Resilience, Burnout Prevention, and Peak Performance with Heidi Dening

Imagine being in a room with your teammates and the next minute you're fighting for your life trying to escape a towering inferno. Next time you're confronted by a tsunami. Then at some point, you experience a paralysing illness. And to top all of that you're then kidnapped at gunpoint! Heidi Dening our podcast guest has experienced all of these events in her life and has become a more courageous, resilient woman. It has shaped not only who she is today as a person but her career. She is now one of the most sought-after resilience keynote speakers. In this episode of me&my health up, Heidi shares her tips on how to be more resilient, prevent burn out, and perform at your best!

Heidi Dening’s bio:

Heidi Dening believes that education changes lives and when combining the insights she has learnt from surviving a paralysing illness, a gunpoint kidnapping, a life-threatening tsunami, and petrol bombs, with her science-backed education, she has a unique ability to empower leaders and their teams to find the courage during adversities to work at their fullest potential. 

She has dedicated her career to inspiring thousands of people across the globe with resilience, self-leadership, and wellbeing programs from small children on remote pacific islands to C-suite executives in billion-dollar companies.

She has recently been named ‘Best International Keynote Speaker’ in the Asia Pacific region at the Influential Businesswoman Awards, is a best-selling author, and often appears in the media as an expert on resilience.

Here are the resources we discuss in the podcast:

Resilience Formula

Resilience KPI Scorecard

Podcast Page 

Website 

How to best connect with Heidi:

LinkedIn - https://au.linkedin.com/in/heididening

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/HeidiDening

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/HeidiDening

About me&my Health Up & Host

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Credits
Podcast editing: Ivan Saldana

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher 0:01
Hello, my friends welcome to another exciting episode of me&my health up with your host Anthony Hartcher. A healthy man according to my kids, AKA a clinical nutritionist, a lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being. And today we'll be chatting with resilience expert Heidi Denning on resilience, burnout prevention, and peak performance. Potty Denning believes that education changes lives. And when combining the insights she has learned from surviving a paralysing illness, a gunpoint kidnapping, a life-threatening tsunami and petrol bombs.

What else with evidence based education, she has a unique ability to empower leaders and their teams to find the courage during adversities to work at their fullest potential. And don't we all need this now, given what we're going through and still in at the moment with this pandemic, she has dedicated her career to inspiring 1000s of people across the globe, with resilience, self-leadership, and well being programmes from small children on remote Pacific islands to C suite executives in billion-dollar companies.

She has recently been named Best International keynote speaker in the Asia Pacific region, at the influential businesswoman awards, is also the best selling author, and often appears in media as a resilience expert. So here we are blessed to have the best international keynote speaker Heidi Denning. How are you today?

Heidi Dening 1:49
I'm great. Anthony, how are you today?

Anthony Hartcher 1:51
Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us, I really appreciate you putting aside some time in your busy schedule to help, you know, empower the listeners on how they can be more resilient during these times. And that intro just blew me out of the water in terms of what you've been through. And I was wondering out of all those events that you've experienced? Has there been a specific event that really shaped who you are today?

Heidi Dening 2:20
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think they, they have all shaped me. And I think for all of us, no matter what challenges we've been through, and or are going through, you know, whether they're the big ones, or the small ones, whether they're personal ones, or professional ones, every single one of them actually does shape us. And I think the whole idea is that we the best idea is no matter what intensity, they are no matter what length, that what kind of impact they have for a short term or long term on our life, that we are actually able to learn something from them. And when we can learn something from them and apply them to our next challenges, which of course we can't control. And we and I think we've seen that over the last 12 months more than ever before that we don't have control over everything.

But if we can learn something from what has gone on in our lives, so we can adapt it and apply it to something new that comes into our world, then that's, I suppose that's in my kind of framework of resilience. But to answer your question, I would say that no doubt of waking up in a burning building, after petrol bombs had been thrown with the intention to burn me and my team alive would certainly have shaped me with what I'm doing now mostly. And the reason for this is that after that incident, I suffered terribly with post traumatic stress disorder, crippling insomnia, physical pain from my the injuries that had occurred on that night and emotional pain that had occurred because of the event and, and what it meant for my life going forward, which was very much changed. And, you know, I, I hit rock bottom after that.

