I would love to kick us off. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Culture Community. We are so excited to have you here today. For those who don't know me, I'm Isabel McDonough, a leadership coach and culture consultant here at the Perk. I'm just so excited and happy that we get to spend our morning all together. Thank you so much for coming. We have such a fantastic presentation in store for you. Who are we here at Culture Community? We are a group of people passionate about being great leaders, intentionally building great cultures and communities. We've specifically designed this space to learn, grow, and develop together, to connect with one another, and to be inspired and activated to make positive change in the world. When and where do we meet? We meet here monthly on Zoom, and we provide free leadership training in our monthly meetups. Get excited because next month we have our absolutely amazing founder, Leah Row, talking about seeing, heard, and valued: How to Prioritize, Recognition drives or How Prioritizing, Recognition drives It drives engagement and success, and that's on November 21st. Registration is now open on our website, and I will drop a link in the chat so you can sign up and learn more.

I'm going to turn it over to my amazing amazing teammate, Cori, to talk a little bit about The Perk.

Thanks, Isabel. Hello, the culture community. I am also excited to see you all here. My name is Cori. I'm a leadership coach and culture consultant with the Perk as well. I have the opportunity to tell you a little bit more about us, who we are, and what we do. The Perk is a premier leadership and culture development studio. We are on a mission to build the world's best leaders, teams, and organizations. We We have the great privilege of working with so many amazing companies. Some of their logos are here on the screen. What you'll notice about them is they're varied in size, varied in industry. They're all over the United States. But the one thing they have in common and what we are so proud of, is their growth mindset and their readiness to take their teams to the next level. We know there are a lot of companies out there that do the same thing as us, and probably for the same mission to build the world's best leaders. But what sets us apart is how we do what we do. We make it fun, we make it human, we make it safe, we make it custom, and we make it last.

We do a lot of great things with all of our clients, but here are the things that we are most known for. We're doing some really cool things in the realm of custom leadership development programs that include live training, group coaching, cohort style training, one-on-one coaching. We also have our high engagement, high energy team workshops, our clear leadership operating system that distills leadership down to those core elements of curiosity, listening, expectations, yes, and, and recognition. And then our trust by design framework, which we use to build and scale trust in teams and in organizations. With that, I will send it back over to Emily to kick off our presentation.

Awesome. Thank you both so much. Yes, I'm Emily Smith. I'll be presenting today on Unstuck and talking about what are some actionable strategies that we can implement to make progress for ourselves and for our teammates. A couple of things I want to note. We'll start off with a few ground rules and expectations, but one for me is that all of your beautiful faces are over here. If I'm looking on the side, it's just because I'm looking at all of you. Some things that I want to set up before we dive into the content is really give yourself the gift of this next hour. Connect with one another, learn today, and see what things you can bring back to your organization. So as much as possible, turn over that phone and minimize those Slack or T messages and really be here today and indulge. Please ask all the questions. I have a few questions baked in that I'm really excited to hear from all of you. And if you have questions throughout the day, please feel free to pop it in the chat or just unmute yourself. Our amazing team will be monitoring that and be more than happy to answer any questions that come up.

Be open-minded. We bring this over from our amazing friend, Michelle Venturini. Everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach. I'm so excited to bring a couple of things to the table today, and I'm also really looking forward to learning from all of you. Then last but certainly not least, you're here with The Perk. You're here at Culture Community this morning. Let's have some fun. Let's have a great way to kick off our Thursday with some learning and engagement and connection. What we're going to be talking about today is we're going to be talking all about getting unstuck. In the workplace, We sometimes get stuck on projects or tasks that we push off on our to-do list day after day, and we don't like feeling this way. Let's talk a little bit about how as humans, what does it mean to be stuck? Why don't we love being in this state? We're going to talk about a couple of strategies of ways to get unstuck or ways to help those around us get unstuck. I'm sure that most people here knows what it's like to feel stuck, but just to give us a common language and all starting on the same playing field.

What does it mean? What does it mean to be stuck? Being stuck is a state where one feels unable to move forward in life. This can be triggered by a couple of different emotions that we have. These emotions can be feelings of frustration, confusion, and helplessness. This is one of the hard things about being stuck is because different situations where we feel stuck, maybe we have different feelings that signal that to us, or everybody around us, we have different ways of realizing and recognizing when we're stuck. It's not all of us reacting in the same way when we feel a lack of making progress. Being stuck also can stem from a couple of different sources. This can be an emotional being stuck, psychological, or even specific situations that we feel really stuck. But it's really bottom line characterized by a lack of progress despite your desire to change. As humans, we love making progress. We love being able to have the answer to move things forward. Even though we all have this desire to be able to get unstuck, sometimes it's really hard. That's what we're going to be talking about more today. I want to hear from all of you.

