In a world obsessed with achievement and success, have you ever stopped to ask yourself, "Am I truly enjoying this journey?" Join us in this thought-provoking episode as we delve into the psychology of success with renowned psychologist Gurnek Bains Ph.D.
Discover practical strategies to savour every step of your personal and professional growth, no matter how big or small so that you end your working life with no regrets. Whether you're leading a global corporation or tending to your garden.
"A series of studies have shown this….when you ask people at the end of their working lives to look back, 'What are the main regrets or lessons or advice that you would have for others?' And three things emerge, typically, and are really quite significantly ahead of all the other kinds of regrets."
Mentorship as a Catalyst: But here's the most exciting part for me. When it comes to embracing risk and crafting your legacy, mentorship is a powerful and positive way to achieve both. Mentors guide you in taking those leaps of faith, and they inspire you to envision the lasting impact you can create. And being a mentor also allows you to enjoy your own journey more and ensure that you’re passing on your learning and legacy to the next generation. Join the Oka waitlist to be part of our psychologically backed mentoring.
Biography
Gurnek Bains was born in Bhangal, a relatively poor village in the north of India. Although his parents and three sisters slept in one room with no electric lighting, Gurnek’s father grew up believing that they shouldn’t be as poor as they were. He dedicated himself to bettering his family’s life chances and became school principle at the age of 32. When he and the rest of Gurnek’s family eventually moved to the UK, he worked multiple jobs and always encouraged his children to learn.
Watching his parents make huge sacrifices, Gurnek developed what he described as a huge “compensatory drive”. He managed to make it into grammar school and after many years of hard work went on to earn a PhD in social psychology at Oxford University.
While he first practised as a clinical psychologist, it wasn’t long until Gurnek moved into business psychology and set up Britain’s first consultancy dedicated to harnessing the power of psychology, YSC. Two decades later he and his colleagues had built YSC from a company of two to employing over 250 people in over 25 offices around the world, and were working with over half the FTSE 100. His company became known as one of the best for driving performance, improving cultures and unleashing the power of potential at work. To be “YSC’ed” became a familiar verb in business circles around the world.
Gurnek has always been interested in how psychology can serve society as well as business. While he continues his consulting work at his smaller boutique firm, Global Future, he also leads its sister think tank NOUS and works privately with a number of senior political figures. He has written two books; ‘Meaning Inc.’, which explores how to build meaning and purpose into work, and ‘Cultural DNA’, a book dedicated to helping people empathise with different cultures. He also regularly contributes as a writer and commentator to Psychology Today.
Gurnek is hugely grateful to the UK for the opportunities it has given him, and feels a strong need to give something back. Over recent years he has become dedicated to helping people understand how we can navigate the turbulence of modern society with purpose and investment, with our mental wellbeing intact and ultimately, with optimism.
Gurnek 00:47
Well, thank you. Thank you, Fiona. And, you know, it's, it's a great pleasure to be here. I know, we've been planning this for some time. And, well, let's treat this as the first one, you know, conversations. So So let's, let's get into it. Yeah, definitely.
Fiona 01:04
So, I had to stop a conversation before because there's so much good stuff coming out that I wanted to record. And what we're going to talk about today is enjoying the journey. Tell me a bit more about what the focus is and why are we talking about that?
Gurnek 01:21
We've been working in the field of sort of helping successful leaders get even better at what they do. We've been doing that for 25-30 years. And the thing that sort of occurred to us over the years as we've been doing that work, it's very easy, just to focus successful people on the goals they want to achieve, how they should go about achieving them, what are the barriers they need to tackle, etc, all of our existence almost kind of prepares us for that. And people that are successful, actually just orient naturally to that. And what we found was that, that's fine. But an important dimension that you forget in all that is, are these people enjoying the journey? You know, they may be successful in getting from A to B. But have they felt on that journey? And increasingly, in our coaching, we ask that question to introduce a new dimension into our coaching. And the really interesting thing is, it really takes most leaders aback. They said, "Oh, my God, I've never been asked that" because they asked you to focus on all that. And they, and it really pushes them into this mode of contemplation to the point where we have to say, "Well, let's come back to it in the next session, because I haven't really thought of that." But it's really quite important. Now you mentioned it, it's really interesting that in, we can just get locked into this pattern of chasing success after success after success. And so we introduce it as a second dimension to our coaching and say it's as important as the first dimension driving your success.