Rock bottom, and there were days, weeks months, where I actually didn't know whether I would be able to crawl myself out of it. And there were times when I didn't want to clear myself out of it. And yeah, so I think certainly that incident has shaped me mostly because of that. But I suppose going back to what I first said, what it's done is allowed me, I never would think that would anything positive could come out of such an event, but in fact there has and it has allowed me to create various models and formulas of how to get off rock bottom.

And I And certainly it's, it's shaped which a formula which I call the resilience bucket formula, which I hope we get a chance to chat with about a little bit within this podcast. But I've been able to share that with 1000s of leaders and teams across the globe since that event, but especially in the last 12 months, when we found so many people, hundreds 1000s, millions of people going through such uncertain and changing times that have that are causing them deep levels of stress and challenge and they really struggling.

And this particular formula is so easy peasy. For one, it's really simple to apply. And it can be very specific to everybody's life. And that's what's so good about it. But it's not. It's not like the 10 resilience building hacks that you can search for on Google, it's that it's very specific of what you have to do and have to do all of them. That's It's not like that at all. So I hope we'll get probably a chance to have a chat about that. But I suppose what you know, obviously, is that we've used and created after a very big, traumatic, violent event.

But I was actually able to personally have to use it again last year, I mean, March 2020, as a speaker and someone who goes into organisations to do training and development, I lost 90% of my bookings for 2020 within a 10 day period.

And I found myself pretty low. I wouldn't say as low as I was after that violent crime. But last year, I was pretty low after that happened. And, but I knew I had a formula that I had used before that I have been teaching, I get a lot of emails all the time, a lot of messages to say how simply they've been able to put it into their lives because it's so practical. So it's like, well, Heidi stuff, you know, practising what you preach again, and really being very habitual with putting it in place. And I did. And so for someone who went from zero work pretty much in March, to the end of that year, winning that big award that got me best international keynote speaker in the Asia Pacific.

I mean, it's, I would I think of it like that. It's crazy. So yes, out of really yucky tricky, tough times, we can extract some goodness, we've often got to do a lot with the way we see it and our mindset around it. But there is a definite possibility for that.

Anthony Hartcher 7:38
Absolutely, yeah, I've heard the saying, out of adversity can come greatness. And certainly, you know, you experienced that last year. And I'm really excited to hear about this resilience bucket formula. Because you've, you've tempted me, and I'm sure the listeners at this point, just want to hear it. So please, please share with us.

Heidi Dening 8:01
Well, it's, it's a very simple formula. And I'd be happy actually at to send the visual for this that you can share within the show notes and the resources.

But there are five components to it. And the first component is that every day with the goal of 10 minutes, but it might not start at 10 minutes, is to still just be still. Now that might mean that the alarm goes off a few minutes before it should, and you just lie in your bed and do some belly breathing. It might mean that you at lunchtime can just go outside and sit in nature and just hear the birds.

Or it might mean the only way that you can have some stillness is just swing your chair around from your computer and shut your eyes, turn off your devices and do that do it that way. But I think often when people are told that they've got to meditate and do this set the other day, they feel like they've got to have this kind of perfect scenario where they're sitting somewhere gorgeous with candles going and incense burning and cross legged. And, but it's not about that we just want to give our brain an opportunity to refresh itself because they're so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy all day long. That gives us the opportunity to just be still. And I think the language is really important. And what I know for myself as someone who has tried to be a meditator for a long time, I don't feel that's the right word for a lot of people and starting with being still for up to 10 minutes a day can make a world of difference.

So that's number one. Number two is to find joy, find joy, you know COVID has sucked the living life out of the joy for many people. And the thing is joy is so different for all of us joy for one person might be to exercise, joy for another is to throw a Frisbee down the park with the kids, joy for somebody else is to volunteer at their local animal shelter, or have a massage or, or dad, you know, crank up the music in the lounge room and just get your groove on.