Like I said, different feelings signal to us that we're stuck, but also feeling stuck can feel different ways for us. Here are three different ways that I think being stuck can feel. You can feel like you're between two hard places, you're making no progress, you make a little progress, and then you run into another roadblock. You could say, Okay, what do I do now? I have no idea what that next step is. Or you could be on on your right-hand side and be making lots of progress, moving all over the place, but still stuck in your original problem. I'm going to use some annotate, and I want to hear from all of you, what does feeling stuck feel feel like for you? To use Annotate in the lower left-hand corner of your screen, there's a little green pencil that I'm going to have you click on. Then you're going to use the stamp feature. It's a little checkmark, and you can select your stamp and choose, what does feeling stuck feel like for you? To use Annotate in the lower left-hand corner of your screen, there's a little green pencil that I'm going to have you click on, and then you're going to use the stamp feature.

It's a little checkmark, and you can select your stamp and choose What does feeling stuck feel like for you? I have a couple of people of it's back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, or, oh my gosh, I just don't know what to do next. I don't have the next answer. All right. Love it. A little bit all over the place. Yes. Yeah. Like I mentioned, sometimes it's depending on the situation, we can feel different ways about being stuck. Awesome. If somebody on my team wants to go ahead and clear those. Just a couple more things that I want to talk about being stuck. It is totally normal. It is totally normal. You are not alone. If you think that you are the only person that feels stuck, we are not holding some big secret out on you. Everybody feels this way at some point. There's nothing wrong about that. How do we create a culture where it's okay to be stuck? It's okay to ask questions, and it's okay to come together and really help problem-solve. What's most important about being stuck is that we accept it, we validate it, we pick up these signals that these feelings are trying to tell us, and we don't judge it.

We're like, Hey, this is just where I'm at right now. How do I move forward? What tools do I need to be able to move the needle? Brittany Frank, she is an author, and she wrote an amazing book. It's called The Science of Stuck, and she actually wrote a new book this year. I haven't had a chance to read it yet in 2024, and it's The Workbook of Getting Unstuck. But she wrote in her book, Just because I don't know why I'm feeling like this, doesn't mean there's not a really good reason for these feelings to be here. I want you to think about that as we're going through today. It is nothing you're doing wrong. It is nothing that should feel like it's... What am I trying to say? It's nothing that you're doing wrong, but it's something we want to recognize so we know when we can use some of these skills, lean on these skills, and help move things forward. How to know if you're stuck? How do we know if we're feeling here? Yes, some of these signals, some of these feelings are really helpful to let us know that we're stuck.

But a couple of other things that you can pick up on to know if you're stuck. If your house is clean, if you've done all the tasks around your house so you can avoid doing something else, maybe you're stuck. If you're all caught up on your Instagram feed, you might be stuck on a problem. But at work, some more real things that I'm sure we've all dealt with is you've had the same task on your to-do list for weeks. You keep pushing it off, you keep pushing it off. I'll do it on Wednesday, I'll do it on Friday, I'll do it next week. Or you're procrastinating on a task. If you ask yourself, What's feeling hard right now? Whatever that answer is, maybe that's something that you're feeling stuck on. Or if you're just dreading working on a certain task, maybe that's something that you feel a little stuck on right now. I want everybody to take a minute and you can write it down. We're going to reference this later in the workshop is, what is something that you feel stuck on at work right now? When you ask these questions, when you say, Okay, what's a task I've been pushing off?

What's something that I'm really not looking forward to working on? If I ask myself what's feeling really hard right now, what's coming up for you? We'll give everybody just one minute to write that down. I'd love to hear from a couple of people, what's coming up for you when you really think about what's something that you feel stuck on right now at work? Feel free to just unmute yourself and chime in. Hey, morning, everybody. I'm happy to get started here. This week, we had our cofounders send out an email that they needed to step back a little bit to focus on their other responsibilities. We're in a major just transition this week that was a little bit unexpected. Definitely feeling stuck on how to start going through that transition. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you sharing. Absolutely. How about for others? Hi, I'm Crystal. I think a lot of times for me, we're working on some of these big projects and initiatives, some of the tactical day-to-day items being in HR come up that have us constantly shifting. It's shifting those priorities and being confident as a leader and providing clear direction to the team and carrying all of that weight can be hard.

For sure, yes. I am sure that other people on the call feel that way, too. Yeah. Thanks, Crystal. How about one more? I can go. We use Asana here at the park, and it keeps a paper trail of every time you move a task. If you look at it and there's a theme, anytime I move one, it's because it's something someone else wants done. I don't understand why it's important. I haven't asked, or maybe they have communicated, but I can just see it just doesn't trigger in my brain that I'm excited to do it because I just I have other things that I put in front of it, I guess. So I just keep moving it. When I was in Asana, there's like... I mean, some of these I moved 20 or 30 times. And these aren't complicated things. I mean, these are like 10-minute tasks. Yeah, 100% Dan. I really appreciate everybody sharing because I think it just shows us that there's so many different reasons that we feel stuck on some of these tasks or a lot of different outside factors contributing to that. Hopefully everybody wrote down what's one thing you feel stuck on at work right now.

