health Organization, by, you know, the trauma institutions here in the United States all look at EMDR as the gold standard for trauma intervention. So, you know, we go where the research goes when it comes to being a therapist, and that’s where the research leads us, is to EMDR,

Kris Safarova  25:24

of course. And how long does it usually take to help somebody who, let’s say, was exposed to abuse for 40 years of their life, the entire life, and they are 40 years old now, it depends.

Nidhi Tewari  25:36

So if you’ve had complex trauma, those multiple experiences over the course of your life and and we’re navigating that it can take some time. It’s not a quick fix therapy, right? Which is a misconception a lot of people have about EMDR, is they think it’s like four to six sessions and you’re done. It’s rare for that to be the case. That is usually the case when you’re coming in with like, for example, some clients I’ve worked with where they’ve had a car accident, and so they need to be able to get to a place of being able to drive again, but the trauma of the car accident is preventing them from being able to do that. That’s a situation where we may be able to work through it in six to eight sessions. You know, get it get it done. But with complex trauma, it can take months, sometimes a year plus, to be able to just to move through a lot of these experiences. Now, what I will say is that does not mean it takes you six months to a year to experience relief. You can start to notice relief within just a few sessions, but to be able to navigate and process through a lifetime of trauma, right takes time absolutely

Kris Safarova  26:39

and do you feel that for someone like that, this therapy will be sufficient to regulate the nervous system, or do they need to do something else?

Nidhi Tewari  26:48

The nice thing about EMDR is it’s an all encompassing psychotherapeutic technique, so it will teach you the skills to regulate your nervous system as a part of the eight phases of EMDR. So that’s the nice part of it is it’s not just let’s just dive in and reprocess these memories. It’s less set you up for success. Let’s ensure that you have the tools to be able to manage the emotions and the charge that will come up as a result of this therapeutic intervention, and before we even go into any type of memory reprocessing, you have to be able to have certain skill development and check certain boxes off to ensure that it’s a safe you’re in a safe enough place to move forward with it. So that’s the benefit, is you will get the knowledge and expertise to be able to manage your nervous system before you even move into the memory reprocessing element of EMDR.

Kris Safarova  27:38

Makes a lot of sense, and it’s good that we spoke about an extreme case, because then many of our listeners who don’t have an extreme case, they know if it can help in an extreme case, it can certainly help.

Nidhi Tewari  27:50

Me, yes, I think a lot of people just one more thing I’ll add there is, you know, your listeners are typically listening for work related topics, right? And I think a lot of people have actually experienced trauma in the workplace. When you think about toxic workplaces, you think about bosses that you know Kris are hyper critical of you, you think about colleagues that sabotage you or that try to undermine you as a way of getting a leg up on you. Those can be potentially traumatic experiences, and so something like EMDR and the techniques that I share in the book are very much helpful for navigating those types of experiences as well. It doesn’t have to be what we consider big T traumas like violence or, you know, abusive situations. Those are, of course, traumatic, but it can be these other experiences, like like toxic workplaces, even that can be considered traumatic as well, depending on how they affect you longer term,

Kris Safarova  28:44

if we have somebody listening to us right now who feels that therapy is not for me. I can never go to therapy because it will make me look weak. Is there something they can do at home? Maybe a simple variation of this technique that can help them well? So you can’t

Nidhi Tewari  29:01

do EMDR at home, but what you can do is use some of those skills that are taught within the framework of EMDR. So being able to have what’s called a calm, safe place, which is a it’s a visualization technique to help you to recognize a place where you feel calm and at peace and regulated. That is a powerful technique. If you look online, there’s a technique called the spiral technique, where you identify a distressing emotion and you observe it as like a ball of energy, and you observe which, uh, direction that ball of energy is moving, so is it clockwise or counterclockwise? And then you shift the direction of that that ball of energy and this visualization technique, and it reduces distress. Things like that can be effective as well. But ultimately, you know, I think the important message, and really the thing to address that’s underlying that is the idea that therapy is is a form of weakness, or means that you’re weak. And I think that some of the strongest people are the ones that are breaking cycles that are challenging. The narrative that you might have heard through your family systems or through your culture that tells you that talking about your feelings or be or addressing the underlying issues that you might be navigating is weak. That is something that we need to start shifting the narrative of because the most courageous people are the ones that are able to self examine and to do the hard work of healing, and just because you’ve received that messaging in your life doesn’t mean that you can’t be the first of many generations going forward to heal and to shift the dynamics in your family system or with even within yourself and your lineage.