Joy comes in many ways. So, you know, if you can have, we want people to have joy every day, of course, but to schedule in one hour of joy every week, now if that because you're playing in a tennis team. So that's your schedule joy. So I, I'm defining it different with, we all want to be happy every day somehow, someway. But some schedule joy for one hour a week or something that you know fills you up and makes you feel good and puts a smile on your face. That's number two.

Number three is to chill out. Once a month to diarize it as the chill out day, now we would love that to be a whole day but not everybody can do that, they've got responsibilities with their families, their friends with their clubs that they're in whatever that might be. But I'm sure if you just scheduled in a couple of hours for example, to sleep in, stay in your gym, jam slouch on the couch, read a good book, you know, have a binge fest on Netflix, whatever that might be.

I I've had probably the busiest month of my career, this particular month. And on the weekend, I didn't take one day, I took two days, I watched Season Five and season six of suits on the couch over the weekend because I so desperately needed to chill out if I was going to be able to show up this week. But we all need to chill out time. That's definitely number three.

Number four is to live life. Live life. Gosh. You know, we were people, especially for people who are used to travelling quite a bit. Finding a new way to live life has been tough for them. Because, you know, as we often know, it often is in the planning of going away that we get a lot of joy from the planning, you know, actually going on finding where we're going to stay you know, where are we going to get a coffee? Is there a fancy pants restaurant that we're going to go to so often it is in the planning and a lot of the time the last 12 months obviously that planning has been taken away. So what I'm saying to people now is still we get you to know, we've got Easter coming up and I'm telling everyone and actually, it's I've got some bit of media on this on don't Marie Kondo your house over Easter like do not start cleaning out cupboards at Easter time. No, that's not to be done. What we want is for people to live life, now that might be to have a staycation in the location they're in and just have a picnic in the park or go to a gallery see a show, see some friends drink some wine, whatever that might be, or, you know, perhaps to go to a regional area that you can start planning for and looking up though thing.

So I think that the joy of you know, usually ticking two boxes, the joy of living life is something that really helps us to build our resilience because it gives us something to look forward to, amongst what for many may feel is a very, very tough time.

And the fifth one, and the one that is actually most important, actually when I've an additional one that I've added in the last 12 months because I've seen how important it is. And that is to connect more. If you can't do any of those first four, just do this one. Connect with people who put a smile on your face, bring some warmth to your heart, you know we don't need huge amounts of people in our life with that whole thing of quality over quantity.

And I think if we can connect with the people in our world that actually really do mean something to us and can be there in the when times are good but also when times are wobbly. That can make such a difference to us showing up day after day after day when things do seem tough.

So they are the five be still, find joy, chill out, live life, connect more and I suppose why this formula has worked so well is that everyone can define it in whatever way they need to and apply it to their own life depending on their responsibilities.

Anthony Hartcher 14:43
Wonderful formula and it brought a smile to my face and I can see it working for so many people it's so easy to do, doesn't cost you anything. You just invest a bit of time which is important and away you go and you really build that more resilience nature within you, and just, you know, this, this term resilience is often come up during this pandemic, and hence why, you know, you're in such huge demand, because we all need support around this and to be more resilient. And I'm just thinking, Is it a buzzword of this modern age?

Because I don't know if previous generations had such focus on it, and whether they are more resilient. But if I look at my parents, they certainly have a lot of resilience. And, you know, I'm not sure whether it was associated with them going through some real adverse events, such as the wars, and, you know, the Cold War with Russia, and, you know, the threat of nuclear warfare, and they had this and just thinking these have, and if you look at beyond that sort of period, but you know, we've had some smaller wars, more civil wars, but nothing of that sort of worldly scale, other than this pandemic.

And just thinking, Is there something that, you know, the more adversity we come up against, we do as humans find ways through it, you know, by working and as you mentioned, that fifth point, that real connection, like, we're in this together, and, you know, that's a hashtag that's very popular in this together, you know, like, it's, you know, we're working through it together. What, what are your thoughts on this?