Like I said, we'll come back to this in a little bit. As humans, we don't love this feeling. We don't love feeling stuck. We like making progress. We like seeing seeing how far we've come. We really crave clarity, momentum, and action in that thrill of moving forward. Progress feels good as humans. This is another reason why we don't like being stuck. It's also vulnerable. We are paid to do a job. We're paid to have the answers. Throughout our lives, we're rewarded for having those answers. Sometimes when we feel stuck, we feel like we're not showing up. We're not doing what we're supposed to do to be a contributing member of the team. It can be really vulnerable. The hardest part about being stuck is that sometimes when we are by ourselves and we're trying to break free, sometimes we get even more stuck. We get more ingrained in the problem and we have a really hard time taking a step back and seeing a different perspective. We know as humans that this is part of our day to day, this part of our workload, and it's normal. Everybody experiences this. But it's hard to be the one to raise hand and say, I'm stuck, when we don't even know how to begin, how to start untangling from this web.

We're going to be talking about five different tips today to help us get unstuck. What I really like about these tips is they're all so different is I think that sometimes you can use them all together and build off of one another. Sometimes you're like, Okay, which one do I need to really lean on for this specific project to help me get unstuck? Because they are so different. We'll kick off with one of my favorites, shifting your mindset. If you have been part of perk workshops before, you know that we talk about mindset a lot because it is so, so important in how we do what we do every single day. Your mindset is something that you start with and everything else trickles down from there. Similar to being unstuck or getting unstuck, your mindset is also playing a huge role in this. Research shows that your mindset, like I said, plays a significant role in determining the outcomes of your life. This means that your mindset is going to impact directly whether you succeed or fail at a project. In other words, your mind or your thoughts can be your best friend or your worst enemy in some situations.

I love this study. I think it does a really great job talking a little bit about how powerful your mindset can be. Dr. Blaslow, they did a study in 1996 measuring free throws. They had three three different groups of students that they broke up and each group had a different task over the next 30 days. The first group was asked to come to the gym for 30 minutes and not touch a basketball. They were not going to do anything to improve practicing their free throws. The second group, they were asked to come to the gym for 30 minutes a day and pick up a basketball and practice throwing the basketball 30 minutes a day. Then group three, they were asked to come in the gym for 30 minutes, but again, they're not going to touch a basketball. They are going to sit there with their eyes closed and visualize every free throw. So the same amount of time, but they weren't going to touch a basketball. I'm curious from the group, what percentage What increase or change do you think you saw from group two that practice with a basketball every single day? Just shout it out.

What do we think we saw? 10%. 10%, love it. One more. About 20%, 20%. Great. Okay, so then Group Three, who came to the gym every day with their eyes closed, didn't touch a basketball, but visualized it. What % increase do you think we saw for Group 3? 40%. That feels like 20%. Yeah, 20, 40%. Yeah, for sure. So group one who didn't practice, didn't do anything, they did not improve. But the group that practiced every single day with the basketball improved 24%, and the group that visualized practicing, 23%. And this shows that When you are using your mind or when you're visualizing doing certain things with your mind, the same parts of your brain light up as if you're actually doing the task. This shows us that our brain, our mindset, our thoughts thoughts are really driving our reality and our results. How do we harness this power? We're going to be doing or using a powerful tool called the thought model, which is derived from cognitive behavioral psychology. What this tells us is that every day, circumstances happen to us. They are outside of our control. They are facts. From these circumstances, we all have thoughts about that circumstance.

Those thoughts are going to drive the feelings that we have about that which impact the actions that we take and the results that we get. This means that if you don't like the way that you feel about something, pull it back to your thoughts. What thoughts am I having about this circumstance that is impacting these feelings? Talking about being stuck, when we say that some of these feelings of, Okay, I don't want to run this report. I feel like when I look at this task on my list, I have a little bit of I'm pushing it off. I really don't want to do this. This feeling is signaling to us that we have certain thoughts about it. So we need to pull it back. Are my thoughts that I don't know how to run this report? Are these thoughts this report takes a lot of time and I don't have time today? Or maybe this report, I had to bring in Jim from accounting and we don't really work well together. These three different thoughts have three very different steps that you can take to remedy that or shift shift your reality. Then working your way down, if you don't like the results that you're getting about something, pull it back to your thoughts.