Kris Safarova  30:36

Of course, another question I wanted to ask you is, is there something that you used to tolerate in professional relationships that you do not tolerate anymore.

Nidhi Tewari  30:46

Yes, I used to tolerate people challenging me or undermining me in meetings. So, for example, a colleague that maybe felt threatened by me or insecure by me would say things when I would bring up ideas in front of my boss or in front of the team and try to shoot down those ideas. And I used to roll with it, and think that that was part of being a team player, that it was maybe not appropriate to call out that behavior or to challenge that type of behavior. And I have learned that it’s actually a form of bullying that when people do things like that, when they try to sabotage or undermine you, it is okay for you to speak up and to gently in an assertive and respectful way, call out that behavior. So now I’ve had to learn that when somebody interrupts me, for example, that I can say something along the lines of, you know, hey, I would love to hear what you have to say, but I wasn’t quite finished with my thought, can I please finish it? And then I would love to have you chime in. Just those moments of assertiveness are so incredibly powerful, and it’s a part of the presence that you need to be a leader in your field. If you allow people to run, to run roughshod over you, to step on you, to speak over you, it shows that you’re not somebody who’s assertive and who can stand your ground, and that actually does quite a bit to undermine you and to shift the way that people view you when you’re trying to go for those leadership positions. Yes, this is

Kris Safarova  32:12

very powerful and very important. We teach people how to treat us. One of the programs we teach within strategy training.com is speak without limits, where we actually teach clients how to completely change how people perceive them, how they speak, how their voice sounds. Some people have such incredible voice, and they have no idea they have it. And one of the things I teach clients is how to adjust their voice when they need to sound more authoritative, exactly for a situation like you described Absolutely.

Nidhi Tewari  32:44

And I think that that’s actually a very important component of attunement, which is a concept I talk about in the book. It’s this moment to moment responsiveness that we have based on what’s needed in the moment. So there are times where softness and we’re being easygoing might be appropriate, but there are absolutely times where we need to be strong voice, where we need to be assertive in our communication and shift based off of the need. So if you’re in a meeting and you’re trying to pitch an idea being soft and easygoing may not be appropriate for that moment. You want to feel confident. You need to show them that you understand what you’re talking about and that this is something that is going to be that’s going to create a shift and a change within the organization that you’re pitching to, right? So that’s a perfect example of how we can attune to the moment and shift based off of what’s needed by us in that moment.

Kris Safarova  33:36

Yes, 100% you can be incredibly kind person and so on, but when someone is openly disrespecting you, you have to set boundaries, otherwise it will just get worse. Yes, the next topic I wanted to move us to is AI. What do you think people need to understand about using AI and so on impacting the nervous system? Anything you want to say on that. I think AI

Nidhi Tewari  34:03

is a great thought partner. I use it a lot to be able to put in an idea and refine the idea, or to show have an email that I’m putting together and have it edit and fine tune the email. It’s great for things like that. But where I find AI to be problematic is when we think that it can replace human interaction and human connection. AI is great for data analysis, it’s great for writing reports, it’s great for fine tuning your ideas, but it’s not able to read the room in the way that we need to be able to read the room when we’re in a position within a team or when we’re a leader, and so I think part of what’s happening now is we’re outsourcing our critical thinking. We’re outsourcing some of these human skills to AI. And AI has its own prejudices and biases that are unchecked, and it only mirrors the blind spots that you already have because. AI can’t see things that you already don’t see. The prompts that you put into AI are a reflection of where you are in that moment. And AI is not going to challenge that. And that’s not necessarily in fact, it’s been found that AI is often a validator. It kind of reinforces the things that you’re already thinking and believing. So that’s where I find AI to be a difficult component of the modern workplace to navigate. Now, where I find it to be dysregulating for the nervous system is that I find that people are relying on AI for therapy or to use it as an emotional support crutch, right? So for example, I’ve had people tell me that it’s reduced their capacity to make decisions in the moment, because they will often put those decisions or those thoughts into AI, and then AI will regurgitate what they’re saying and will give them an idea of where to go next. So that critical thinking that we need to develop and that that intuition, that connection to our own gut reactions to things is diminishing. It’s also been found through some recent research that AI can’t because AI can’t read the room. It also can’t read when people are in distress, and so you may put things that are coded into AI, and what research has found is that it misses things like suicidal ideation or moments of distress where you may need professional help. Ai misses the mark with that. So that’s an opportunity where we can maybe learn some tools, some human based skills, to teach us how to be able to navigate difficult moments and ride the wave of difficult emotions. But if we’re relying on AI to accomplish that goal, it leaves us in a dysregulated state, and it’s just not an effective strategy.

