Tomorrow is Not Today

 The culture of the organization across years has been, we will bully the next generation because that's what happened to us.

Welcome to the tomorrow is not today podcast. You've already started to create the life you want just by being here. Designed for you as a business professional, so you can be physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy, more productive.

Less stressed and living a life you truly love. My name's Kingsley and thank you for coming on another journey with one of our uniquely qualified professionals.

Ian Rumsey, psychologist, Ian Rumsey. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Tomorrow Is Not Today podcast.

It's great to be here. Great to see here. Everybody. And, um, I hope you get something amazing out of today. Um, yeah, hopefully.

Yeah, I know we will, uh, having known you for, I don't know, it must be nearly 15 years now, although we haven't sort of talked a lot in the last few years because you're living in a different state.

Um, but, uh, you've always had goal to, to add to people's lives. And that's one of the reasons I've asked you to come on. Um, loving what you're putting out on LinkedIn. And I would definitely encourage everybody go and check out Ian's LinkedIn because some of the things on there is absolutely gold and could probably help you as well.

Um, but again, I want to jump, jump in straight away. Um, as we always do in this podcast, let's get straight into it, answer some questions, give some gold that people can unpack straight away, and then we'll go in, uh, Boiled down as some nice little nuggets as we go along. But entrepreneurs, uh, business professional professionals in various ways.

There are a lot of the, our audience and a lot of who we do as a company. Um, they're dealing with a lot of anxiety, trauma, and mental health and things like that at the moment. So from a psychologically. Psychological perspective. Um, what is something that they can do? You can say, okay, you can do this straight away and I'll actually help overcome some of those things.

I know it's a big question to start with.

That's a huge question, mate. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's um, there's a couple of things that come to mind straight away. Um, one is, Think about psychological issues or things that frame us, um, as sometimes illnesses. And this is something which is something very important when it comes to anxiety in particular, uh, or trauma, it doesn't define who you are.

So if you can kind of think of, all right, this is something that I need to treat. This is something I need to do or. Work out, um, with help sometimes, um, not all the time, but sometimes and, um, and what we were thinking about is differentiating ourselves from the actual thing that's happening inside of us.

Anxiety wise, so that differentiation is actually critical. You know, really important to keep that mental health above board or, or I kind of tend to think of, um, anxiety in particular, like a storm and it can hit us as like a sailing boat. We're trying to go from, say, Sydney to L. A. On a boat and basically this storms hitting us and the waves are hitting us and the winds hitting us.

Anxiety is something which can try and block us as we're going in a certain direction. But if we can think of it as separate to ourselves, okay, so it's separate to ourselves. The trauma is separate to ourselves. Then we can think of it like, Oh, this is like a broken leg. What do I do with a broken leg?

Well, I need to go to a medical professional, need to get an x ray and I need to get treatment. So straight away, if you can think about if something's hitting you so hard that it's taking you over while you're going in a direction, think about it as an illness and think about, well, I need treatment for this.

So some of the first points you do with an illness with anxiety is you need to pick up your rhythms, like you pick up your rhythms for dealing with the stress. So one of the first things that we do. When we have some with anxiety, depression, come and see us as we send them to the gym. So we go, you need to get to the gym and that'll burn a lot of the byproducts of anxiety and stress, which predominantly is the thing called cortisol and adrenaline.

And so when you're actually at the gym, you're burning it off. You're feeling better. You're getting noradrenaline, um, adrenaline, but you're also getting, um, basically endorphins as well, which just make you feel better. I actually remember reading a couple of, um, months ago, a book called the 5am club. I did it for about two weeks and I couldn't get up at 5am anymore.

And that was quite funny for me because my rhythms don't start that early, but it was, um, I liked the concept where you're basically looking at anxiety stress as part of something that we all need to deal with as entrepreneurs. Um, and yet we need methods on how to do that, but also seeing it's not as you, okay, it's not as, um, who yourself is, um, that's, I think, really important.