What thoughts are you having that are impacting the actions you're taking and the results that you're getting about a situation? You are not in control of the circumstance. So many times in work, we are trying to shift the circumstance or influence the circumstance. But this is out of our control. And what is in our control? It's our thoughts, our mindset that we're having about that circumstance. A circumstance that might happen to us where we feel stuck. Your solution to the problem did not work. It's a fact. The first thought that we could have about this is This is hopeless. I don't know what to do next. I want to hear from people, what are some feelings that this thought triggers for you? You can unmute yourself or throw it in the chat. Your solution to the problem did not work, and your thoughts are, this is hopeless. What feelings are brought up from this? Discouragement. Discouragement, for sure. What else?

In the chat, we have insecurity, scared to try again, both completely true.

Yeah, absolutely. Then from these feelings, what actions do we take? Maybe the scared to try again is inaction. We don't do anything. What other actions might we take? Ask for help. Ask for help, reach out to somebody else? Yeah. Maybe what results are we getting? If we take in action, maybe we're getting the same results, nothing changes. What's one more result that we could get from this thought? We may give up entirely and just scrap the whole thing. A thousand %. Yeah, Wendy. Yeah, we might just give up. This is hopeless. Absolutely. Then the thought model means that we are in control of our thoughts. So what is a different mindset we could have? And one that I've laid out here is, I always figure it out, and it's always better than I could have imagined. Maybe this is not the right answer, but I know I will keep working and find the right way. And from this thought, what feelings do people have from this thought? Confidence. Confidence? For sure. Energized. Optimism. Encouraged. I was discouraged when it was hopeless. Now I'm encouraged because we always figure it out. Right. For sure, Chris. Yeah.

Feeling energized, encouraged, inspired, all these things, what actions do you take from here? Roll up the sleeves, get to work, dive back in, get at it. Yeah, for sure. Put it all in. One other person. What's something else that we could do here? What other actions?

Wendy said baby steps. I love that.

Yes, absolutely. We don't have to solve it all in one day, but what's 1% closer that we can get there? What results do we get from here? Like Chris said, rolling up your sleeves, diving back in, baby steps. What results might we get? Seeing some progress. Love progress. Absolutely, Sandy. I see Crystal's note about small victories, right? That those can compound and keep you going in the right direction. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Again, calling out that the circumstance did not change. It was a fact, the same circumstance. Our only thing that changed was our mindset. Coming into being stuck, what is the mindsets that serve you as leaders? Some of our favorite mindsets are just a couple of One of the quotes that we pulled that I love is, You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be. Maybe your mindset is, You deserve this shit. You are born to do this. You are born to be here, or, Be stronger than your excuses. Again, these are just a couple of fun ones that we pulled. I want you to take a minute of what's a mindset that helps you get unstuck?

If you have one to share, I'd love for people to unmute and what's something that you tell yourself to help you get unstuck in some problems? Sometimes set a time limit for yourself. I love the Pomodora method. Yes, that is such a great one. But yeah, so a mindset could be, Okay, I'm feeling stuck on this right now. Let's give myself 30 minutes to be stuck on this or 30 minutes to work on this and see where I get. What's another mindset people have?

I think of the little engine that could and how it thinks, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Sometimes I just chant that to myself.

Absolutely. Yes, Isabelle. One other person? What's the mindset you have? I love to tell myself, Look Look how far you've come. Look how far you've come. Celebrate the journey so far, knowing that there's still some good stuff ahead. Right. Yes. That is not something that we should forget of how far we've come and the progress that we've already made. 100%. I love that, Wendy. Write down, what are some mindsets that help you get unstuck? What is something that you can lean on when things get hard? I've been here before, and I always find a way to get out. I think I can. I I can, for sure. All right, the second tip that we're going to be talking about today is Mr. Troy, let us write into that one. Do a Pomodoro. We also love this trick. Doing a Pomodoro, it was actually designed from a student in 1980. He was trying to work through studying, and he had a tomato-shaped Timer that he would set. That is where this is derived from, and I think it's It's a fun story. But it's all about setting time limits for yourself. It goes back to how motivation works.

A lot of times we think motivation works like this, where we get motivated and then we take action. But how motivation actually works is we take action, which gives us motivation, and then we take more action, and it's a circle. I think of this as, if anybody can relate to this, where it's Saturday morning and you have your cup of coffee and you're like, Okay, I have to clean my house today, but I'm going to just sit on the couch, I'm going to finish my cup of coffee, and then I'm going to go clean everything. I'll be motivated after my cup of coffee. Then you finish your coffee and you're halfway through your favorite TV show. Okay, I'm going to finish my favorite TV show, then I'll be motivated to clean my house. You don't really ever get that motivation. What do you do? You say, Okay, I'm going to have this copy, and then I'm going to go do a load of laundry. When you're in the laundry room, you find the basket of towels that you need to fold. You bring that to the bedroom and you're folding the towels and you're like, Oh, I have to strip my bed.