Kris Safarova  36:42

What human skills do you think are going to increase in value or already increasing in value?

Nidhi Tewari  36:49

I think our ability to have relational intelligence is one of those skills, and relational intelligence is a bit different than emotional intelligence, which focuses on your self awareness, your empathy, your self regulation. Relational intelligence is what’s happening between us in this moment. How does culture, power dynamics? How does conflict influence the relationship? Those are things that I think the skills that are going to be absolutely essential moving forward in the current workplace that we’re navigating. And so if we can strengthen our relational intelligence, which then attunement is a skill within that right, that’s our once again, our relational responsiveness is our capacity to adapt moment to moment, to shift our demeanor, to shift our tone of voice, to be able to understand what other people need and meet that need, those are going to be absolutely essential skills for being a powerhouse in the current landscape that we’re having to navigate in the workplace.

Kris Safarova  37:49

And if someone is early in their career right now, and they asked you, what should i Master now that AI cannot replicate yet or will not be able to in the next few years, what would you tell them? I would

Nidhi Tewari  38:02

say the skill to master is attunement. So there are four sub skills that you need to learn in order to be attuned to yourself and to other people, meaning you’re in sync with yourself and in tune with yourself and others. The first is flexibility. You have to be agile. You have to be willing to shift gears. So for example, you may come into a meeting with your own agenda, but the other person has their agenda. So how can you meet both people’s needs? How can you adapt in that moment to ensure that you’re hearing where the other person is, and then maybe eventually you’re able to circle back to what your intention was for calling this meeting? That flexibility is absolutely important. It’s also the recognition that it’s not a one size fits all. So what might be helpful for me may be different from what’s helpful for you, and we have to be clued in enough to adapt our responses accordingly. The next skill is reading cues. So this is noticing somebody’s body language. Are they open with their body language leaning in? Are they closed off and leaning away? Is their tone of voice communicating defensiveness to you? Are you noticing that the cadence of their voice is quickened, which signals to you that they’re stressed or anxious? Reading these nonverbal and verbal cues is absolutely critical for being able to meet somebody else’s needs. Then the next tool is self regulation, so managing that nervous system response, being able to respond versus react. So using the skills that we talked about, 478, breathing, five senses, grounding, orienting yourself to the present, that’s how we’re going to be able to regulate the nervous system. And then the last is being able to collaborate with people, so being able to recognize that when we’re in our workplaces alongside our colleagues or our leadership, we’re in a aligned relationship with them, where we have a mutual goal that we are working towards. And so we need to have collaborative conclusions to conversations. We need to work together to find common ground with one another, and if we can master these. Four skills of flexibility, reading cues, self regulation and collaboration, that’s going to be a differentiating factor for you in your early stages of your career. And those are skills that will take you through the later parts of your career as well.

Kris Safarova  40:14

And if the person who is asking is actually in the early 40s, is there any additional advice you have for them,

Nidhi Tewari  40:21

I think that once you hit your mid stage of your career, that’s where the adaptation is so absolutely important, like the ability to be agile, to be able to change with the current trends and current landscape. So we know that AI is a major force within the corporate sphere right now. So if you’re in your 40s, start reading up on what the different tools are, how to be able to leverage these tools in the ways that you can to simplify tasks for you, right? So like, for example, if you’re going to use chat GPT as a thought partner, if you’re going to use it for data analysis, learning the right prompts to be able to use so that you get the best outcomes for your use of AI, these types of this type of agility, I think, is so, so critical, especially when you’re in the mid to later stages of your career. Because ultimately, what leadership is looking for, and especially if you’re applying for new jobs or trying to move up in the ranks towards those leadership positions, they want to see that you’re forward thinking and that you’re not basing your decisions based off of what has always been done, but instead what may be expected of you to come

Kris Safarova  41:29

makes a lot of sense. You recently wrote the book working well for someone reading your book, what are the key things you want them to take away? Well, the book is