Fiona 03:08
Totally, totally. And I think you were talking about how retirees will often reflect back on life. And what what were the three things that you mentioned the three areas?
Gurnek 03:21
Yeah, a series of studies have shown this. And I wrote an article in Psychology Today about it. And when you ask people at the end of their working lives to look back, and you ask them, "What are the main regrets or lessons or advice that you would have for others?" And three things emerge, typically, and are really quite significantly ahead of all the other kinds of regrets. One is, I wish I'd taken more risk in my life, more risk in doing what I really wanted to do more risk in relationships, more risk in some sort of situations. Yeah. And a second is, I wish, instead of just going down down tramlines on autopilot, I'd ask myself, am I enjoying this journey? Am I really being satisfied here? People often found themselves in jobs or in relationships or in cities or in contexts, that on reflection, they didn't really, you know, find rewarding. And the third thing is, I wish I'd thought about the legacy I was going to leave behind. Now. When we're coaching people around success, it naturally does focus on things like legacy and the impact that you want to have in the world, etc, etc. But the first to really also play to the enjoyment point, "I wish I'd thought a bit more about was I enjoying myself.Was I being fulfilled?" And "I wish I'd taken a bit more risk in service. Either of that in fairness or legacy, you know, the risk thing applies to both. It's,
Fiona 05:04
it's so interesting. And I think it also ties in with meaning. And, of course, you wrote a book called Meaning Inc. and there's a huge amount of research that says, if we have a greater sense of meaning and purpose, which can be actually really hard to pinpoint, it's not something that you know, people go away and go, "Oh, I understand what my meaning is now." But even back to, you know, Viktor Frankl, looking at people in concentration camps and saying, who survived? The people that survived were the people that had a sense of meaning. And you mentioned before that part of what brings in that level of enjoyment of the journey is, is positive relationships.
Gurnek 05:51
Yes. 100% 100%. So, so on, on that, when you if you're looking back on your life, and you just ask people, What did they remember? Or what did they have good memories about? I think there's legacy thing. This is a difference I made to my kids or to others around me or to the world, you know, that people remember that. They remember high points that were really exhilarating, you know, the book threat where you took a bit of risk. And when went to South America, or the Antarctic, or something, you know, they remember vivid experiences. But crucially, they also remember their key relationships. And that's just, and we lose sight of that, in a way, you know, as we live, lead, leading allies. But those are the kinds of memories that people treasure. And building that bank up more consciously, isn't necessarily a bad strategy to have in life.
Fiona 06:54
And interestingly, that applies to everyone. Because it meaning doesn't have to be I created a company that sold for X million pounds, it can be, I grew a garden that I really enjoyed, or I gave to my local community service group, or, you know that there are ways in which I think people need to find their own sense of meaning and purpose, however big however small, it doesn't mean you have to be running a company,
Gurnek 07:30
Basically, it's 100%, you know, because meaning is very much in the eyes of the beholder. And you have to get into people's worlds rather than impose your own sense of meaning on them. And there's many, many ways in which people can gain a sense of meaning, and what's important to them. And you and I've been doing this work, and, and it's not like just flicking a switch, it requires thought, and it requires discussion. It requires reflection, we get people to talk to people that they know them, well. We get them to do their lifelines, we review a whole set of other things around their motivations and their signature strengths, etcetera. And what gives them joy, what makes them angry, etc. You know, you have to explore all that, to try and get into the, this whole thing of meaning. And man, fulfilment also naturally falls out of that. But there are some other specific things of a more tactical nature that you can also do around enjoying the journey, which I'm sure we'll get into in in a few minutes.