When you're bringing those, you pass by the bathroom and you're like, Oh, yes, I have to clean the toilets. As you get up and you start making this momentum, it's creating more motivation, which leads to more action. Pomodoro has really helped us move us to action, help us with this first step. With a Pomodoro, it means that you set a Timer for 25 minutes. You work on this specific task until the Timer goes off. Then once the Timer goes off, you take a five-minute break. Even if you don't want to work on a task or it's not something that you find super thrilling, it really helps us get started to say, Okay, you only have to work on this for 25 minutes. That's it. Then you can move on to the next thing and just see, Where did I get in that 25 minutes? I moved myself to action. Does this create more momentum, more more motivation? Or did I get what I needed to be done today? And then I can move on to something else. Some reasons that you might want to use the Pomodoro effect. If you are ever at work and you find little distractions that derail your whole workday, you need to dive into a big project, but you keep looking at your email or your team's messages that come in or even your phone that's lighting up.

That's signaling to you that you need to focus on one task. If you consistently push yourself past the point of optimal productivity, this could be a reason that you might want to lean on this tactic. A lot of us have open-ended work, researching for a blog post, working on sales. There's no done for working on sales. Sometimes it's helpful to set a Timer so we know that we don't have to spend half of our day on this, but we're just going to spend a block of time, a Pomodoro. If you are one of those people, this is me included, that's overly optimistic about what you can get done in today. You have a list of 10 things and you consistently get done, too. A Pomodoro could be great for that. If you enjoy gamifying goal setting or even if you just really like tomatoes, this could be a awesome tactic for you to work on to really move yourself to take action and see that progress. The last thing that I want to talk about this is why does this work? It's a funny name, it's a great story and everything, but why does this actually help us as humans?

The first thing is time pressure. Giving ourselves this urgency really focuses your brain on that topic that you have to get done at hand. Neurotransmitters. Our brains are wired to like this. When we complete a Pomodoro and we take a break, then our brain, it creates or activates dopamine pathways. This means we have a sense of accomplishment. Even if we didn't get the task done, Completing that Pomodoro gives us a sense of, Okay, we completed this, we can move on to the next thing. Then the last thing is attention span. Our brains, our optimal working time is 20 to 45 minutes on a hard specific topic That's really the recipe for maximum attention span. After that 20 to 45 minutes, you take a break. How the Pomodoro method is set up is it works the way that as humans, we like to work in an optimal way. That's all that I have about the Pomodoro method. Before I go to the next one, does anybody have any comments or questions about the first two? Oh, thanks, Troy, for putting in that Timer link. That's fantastic. Yeah, excited to give the link a try here. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Great. Awesome. Okay, so then the next time we're going to talk is the progress principle. Adam Grant is a author and thought leader in this space, and he talks about progress as, Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress. So as humans, we love progress. We love knowing that we are moving the needle. Like Wendy said before, calling out, where have we been? What have we already done before we continue to move forward? And this is called the progress principle. So people are most happy and most engaged when they're making progress on work that is meaningful to them. So let's talk a little bit about that. Does anybody else here watch football? A couple of people? I'm not trying to brag, but we watch a lot of football in this house. My husband is the manager of three fantasy football teams. I know, it's a big deal. So we have to monitor all the players every week. And football does a great job of using the progress principle. So at the end of the season, they have their Super Bowl. They have their big thing that every team is striving for.

But they don't just celebrate the Super Bowl. Every team celebrates every countdown they make, every field goal they make, every game that they win, and they're working towards winning that Super Bowl. Football would be really a lot less fun to watch if nobody was celebrating anything throughout the season, and It wouldn't be creating this momentum along the way. I think it was Chris that said, Celebrating those small wins. We know that we're working on things that are important and working towards that end goal. This is what the progress principle is about. Measuring those small steps and making sure that we're working on things that are important to us. This is a very long quote, but I wanted to call out, Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivations, perceptions during a workday, The single most important thing is making progress on meaningful work. The more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether you are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product, everyday progress, even the small wins, can make a difference in how each person performs.

The two things One of the things that lead to this progress principle is seeing the progress you're making and making sure that it's meaningful work for you. Oftentimes when we feel stuck, it's because one of these things are missing. And so ask yourself, the next time that you feel stuck on a project, is it the progress principle? Is it because I don't know if I'm making progress on this? Or is it because maybe this work isn't meaningful to me? In the beginning, I asked you write down something that you feel stuck on at work right now. I want you to pull that back up or reference back to it. I want you to see if it's something with the progress principle. So let's see if the element that's missing is progress. Ask yourself some of these questions. What does progress look like here? What would need to happen for me to feel like I'm making progress or know that I'm making progress? How am I measuring success? What's holding me back from this? I'll give everybody just 30 seconds to reflect on this, but where you feel stuck right now at work, is the element that's missing, progress, and you don't know if you're making progress?

