Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Gurus and Gratitude diaries. Do they help? Pt.2
You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello smart women, and welcome to episode 26 of why Smart Women. My name is Annie McCubbin and I am joined today by a panoply of characters from my second book, why Smart Women Buy the Lies and how Critical Thinking Reveals the Truth. So this is the second part of my little analysis on the notion of gratitude, gurus and, I guess, by extension, wellness. So you're about to hear this excerpt and I'll just take you through some of the characters that are going to be speaking in the excerpt. So the first one is Cat, and Cat is the central character in the book and she is attending a wellness workshop at her, at her workplace, and with her is one of her workmates called Adele, and Adele is quite suspicious of the workshop and owns a pet python called Emma. Michelle is running the workshop and she, as her sidekick, has a dog called Barry that is sitting in a shopping trolley. Cat's boss, lydia, is there and Lydia is quite a difficult person for Cat to get along with and they end up in a group together, which is quite challenging for Cat. Chen is in the room and I guess this really, in a way, is Chen's story. There's other characters in it, but not as important, I don't think, as those four. So buckle up. This is an excerpt from my book and it's from chapter seven from why Smart Women Buy the Lies. Enjoy.
Speaker 1:You are sitting in a semicircle of colleagues from Corporate Affairs and Communications and HR. Lisbeth, sarah and both Ryans are chatting with Darsha and Chen. The new girl from Payroll, meredith and Timothy have been released from archives and are sitting drinking tea at the back of the room. You look over at Adele, she's scrolling through posts on what looks like a subreddit about snakes. Lydia sits at the end of the row, looking like she's waiting for medical results. Barry, the dog, is sitting at the front of the room in a shopping trolley propped up on cushions, one paw hanging out, breathing heavily. He is accompanying Michelle, the trainer who was running this Poised for Positivity wellness session. Gabriel Randall has insisted that everyone attend Michelle's session, as positivity seems to be in short supply.
Speaker 1:Barry is joining us today says Michelle, scratching him under his chin.
Speaker 2:Because there's a lot of research that pets help to relax you. They lower blood pressure and increase happiness, though we don't need research to tell us that, do we?
Speaker 1:Barry. Barry looks disinterested in whether he's helping lower anyone's blood pressure.
Speaker 2:So please, over the course of the session, take advantage of Barry's presence and give him a blood pressure lowering. Pat. Dogs are also very good at helping you develop a positive mindset, aren't they, barry? Barry?
Speaker 1:emits a low sigh. You hope she isn't going to address too many more comments to Barry. You find people who spend large portions of their conversational capacity talking to their dogs dispiriting. Your discussions with Porridge are of a different calibre. Barry is some sort of ancient bulldog cross-staffy mutt. His general demeanour doesn't really speak positive mindset, but he's clearly been around for so long that retrenching him would be cruel. Michelle more than makes up for Barry's lassitude.
Speaker 2:We're all aware that Work Wellbeing sure has a strategy to upgrade and modernise the business. The only way we'll get there is by building our customer-centric, accountability-first culture. I've heard about it, says Chen the new girl. To build that culture. We're going to unleash your undiscovered superpower. Adele looks at you and twists her mouth, and that superpower is gratitude. So let's start in a positive frame of mind. In situations like the post-pandemic environment we find ourselves in, it's easy to focus only on the negative, but today's the day we're going to break that habit.
Speaker 1:Who's with me? There are a couple of desultory murmurs.
Speaker 2:Come on, we can do better than that.
Speaker 1:I'd like to break that habit, says Chen. You don't think Chen has a negativity habit to break, but maybe it's her enthusiasm for these sorts of programs that has fuelled her perky positivity.
Speaker 2:In the pre-work, you've been asked to fill in your gratitude diaries.
Speaker 1:Michelle lovingly holds up one of the said diaries, an exercise book decorated with grateful cartoon characters hyping up a pastel rainbow.
Speaker 2:Let's open our diaries and take the next few minutes to pause and reflect on our entries, adding anything that we're grateful for since our last entry.