Heidi Dening 16:30
Look, I think, certainly, with the older generation, I mean, I think resilience, certainly something they have definitely had, but you're you are so right, it has become a buzzword. And I think, unfortunately, in the last 12 months, the word has been diluted because of its overuse.

And what worries me most about the use of that word is that it seems that we keep defining, you know, I'm a resilient person, because I have the ability to bounce back to the way I was before, you've got a resilient business or organisation because you've been able to bounce back from this adversity of COVID.

But I don't believe that resilience should be measured on our ability to bounce back for two reasons. Firstly, I believe that something fundamentally changes within us at a cellular level. When we go through adversity, and we don't, we're not actually the same person that we were asked before that. So bouncing back to that person is is not really relevant.

Secondly, I don't think especially in these times, we don't want to bounce back, what we want to do is to be able to learn something from this really challenging period in history, be able to apply it to, our personal lives, but also to our professional lives, or to the businesses that we have, or the organisations that we run, or the remote teams that we're managing, and be able to bounce forward to progress, to be able to move through to something that is the new world that unfortunately, none of us can control. This is the way it is.

And I know for many that they're craving, that's the safety of the old world that was about we don't have a choice in this, this is out of our control, the world has changed. So what do we learn from it? How can we adapt it to apply for our lives, or our businesses or our organisations or our teams, so we can bounce forward into what could possibly be a bright world filled with very different opportunities? So I think for that, you know, that's what I really wanted to say, right? Especially regarding the fact that resilience to me, it's been mystified, and so that's the first thing.

Secondly, regarding the older generations, or the generations before us, in fact, I'd I had a TV appearance on weekend today on that exact thing, we did a segment on, you know, what can we learn about resilience from the generations before us because you know, that they have gone through things that we none of us in this world, you know, from I'm older than you but down, that we can learn from and apply. I interviewed this gorgeous lady Maria, and her family fled Poland, you know, with one suitcase, they ended up in Australia, the five of them in Australia with one suitcase between them all, they had come from a very well to do family and they you know, had a lot of upstandingness within their community and they came here with nothing.

And what's so interesting when I was interviewing her well, it was actually when I wasn't someone interviewed her because no one could, you know, get to each other at that time was during lockdown. She said to me, this is so gorgeous. She said to me, if Hitler didn't get me, COVID will not. I mean, what did it what an approach to life like she was really she met a lot is if I escaped here, there's no way this thing's gonna get me down. And of course she's, you know, she did her 80's, she's like in the most vulnerable portion of our society yet she just has that mentality because she's gone through something really massive beforehand.

And I think I mean, that is what our challengers do, right? They, they show us who we can be, they show us that we have capacity when we, when we find the courage to tap into our capacity, then, not only can we see who we can become, but when we can have the courage to learn something from it. So when that next curveball or cannonball gets thrown at us, we do know that we do have the confidence and the capability to keep moving forward.

Anthony Hartcher 21:01
You're right, it really steps us out of our comfort zone, because we know we can, when everything's going well for us, we can sit comfortably within our comfort zone. But when things change, like this environment around us that we can't control, we have to adapt, and we're forced to change something within us in order to adapt. Yeah, absolutely. Right. It does. It stretches us from our comfort zone. And as you said, we a lot comes from that stretching, you know, it stretches organisations to think creatively again.

Heidi Dening 21:32
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you don't have creativity right now. You don't survive, right. We're adapting. So quick, so quick.

Anthony Hartcher 21:43
Absolutely, and you sold businesses shuffling so quickly, early on, because I had to they'll force to and I had to rethink their business models. And, and what the future, you know, no one knows what the future is. But they had to adjust for that point in time. And, and a lot of businesses have adjusted for the better.

So, you know, look at healthcare, like telehealth was unheard of before COVID. Convenience, telehealth is.