All right, so the second element is is meaningful work. So again, get curious. Is the element missing right now when you feel stuck? Meaningful work. Why isn't this meaningful for me? What would make this more meaningful? Do I need to align this to the bigger picture of our team, of our organization. Maybe the conclusion that you come to is that this project or task that you're stuck in isn't meaningful for you, and that's okay. So again, feeling stuck, these signals are trying to tell you something, are trying to give you some direction. What is this stuckness telling you about yourself and what you ultimately want? Is this something that you're still passionate about? Is it maybe a task that you've outgrown and you need to start delegating? Or is it something that you care so much about and it's so meaningful for you, but you just need to prioritize or you need to see the bigger picture. We're talking a lot about progress principle for ourselves. How do we identify that we're making progress? How do we make sure that's meaningful for us? I also want to call out for people to do this with their teams.

So a lot of times, since we're so in the middle of a task, it's hard for us to know when we're making progress. It's hard for us to see that. So celebrate your team. Celebrate them for the small wins, the touch downs, the field goals that they're making along the way so they can see that recognition, feel that accomplishment, and continue to motivate them to take more action. So use this for yourself, but also for those around you. What's coming up for people as we talk about the progress principle in this progress versus meaningful work? It's so simple but so effective. And I think progress might mean something different to different people. So some people might not not even recognize that they're moving forward and making progress, and someone else might have to point it out to them. Yeah, absolutely, Kaylyn. It does sound simple, but it is hard sometimes to see that when you're in the middle of it, for sure. Amazing. All right, so we have two more tips to get through. So the fourth one is lean on your community. And just like Kaylyn was talking about so beautifully, is sometimes we can't figure it out.

We can't get unstuck by ourselves. We need to lean on those around us to help us see the progress that we're making, offer a different perspective, and help us move forward. So leaning on your community, it's not something that we need to do on our own. And We actually become more resilient in the process of connecting with others during our challenging times. When we work with other people, it really oftentimes helps us get unstuck because people offer empathy. They offer levity and laughter. Like I said before, they can share a different perspective or maybe that they've had a similar experience that we can learn from. Most importantly, I think that this is a great thing to call out is that our community reminds us that we are not alone. We are not the only human that has gone through this. We are not the only person in our workplace that have maybe similar perspectives or similar struggles. What are other people doing to help to move forward with this? Asking help can be hard. It's really hard when we said in the beginning that it's vulnerable. You have been rewarded your whole life to have these answers, and you come to work to do a job, to show up for your teammates.

It can be hard to ask those around us for help. But something that really helps is creating an environment that people, when they ask for help, that it is met with acceptance and understanding and no judgment. How can you, as a or even as a teammate, really hold this space for those around you. We like to call here at the park, Create a stuff doesn't suck culture. This is actually something that we say out loud to each other. But bottom line, what this could mean for you is creating an environment where this is not a bad thing to be stuck. When somebody comes to you because they're asking for help, a couple of things that you can do is, one, validate them. This is totally normal. I I have been here before. You are not alone. This is okay. Hey, you know what? It's great that you're stuck because you've gotten to this point. Celebrate the steps that they've already gotten to get here. Then get curious with them and apply some of the things that we've learned today that we talked about today. I'll do an example so we can see this in action.

But a teammate comes to you and they're like, Hey, I'm feeling stuck. Say, Hey, this is totally normal. And guess what? This doesn't suck. Let's work together. Let's find some way to move the needle on this. When we're looking at this, get curious. The next thing we say is after you celebrate them for what they're doing, ask them questions. What's important to you about this? What does success look like from your perspective? Finding that progress or finding that end goal or that meaningful work for them. What's the real challenge here for you? What have you tried? What have you learned? Where are you now? What's already worked? Then leaning on some of these skills. In the beginning, I said you can use each one of these individually, but you can also bring them all together. Let's do a thought model. Where are you currently at in this situation? Is your thought process, this is hopeless. I've tried so many times and I still can't find an answer. Or is it, Hey, you know what? I know I always find an answer and it's better than I could have ever imagined. Where are you at right now?

Utilize the progress principle. Do you feel like you're I'm stuck because you're not making progress, or can I help you see the progress you're making? Maybe this work isn't meaningful for you. Do we just need to move us to action? Okay, I want you to go do a Pomodoro for 25 minutes and then come back to me and tell me where you're at and let's go from there. Or lean on other people. Who is the best person to help us with this? Who can we bring in who's maybe done a similar experience that can help us work through this issue? Create an environment that your team can lean on you and utilize some of these other tools that you've learned that you've been exposed to. This is something that we use here at the perk a lot. Another way that we exemplify this is be the one to say, I'm stuck. Say that it's okay to be stuck. Normalize for your teammates and have them help you. Help you get unstuck, help you see things in a different light and really move the needle. It'll help them be able to come to you faster when they feel stuck.