Speaker 1:You open up your book. You have three entries. One woman at David Jones' make-up counter said I had an even skin tone.
Speaker 2:Two Michael cleaned up porridge vomit Three not pregnant.
Speaker 1:You look over at Nui's chin. She has just asked Michelle for a second book as she's already filled in the entire first book. You see she has small, neat writing. You wonder what she has to be so grateful for. You'd heard she has two small children and her husband lost his job months ago. Later at morning tea, Adele corners you near the coffee pod machine.
Speaker 3:I'll be grateful when this program's over so we can get back to work. She says Me too. You say Also doesn't Chen drive you mad?
Speaker 1:You shrug and insert a coffee pod into the machine. Adele tears open an individually wrapped mini quiche.
Speaker 3:I knew what she'd be like on day one when she brought her own gloves and bleach to clean the kitchen. Oh yeah, I remember she was here till 7.30 last night, apparently. So who's looking after her kids? I won't even leave Emma alone for too long.
Speaker 1:She frets how?
Speaker 3:do you know? She won't acknowledge me, gives me the cold shoulder. Snakes are very loyal.
Speaker 1:Snakes don't have shoulders, it's a metaphor Kat Michelle rings a bicycle bell and you reluctantly reconvene.
Speaker 2:Thank you everyone. On the board I've written some positive qualities. In your triads, discuss the qualities you believe you bring to your job.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is going to be good, you think to yourself. Your position in the semicircle puts you in a triad with Adele and Lydia. Michelle notices this combination has resulted in an awkward silence. She steps forward to facilitate. Why don't you start, kat? Okay, I'm a mediator, that's great.
Speaker 2:That's a really good, specific, positive quality. I think the other side of being the mediator is a tendency to sit on the fence, says Lydia, to avoid saying what you think.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's just me, I'd be interested in Adele's perspective Before Adele can offer her perspective. Michelle cuts in.
Speaker 2:To be a mediator is a wonderful quality. It helps you see the positives on both sides of the argument.
Speaker 3:What if there are no positives, says Adele.
Speaker 2:Oh, there are always positives If you look for them. Even in challenging life events, you can find the positives. When you can find the positive, it enhances your resilience and compassion says Michelle, what about the pandemic?
Speaker 3:What was positive about that?
Speaker 1:says Adele, oh, God, you think to yourself, this will provoke Michelle to talk about quality time at home and cooking sourdough from your own starter. But no, she throws the question back to the room.
Speaker 2:Who can think of something positive to come out of the pandemic.
Speaker 1:All you can think about is Mr and Mrs Yee. This was supposed to be their time in the sun. The pandemic robbed them of that. There is a long silence.
Speaker 2:Eventually, chen says Well, I've enjoyed more quality time with my kids. I've been able to take an active role in their education.
Speaker 1:You look at Chen. You secretly agree with Adele. You find Chen irritatingly perfect. She's uber efficient and never wears rayon, and you suspect she styles the back of her hair for Zoom meetings. She has photographs of two perfect children on her desk. They're both at selective schools. Great Jen, says Michelle. Anything else. There is an even longer silence. We fostered a cat, says Ryan Craft.
Speaker 3:Right, great People died, people got sick, people lost their jobs. In what way is that positive?
Speaker 2:Well, those people aren't here, so I can't ask them.
Speaker 3:The fact they're not here would have to be a negative thing for them, don't you think?
Speaker 2:I'm not saying bad things don't happen. What I'm saying is you can view them through a positive lens. It's our response to the situation that causes our unhappiness, not the situation itself. At the end of the day, we can't control what's outside ourselves, but we can control our attitude. Adele rolls her eyes. Also. How do we know that being retrenched didn't open up other possibilities for those people? Wellness is multifaceted and one important pillar is a resilience mindset. If you develop a positive attitude to this pandemic, you'll be prepared for the next.
Speaker 1:Michelle looks pleased that she's successfully pivoted the conversation.
Speaker 3:It's a once in a hundred year event I'll be 132 by the time the next one happens says Adele, the muscles around Michelle's mouth tighten.