Heidi Dening 22:10
Oh, without a doubt, I mean, I mean, there's just so many wonderful things that have come out of it. I mean, not to say that there have been some horrific things. But when we were thinking about what we can find from that challenge, that could make our life a little bit better, you know, that we feel that we've, we've been able to grow somehow, someway. I think that that's just that mindset that we have on, it's not all bad. It's not all, oh my gosh, you know, it's ruined my life instead, it's like, well, yeah, it's really caused a lot of problems, and certainly those who've lost people, I'm not talking about that, by the way, at all, completely different conversation.

But if we can learn something from the challenging time that we can adapt and make our worlds better, that's, that's a great thing that's come out of it.

Anthony Hartcher 23:00
Because that, that, you know, the fifth point around connection, these sort of events just bind us and unite us and you know, we're all against the virus, you know, where we put our differences aside, and we're a lion and unite and we go forward, and you look at the pharmaceutical companies, how they, you know, stop competing, and, you know, we've got to do the best for humanity here, and we're going to work together, we're going to share information, and we're going to collaborate and, you know, it's these sort of these events that really forces, you know, connection, and working together and, and even I find, you know, as much as you know, passing of a loved one is, is really tough. It does unite the rest of the family or the rest of the friends around to support one another.

So there's always that even, you know, with the loss, there's always that re reunite. Reunion that's created for those that are still, you know, present. So, yeah, I can, I can certainly see how, you know, all these really tough events that you'll face throughout your life have really shaped you to be you know, the expert on resilience and, and you make a living from it now, right?

Heidi Dening 24:21
Well It's still a work in progress, like we say, you know, it doesn't mean to say that I do not struggle at times, big time, you know, and because you, life can be tough and you get tough days, you get tough weeks, tough months, tough years. And often I think we go through this kind of real rhythm of sometimes it just feels like the universe is just throwing things left, right and centre at you, and you're a punching bag.

But it's it's going down to that, you know, kind of the, for one trusting that somehow someway there'll be something bright eventually. But finding that courage to keep going and finding that courage to learn something from what's gone on to make your own, you know, that kind of what have I got some control over? And I've only got control over a certain amount of things. So as long as I am doing what I can to to influence that, that's all I can do. That's all I can do.

Yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 25:28
So, so true. And those five, you know, five key, they all that formula of the five steps to resilience is certainly within everyone's control. There's nothing in that. You could say, I don't have that within my capability. It's, it's within you

Heidi Dening 25:46
It is.

Anthony Hartcher 25:46
In making the decision

Heidi Dening 25:49
Correct.

Anthony Hartcher 25:49
To do it. Yeah. I love that about your formula. It's, it's so doable. Just in terms of shifting gears a bit here, you know, the burnout prevention side of what you do.

Heidi Dening 26:02
Yes.

Anthony Hartcher 26:02
Is that very much aligned to those five principles? Or is there some additional things around burnout prevention, because, you know, like, COVID really made us, you know, force this change, and we've had to scurry and work. You know, a lot of people worked so much harder during COVID, you know, to transition through this tough period. And so I can imagine there's people at this point that are feeling, you know, a year on from when it happened, that are feeling quite burnt out.

Heidi Dening 26:33
Yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 26:34
So, yeah. Is there anything more to share around burnout prevention you'd like to talk about?

Heidi Dening 26:41
Yeah, look, I think it's really important to distinguish the two because I think, resilient building resilience is something that we do have control of, we can do that ourselves. There is no doubt. And when we do those things habitually. And can I say that doing them when you're rock bottom, is very, very hard.

So putting those things in place those five points in place, when you are not at rock bottom, it makes life a lot easier. Even if bottoms here, and you're just, you know, a smidge over the top of it, just start something, because that will just move that Smidge a little bit up a little bit out a little bit up, which then helps a lot bit. But when you've hit the rock bottom, it's very hard to drag yourself out to do anything positive for yourself or others.