Then just be appropriate in the way you're addressing that illness. The second thing I wanted to say, and this is sort of kind of counter to what I just said, is when it comes to trauma, like sometimes trauma happens when we're a kid or when we're, you know, going through life. And. Sometimes what we can see is negative is actually our superpower.

So I'll give you an example is when I was growing up, growing up as a kid, I experienced a fair bit of trauma. Hence why I'm a psychologist, I think. But then, um, I remember my parents always saying to me, look, and you're really sensitive, you're too sensitive, you're ultra sensitive. And what I didn't realize later in life was that's actually my superpower.

So my superpower is basically empathy. It's like my number one on my strengths profile. And so sometimes when we go through trauma, um, how we view trauma, how we view sometimes those wounds can actually develop into a superpower. It actually can develop into something. It's like a two edged sword. It's like something can take us down, but at the same time, something could, that could propel us as well.

So what you see with both. Those things that I'm talking about at Kingsley and everyone that's listening. It's about how we view the situation. That's the key. So it's not actually, we're always going to take a red pill or a silver pill to get out of a situation like anxiety or trauma. It's the viewing or the perspective we have, which then empowers us to walk through it.

So that's, that's a lot of psychology in about five minutes, but, um, but that's sort of roughly, you know, what we're talking about. Yeah.

That was absolutely fantastic. And that's what I said at the beginning. You always do bring those nuggets of gold. I think that was a big rock that one, but there was some really important points in there that I want to pull out that I want to emphasize that you said is one, your anxiety is not you.

It's not you as a person. Um, it's like, like you said, a broken leg. It's, it's not who you are. That's just something needs to be dealt with. Um, I think that is the biggest keys that people often do think they are that, um, and in fact, the whole tomorrow is not today is about. We think this is who we are and view the world from our perspective right now.

Not understanding that tomorrow can be a completely different, much better day than what it is. And it will be as well. So what's today? As we go through life. Um, I think that's, that's fantastic to do that. Um, it's, it's not you and your, your, whatever is bad can actually be your superpower. That's fantastic.

And I'll guarantee that a lot of people out there are exactly the same as you. They've had stuff happen to them, but they've taken that now and using that to help so many other people. I think that's one of the greatest gifts of life.

Yeah, and it's such an interesting thing. Like when we're talking about anxiety as well, and in particular with entrepreneurs, I've found across the years.

One of the biggest thing that dogs business people and entrepreneurs is a sense of failure or a feeling of failure. And, um, I still remember being involved in a, in a, um, business venture up in the Gold Coast actually many years ago. And it totally and utterly failed, like totally and utterly, totally tanked a whole set series of set.

It was like a perfect storm happened. And, um, and I was in the middle of this storm and I still remember, Googling failure. And there's all these, um, anti motivational posters and, and the, the Google, I was, I was really emotional and I was like, what's failure. And I personally was really hammered by it. And I remember Googling these anti motivational posters and I had this guy at a track and field.

And he was holding his hands and it had failure. Even when your very best is just not good enough. And I started giggling, I started giggling and then I started laughing. Then I started belly laughing. And those were like some of those moments in time when you realize failures. It's just an event that sometimes happens when you're an entrepreneur or a business person.

But it does not define you. It doesn't, it doesn't make you who you are. And I love the name of your podcast, mate, it's brilliant because it's so true because it's like these things can sometimes try and take us out and people talk about that winning mindset and all that kind of stuff, but it's really kind of like, well, who are we?

And then flourishing in who we are. And of course, things are gonna happen, which, you know, sometimes we'll fail. Sometimes we'll find our face. Sometimes things will happen, but it's sort of kind of get back up and keep moving, knowing that that doesn't define us, that that fear of failure doesn't define us.