Speaker 2:Well, there'll be other events that living through the pandemic will prepare you for. I'm finding lots of positives, says Chen. I'm finding the gratitude diary really helps.
Speaker 1:Adele rolls her eyes and mouths to you oh, she's a pain. That's fantastic, jen says Michelle. Michelle then launches into a well-practiced monologue about her own positivity journey. She was a bookkeeper when the company she was working for enrolled her in a positive thinking workshop.
Speaker 2:It was the best afternoon of my life. She tells the group. It set me on my wellness journey. Actually, it was the best afternoon of my life. She tells the group it set me on my wellness journey. Actually it was the best afternoon besides my wedding, though when I think about it they were neck and neck. She winks.
Speaker 1:Gee whispers. Adele must have been a crap wedding. After that one workshop, michelle had packed up her books and opened her corporate training company. Poised for positivity, her laptop cover and phone feature matching unicorn branding.
Speaker 2:In times like this, when we're all challenged, it's good to be able to develop a mindfulness practice. Michelle says to find a way to be present in the moment and not project into the future or ruminate into the past. Being negative is easy. Who would like to wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready to meet the day, regardless of what's going on in your life? It is possible.
Speaker 1:Michelle had hit her persuasion sweet spot. We're all now picturing ourselves climbing enthusiastically out of bed, flicking on the kettle and calmly but purposefully striding out to meet the day. Adele looks at me and crosses her eyes. Michelle produces a bag of raisins, offering one to each of us.
Speaker 2:Now, in the spirit of remaining in the present, I'd like you all to shut your eyes and hold this raisin in your mouth. If your attention wanes, just gently bring it back to the raisin. Avoid swallowing the raisin. Just hold the raisin. Be present with the raisin.
Speaker 1:You begin quite well. You instruct yourself not to swallow the raisin but to roll it around in your mouth, exploring the texture of it with your tongue. However, as Michelle had forewarned, your attention begins to wane. You bring your mind back to the raisin. But not swallowing the raisin has turned into a mammoth task. You have to swallow the raisin. It's beginning to feel enormous in your mouth. If you don't swallow it, you may die. You sneak one eye open to see who else is struggling with this simple task. When a noise like a drowning person taking in their last desperate breath rents the room, you open your other eye. Chen is doubled over, holding her ankles like she's in a brace position on an airplane. Chen, you say moving to kneel in front of her. What's wrong? You pry her hands from her ankles. She looks at you.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be in the present. I don't like it. Okay, I've cut my hours. Right, that's very tough, by two-thirds. My position may not last the month. Right, I swallowed the raisin, that's okay. Calls Michelle, they're organic, I know.
Speaker 1:I did too. It's very difficult not to. Chen looks back over her shoulder and puts her hand to her neck. He's gone. She says very quietly Gone who?
Speaker 2:Ray Ray Ray Gone Like gone gone. Yes, he left us four months ago, oh Chen.
Speaker 3:No, ray's left you, oh my.
Speaker 1:God says Adele, Adele has hearing like a bat. Adele stands and turns to Michelle.
Speaker 3:Spin this one Michelle Chen's husband left her during a pandemic, work's cutting her hours, and she's got two small children. Are you behind on the mortgage, chen? Yes, and she's behind on the mortgage. I don't know if that's helping Adele.
Speaker 1:You see, Adele moves behind Chen and puts her arms around her neck.
Speaker 3:You and the kids can stay with me, Chen. If they frighten the snakes, I'll put Emma in the cupboard. She's very understanding for a python.
Speaker 1:Michelle tries to wrest control back.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that what's going on for Chen isn't terrible. It sounds unimaginably hard, but nothing stays the same and everything is an opportunity for growth. We just don't know it at the time. And isn't it a good idea to have stress management techniques when you're under stress?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, you say Adele snorts.
Speaker 3:Maybe they could cut the wellness programs and use those funds to give workers more hours. More money would be better for Chen and use those funds to give workers more hours. More money would be better for Chen than rolling a raisin around in a mouth. What can we do to help you, Chen? You say.