Burnout prevention, though, there's two parts of it, yes, we can do things ourselves to ensure that we don't burn out. And that's a lot about the recognition of the warning signs that our body and brain do send to us. And we all have different warning signs. And they are different for everyone. That is something that I always get my the teams that I'm working with to map out and you know, do Is it because you get a big cold sore. Is that your body going Warning, warning? Or is it the see no sleep is my big issue. It always has been that, you know, I know when I'm not sleeping that I need to kind of intervene on myself or perhaps it is because you're not focused. You keep walking into rooms and going, Hey, why'd I come in here, you know, and you're just not as precise as he would normally be. So we all have these warning signs.

I was with a team last week and one lady told me that she did a lot of online shopping when she was getting too stressed and heading for burnout. So the credit card got a hammering and that was her warning sign, which I thought was great that she recognised that herself. So firstly, it's about recognising those warning signs when we personally know that we're on that slippery slope from, you know, being a bit stressed out because stress can be actually quite good for us. It's challenging helps us meet deadlines. But when we start going down that slippery slope to burnout, we need to intervene.

But with burnout, there are a lot of things that are out of our control. So if we are working within an organisation that doesn't resource us properly, has a toxic work culture, doesn't have really strict deadlines. You know, a lot of that all of those things are often out of our control when we are within an organisation or a business. So that couldn't have a real impact on whether we're going to burn out or not, you know, poor behaviour by others is often you know, we have control yes, we can walk away, but it shouldn't be something that we need to be resilient enough to overcome the poor behaviour by others.

So I think I'm so glad you asked because there is that real fine line between, you know, saying to somebody, you've got to be resilient enough to deal with all of that, you know, often when I've been brought into an organisation by management to say, Look, can you do some resilient work with our staff? So they're more resilient? It's like, well, what are you doing to them that they need to be more resilient? Like, really, because that is often the case. It's what the organisational structure and their policies and their programmes, or lack of them, is doing to chip away at people's resilience and get them on that, that slippery slope to burnout.

So the way I kind of separate the two is that yes, we can build our own resilience, and we have total control over that. But our burnout, there's a portion of that that is out of our control. And I suppose not everybody is in a situation where they get to make choice about their employment for whatever reason, they have to, unfortunately, stay there for a short while or a long while. But obviously, if it's having a huge impact on your physical and mental health, the best case scenario were to find a new organisation. Definitely. But I understand that that's not always the case. So that will impact people's ability to prevent burnout or not.

Anthony Hartcher 31:08
And so, you know, if you listen to the signals, and you know, think, well, yeah, I'm sort of feeling that exhaustion or that rundown, that's when you really step into those that formula you have around resilience in terms of, you know, taking time chilling out, being mindful of finding some joy and, you know, connection.

Heidi Dening 31:29
Yeah, having something to look forward to, you know, living life, living that living life, just looking forward to something. So, whatever is going on in your day, it's like, oh, yeah, but at Easter, I've got that or that long weekend, I would we're going there. I'm going to see that family member or, you know, we're going to do hot air ballooning, or whatever it might be. Yeah. So yes, I think that looking forward to something so you feel like you're living life, especially when times are tough, can really help you.

Yeah, mentally.

Anthony Hartcher 31:59
Yes, that light at the end of the tunnel isn't that you can see, you can see joy. And you can see, well, I know if I can get through these weeks, I've got this holiday, this hot air ballooning adventure. And I'm just looking forward to that. And I can visualise myself in that balloon. So I can just get through these days and then enjoy myself. Yeah.

And in terms of, you know, that element of peak performance that you work with organisations on, is there a distinguishing factor with you know, between the resilience, the burnout, the burnout prevention and peak performance? I mean, obviously, if you're preventing burnout, people, you know, performing better, because they're more in that optimal range.

Yeah, so anything more you'd like to share around peak performance?

Heidi Dening 32:44
Look, I think, for people to be able to perform at their fullest potential, and again, that will be different for everybody what that means.