An example of using this at the perk, a personal example, which I'm sure some people can really resonate with, is there was a point this year where I was totally overwhelmed with my workload. The work was really meaningful for me. I was doing a lot of these things. I was shifting my mindset. I'm like, I know I can get this done. I know I was meant to do this work. I was doing Pomaderos. I knew it was a progress principle. I could see where I was making progress. I still had so many things that I was just underwater. I couldn't see the bigger picture. I couldn't delegate. I couldn't prioritize right because I had so many things on my plate. I reached out to my boss and I looked at her and I said, I'm stuck. I am stuck with my workload. I need help. She said, Figure it out on your own. That's how we do things here. I'm just kidding, but I love any excuse that I can to bring this photo into workshops that we do. Great. So what Steph actually said to me is, Okay, let's work together. Let's get together at our office, at our collaboration studio.

Let's look at your calendar and your task list, and let's see what can we simplify? What can we make easier to make less time for you? Or what can we delegate to other people? Do you have to be the person to do this? And I really needed community in that point. I had been stuck in this cycle for a little bit. Even though I cared so much, even though I wanted to do this work, I was missing deadlines because I couldn't see the bigger picture. That's where I really needed to lean on other people to help me get unstuck. The question I have for you is, For you is who is in your community? Who do you lean on when you need to get unstuck? Who is in your corner? Who is your staff to help you get unstuck? Let's hear from some people. Who do you lean on when you are feeling stuck at work? I have two friends and colleagues who will just constantly drop each other's voice notes. And so that's one of the ways that we share the context of what's going on. And there isn't necessarily the urgency to reply right away.

Everybody has their own things is happening. But sometimes even just the act of putting that stuckness somewhere that I know someone is receiving is a huge help for me. Oh, I love that. Yes. I know sometimes when we say it's vulnerable to be stuck, we feel like, I don't want to burden anybody else. So I love that you and your teammates are like, Okay, when you have time to answer this, do that. But I just needed to get it off my chest and get it out there. Yeah. How about one other person? Who do you lean on or how do you lean on them? I do lean quite heavily on my team, and I think admitting you're stuck allows them to also open up and start that conversation because a lot of us are feeling that way. So that's I feel that's good. Sometimes just getting it out there, like you said before, gets that off your chest and allows for a little bit of clarity to move forward. Yeah. Thanks, Crystal. I I love this. Leah put in the chat that ChatGPT has become part of your unstuck community. How do you use ChatGPT, Leah?

I literally type in ChatGPT. I'm stuck. Can you help me? And it always says, I would love to help you. It's just really nice to be received with somebody that really wants to help you. I just put random things in there. It always offers me a perspective or an idea that helps me get unstuck. Oh, my gosh. I love that. What I really like about that is the community, we've listed off a lot of people, but it It can also be tools and resources, too. They can help you get a different perspective. That's fantastic. Amazing. Okay, so then the last tip that I have for you today is rest and recharge. We do not have an unlimited battery as humans. It would be fabulous if we did, but we don't. We are like an iPhone. We need to charge. We need to recognize when our battery is at 100%, we need to recognize when our battery is in the power saving mode, like the 20%, and we need to take time to rest, pause, so we can be ready to crush the next day. Even when we take breaks, our brains are still working in the background.

They're not totally checked out, and they're actually doing some really powerful work for us. When we take breaks and we let our brains wander and think about different things, our default mode network activates our DMN. What our DMN does is it really helps us with memory making, envisioning our future, really connecting the dots for the day, which is so important when we're stuck. We need to give our brains a chance to rest so it can, in the background, make those connections for us. When we come back to it with a fresh set of eyes, We have different thoughts. We have different ways to approach the challenge. This looks different for everybody. We all take breaks or we all recharge in different ways. The biggest thing is that you're doing a task that doesn't require a lot of work. The thing that I always think about with this is in the shower. In the shower, I don't know about anybody else, but I will remember the email that I need to send off to a client, a task that I need to get done that day, or I'll even solve problems. That's because our DMN is activated, because we're not really thinking about anything else.

It's so, so important to be able to give our brains the space to do this. A couple of tasks or a couple of ways that you could do this is taking a walk. It's even better if it's outside and in nature. Vacuuming, gardening, showering, like I said, daydreaming, or just closing your eyes. But we need to shift our mindset about this. We need to shift our mindset of it is productive to take breaks. It is productive to recharge. It is an investment in our well-being. It's also an investment in our unstuckness. We need to do this to be able to look at things in a different way and to be able to let our brains to solve that problem. Don't let your DMN solve the problem for you or give the insight you wouldn't have gained otherwise. Sorry, I said don't. Let your brain, let your DMN solve your problem or things that you couldn't figure out when you're focusing so hard on it. I love, one more thing I want to note about this is it brings us back to our first tip. It brings us back to the mindset. We need to shift our mindset on our problems and we need to shift our mindset on rest and recharge.

This is necessary, that professionals take breaks, that this is part of the work that we're doing and part of the problem-solving process for us. That is it. Now you are all equipped with five awesome skills to help you get unstuck. Stuck, to help you move that needle, to help you get out of that hole and think of things in a different way, personally, professionally, but just whenever we are feeling those signals, having those feelings, tell us that we are not making progress in the right We're not moving forward on things that we want to. And so think about an action plan. Think about what is the mindset that I want to lean on to really help me get unstuck? The progress principle. Do I not know if I'm making progress? Do I not know if this is meaningful work for me? Do a Pomodoro. Do I need to move myself to action? Am I just sitting right here in unstuckness but just pushing things off and haven't done anything yet? Do I need to lean on somebody else? Have I tried a lot of these things? And you know what? I just need an outside perspective.

Or do I need to rest? Have I been so in the middle of the action? Have I been pouring so much into this project, into this task, that I need to take a step back? We're going to do another annotate, and I want to hear from all of you. Which one of these skills do you most want to try? Again, that annotate is going to be the little green pencil in the in our left-hand corner. Then you'll click the stamp, the little checkmark, and show us on the screen, which one do you most want to try? Which one really excites you that you learned about today? Lots of Pomaderos. Yes, this is one that I lean on heavily, too. Moving to action can sometimes be the hardest part. Love this. Okay, amazing. If my team wants to clear the screen, I have one other question that I want to ask. Which one of these is going to challenge you the most? We had said, Which one do you most want to try? Which one will challenge you the most to get unstuck? Yeah, so a few more shifting your mindsets. That can be hard for sure.

Rest and recharge. Oh, we have a lot of people on the call. Let's go, go, go, go. Yes. Awesome. My team to clear that. All right, everybody, you made it. You made it through this morning. You learned so much this morning. You're ready to go crush your day. Go get unstuck with the rest of your day. The last thing that I want to, or a couple more things, two more sides. The difference between a nice conversation and coaching is putting things into action, is actually doing something with the things that you learned. I want you to ask yourself, what was your biggest learning today and what are you going to put into action from what we talked about? Go ahead and write it down. You're so much more likely to take action on something that you write down, that commitment you write down. But what is one thing that you're committing to from what we learned about today? Love it. All the heads down. A couple of things that I wanted to offer is some additional resources. We love talking about this at The Perk, and feel free to please reach out if you want The Perk to be part of your community.

We love helping people get unstuck, so please Please reach out to myself or any of my amazing teammates on the call. But some other things, resources or tools that we lean on is the book, The Science of Stuck. I referenced Brit Frank earlier in this conversation, and then also her new book, The Workbook of Getting Unstuck is an awesome resource too. The activity, the Unstuck Box. This can be really fun for teams, having everybody pull something out and seeing a different perspective or just different insights. Then journal. If you are more reflective, there is a Calm the Chaos journal that has a lot of great prompts to really start your day. This is really helpful with mindset, which I know some of the people on the call said, This is the most challenging for me personally. That is an awesome resource for a lot of people, and you can find any of those on Amazon. But that is all that I have today for sharing skills. We do have some time at the end if people have any questions or have any additional skills that you lean on and use when you're stuck, we would love, love, love to hear it.

So I'm going to stop sharing my screen. And what questions do people have from the content today? I'm curious to hear what people's commitments were. If anyone wants to share. Yeah, I'm happy to share. I wrote mine down early, actually, and it was, except that I can't change the circumstances and focus on the mindset. Yeah. Because I definitely get hung up on trying to change the circumstances, and I get stuck there. See a lot of head nods. I think it's a good reminder to remember the art of self-compassion. We're all doing our best. It's okay. We're all going to get stuck. I know for me, I put both the Pomodoro as the tool I'm going to use and also the one that is most challenging to me because sometimes even the thought of 20 minutes, 25 minutes can be really tough. There are days when it's like, I set the Timer for five minutes, or I set it for two minutes to just get the momentum going, and then it just having to be okay with that to keep trying to keep trying. But yeah, self-compassion, that's the number one tool. A hundred %, yes.

Thanks, Wendy. I relate to that, Wendy. I relate to that. I have a combo of the two. I'm going to ask my community or ask for others about my progress because I might not be able to see it. So people that know that Nomi might be able to point out some progress better than I can. Awesome. Amazing. Any last minute questions that the group has about being stuck? Taking your silence as you feel totally equipped to go get unstuck in the world today. Love it. Amazing. Well, we can end on that. Like I said before, if you are somebody who you want to lean on a community to help get unstuck, please reach out to the perk. We would adore to be that for you. I really appreciate you all showing up this morning. We hope to see you for our November topic where Ms. Leah will be presenting. But have a wonderful rest of your Thursday and go get unstuck. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everybody. Take care. Thank you.