Speaker 2:I would like to pat Barry.
Speaker 1:Michelle extricates Barry from his trolley and puts him in Chen's lap. He growls at the disturbance. You can't help thinking that a Labrador puppy would better represent a positive mindset.
Speaker 1:We were going to get a dog says Chen, scratching Barry behind the ears With Ray gone. You look at Michelle. You wonder if this counts as a bad day for Poised for Positivity. You wonder if she will take Barry home and say to her husband that people are difficult and demanding and resistant, that maybe she should have stuck with the bookkeeping. Maybe her husband will pour her a glass of Merlot and reassure her she's on the right path. Or maybe he'll say I told you so and go back to watching border security. Who knows what goes on in people's lives. The room is silent. A semicircle has formed around Chen. She's staring into the middle distance. We all look at her. We have collectively lost our nerve. Our positivity has faltered because calamity has entered the room. She is a palpable presence. She is sitting in the corner filing her nails, wondering who to point her finger at next. Michelle packs up her bag and puts Barry back in his trolley.
Speaker 2:I know today was difficult, but a positive mindset steers us through life. I'm so sorry to hear about your situation, chen. I hope everything turns out for you. We all deserve to have a happy, well life.
Speaker 1:She says. She walks to the door, smiles tentatively, then pushes Barry's trolley through and closes the door behind her. She is a nice and decent woman. You hope husband number one is waiting for her at home. What actually is wellness? Nobody is quite sure what wellness actually is. It certainly sounds appealing, wouldn't we all like to be?
Speaker 1:Well, adele has an intensely negative reaction to the Positivity Workshop. Is there any validity to her standpoint? These programs, led by soft voice practitioners encouraging us to be in the moment, are proliferating like mushrooms across corporate training rooms and, thanks to Zoom, people's lounge rooms. But what are leaders actually trying to achieve by offering these programs, like so much in the overcrowded canon of corporate speak?
Speaker 1:Wellness and offspring mindfulness have crept into our communications, but we haven't examined what we're actually talking about. Ostensibly we're talking about stress reduction, learning to manage our anxiety, sharpening our focus, improving our productivity, showing resilience in the face of challenge, living mindfully and focusing on the here and now. These are all valuable skills, but, as with everything, context is king and oversimplifying is unwise. People and their anxiety, depression or stress are, without a doubt, complicated, especially in this post-pandemic environment. The problem with the wellness approach is that there's a strong implication that our response to the situation is causing our misery, not the situation itself, that the problem is our attitude. Really, tell that to the woman with a toxic manager who feels unable to report him to HR. Or to the senior executive who's juggling childcare while turning up to 7am meetings with her male team members, for whom childcare is not an issue. Or to the young lawyer working 75 hour weeks because that's the way it's always been done. Or the call centre operator who goes home every night to a domestic violence battlefield. Should we be encouraging them to cope better or should we be challenging the social underpinnings that create the stress in the first place? Managing stress is, of course, an extremely helpful skill to develop, but care should be taken that an undue amount of responsibility is not allocated to employees.
Speaker 1:Internal responses to stress rather than addressing the underlying workplace stressors. Gratitude practices are correlated with increased satisfaction and happiness, but there's no current evidence that they lower stress or anxiety. The philosophy itself has value, but in the hands of women, who tend to be submissive, it can mean pasting a layer of gratitude over a deep well of trouble. Twisting yourself in knots to be grateful instead of looking at your situation with clear-eyed pragmatism is wildly counterproductive. I don't think wellness sessions are always deliberate attempts by employers to whitewash workplace stress, but it's worth talking about how we arrived at corporate wellness and mindfulness, what it is and whether it actually works. The answer to that, by the way, is well, we don't know. Wellness is so amorphous and broad we don't actually know what it's made up of. There's a lot of anecdotal reporting that mindfulness is almost miraculous in its healing benefits, but the hard evidence is lacking. The hype has leapt ahead of the science. Things such as mindfulness and meditation have value, I'm sure, but it's the packaging, the over-promising and the monetizing that's begun to smell. Sure, if mindfulness wants to buy you a drink after a hard day at the office, go for it. However, if she offers to sit with you till closing and solve all your problems over a bottle of scotch, I'd move down the bar.
