Every day in the news, we hear about how divisive countries have become. In the workplace, relationship conflict is one of the most common issues individual employees and managers struggle with. Of course the holy grail we are all working towards is developing highly effective and collaborative teams to unlock innovation and productivity in the workplace. Here to tell us the secrets to making this happen through better understanding the different personality types out there is Dr. Stephanie Schoss!

About Stephanie:

Stephanie is a Chairwoman of her own business psychology company and Director at Switzerland’s HSG Executive School of Management responsible for high ranking C-Level and Board-level Programmes. Stephanie completed her studies at prestigious universities including Harvard and wrote her doctoral thesis about team effectiveness. Her main research and teaching focus is on team personality, self-leadership, and the effects of conflicts, empathy, and “we-consciousness” on team effectiveness. Besides her academic career, Stephanie is an active entrepreneur and a passionate (private and commercial) pilot and recognised as manager of the year in 2013 by Generation CEO.

In this episode, we dive deep into answering the following thorny questions:

0:00 - Intro
02:00 - How Stephanie developed her interest in creating the blueprint of successful teams.
03:36 - How is personality defined? 05.20: What are the different personality types?
07:45 - How do you deal with misunderstanding in a diverse team?
08:20 - What is the secret to creating successful teams?
09:35 - 3 steps to resolving conflicts in a team using the “Clear the air” conflict management technique.
13:50 - Are personality tests like Myers Briggs helpful?
14:50 - What are the risks of using personality tests.
17:14 - What is the leadership of self mean?
18:50 - What are the different type of motives that gives us energy and brings us joy in life?
20:55 - How self awareness and self regulation makes you the best leader possible for others.
22:40 - How to give constructive feedback to your manager without causing any misunderstanding.
28:00 - Why conflict management technique starts with managing your own thoughts and emotions.
30:15 - What should you do when you have a toxic manager? 
34:50 - Are younger generations less resilient than before leading to higher employer turnover?
37:35 - Does mental illness change your personality and vice versa? 
42:30 - What is the best way to deal with someone’s strength or weakness?
45:25 - What is the neuroscience behind personality?
47:20 - How leaders use story telling to align employees internal purpose to motivate different
personality types to achieve company goals.
50:45 - How leaders create psychologically safe workplace that gives employees the permission to bring their authentic self to work.
53:17 - What can you do to be more confident in who you are as a person? 
56:05 - Should managers do anything if they feel their employees are not comfortable showing their real self?
57.55: What is Stephanie’s one well-being practice?

Learn more about Stephanie:
https://es.unisg.ch/en/person/dr-schoss-stephanie/

Learn more about Clearhead:
https://www.myclearhead.com/

Employees are increasingly expecting their employers to create workplaces that prioritises their wellbeing and provide them with free mental health support. We also see governments all around the world, especially Australia, introducing legislations that enforce the creation of psychologically safe workplaces. With all these changes coming, we speak to our guest Rachel King who unpacks what all these changes mean for employers.

About Rachel:

Today’s guest is Rachel King who runs the company Human Risk Management, where she is dedicated to sharing her knowledge with boards, CEOs and their teams to help them meet their legal and regulatory obligations around Human Risk. This includes Mental Health Risk while also increasing the value of their most valuable asset, their human capital.

In this episode, we dive deep into answering the following thorny questions:

0:00 - Intro
2:05 - How Rachel got started.
3:30 - What happens when the brain is constantly under stress?
7:00 - What are common psychosocial hazards at work?
11:05 - What is the role of EAP to support employees mental health?
19:03 - What does successful workplace wellbeing look like?
22:35 - What does psychological safety mean?
28:10 - Is mental health first aid training valuable for managers?
33:15 - The importance of developing self awareness and checking in with yourself.
36:25 - How do you get leadership buy in and show the ROI of employee wellbeing support?
41:36 - What is Rachel’s one wellbeing practice?

Learn more about Rachel here:

https://www.rachelking.global/about
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-ki...

Learn more about Clearhead:

https://www.myclearhead.com/

Relationships; we can’t live with them, and we can’t live without them! Yet our expectations for our romantic partners can be unrealistically high. We expect our partners to be our best friend, our trusted confidant, our passionate lover, the father/mother of our children, our financial security, our sense of identity and the ultimate source of our happiness. No wonder more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, as we have pretty much set our partner up for failure! How do we get past this?

Steven's biography:

Today’s guest is Steven Dromgool, the Clinical Director of Relate, a specialist relationship service. Over the past 2 decades Steven has travelled the world, training under renowned relationship experts, including John and Julia Gottman. His training coalesced into the development of Presence Oriented Relationship Therapy – an advanced integrated approach to working with couples. Steven has a special interest in preparing couples for healthy relationships and affair recovery, and will help us bust common relationship myths in today’s episode.

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions:

0:00 - Intro
2:34 - Why did Steven become a relationship counsellor?
4:30 - Why do more than 50% of relationships end in divorce?
7:40 - Why being in the honeymoon phase of a relationship is similar to being high on cocaine?
9:50 - Why expecting love in a marriage leads to relationship failure?
12:04 - How does what feels familiar from our childhood determine the type of love we look for?
15:00 - Why do couples struggle for power against each other after the honeymoon phase?
17:20 - What can you do to stop fighting?
19:15 - Why do people choose to be in dysfunctional relationship?
21:25 - What are the two main attachment styles and how do they manifest themselves in the relationship?
27:30 - How do you reduce miscommunication?
31:00 - How long should you wait before you resolve a conflict?
34:40 - Why do people have affairs?
35:28 - What is the first step to take towards recovery after an affair?
41:04 - What do you do in the first 2 weeks after learning that your partner has had an affair?
43:50 - What is the one question you can ask your partner to get them to work on the relationship?
50:50 - Why is becoming a parent like having an affair?
52:20 - How can you keep your relationship exciting and recreate that honeymoon spark again?
57:50 - What is Steven's one wellbeing practice?


Learn more about Steven here:
https://www.relate.kiwi/
https://www.facebook.com/RelateProject/

Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: http://www.myclearhead.com

It’s the first week back for most people in 2023 and it sure feels hard to kick start back into the new year. For some its due to the overhang of being burnt out last year and for others the New Year serves as a cyclical marker of time during which the break gave us a bit of time to reflect and re-evaluate whether we are living our best lives that is consistent with our values. It is this search for meaning and purpose that we will delve into today.

Clearhead has launched our free AI tool to help you find your purpose - check it out here: https://www.myclearhead.com/finding-purpose

Shruthi biography:
Today’s guest is Shruthi Vijayakumar a coach and educator based in Aotearoa NZ, hailing from South India but is at heart a global citizen. As today’s topic touches on how one is able to step off the rat race and find fulfilment beyond one’s own personal needs, I will rattle off some of Shruthi’s background to provide context. Shruthi is an alumni of the University of Oxford, World Economic Forum global shaper, former Boston Consulting Group (BCG) consultant and Westpac bank’s advisory panel member.

Instead of continuing to chase these traditional metrics of success, Shruthi now coaches social impact driven business leaders and changemakers, supporting them with their inner wellbeing and in creating organisations and societies that foster the wellbeing of people and Nature. She does this by harnessing the wisdom across Indigenous, Eastern & Western knowledge systems. Welcome Shruthi.

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

0:00 - Intro
2:20 - How does society condition us to chase conventional external metrics of success.
7:05 - What brings fulfilment, wellbeing and happiness?
10:22 - What are the philosophies behind achieving a peace of mind?
15:02 - Why does the paradox of choice robs us of contentment?
16:10 - What were the steps Shruthi took to leave BCG management consulting and live a life that is more aligned to her purpose.
20:02 - Can business be a force for good?
22:01 - What you can do to explore when you are feeling stuck in your life?
24:12 - How do you figure out the personal values that shapes your purpose?
27:15 - What are the fears that stops you from transitioning into a more purposeful life?
31:10 - Why you need to continue to do the internal work to feel that you are enough even when doing more social impact work.
32:45 - What does a more purposeful life look like?
38:20 - The importance of figuring out your strengths in helping you find your purpose.
39:38 - Practical tools to help you be more aligned day to day rather than being driven by fear. 43.45: Importance of stillness in understanding what you need in your life.
46:39 - Meditation and indigenous world views of wellbeing
50:50 - How to question the traditional paradigms of how to live a meaningful life
52:18 - Bringing together all the learnings we shared today
52:53 - Shruthi’s go to wellbeing practice.

Learn more about Shruthi: https://www.shruthi.co/

Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

Michael Bungay Stanier a Rhodes Scholar, is at the forefront of shaping how organizations around the world make being coach-like an essential leadership competency.

He founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. They’ve trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like and their clients range from Microsoft to Salesforce to Gucci. His book The Coaching Habit is the best-selling coaching book of this century, with over a million copies sold. In 2019, he was named the #1 thought leader in coaching.

His latest book How to Begin helps people be ambitious for themselves and for the world and, find their Worthy Goal, and start something thrilling, important and daunting. and his first published piece of writing was a Harlequin Romance story involving a misdelivered letter … and called The Male Delivery

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

0:00 - Intro
1:59 - MBS Story
4:47 - What is coaching
8:49 - What are the 3 main reasons people are unhappy in their jobs
11:25 - How can managers be more coach-like to help their employees work through these 3 reasons.
15:11 - What are the questions you need to ask to coach your people to be better at prioritising
20:44 - What to do when someone who is underperforming is resistant to being coached
25:28 - What are the 4 elements to consider when giving negative but constructive feedback
27:31 - How to repair relationships at work
33:05 - When do you use coaching as a leadership style
37:20 - How do you ensure employees feel appreciated
42:00 - When should you coach someone vs giving advice
42:50 - What is Michael’s one well-being practice

Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

**Trigger warning.** This episode contains content on suicide and mental health distress. If you need help please reach out to your free available mental health helplines or reach out to Clearhead for support if your employer uses Clearhead as your EAP provider.

Today we are looking at what we can do to improve the mental resilience of those in the construction and manufacturing industry where the pressures of the jobs are really high. We also understand that it has traditionally been very hard to reach the stereotypical blue collar worker as due to the stigma they feel the need to portray an image of toughness and that everything is alright. However what we know from the research for example is that construction workers are six times more likely to lose their lives due to suicide than in a workplace accident.

Joining me today are 3 very special guests. We will kick off with Mates in Construction field workers Nicole and Nathan. Mates in Construction is an industry backed, research-based, suicide prevention and support program to share the insights they have learnt onsite. Then we will get Rob to share his personal story about how he got to the brink of suicide and how he turned it all around as founder of Beard Brothers, award-winning sausages and one of Deloitte’s Top 50 fastest-growing companies of 2022.

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny subjects:

0:00 - Intro
2:00 - Mates in construction introduces themselves
3:25 - What are the challenges for the construction industry
4:55 - How to address the systemic issues in the construction industry
8:23 - How do you define wellbeing for those that might think it’s fluffy
11:35 - What are the cultural considerations for migrant mental health
16:05 - Rob shares his personal story with overcoming his suicidal thoughts
27:21 - Angela summarises what are the signs of someone who is feeling suicidal
33:40 - What are the wellbeing practices to stay well after going through severe depression?
36:50 - What do you do to maintain work-life balance in a high workload/pressure environment?
38:15 - How do you check in with someone you are worried about?
40:18 - Angela summarises what you can do if you are struggling with your mental health.
43:40 - What can you do when life gets overwhelming and you need to find balance?
47:45 - How do you move away from using alcohol to self-medicate your stress?
53:50 - How do you get people to share about their mental health and wellbeing?
57:10 - What is our guest's one well-being practice?

Visit:
https://mates.net.nz/
https://mentalhealth.org.nz/suicide-prevention

Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

Since the pandemic we have seen a collective trauma and loss of the lives we used to live and the people we love. We also see people struggling to know how to support those coping with disruption, challenge, change and loss.

Today’s guest is Dr. Lucy Hone, best-selling author and Adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury, who’s work is regularly featured the Guardian, Washington Post, BBC, CBS, ABC and more. Regarded as a thought leader in the field of resilience psychology, tragic circumstances forced Lucy to focus more closely on grief when her 12-year-old daughter was killed in a horrific motor accident. Covid-19 saw her TED talk, *3 Secrets of Resilient People,* go viral making it one of the Top 20 most watched TED talks of 2020.

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

0:00 - Intro
2:00 - What is grief?
2:37 - Are there different types of grief?
6:14 - What are the signs of grief that indicate clinical support is needed?
9:05 - How long is a normal grieving period?
11:50 - Is the 5 stages of grief a myth?
15:05 - What are the 3 secrets of resilient people?
22:55 - How do you deal with people at work who are dismissive of your grief?
25:30 - What is psychological safety at work?
26:47 - What can managers / workplaces do to support employees who are grieving?
31:12 - How do you maintain social capital with a remote/hybrid workforce?
34:50 - Why is asking “how can we help” unhelpful to those that are struggling?
37:22 - Should you offer job opportunities to the bereaved?
40:04 - Summary of 3 key strategies to build resilience.
41:15 - Busting myths around the process of grief and loss.
43:48 - What is an employee bereavement onboarding plan?

Learn more about Lucy:
https://leadershiplab.co.nz/team/lucy-hone/
https://www.instagram.com/wildandpreciouslives/?hl=en


Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

Today’s topic is about Burnout, which is clearly on the rise. The stress of the pandemic compounded by the stress of constant availability through remote work has led to burnout and prompted many to reorganize priorities. Whether it is the Great resignation of 2020 or the viral Tik Tok trend about Gen Z’s quiet quitting. They are all a symptom of an underlying global trend that I will unpack today with our guest, Suzi McAlpine, and ensure we provide you with practical tips you can implement in the organisations that you lead.


About Suzi:
Suzi is a leadership coach who specialises in leadership development for CEOs and executive leadership teams for large enterprise companies. Suzi is also the creator of The Leader’s Map, a blended leadership programme for organisations wishing to equip their emerging leaders with the necessary leadership capabilities for success. She has been featured in several media channels and is the author of the bestselling book, Beyond Burnout and an award-winning blog, The Leader’s Digest.


In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

0:00 - Intro
1:45 - What is burnout?
2:55 - What is the cost of burnout to organisations?
5:40 - Suzi’s personal burnout story.
10:03 - What are the 3 red flags/symptoms of burnout?
14:41 - What are the 6 causes of burnout?
19:25 - The 4 key strategies to address burnout at an individual, leadership, and organisational level.
25:44 - How to build a wellbeing culture at work?
33:15 - What traits are found in the best leaders?
37:07 - Case study on implementing wellbeing as a strategic pillar.
43:01 - How do I give constructive feedback to my manager to help them be a better leader for me and the organisation?
47:52 - How can I get my organisation to address the root causes of burnout?

Learn more about Suzi McAlpine
https://suzimcalpine.com/


Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

Our guest Niki Harré is a professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. Her recent research projects have focused on sustainable communities, positive youth development and political activism. She is the author of over 70 research articles, several books and hundreds of talks globally.

If you find yourself regularly overwhelmed by the doomsday media coverage on climate change then this episode is the one for you.

In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

1. What is climate anxiety and does it only affect young people?
2. How do you know if you have climate anxiety?
3. What can you do to manage your climate anxiety or if you are frustrated by government inaction?
4. What are the steps we can take to reverse climate change at a personal and political level?
5. What can organisations do to make a positive impact on climate change?
6. Should I have children if I am worried about climate change?
7. How do I prevent myself from being overwhelmed by all the negative news about climate change?
8. How has media shaped the narrative about climate change that may be driving climate anxiety?
9. What is the best way to support someone who is experiencing climate anxiety?
10. Why it is important to find communities that also care about climate change.

Learn more about Niki Harré
https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/n-harre/about


Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com

Professor Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Zen practitioner. He is the Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. With 22 million views, his TED talk is one of the most viewed talks of all time.


If you have ever struggled with loneliness, building new social connections or maintaining positive relationships in your personal life or at work, this episode provides very practical steps you can take to address these challenges.


In this episode, we really dive deep into answering the following thorny questions:

1. Three tips on how to make new friends or form positive social connections.
2. What can I do if I am feeling lonely?
3. Determining the difference between online vs offline social interactions and relationship quality vs quantity.
4. What is the most common reason friendships end?
5. How to create workplace environments that foster positive connections and culture in the context of remote work.
6. Why better social connections at work leads to higher employee engagement and retention.
7. Explaining why the fundamental of good relationships is based on affection and respect.
8. Do conflict exist in positive relationships?
9. How do I determine if I should leave a relationship or not?
10. What do I do when I am in a relationship with a narcissistic person?


11. What extra things do you consider when you are in a toxic relationship and children are involved?
12. What is the difference between happiness and wellbeing?
13. Is it ok to not be happy all the time?
14. Should we do things to chase happiness?
15. How do I prevent bad things that happened in my past from repeating in the future?
16. What is the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) on whether the person will have positive wellbeing in the future as an adult?
17. What were the research findings from the longest research on human development and wellbeing?


Learn more about Robert Waldinger
https://www.lifespanresearch.org/


Have a burning question about mental health that you want us to answer?
Email us at [email protected], or visit our website: www.myclearhead.com