Fiona 08:41
But actually, I mean, you mentioned some of those before, and some of them are quite simple, but like you said, simple but impactful. So can you explain some of those mechanisms that you were describing before?
Gurnek 08:56
Yeah, I would say, when we say to people, it's important for you to enjoy the journey, then after a while, people really get that. And it's a bit of a kind of lightbulb moments, surprisingly, for many people, but then the next question becomes after people have reflected on it "Okay, I get it. Now, what?" You know, because these are achievement oriented people, they want tools, help, they want guidelines, you know, they want to attack this area, with the same kind of a level of insight and advice and do it well, kind of thing. Yeah. And so, so I think, for us, there are kind of sort of three or four broad areas that we would kind of sort of look at. One is the mindset with which you live your life. And I'll talk about each of these in turn. And the other kind of habit that you build and develop on a, you know, on a day to date, sort of basis. And, and then there's just the research on the kinds of things that you can introduce into your life that will give you sort of joy, etc. So, in terms of mindset, there's a famous study that's been replicated now in a number of different environments, but it was an Australian study and it led to a project called the 'Resilience Project'. And initially, it was sparked by one of the key people involved in this project going to India, and he was looking at the Indian slums. And he found that there was always a variation, some people seem quite joyful in that environment. Other people felt really worn down, very kind of under the weather, and despondent, etc. I mean, it has shades of what Viktor Frankl was doing in the, you know, in the horrendous situation of the concentration camps. But anyway, so, they started examining, what were the factors that made for people being joyful in these conditions. And they came up with three things, gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. Gratitude - they found the people who were grateful that they now have a pair of shoes, versus not having them really experienced joy versus the people who having got those shoes just banked it and said, "Well, they're a bit scruffy" or thought they're a bit this, and we could be doing that kind of thing. So they found that people vary tremendously around their gratitude for what they had, or the changes that had happened in their life. And especially in Western society, we're used to just banking what we have, and thinking about the next set of goals. And what the Resilience Project suggests is, just pause and ask yourself, what do you have reason to be grateful for? Because you just miss that all the time, because you're all forever thinking about the next set of goals, etc.
Fiona 12:19
And on that gratitude piece, I think it's so powerful. I try and think when I'm going to sleep at night, three things that I'm grateful for, and sometimes it can feel like, well, it's the same things as yesterday. But if you actually properly think about it, it does, it literally changes your mindset. And we know from a neuroscientific perspective as well, that it it redirects certain neural pathways. But it sounds so simple to just say, what are you grateful for? And, it can sound a bit glib, I think, yeah. But it's just so so powerful.
Gurnek 12:58
And in some cultures, especially, I think, British culture, you know, it would sound a bit American, it would sound a little bit kind of "Oh, yeah, why are you doing that?" It's just not done.
Fiona 13:12
That's true. It's, it's true.
Gurnek 13:14
And just pushing yourself to do that, and just reminding yourself, of what you have, is really important, I think, and that was that was an important dimension, and one that we just constantly forget, because we're always chasing, chasing, chasing, etc. The second thing was empathy. And this played out in various ways, they found people in the slums, who were helping others had a more joyful attitude. Because when you help, or when you do things for people, or you see somebody in need to connect you, and one of the things we know is that relationships really are E and centerstage. Around fulfilment and enjoyment. But empathy also had this kind of other aspect to it. What they found was that a lot of people who weren't happy, were very frustrated with others around them, or frustrated with other people. And the frustration was often other people aren't doing what we want them to do. Or they're not behaving in a way are they getting in our way. And empathy allows you to put yourself in somebody else's world and see it from their perspective. And it just lowers that level of frustration with others, which is one of the main barriers to sort of relationships, because quite often when you feel frustrated, and you're not empathising with somebody, and by the way, the retirees research shows this. One of the biggest regrets people have on the relationship side is relationships. They've blown up, or that that went wrong, and that they never picked up the phone and had a conversation. And empathy is kind of a way of sort of preventing that spiral setting in, etc. So the people who showed empathy just had better, more rounded and less frustrating relationships with people. And that was a huge component of their sense of joy in that environment.