Nidhi Tewari  41:38

broken up into three different sections. So the first is about becoming in tune with yourself, and that’s where a lot of this self work, self leadership is important. And a lot of people may read the book and think, well, but why did why does that matter if I’m just going to work for 40 hours a week, clock in, clock out, why does it matter that I pay attention to what’s happening within? I would argue that the reason why this is so critical is that self leadership precedes leadership of a team. You have to be able to recognize what you’re bringing to the table in terms of your own reactions, your own triggers, the experiences that have formed you have shaped you in your personal and professional life, to be able to get in tune with that and learn how to respond in a different way, influences the way that you’re going to show up alongside your colleagues and your boss, as well as the way that you lead your team. So that in tune component has to happen first before we tune into other people. So then the second part of the book talks about becoming in tune with others and talks about connection gaps. It talks about the experiences that we can learn from, from leaders that missed the mark, as well as leaders who have done this very, very well, who have managed people well, and by recognizing the missed opportunities for connection, the moments where we may say or do, the things that are not landing in the way that we would expect, that that is fertile ground for us to learn and grow and get stronger in the way that we connect and relate to other people. So that’s why we explore that in part two, which is getting in tune with others. And then the third part of the book is checking the check in framework, which takes you through the language, takes you through a step by step process with which you can now connect with people that are struggling, have difficult conversations, navigate the challenges that are inevitably going to show themselves in your work world. Those three parts of this book, I think, are so important for you to be able to embody and to learn the skills to navigate,

Kris Safarova  43:37

of course, and in your book, you say that burnout is driven by isolation and lack of connectivity. Does that mean that most burnout interventions are fundamentally misguided?

Nidhi Tewari  43:50

I think burnout interventions are fundamentally misguided because we’re dealing with individual interventions, right? So when you think about your typical intervention for burnout, it’s let’s have a speaker come in and talk about self care. Let’s talk about boundary setting. Let’s talk about how to be able to balance your work and your personal life. But what those interventions are missing is addressing the systemic issues that are driving the behaviors we’re dealing with, symptoms as opposed to root problems. So what’s really driving it is high workload. It’s a lack of resources. It’s a lack of connection. Fundamentally, people not feeling like they matter in the workplace, feeling as though that they that they don’t know the people around them and that the people around them don’t have their best interests in mind. When I did some research for a Harvard Business Review article, I found that some of the most common terms on Glassdoor when people were writing reviews or searching those reviews was distrust. It was not feeling as though their leadership or their colleagues had their best interests in mind. It was not feeling like they matter in the workplace, so their efforts were not acknowledged. That’s why attunement is so important. Important because it’s not just a nice to have intervention here. My research study found that attuned responses, both on a leadership and a team level, led to increased productivity, better job satisfaction, improved psychological safety, better outcomes overall. So this is what drives burnout, is feeling as though you don’t have the support that you need, feeling as though people don’t care about you, and that being something that is a core component of our well being, that is often missed by our workplaces,

Kris Safarova  45:34

for someone who currently have someone on their team who is underperforming, and they are seeing that the person is not open to feedback. They’re not improving no matter how much you try, they don’t seem to have the same standards. What would be your advice on how to approach that conversation?

Nidhi Tewari  45:54

I think often as leaders, we jump to the conclusion that the other person is not willing to change. What I would first say is we have to take ownership as leaders of what our role is in the success of our employees, right? So is it that expectations were unclear? Did the employee have enough support to get the task done, or the tasks done in the way that we expected them to be done and completed? Right? We have to do some self reflection about how we’ve contributed to this problem. So that’s first and foremost, is pause for a moment before we put blame on the other party, and let’s be honest with ourselves about where our own shortcomings may be. Then the second thing would be, I would challenge that it’s a question of willingness, or that they’re not willing to change often. We have to get curious. We need to be able to pause and ask them questions. What is it about this that is hard for them to change? What is unclear for them in terms of how to be able to take the next step and improve and shift the way that they’re approaching a particular task or issue at work right? Jumping to the conclusion that they’re just a bad employee, leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding, and it doesn’t allow us to really get a clear cut idea of what’s driving the lack of responsiveness to feedback. Perhaps it’s even the way that the feedback is being framed. Maybe it’s that their own stress levels are really high, and this is another thing for them to take on. Is there something that we could maybe do to reduce that so that then they can focus their energy on changing the things that we’re asking them to change? So before we jump to the conclusion that somebody is unwilling to make amends or make a shift in the way that they’re approaching their work, what is it that we have done that might have contributed to this challenge and this problem, and let’s get curious and ask some questions about what might be getting in the way of the making the changes that we’re expecting them to make.

Kris Safarova  47:50

I want to wrap up with two questions I ask when there’s a little bit of time left. First one is over your entire life so far, what were two? Three aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business.