Speaker 1:In focusing so much on helping people manage their stress, we are missing the opportunity to investigate and perhaps ameliorate the issues, inequalities, ideologies and flawed systems that cause the stress in the first place. Flawed systems are the main offenders. We're trying to optimise our businesses while we're weighed down under obsolete methodologies and questionable ideologies If we're not going to address the conditions in which they operate. Is it fair to help people to adjust and better cope with those stressful conditions? This is very salient for women. We're already bombarded with unhelpful messages about acceptance and gratitude. We don't need more motivation or maxims. We need to ensure our workplaces are uncompromisingly safe, equal and stimulating. If you find mindfulness or meditation works for you, that's great. Just be aware of the hyperbole from the intensely flexible practitioners sitting in their yoga pants, in all their clear-skinned gorgeousness. Are they really going to make you well or are they unwittingly encouraging compliance, urging you to shut down your natural resolve to right the wrongs?
Speaker 1:You encounter Chen and the Raisin. Chen gets up Adele and Kat's noses. Adele has a negative gut response the first time she meets Chen. Then confirmation bias kicks in to confirm what she already thinks. First impressions can be disastrously wrong, as we addressed in Chapter 3. It's an example of how heuristics, mental shortcuts can get us in strife. Kat could recognise that Chen irritates her. She could realise that she's in the grip of a spurious unconscious bias surrounding possibly neat and organised Asian women Marie Kondo, anyone but she doesn't. Adele's commentary aids and abets Kat's faulty perception. In the thrall of these cognitive errors, kat misses the possibility that Chen is under pressure and perhaps her perfectionism and relentless positivity is a coping mechanism.
Speaker 1:There is a flaw in our perception when it comes to evaluating negative behaviour in other people. It's called primary attribution error. Listen up. It goes like this If you are late or angry, you forgive yourself. You understand your own circumstances and why you're late or angry. You forgive yourself. You understand your own circumstances and why you're late or angry intimately. You are late because your dog vomited in the car on the way to doggy daycare. You are angry because you've left six messages for your ex-husband and he refuses to pick up. If someone else is late or angry, you are not privy to the background or their circumstances and therefore put their behavior down to a character failing. They are late because they are disorganized. They are angry because they can't control their emotions. Kat assumes Chen's behavior is a character flaw instead of a situational response. The lesson is if you have a strong emotional response, whether it's positive or negative, you need to put it on ice until you can analyse the situation with some accuracy. By the way, primary attribution error is an absolute corker in your intimate relationships. Your behaviour is understandable. Look at the pressure you're under. Your partner's behaviour, however, is a character flaw Very disappointing.
Speaker 1:So I guess my point is highly complex. Things get reduced in this wellness environment and way too much comes down to attitude. And of course, as I've said repeatedly, of course there is value in being a grateful person and having gratitude. I myself am a very grateful person. I have a pretty sunny, optimistic disposition. It's partially just my character, but also I have an awful lot. I live a very, very privileged life. You know I live, I live in Sydney, australia, on the northern beaches. I currently have my health, as does my family. I really do have an awful lot to be grateful for, and it's very easy for me to find those moments in my day. I'm naturally acclimatized to finding small things really, really gratifying, but it's not fair of me to be projecting that out onto people that are genuinely suffering. So I just think it's a good thing to remember that these things become quite reductive and simplistic and then people feel guilty because they don't have a positive enough attitude. So let's try and be kind to each other, be compassionate, lend a hand, offer help, offer a listening ear when somebody is going through a rough time and maybe not sort of try and corral them into being grateful. And I say, say again, how many men do you know that are keeping a gratitude diary? I personally have never met one. Hey, let me know if you know one. I'd be keen to meet them. Um, anyway, lovely. Um, hope you enjoyed that talk next week. Bye for now. Thanks for tuning into why smart women with me McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style.
Speaker 1:Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling.
Speaker 1:Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