Fiona 15:22
That's massively interesting as well. And then, in my second book, Mirror Thinking, I speak to Marco Iacoboni, who's a neuroscientist at UCLA. And he's done a wonderful interview with the Dalai Lama, talking about the neuroscience of empathy, and, and the Dalai Lama obviously experiences empathy from much more spiritual perspective, and lived perspective. And I'll put the link in our show notes, because it's a really interesting discussion. But I think like you say, that empathy piece fits in with other aspects, it fits in with the relationships, it also fits in with being pro-social, which we know is not just good for the individual, it's actually good for the economy as well. There was the UN Happiness Report, which focused mainly on pro-sociality, and how it improved economic situations. So it's good for everyone, really, because it's good for the person who's feeling empathy towards someone. It's obviously good for someone on the receiving end. But it's something that we seem to have switched off almost.
Gurnek 16:33
Yeah. I mean, there's a famous quote by Mark Twain, which is, and we use it when we're talking about empathy, which is, "The best way to make yourself happy is to make someone else happy." And I mean, he intuited that, but actually, research subsequently has shown that to be absolutely true.
Fiona 16:51
Yeah, as again, another thing that's incredibly powerful, may sound simplistic in some respects. But it's, I often find, I don't know if you find this Gurnek, but when I'm talking to people, these people who are the successful leaders, they know how important it is to see something from someone else's perspective, but they often will forget to do it. And so it's
Gurnek 17:16
early, early of life that what you forget. And actually, that gets you into the third thing, which was mindfulness. Yeah. So the idea was that, you know, if you're mindful of your environment, you can find a lot of joy around things just around you. If you just look around you, you may be sitting down at dinner with your family. And just being mindful, "Oh, this is a nice event, we're connecting", as opposed to your thoughts whirring away, about the next thing that you have to do after dinner. Mindfulness around nature, they found was particularly kind of settling for people and gave them kind of equilibrium and emotional balance. So just connecting and communing with nature was, was really important. But you can go for a walk to the park. But if your mind is worrying about something else, you won't get nearly as much benefit as if you're actually looking at the trees and the birds and hearing, etc, just opening up the senses in that in in that way. And it's something I think it almost has evolutionary roots. You know, in our hunter gatherer days, we were probably very mindful in nature, very aware of the sounds and things around you and enjoying it, etcetera, we seem to have lost a lot of that connection and that touch. And it grounds us, the advice is, just always catch yourself in the situation and be mindful and be present. It also helps relationships, when you're mindful, you're present in those relationships, as well.
Fiona 18:49
One of the things I say there is that if you find your mind wandering, when you're talking to someone, think of yourself as a detective, you're trying to find something out. And you're only going to find it out by listening in a non judgmental way. So you're hypothesising, you're drawing data, and it just sometimes when people are frustrated with someone or they're annoying them, or their minds going, it's a way of bringing it back just thinking.
Gurnek 19:18
Well, that's a great practical sort of thing, you know, just because otherwise you're not really listening. You're not really kind of tuning in, but I find just mindfulness actually also helps a gratitude thing. Sometimes, you know, if you're just mindful of a situation and what's good about it, it just gives you a sense of sort of gratitude. Like, you could go to - Wimbledon's starting. You can go to Wimbledon, like you know, you could be kind of there, again, thinking about "Oh, where we're going to have lunch, where we're going to do this," as opposed to just appreciating it. Oh, and just letting it wash over you and things like that. So constantly pushing yourself to be a bit more mindful. I think kind of sort of helps, helps guard against that.
Fiona 20:04
And obviously, from well not obviously, from a neuroscientific perspective, the more time we spend in a consciously mindful state, the more it strengthens the link between the prefrontal cortex of the brain and the emotional centres of the brain, which means that we're just more able to manage our emotions. And that's one thing that also helps us to feel things in a more fulfilling way. We don't get as angry, we don't get as stressed it's kind of filling up the tank almost, isn't it?