Firstly, yeah, they can't be if they're in burnout, that will never be able to happen. So, you know, we've got to step it back. Okay, well, if I want to, if I want to get up here and perform at my horse with potential, then what do I need to do to make sure that that can happen, and obviously, there are components of our physical health, that I have a direct impact on us being able to perform well, at work, you know, not being sleep deprived, is certainly one when we, when we come to work, sleep deprived, then, you know, it's very hard to be really focused on fire and, you know, Spot errors and be creative, to adapt to this new world that just cannot happen.

And, you know, obviously, you know, with all the work you do Anthony with, you know, physical health being one of them, we know that there's this direct correlation between being able to, you know, be fit and healthy with how we can perform. And I don't really like to use the word getting fit and exercising, I just like to talk about moving more. And, you know, if we get people to move more, that helps them to perform better at work.

A lot of people have no care for being fit, you know, that's not one of their goals at all. They might want to be masters at a musical instrument or a sport that doesn't require peak fitness or whatever that may be. So I really try to avoid using that kind of language because it's not about being fit, it's about moving more that helps our performance. And of course, our mental health makes a huge difference. Because if we are, if we are feeling anxious, if we are getting teary over things that we would normally or cranky, this is a short sign, obviously we're heading towards that burnout and we just cannot perform well, when our mental health is not at a reasonable level.

So yes, there there is a big overlap of how it all works. But, there is no way any of us can perform at our best if we are not resilient enough to deal with what's going on in the world, the changes, that uncertainty, our or if we have hit rock bottom, and we've gone to burnout. Yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 35:16
And I can see the links, because you know, if you're talking about the mental health side of things, you know, around peak performance, if people apply that formula, the resilience bucket formula, those five steps, and their mental health is doing well. Yeah, because that's all very supportive of mental health. And then I'm thinking within those five key steps, is also an element of movements, you know, do the things you enjoy. And as you said, it could be dancing, It could be going out in the weekend with a friend riding the bike or going for a swim or, yeah.

Heidi Dening 35:51
So walking the dog, you know, this movement can come in so many ways, and just find what's right for you, that does bring you joy to do it. You know, we know that movement helps not just our physical health, but our mental health, it's, it's definitely a crucial component.

Anthony Hartcher 36:11
And I like hate your term at movement, because as you said, if you're talking about fitness, people will, they may not pursue that goal. So, therefore, it's not of interest and you lose them, you can't engage them.

Heidi Dening 36:22
That's right.

Anthony Hartcher 36:22
Talking about moving, it's just moving the body, it's just getting out walking around, going for a walk around the block, going for a walk with someone doing a walk and talk, you know, it's yes,

Heidi Dening 36:31
Yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 36:32
And it's, it's not as daunting. And it's, it's simple. And I think that's what I like about your formula. It's very simple, nothing boring about it. And it's all about, you know, it's all tailored to the individual to their preferences, what they like their joys, how they want to live their life.

Heidi Dening 36:48
Definitely. Yeah. And yeah, as you're talking, so, something another thing I could share with your listeners, Anthony, is for me to understand, you know, before you before people do that formula, and make the change that we do have behaviour change that we do have physical health change, mental health change, resilience is improved. We know we need to know where we're at right now. You know, it's okay, we kind of make the summation, though, you know, I'm doing okay. Or, or are you? I mean, how do we know because especially the last 12 months that the world has impacted us all in ways that we're not even sure of.

And I know for myself, it took a little while to understand the true impact that it was having on me. And yet first, there was an immediate oh my gosh, I've lost everything feeling. And then there was the full Oh, my gosh, I've got to recreate everything. By the end of the year. I mean, I've worked so hard. I've been ignoring the warning signs myself a bit. I didn't know where I was at, it was just like Bbbbbb. And I think we can get so lost in busy we don't even realise that. In fact, we are on that spiral towards burnout, we can be closer than we think we are. And I do have a it about takes about three minutes of an online scorecard that people can do to get their resilience, I call it the resilience KPI.

You know, where's it, it's a starting point right now, then we put those five components in from the formula. And we've touched this goal. So I can certainly share that people would like to have a check in to see what their resilience KPI is now, and perhaps set a goal for improving that over, you know, one month, three months, six months.