Um, it's, um, I still remember laughing at those any motivate because I grew up in the eighties. You have all these motivational posters, you're like teamwork and everyone's rowing and there's like, they're all in boardrooms and stuff. And, um, And then I, I saw these anti motivation and just made me laugh, mate.

It was this, it was, it was a beautiful moment in a sense. Cause it was like humor actually was medicine in that moment. And sometimes having a good laugh at yourself. Um, and obviously, you know, paying your bills as well, but like, it's like, it's like a combi a bit where you just kind of go, okay. Um, so that's, that was kind of cool.

Yeah. Hope that helps. Um,

and it's good for to understand because everyone's going through different stuff at different times, um, and it's good to when you're in that to be able to know that's what's going on. Here's how I deal with it, which is awesome. Speaking of laughing at yourself, the picture behind you now, you know what I'm going to say.

It's cooking. Yeah.

100 percent mate. We actually do it deliberately. I know it sounds random, but sometimes, um, one of the things that, you know, dogs clients is, is a thing called OCD. And so people, when, when they're like so frustrated in the, in the middle of a session, as we do predominantly zoom sessions and, um, especially over COVID and that, but it was like, we were doing it deliberately just to see and flag who is at what stage when it comes to their OCD and stuff.

So we'll kind of, and we're just seeing, cause sometimes with psychs, you know, we don't deliberately play on people's noggins, but it's, it's like, I just want to see if anyone has a real big issue with it and what are they going to do about it? Um, I find with that picture in particular, we've kind of plastered it down to the wall now, but it's, um, like beforehand, it actually fell off once when I was having a session.

Someone sitting on the couch. So that was frustrating. So we do it as a little bit of a test mate. I don't know. That sounds random. But we just see, see how people go. I do tend to find entrepreneurs, um, have a little bit of, everyone has OCD by the way, but there's a little bit of that. Oh, you know, this needs to be perfect kind of moment.

Um, so we kind of test that out a little bit. So, so if you're having issues, this, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just one of the bad, yeah, give me a call. He can fix you up.

Yeah, we can fix it up, yeah, for sure.

Ah, that's funny. Super funny, mate. You got me. Um, but you know, what, something just came to mind that you said there is the fact that when you go through stuff in life.

You actually learn to go, okay, that's what it is. Let's move on. It just is. And I think it's not until you've actually gone through a bunch of stuff in life. You learn to do that. So I got to learn to get over your camera. And, um, I think I'm doing okay right now. I'll let you know later on. You're doing good, mate.

You're doing good. Hey, uh, what's the question? So in the, um, intro. You know, you've dealt with pretty much everything in pretty much most scenarios you registered to be able to deal with a whole bunch of various situations and things like that. And one of the big things that, uh, that I think is incredibly important for people to grab, uh, and with all of your psychological experience over 15, 000 hours.

That is a lot of time face to face with people. That's huge. Um. With all of that, understanding that we as a people are one person. Now, what I mean is quite often we'll be at home and we'll be one person at home. And then we'll, let's say we have a fight with the kids or the spouse or the whatever's going on, or someone got upset somewhere.

Um, and then we go to work and we think that's okay. That's left behind. I'm going to work. I've now got on my, my entrepreneur face, my business face, my, whatever it is. And I'm a completely different person that doesn't affect me. But as we know, how does it affect us? We can push it down for a little bit, but there's an effect there.

How do we, um, I guess help that not to affect our work or what are the things we didn't do? Because obviously, you know, you, you're qualified with the Gottman Institute for couples counseling as well, which is phenomenal. Um, and that would be a big. Part of this whole scenario, I would imagine. So can you step us through a few different things maybe you've dealt with or ways to help people through that?

Yeah, great, mate. Yeah. The, um, the Gottman Institute, by the way, is phenomenal. And the data coming out of that Institute is phenomenal. A lot of marriage counseling people in general have a good experience in their marriage and then project it out in a book. Um, Gottman Institute basically monitored marriages for 40 years with basically pure science.

Um, and just observe couples doing things well so that we just replicate that basically and just go to the science that's teaching us is how to, how to do well. So it actually works in multiple different marriage situations. I think, um, you know, in answer to your question, um, one of the things that we work with quite a lot, um, with people that are Yeah.

really busy and driven, um, is they tend to be not necessarily aware of their emotional capacity. And we also grow up in a country, especially around males, that there's not a lot of emotional Understanding or emotion, understanding of your own emotions, but also the needs of other people's emotions. And so when, when it comes to emotional capacity, um, and the Gotman's point this out as well in their research is that often couples that are masters in their relationship have regular rituals that they have in their marriage to emotional connect.

And so when, when you're really busy and you're an entrepreneur and you're, and you're working really flat out, Often the statement can be, well, I'm doing this for the family. I'm doing this for my wife. It was really, um, sometimes the kids and the wife don't really care how much you work and they just want you around and have emotional availability and just a funny story.

I remember years ago again on the Gold Coast, learn a lot of things on the Gold Coast was basically, basically I remember one night after doing 11 sessions on one day, which was stupid. It was ridiculous. And, um, you know, really, you know, really. Heart goes out to that 11th session. If you're that 11th session that, you know, I'm sorry, basically, um, because I think it was a pancake in that last session, right?

Emotionally. Anyway, my wife picked me up and we just have my car at the time and she picked me up and we're driving home and she said, look, you give your clients the gold and she goes, I get the slots. That's literally the word she said. And I remember just being so upset because I'm like, I'm doing this for you.

All I'm doing this for you, you know, kind of thing. And, and the kids, you know. And, but it started a great conversation when it comes to how much capacity emotionally am I spending every day in my business and how much capacity have I got left or really want to prioritize my kids and my wife when I've had sessions where people are talking about trauma and emotions and all that kind of stuff.

My kids don't know that when I get home, they don't, they don't even care. Often they just want dad to give them a hug. They want, you know, to talk about their day. They want to, you know, they don't really, um, and I've talked to other people, you know, there's been big, you know, managers of massive funds and, and different things.

And, you know, the kids don't care and don't care how many billions you've trep traded that day, like they don't, you know, it's like whatever's so. So for for kids in particular, and for our spouses, I always try and think of 80 20 where it's like 80 percent of my emotions to be spent at work and then saving 20 percent for home.

And so that real practical kind of balance. Gottman backs this up as well with the research is that if we're, um, you know, spending 100 120 percent at work all the time, um, and then we end up with 20 Our kids don't talk to us. You know, you've got to look at our measure of success. Now, some people might go, yeah, that's success, not to me.

And this is the sort of things that you want to evaluate and decide in your heart. What are the measures of success? And then start building those habits. Like what I was saying before with anxiety, it's building in habits that handle stress. But the same thing when it comes to emotional capacity and work and availability is you want to build in habits and rituals into your day to day and week to week.

Um, Another example is we just went on a retreat over the weekend, and we took our kids horse riding, and it was hilarious. Like it was like, it was the most fun experience. It's way too expensive, but anyway, but it was like, it was just like a half hour horse riding trip, but they were talking about it nonstop.

You know, they're going to be jockeys. They're going to take over the world with horses. And it was just a great emotional family experience, but we needed margin to do that. We needed financial margin. We needed emotional margin. We need a time margin. And if we don't have any margin, there's no experiences.

So yeah, I hope that answers.

Yeah, that's really good because I think that's an area where we try to, I won't go there because then it might open up stuff. I think what you said is really help with, okay, this to me, knowing that I need that margin, I need to make sure I've got that much for home, for my kids, for my wife, for.

whatever, um, that needs to be there. Um, in that place. So that was really, really good. Um, one of the other things you go on.

Sorry, I just wanted to say really clearly to I'm self disclosing a couple of stories just to show what a boof head I actually am in my own relationships. Because sometimes when people talk about rhythms and kind of people can feel like, Oh, he's aiming for perfection.

And I'm like, no, the data actually researched around this says if you get it right 40 percent of the time, he streaks ahead of everyone else. So I'm actually deliberately using stories about myself, what a buffet I have been at times. And sometimes still am just to show, even as a trained psychologist. We want to aim for, you know, just from a heart point of view, just to do that very best for our families and our relationships.

Um, it's not about perfection. It's not, not about perfection. So you just segue for that one. It's

good. And that's, it's really interesting that people we interview on this podcast, um, they always, always bring us their stories of reality. Um, and it's great because people can see that none of us are perfect.

The reason I actually got into this, I've always wanted to help people, but my big thing was going through divorce and knowing I needed to become a bigger, better person and I need to be someone for my kids. So I spent years and years and years learning, growing, um, just, you know, Putting myself through challenges, doing whatever I could.

So none of this is from perfection at all. It's all a matter of, it's all learning and growing and implementing. Um, and I think that's the best thing because every one of us has been through life in some way. Uh, so yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that it's really good. One of the other things, you know, I'm really not sure quite how to.

question. Um, but it's one thing I've noticed. I do a lot of networking and meeting up with people at different events and things like that. And then you catch up with people, uh, for coffee afterwards. And people go to work and they've got this, um, It's, it's like the business face on or the business hat and that's who they are.

But as soon as you catch up outside of that and you start actually talking to people, the, the amount of times I've seen people go from this type of person to a, that it's just, they let themselves out a little bit. And I've noticed by doing that, there's a, that's when connection can happen and the real things where you can actually start working, you find out who people really are and how, uh, you can actually really help them in their business and they can help you in your business, which is what it's all about to me.

Could you explain a little bit about how to, to be able to do that as a, as a business professional or entrepreneur or whatever it is to be able to do that, to be, I guess, a little bit vulnerable. But at the same time being professional and how that actually helps, because I think it's a big, big thing.

Yeah. Yeah, it's great, mate. Yeah, you, um, you struck on probably one of the major drivers in life and it's actually shame. So people, people don't disclose things because they feel fundamentally that there's something wrong with themselves. Um, and most people have shame to some capacities that some have no shame, which is kind of on the extreme scale.

That's a little bit dangerous. Um, but when it comes to having shame to give you an example, Kingsley, when you go to an environment, um, Um, you'll, you'll actually be in a structured environment. This is how you behave in that business forum environment. Okay. And this is how, and you don't break those boundaries.

You, you're just part of that group. Little bit like school. Like we all grew up all listening, you know, to the teacher and be respectful and we'd get punished if he weren't, or, you know, those consequences for that, for most of us, you know, um, and so these are the environments that we get used to. And it's shame on you.

If you break that boundary, okay, so then when it comes to, um, doing one on one catch ups or having a lunch or having a coffee or something or having a beer or whatever, often that shame boundary disappears because you're one on one and there's some sort of safety involved. Okay, so when it comes to businesses and how do we do that quicker?

Um, often it's the safety that we create in that environment. Okay. And then it's then also sometimes sometimes self disclosure in that environment at the level that you want it to be, is the second thing that you do. So say you're having a business team meeting and people are afraid to disclose information that might make them look shameful.

It's actually just create some safety around that environment so they can feel safe to disclose that. Okay. There are also points back to what, how are we leading our organizations? Are they fear based? Organizations that there's massive ramification, ramifications if you report wrongly, right, or not appropriately or whatever the bad thing is.

Right. Um, or are we, uh, kind of, uh, um, uh, an unconditional love based organization, which again is an ideal, but it's almost like what kind of leadership are we putting out there? So, so it's sort of a little bit like, um, So I'll give you an example. We had a staff member recently said it's so easy to approach me and my wife and talk about issues because it worked in previous psychology outfits where The psychologists were like the gurus, but they're in this ivory tower.