Gurnek 20:38
Yeah, 100% 100%. And you know what I would say, you know, because this project was called the Resilience Project. I don't know if you experienced that but everywhere we look these days, and I think it's a combination of economic insecurity, the impact of COVID, geopolitical events, etc. Stress levels are high everywhere, you know, people are burdened by quite high levels of underlying anxiety, fear, stress, on a day to day basis. And some of that is legitimate, you know, people are struggling, et cetera, et cetera, which is why some of these elements, I think, are an important or even more important today than they've ever been, because all the studies show stress levels have been going up in most western societies. And an underlying thing is that economically, you know, our growth, and our standard of living has actually flatlined. Whereas if you go to places like India, where the growth has been seven 8% a year, it's a different, you just feel the mood, you know, you go there, you just feel that there's a different mood, despite the fact that it's still a much, much poorer country, it's kind of progressing. So, this sort of stuff is really quite important, I think, in today's world.
Fiona 22:01
And I'm also seeing with some of the leaders that I coach, they're under huge pressure, because of the economic situation that we're in, in the UK, because, then it puts a CEO under pressure, that puts their top team under pressure, the top team then spreads that to the rest of the organisation. Because the stress levels become contagious. So it's making the conscious,
Gurnek 22:27
There's not a single C, I mean, I coach a bunch of CEOs, and there's not a single CEO, that I know who isn't quite stressed, even if their businesses are doing okay. They're worried about the future, you know, and because the world is so turbulent, etc. And that stress goes all the way through a system. And one of the things that we do in, in one of our programmes, and we've run it with a number of companies is we get people to draw a picture of the experience of their world currently. And those pictures always involve very high levels of stress, turbulence, angst. They ask, you know, and, and people draw them, and then they sort of say, "We must be, you know, is this the worst set of drawings you've seen?" you know, out of, you know, what everyone's doing, regardless of sector, we're seeing these kinds of drawings everywhere. And that's kind of interesting.
Fiona 23:27
I didn't realise you did that. That's, brilliant. I love it.
Gurnek 23:31
It's yeah, it just gets your emotional world out there. Right at the start, so that we can then kind of go on to it set a conditions for talking about, you know, resilience, sustainability and purpose and other kinds of things. Yeah,
Fiona 23:45
yeah. No, I think it's wonderful. Because I think, you know, there's no, you don't have the shame or embarrassment that would come out of asking someone how they felt, plus the fact that people are often not able to actually recognise how they're feeling. So it's a brilliant, brilliant way of doing it. Urm something else you mentioned earlier Gurnek. It was when you work, when you're working with leaders, and you started with this dimension now, or you've added this dimension in? How do you enjoy the journey? You suggested they look back at their last year?
Gurnek 24:23
Well, short habits, then, you know, there's a mindset and that will help you. And we've talked about some of the mindset things and, there's more there. But there's, you know, and to your point that you're making earlier, what gives people meaning differs enormously, what gives people joy and fulfilment also differs. And so it's a very individual thing. And one of the things we get people to do, and you can do it over a year, you can do it last week, and it's good to do macro and kind of micro and to ask yourself, if we take the micro "What did I enjoy last week?" We just take people through that, you know, "Where are the high points of enjoyment?" "What does that tell you about what you enjoy? And how can you do more of that and get more of that, you know, into into your life?". The second question is, "What did you not enjoy? What was really quite difficult?" etcetera. Now, some things have to be done, but we can ask the question, what if we're doing those things in a different way, a different mindset, or in a cutting the way that you address that issue differently? Do you know somebody who say, Oh, I like this, this and this, but this meeting that has a standard weekly meeting, really D energises me, etc. So we sort of say, "Well, how could you engage more in that meeting, or ask questions in that meeting, or have a goal in that meeting, that would kind of reframe that situation, and give you something? So that you came out of it, feeling that you've got something as opposed to you just endured something", etc. So you can do that. And through that conscious process, you're working up more of the things that you enjoy, and really reminding yourself of what those are, this is in work and in your personal life, it allows you also to manage those boundaries better, because, as you know, the dial very easily switches to, you know, just working all the time, with the biggest barrier being, oh, this is only temporary, you know, I'll slow down in a couple of weeks time when I've got over this. And we find so many people just don't, you just carry on in that way. And then and then changing your approach or dropping or doing differently, things that you don't find rewarding. And you can do that also over a year, and look back on your life to date even. And we do that systematically in kind of those chunks, as it were.
Fiona 27:11
Yeah, no. And I think if, in Defining You the first book I wrote, I guide the reader through doing that for themselves. Which for people who, again, aren't necessarily leaders of organisations and want to access this sort of thing - it's there. And it's, about asking the right questions of yourself and other people, because other people will notice times that you've been incredibly happy that you may not have noticed. So I think about actually my literary agent, I remember going out with them one day and saying something and, they came back to it and they said "Fiona, you absolutely love..", I can't remember what it was now. But say it's what you absolutely love the countryside. And I'd say, "What makes you say that?" It's like, well, "When you say it your face lights up." And I think that feedback from other people is really helpful, because we don't always notice when we're at our happiest, or when we're finding things most difficult.
Gurnek 28:17
Yeah, yeah. Others can definitely give you sort of insight into that. And just having those conversations with people who know you well, and are close to you, or see you on a day to day basis. And the other kind of sort of big kind of thing that we said, because people are kind of goal oriented. They quite like grids, and things like that, we say, "Look, we will look back on this phase of your career, and it will be the classic two dimensional grid", you know, "Did you achieve your goals that made the progress, etc? And did you enjoy yourself?" You know, when you're reviewing your year, typically, when you're doing new year's resolutions, you look back on your year, quite often it will be did I achieve my goals? And always say yes or no, you got to be in the top quadrant, if you achieve your goals without enjoying the journey. What's the point? Yeah, what's the point? What's the point? Now, I have to be honest here that there are times where people say, "Look", people early into some quite punishing industries in terms of time, etc. like, being a lawyer in a commercial law firm or investment banking will say, "Look, I know I'm not enjoying this, but it is for a period and it's to get this goal, and then I can move there". So you can consciously sort of say that as long as you hold yourself true to that. There are times in your career and in your life, when it's not always easy to to always be in that top quadrant. Right? And what we do though encourage, especially people as they get further on in life, is the enjoyment one axis actually becomes more and more and more important, because you're never gonna get that time back easily again.
Fiona 30:14
And that's what the say the saying "Youth is wasted on the young is that the saying?",
Gurnek 30:20
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Fiona 30:22
So as we get older with it, we become more, not necessarily - I think you can become old and wise or you can become old and crotchety. Yeah. But if, if you're becoming old and wise, you have learnt to experience and enjoy things more. But obviously, our bodies are going the other direction. We need to be like Benjamin Button. But that case of looking back at the end of life is it's quite a dramatic way of looking at things, but incredibly crystallising in terms of what that research says, and what comes out of that.
Gurnek 31:04
Yeah it's a fair bet that you and I be sitting down at 65, 70 looking back, and possibly, you know, hopefully not to the same degree having those regrets, but quite likely, we will as well. We will look back and think. But you know, it's important also to be appreciative of what, what you've achieved. Everything is so goal goal oriented in our lives, that we that we don't smell the rose roses, etc. Yeah.