Anthony Hartcher 38:31
That's fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing that, Heidi, and I'll incorporate it into the show notes that people can go to that direct link to test where they're at, and what they need to do in order to improve their score. You know, really like, it's a fantastic tool to have, because as you said, it can be, you know, when you can have the blinkers on when you're really just going for it right here.

And you're missing all the warning signs, and people can recognise it around you, but you just got the blinkers on.

Heidi Dening 38:58
Yeah.

Anthony Hartcher 38:59
I like those

Heidi Dening 39:00
Even those of us who are talking about this every day, right? We can, we can ignore them too, because that's too hard to deal with right now. I'm too busy to do it. Certainly been guilty of that.

Anthony Hartcher 39:12
It's so true, particularly when you're in the space of giving and serving others and you seek joy, or your joy comes from when you see others benefit from your education, your empowerment, and you can see the changes happening in their lives as a result of you having an influence. And I think that because you know, we're so inspired to do that with others.

Heidi Dening 39:34
Yes,

Anthony Hartcher 39:34
It just it continues to drive us and we forget about ourselves.

Heidi Dening 39:39
Yeah. So true.

Anthony Hartcher 39:41
So just how can listeners viewers best connect with you?

Heidi Dening 39:47
Well, they can go to Heidi dating.com. That's dealing with one N. I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. So that's certainly a place that I would love people to join in conversations with me or tag me in something they believe that I would be of interest to me, I love seeing what other people are doing and saying and joining in conversations like that, that is definitely where I spend most of my time. So that would be terrific.

I, I have a, you know, another thing that people can tap into, which is a free thing, which is, every Wednesday fortnight I have what I call the wine and wisdom show. It's a Facebook live show. And it's where I interview, you know, great humans from across the globe, who have risen above adversities, and dug deep to find the courage to keep moving, forward, build and be resilient. And we all share a glass of wine together that may well in the interviewee, and all of those who are watching, and as my guest shares the wisdom with the world so that that is a great place and dinner tomorrow night, we've got a great one with doing good to be do good to be good.

And we could so we have topics like that that are very relevant to people who would probably listen to your podcasts, I'd say, Anthony,

Anthony Hartcher 41:13
Yeah, just I'll incorporate the link again in the show notes directly to your Facebook page so that people can go to that and join you for a glass of wine and learn more about resilience. And yeah, I was just when you're talking about that, I thought we have a mutual connection there. And that's Graeme cow. And he was the guest.

Heidi Dening 41:30
Yeah.

Only last month or this month? Maybe? I think yes.

Anthony Hartcher 41:36
And he's also been a guest on the podcast. Yeah. So yeah, the people can see how we're so interconnected.

Heidi Dening 41:45
Grae's a remarkable man.

Anthony Hartcher 41:47
Oh, man. Oh, yeah. So I just really want to thank you, Heidi, for you know, you put aside your time and your busy schedule, to impart this wisdom, knowledge, this love for what you do with our listeners. So I truly thank you, you know, with the bottom of my heart, and I'm sure the listeners will get so much value out of this podcast and connecting with you on all these other forums such as LinkedIn, your Facebook page, having wine with you. So yeah, so thank you so much, Heidi. I really appreciate it.

Heidi Dening 42:18
My pleasure. And we can all tick off joy together when we're having wine together, right?

Anthony Hartcher 42:23
Absolutely. It's Joy. Absolutely.

Heidi Dening 42:27
Without doubt,

Anthony Hartcher 42:28
Living life as well.

Heidi Dening 42:30
And chilling out as well.

Anthony Hartcher 42:31
Exactly.

Heidi Dening 42:31
And connecting more. There we go. I didn't realise I don't have to say that on my show that we take four out of five.

Anthony Hartcher 42:40
Absolutely, totally. And listeners if you love the episode, please like and share it with others that could also benefit. leave a review, because that also helps others connect with this great information that Heidi's shared with us today. So thank you so much. Until next time, take care, be healthy. And see you next episode. Thank you

Heidi Dening 43:03
Cheers everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai