We live in a time of unprecedented complexity. So, globalization, technological changes, geopolitical changes, as well as political changes. So, these aspects and these factors come together in a way that truly impact on every organization, its ability to grow and be successful, and thrive. By definition then, these changes impact on every individual in every organization, and the individual's capacity to grow, to change, and to thrive. Success has a number of connotations, but I will take success as being able to provide yourself and provide for yourself and being able to adapt. I think there's a movement away from a set identity, and there's a movement towards what are you really interested in? What your why? What's your purpose? How do you make that purpose and passion productive against market realities? Because if you can focus on your "Why" not your "What", you can tap into the innate drive, that's going to allow you to learn for life. What I'm saying is I think it's very difficult for people who are 40-plus, to make fundamental changes. If I can be vulgar and crude, as traumatic, or as a source of relief or divorce maybe at 40-45 after a decade, 15-20 years of marriage, it's comparable to that if you wish to make a career change, or fundamentally change the way you want to add value in an organization. The problem with the advice that I'm going to offer for mid-career people who realize that certain fundamental changes are essential if they want to remain valuable, is whether the organizations of which they are a part, will support, get in the way, or be neutral to those efforts. The best way to do it is to find a passion project that is no more than 15 to 25 percent of your time, and something that you are guaranteed to learn a lot from, but on two dimensions. One, the actual content or knowledge of the project itself, the other which is even more important is about yourself. There's nothing wrong with a passion project where you discover this really isn't what I want to do. Because anything that gives you insight into yourself allows you to orient how you handle the future better. But it doesn't work if you're just doing it in a perfunctory, or in a go through the motion sort of way, you have to care. There has to be a legitimate explicit purpose. I think one of the big challenges for an organization like an AMP is, will they institutionalize or formalize those kinds of passion project opportunities, in a way that adds value unambiguously for AMP, so there's an economic and organizational reason for doing so, but also allows personal and professional development for their people. Can you design passion projects for your demographic communities, which is a win-win for you and for them. I think the biggest disruption that I'm experiencing in my world of work is that, the pace of change is greater and quicker than our individual human capacity to navigate it. So, we've got a growing gap between the amount of change that is happening, and then the human capability around dealing with ongoing change. So, what that's leading to for individuals is often great levels of stress and anxiety. We know for example that by 2030 the World Health Organization predicts that depression, not heart disease, not diabetes, depression will be the single leading cause of disability globally. So, really human beings are facing a world that is, for many of them and for many of our children often scary. There are a number of ways that human beings can create greater levels of balance. Firstly by recognizing that boundaries are not going to be created for us, we need to create our own boundaries. So, a first part of that that is critical is, for us to tap into and connect with what are our values, what is important to us in the way that we love, in the way that we live, in the way that we parent. If presence and connectedness for example in our relationships is important and we have a sense of that as a value that's front of mind then we are able to create a greater sense of balance in our lives, not because we feel we have to, but because we have this intrinsic want to. Another aspect that allows us to create a greater sense of balance in our lives is, by recognizing that when we are facing situations of ambiguity, and when we are facing situations of stress, we are less likely to set effective boundaries. So, creating values aligned habits, for us as individuals become very important. An example of this is, one of the ways that we create habits is by something that we call piggy backing. You may have a habit that you already have, you come home from work and you put your keys in a particular drawer. If you value being present with the people that you are at home with, you can start creating a new habit that piggybacks onto that existing habit, of for example, putting your mobile phone in the same drawer. So, what you're starting to do is you're starting to not simply say, "I want to create greater levels of balance", but you're answering two questions, "Why is it that I want to create balance? What is important to me about that." And secondly, what are some habits that I can inculcate and grow into my everyday life that helped me to set boundaries? Another aspect that I think is really critical here is, I think the idea of balance implies a stagnation and can often imply a goal that is not really achievable. I think that we as human beings are always in flux, and so we need to create habits, but also recognize that the world around us is changing and to be open to the change. So we know changes here, and more change is coming, and it's only going to accelerate. People need to be prepared for that change. So there's a couple of things that people can do. The first is around having a growth mindset. Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University talks about fixed versus growth mindset. Fixed mindset being about only outcome, driving to an outcome and very much of a scarcity mindset and fear-based. Whereas growth mindset is more around the experience, the process being inert, and about continual learning, irrespective of what the outcome is. We need to develop that individually and collectively, so that we can be change agents, and not be fearful of change and get stuck where we are. So that's incredibly important. The other thing that's very important is our emotional resiliency. The growth of practice's around meditation, and mindfulness, and well-being, will only get more important, and for us to take personal responsibility to embed those practices in our lives, so that we can have the mindset that we need, but we have the emotional resiliency, and that grounded place to come back to to help move us through our work and our lives in a constant state of change. Some of the skills that will be really important for individuals moving into an increasingly complex workforce, are around resilience and well-being. So, my advice would be number one, understand what you want your life to look like. We often think about our career, and our job, and our purpose, but we don't think about our life. How is it structured? What are all the different components that we want to have in our life? And how do we manage for that and set ourselves up for success in that life vision that we have, number one. Number two, make sure that you're doing purposeful work. We can get into a rut of just job after job chasing the money. We know that people who work on purpose versus work for profit are much happier, healthier, have higher levels of all aspects of well-being. Have lower stress, and greater longevity. We can get to that when we really focus on what is my purpose, what is my calling, what does meaningful work look like for me in the world? The third thing is, run your own agenda. When we're at the beck and call of everybody else, it is very hard for us to have boundaries, to maintain balance. People talk about balance as a myth, it's not a myth, it's what we've been taught the sages from the ages taught us that we need to have balance in all aspects of our lives to be happy, healthy, and thriving. So, what is your agenda? Getting very clear on that. What are you trying to achieve? Then work to that. The fourth thing that I would say is to understand what you need to thrive. What are the practice's that you need? How does your life need to work? How does your day need to be set up, so that you can thrive, and incorporating things like meditation. It doesn't need to be six hours in a cave in the Himalayas, in full lotus position, chanting your arms. It can be five minutes in the morning to sit and focus on your breath. We know that even five minutes is scientifically proven to increase your levels of well-being and resiliency. So, meditation, nutrition, exercise, the things that we all hear about. We now have irrefutable science that sits underneath that. What do you need as an individual, so that you can flourish, and sleep? If you do nothing else, get your eight hours of sleep. This era of wearing your badge of business like a badge of honor, and how little sleep I got, and I was pulled an all night on a contract, or I only need four hours and I'm fine, it's complete BS. We know that adults need between seven-and-a-half and nine hours of sleep a night. What that number is is individual to you, and you need to know what it is. What do you need? I know that eight hours is non-negotiable, because that's what I need to be able to do my highest work in the world and be happy and thriving. So, really looking at what are all those elements for you as an individual, and how do you make them non-negotiable, so that you can set yourself up for success in all of the other areas; work, life, purpose, and have the balance that you will if you don't now you will crave, as you start to get into the workforce of the future.