Fiona 31:36
I'm definitely guilty of it myself, Chris said to me, Oh, actually, he said to me quite a few times recently, "Look at what you've done, look at where you are". And it's it is very easy to say, "I've ticked that box, right, I'm off on to the next thing". And
Gurnek 31:52
Yeah you and I are exactly the same as you and you know, I've had a lot of drive, we built up a consulting firm, we sold it, I thought, then it was going to be kind of, you know, portfolio, etcetera, I didn't find that as meaningful, because there is that other dimension of impact that you want to have kind of thing, you know, which isn't to be ignored. And but I have to catch myself getting into just drive, drive, drive mode, and people around me are quite helpful in keeping you kind of sort of anchored. So we are doing a new consulting firm in a different way with a different rhythm with a different set of objectives. But there's always a risk that you lapse into old patterns, and start trying to build a another machine kind of a thing, which is at this stage of my career, I emphatically don't want to. But I know I could easily get into that. Without, you know, caution.
Fiona 32:51
And I think that's massively important the piece around people around us giving us again, it's like people around us observing when we're happy or when we're struggling. It's giving other people permission to tap us on the shoulder and say, "Hang on a minute, you said that you were going to do this. And actually, you've now gone off on a different tangent." Or "You said you were only going to stay in investment banking until you had done X, Y and Z deal or for the next year and a half."
Gurnek 33:21
Yeah.
Fiona 33:22
"Hang on a minute."
Gurnek 33:23
Yeah, I think that's exactly. Yeah, you do need others to help you ask those questions. Because otherwise ingrained habits, you get down those tramlines, which was that other regret, you know, the tramlines that you go down and asking yourself, "Is this actually working for me?" It's very easy to go down your own personal tramlines, whatever they are,
Fiona 33:48
And I advise people, when they go into first time CEO role, I'll always say to them, "You don't need to stick with this, and you can work out how it work for you. But put an hour in your diary on a Monday morning and an hour in your diary on a Friday afternoon and make sure that neither of them are touched. On Monday morning, it's to look forward and see how you would like the week to pan out. And Friday is to reflect back.
Gurnek 34:14
That's a great dicipline that.
Fiona 34:16
Think about what you've achieved, what you're what you're grateful for and what you've learned", because I think. Actually that's a really interesting point Gurnek Where does learning come into all this? So in terms of the reward?
Gurnek 34:32
I think yeah, yeah. Look, it's not in the kind of resilience, gratitude, etc. But one of the things that gives people a sense of progression and a sense of meaning, actually, and we have a whole chapter in Meaning Inc. on this is, is growing yourself. Yeah. So, people can actually - it's an interesting point, cope with a lot of adversity and a lot of difficult situations, especially if they think they've grown in response to them. When we ask people, you know, what were the most invigorating periods of their career. And this does get into the goals bit, which isn't to be sneezed at either. Remember, it's a grid, you want to be on that side of the grid and on the enjoyment side of the grid. But on the on the other side of that grid when you ask people, "What was the high point of your career", almost invariably, they will say, they were times when they had, a next to impossible feeling challenge. And then they kind of rose to it with others often, you know, and achieved a good outcome. So those are the things that people remember. Also, in relationships, when we ask people, when we do kind of work on relationships, to reflect on the relationships that are the strongest, quite often, the pattern that we find is that they are relationships where you've worked through difficulties, you've had the honest conversation, et cetera. And that's grown the relationship, a challenge has grown you. That's why people feel so satisfied by those kinds of things. Yeah, so growth is an important part of not just the impact that you're having, but the impact you're having on yourself and your capabilities, and on others, and growth.
Fiona 36:31
And that's interesting, isn't it, because growth can be seen purely as goals. But I think growth can be broken down into meaning meaningful goals. So goals that matter, rather than goals that you're trying to achieve for the sake it.
Gurnek 36:46
Yeah, yeah exactly that.
Fiona 36:48
Do they align with what you really care about? But then there's also the piece around, well it comes back to mindset as well, doesn't it? So, have you taken learning from this situation? Or have you seen it some seen it as something that's been done to you and had a more 'victim' mentality? Yeah, 100% 100%? Because you asked, you know, what do you advise people when there are certain things or meetings, let's say that they have to attend? And one of our things is, you know, if you don't find that particularly useful meeting, or etcetera, etcetera, etcetera -What can you learn in it? How you can you grow your knowledge of something? How can you ask certain questions? So growth is an important aspect of fulfilment, I would say. Yeah, Interesting. And obviously, I mean, this is something I'm throwing in, that we haven't discussed, but - how do you see mentoring as working within this context of what we're talking about?
