Since Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind came out last April, I have given something like three dozen talks about it. One of the interesting things that happens when you give talks about your writing is that you see how people respond. It also forces you to think through your points on a deeper level and make new connections between one’s own ideas. Now I am having to revamp my talk to encompass my new book due out next month: When in Doubt, Ask for More: and 213 Other Life and Career Lessons for the Mission-Driven Leader.
One of the things that I did not try to do in either book was to cite research that backed up the cases for my various success strategies. That would have been a different book – more empirical, less personal, and either much longer or composed of many fewer success strategies, mindsets, and techniques. I chose to stick to telling my story about what worked for me, and how I learned and applied those lessons.
On occasion since publishing Changing the World, I have stumbled across objective evidence backing up some of my success strategies. I found some in an unlikely place: a book about trauma (and recovering from trauma) titled The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. I read this book (written by a physician named Bessel Van Der Kolk) as part of my ongoing training as a CASA volunteer in Prince George’s County, Maryland – a very satisfying and demanding engagement where I advocate for abused and neglected children in the foster care system. (Interestingly, Van Der Kolk’s book came out in 2014 and yet, for some wonderful reason, it is a New York Times best-seller now* – something I randomly found out as I absent-mindedly flipped through the NY Times Book Review recently.)
Before I return to the research cited in his book, recall (if you have read my book) that one of the things I advocate related to self-care is engaging in regular physical exercise. As I have spoken about my devotion to aerobic exercise six day per week (no matter what!) during my author talks, I have taken the case for it further than I did in the book itself.
I typically explain that like most if not all professionals, I have a fatal flaw that has tripped me up for years: anxiety. But rather than paralyzing me, as it does for some people, anxiety has the effect of markedly reducing my ability to make good decisions – often to the detriment of the teams and organizations I have been part of or have led.
I then say that I learned at some point that exercise was the best way I have found to reduce (though usually not eliminate completely) my anxiety. So, about 15 years ago I began exercising almost every day, and still do as I write this. (In fact, the next thing I am going to do after finishing this blog post is to go to the gym.) I sometimes mention that I told my staff at Grameen Foundation that when they booked my accommodations while travelling it could be a cheap hotel in a sketchy part of town, but it must have a fitness center open 24 hours.
I conclude this part of my talk by saying that while I certainly encourage people to exercise, the bigger point is to find your fatal flaw (it might be very different from mine), find some practice that at least partially insulates you from it or helps you manage it, and then apply that practice with all the discipline and focus you can muster – even if it takes more of your precious time and money than you are initially comfortable devoting to it.
Getting back to Van Der Kolk’s book, one of the central themes is his clinical experiences and research about how trauma (and presumably less powerful things, like anxiety) registers itself in one’s brain and body and how trauma and anxiety can be released. His research supports the idea that physical exertion can be a powerful force for healing. In one case, he recommended that a woman who experienced trauma and who was not responding to other types of therapy take up kick-boxing. She had significant improvement in her condition within a few months.
His research also talks about the power of other nontraditional therapies, such as having people impacted by trauma participate in community theater. (Interestingly, I recently met a friend of my brother’s who started an exciting nonprofit focused on using this insight to help reintegrate ex-offenders into society after being released from prison. Contact the dynamic social entrepreneur Kevin Bott to learn more.)
Two of his other healing strategies are communal music/singing and dance. The author talks about how humans are essentially social beings and how trauma interrupts or disturbs their abilities to relate to others. Singing and dancing with other people helps reestablish what he calls “communal rhythms.” There is some research to back up his claims (though he wishes there was more research into these non-pharmaceutical approaches to treating trauma and related mental illnesses).
In my book, I talk about how I became an avid fan (and, let’s be honest, a groupie) of a bluegrass group known as the Carter Brothers Band (and today touring as the Tim Carter Band). I discussed that part of my life with regard to another life lesson: the value of always engaging with something that you are a novice or beginner at. But when reading Van Der Kolk’s book, I realized that singing along to the Carter Brothers music and (even more) dancing to it was a joyful way of further reducing my stress. Further, it helped me understand how my stress tended to separate me from others and from my best self and how dancing with others powerfully served to reestablish healthy connections.
I recall many times during the years 2012-2015 at Grameen Foundation when I would go down to Key West, Florida for a week and dance for three hours per night to the Carter Brothers blues/bluegrass fusion music with my wife Emily and with friends such as Joan Robbins, Gail Hardy, Diane Jackman, Candace Estep, Alicia Renner, Sally Galbraith, Peg Walton, Donna Nelson, and Christine West. After doing that, I was able to return to my work refreshed, renewed, and reconnected – and ready to face some of the daunting challenges of that era of my career.
I believe that we all have dysfunctional habits and tendencies that weigh us down as professionals and as human beings. Some have their roots in traumas we experienced earlier in our lives. The good news I have discovered through my writing, speaking, reading, and living is that there are fairly simple ways of managing some of those areas of dysfunction and to a certain extent, even transcending them.
*As of February 23, 2020, it was #3 on the Times nonfiction paperback best-seller list, and had been on that list for 69 weeks.