Nidhi Tewari  48:06

One of the biggest aha moments that I had was recognizing my own communication pitfalls. So I have a helpful framework in the book that talks about the four different communication styles that I’ve observed over my years of doing this work in corporate America, as well as my work as a therapist. And so the framework is the face framework. We talk about, fixers, avoiders, connectors and explorers. So I recognized that one of the aha moments was I’m a fixer like part of what I had done in the past in my interactions with people is jump in with solutions, try to help them to move from point A to point B, and often this didn’t land well with people, because what people usually need from us is for us to listen, to provide support, to normalize and validate their challenges, and to just be present with them. And what happens when we jump in to fix a problem is two things. One is it’s bypassing the emotions of the other person, right? So they’re feeling stressed, they’re feeling overwhelmed, they’re feeling anxious, and we skirt right past all of those emotions and say, Well, have you tried this? Have you done this? Why don’t you give this a shot? Right? So we’re not actually with them in that moment. The second thing is that it’s very presumptuous. We are making the assumption that somehow we have their problem figured out right, and they’re the ones that are living it. And so if it was as simple as, have you tried to organize your calendar differently when they’re struggling with boundaries, that feels very dismissive of the problem that they’re communicating to you? So I recognize that I was a fixer. Now there are three others, right? There’s the avoiders. So these are the people that tend to shift gears change the subject, or, even worse, use platitudes as a way of trying to support the other person. So we’ll say things like, Oh, don’t worry. It’ll get better. Or, you know, Oh, it’s okay. Don’t stress about it, you know, you’ll get through this. That is also very dismissive of the other person. So as you’re listening to these different communication styles, be thinking, ooh, have I made these mistakes? And if you have, it’s okay, but it’s just a signal to you to try something different, right? The connectors are the ones where you would think that this is the style that you would want to aim for, but it’s not. The connectors are the ones that bring up their own experience as a way to relate to the other person’s experience so they share with you, I’m feeling burnt out and stressed, and you jump in with, oh my God, I’ve totally been there too. I’ve been so burnt out. Here’s what happened to me, and what happens in that moment is we’ve shifted the focus away from the person needing support to now centering ourselves in the conversation. This often leaves the other person feeling misunderstood, and they actually end up becoming the person supporting you, as opposed to you being the support, the person to support them. So that is not the style that we want to aim for. What we do want to aim for is E the explorers. These are the people who are going to ask curiosity based questions they ask instead of assuming what you need, they’re the ones that don’t allow the conversation to die out. They say, tell me more about help me to understand more about right? Ask these really important questions. So just think about where you fall in those four different communication styles, and you may have your own aha moment, because that’s what it really was for me. I had no idea I was doing and saying things that were unhelpful to the other people in my life.

Kris Safarova  51:28

If you could instill one belief in every listener’s heart, what would it be? It’s the belief that we

Nidhi Tewari  51:35

can change that no matter what age you are, no matter what culture you come from, no matter how many negative experiences you’ve had, we have neuroplasticity, which is our brain’s ability to change, to learn new ways of navigating scenarios and situations. So these are just skills. If this, if this feels out of reach to you, if you’re thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, I don’t know that I can do all of these things. Take it step by step. Give yourself some credit that you have had to learn a multitude of things throughout your life, and this is just another skill set to develop and learn. And hopefully you know the content of this conversation and the contents of the book can be a companion piece for you in your journey towards change. Thank you,

Kris Safarova  52:17

Niti, where can our listeners learn more about you by your book, anything you want to share,

Nidhi Tewari  52:22

sure so you can check out my website. I’m a professional speaker who works with corporations and events. My website is my first name, last name.com, Nidhi tawari.com, and then you can find me on social media. I’m on Tiktok, LinkedIn, Instagram. My handle is at Nidhi tawari LCSW. The LCSW stands for licensed clinical social worker. So Nidhi Tiwari. LCSW, our guest today

Kris Safarova  52:47

was Nidhi Tiwari, the author of working well, and our sponsor today is strategy training.com. You can get some gifts from us. You can get five reasons why people ignore somebody in the meeting at firms consulting.com forward slash on the room. You can access episode one of how to build the consulting practice at firms, consulting.com forward slash build. You can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies at firms consulting.com forward slash overall approach. And you can get McKinsey and BCG winning resume example, which is an actual resume that led to offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firms consulting.com forward slash resume PDF, and that is a great template to use at any level of seniority. I hope you guys enjoyed our session today, and I’m looking forward to connect with your own next time.