Gurnek 37:50
Well, three or four things, there kind of thing. As a mentor, and a mentee, etc. So mentoring is a great way of paying back is that legacy point, isn't it? It's that sense of this is that difference that I made? It also requires empathy. You know, and actually, if you're mentoring someone, you kind of sort of also accessing all your experience and all the things that remind you. I mean, in a sense, my plate of gratitude, this is where I've got to, and actually, I've got something to give here. You know, so there's that. And for the person being mentored, it's growth, as you said, and its relationship, its growth, and it's moving forward, but moving forward, kind of collaboratively rather than a journey on your own.
Fiona 38:43
Yes so that journey piece.
Gurnek 38:45
I think I'd make that journey more joyful for you. If, if there's others helping you on it, or if you're helping others on that journey. Yeah.
Fiona 38:55
Interesting. And I do think that people learn a huge amount from being a mentor, they might learn about a different life context, or about a different generation and how they approach things. But then it comes to that mindset piece as well, doesn't it? Because you could go in thinking, I'm imparting my knowledge, or you could go in thinking, I'm working, like you said, in collaboration with this person, and actually, I'm going to learn as well as helping them to learn.
Gurnek 39:29
100% it connects you to someone. I mean, there's a there's an interesting story about Freud, when he was on his deathbed. Now, Freud wrote 30, 40 books and got very deep into analysing the human condition. So as he was on his deathbed, a bunch of journalists were around him, "What's your advice to sort of people you know, based on all your reflections, etc?" And he said "Agh it's simple really", and he said, "Lieben Und Arbeiten". You know, those are the German words, right. And he said, those are the two things that really helped to make you happy. And "Lieben" is love, and he said, "Love connects you to people in a meaningful way. Yeah, the people around you." "Arbeiten" is work and he said, "Don't underestimate the importance of work for connecting you with your society, and giving you a sense of purpose and meaning in it". And he said, "If you get your work, right, and you get your love, right, and your relationships, right", essentially, is what he's saying. You know, despite all the complexity of everything that he analysed, he said, It's really that simple. And that's, that's his clue to the enjoyment axis in life.
Fiona 40:54
I could carry on talking to you all day, as often happens with sort of rushing off to other meetings, trying to finish conversations. Yeah, I do think that's a really impactful note to end on, though, with the Freudian advice.
Gurnek 41:04
Yeah, "Lieben Und Arbeiten". Okay, remember that? And oddly, I find it easier to remember in German, because they're unusual words, so you remember them? And, and, and, and it's all it's useful to remind yourself of that, because I think there is a kind of core set of truths in there, that the great psychoanalyst, you know, what's the conclusion of all his reflections? So it's worth thinking about?
Fiona 41:36
Definitely, definitely worth thinking about. And I'll go on thinking about that today. Some really, really helpful pointers for people there, I think really interesting for people to understand as well. And massively important, it's not just about the achieving, it's about the journey to that achievement.
Gurnek 41:58
Yeah, so in a year's time, when we meet the two of us, should draw our grids, right, and see where we are.
Fiona 42:06
Yeah it's a deal. But hopefully, I'll see you before a year but a year from today.
Gurnek 42:11
Well that's what we'll do that reflective thing of" Yeah where are we on this grid, right?"
Fiona 42:18
Yeah, absolutely. We'll hold each other to account. Thank you so much Gurnek. I know that people are going to really, really enjoy listening to that and I really appreciate your time.
Gurnek 42:30
Well I've really enjoyed talking to you, you know, and it's been a genuinely like collaborative conversation. So it's great. Yeah, yeah, really happy to do this. And obviously, we'll carry on connecting on so many things. Yeah.
Fiona 42:41
Fantastic. Thank you so much.