And so, and we've worked hard to deliberately create an environment and not creating an environment. Our team isn't big, but it's creating an environment where people feel that it's not a shame based culture or a fear based leadership culture. It's actually now that often happens at the outset of how you're structuring your team meetings, how you're structuring your, um, Your roles, it's also quite a lot of internal reflection as well.

Like how, how are you leading? Um, and, and what's your motivation? Um, so there's lots of discussions around that and thoughts around that reflections around that, but you're striking right at the heart of it. Kingsley, because it's sort of shame really does. Um, affect the, our culture and society. And, and I, I find it fascinating being in environments.

Cause I deal with this all the time. I sometimes deliberately be cheeky and, and my wife is so funny. Cause she's like, why did you say that? And I'm like, cause I just wanted to make everyone, you know, just break that shame barrier. And, um, you know, I said some word. An outing the other day and everyone just went, what the heck?

Like, you know, and it was because you're trying to break that shame barrier. And so then people loosen up, you know, loosen up and feel a bit more relaxed to share. There's a lot in that though. I know what you're saying. And yeah.

Yeah, no, that's, that's really cool. Where it actually comes from and, you know, pointing it down to Okay, this is how we behave in this environment and what we do and that sort of thing, which is really cool.

Um, I want to, I want to now

research around that. Sorry, I keep cutting in when you ask questions. The researcher is brilliant around that is a lady called Brene Brown, who I'm sure many people have heard of, but Brene Brown, if you hadn't, she's, she's got some stuff on Netflix. She's the guru when it comes to shame and guilt and all that kind of stuff.

Bit of a bit of a shout out to Bruno. Yeah,

definitely. Definitely. Um, I want to touch on something that's becoming a bigger and bigger issue, particularly in Australia right now. It probably is in various other countries. I would imagine as well. But I know in Australia is becoming a bigger issue. The governments are looking at implementing.

Well, I have actually started implementing various rules around this and laws and that sort of thing that sort of again, pinpoints makes it hard for some small businesses, but it's stuff that needs to be dealt with. I'm very much, uh, let's be proactive about these things. Let's not wait and see what happens and blame somebody else for it and get them to deal with it.

But I need to take responsibility for myself. That's how I like to approach it. So the whole area of mental health specifically. So when it comes to work, um, cause there's a lot of things at work that can create a lot of this stress from various ways. Um, And it could be bosses. It could be clients. It could be time restraints.

It could be all sorts of things. Um, what can we do personally from a psychological perspective? What can we do as an individual to say? You know what? I'm going to deal with this myself. and make me a better person.

Yep. So as an individual employed or as someone employing other people, mate,

both, yeah, both ways.

So I take responsibility for my mental health, whether I'm the boss, whether I'm an employee, whether I'm a manager level, whatever it is to take responsibility personally for our own mental health. Um, And yeah, because I figure that if we're more proactive with it, I, we're not going to deal with it anywhere near as much and it may not even hit us too much, uh, if at all, if we can deal with some, some things now, obviously everyone's different.

Um, and I don't want to, you know, let anyone feel guilty because maybe they are dealing with that. Whereas other people, cause everyone's situation is completely varied. Uh, but what are the things we can do personally to be proactive about this? Yeah.

Great. Cool, man. I, um, just, uh, I'm thinking about during COVID days, we were swamped as mental health practitioners with the mental health issues.

I remember coming into work one day, um, this is sort of, um, the second year of COVID, it was around March. And just to put it in perspective, I'd normally get about five cases of burnout in about 12 years, right? So that's, and I had five cases of burnout by March that year. And so we had the rapid increase in, um, people just, you know, being burnt to a crisp just because of the massive changes in roles and, and the way we did work and all that kind of stuff.

And so I think, um, when it comes to your own mental health is look very genuinely, look at the rhythms that you have and remembering when it comes to mental health, um, If these are illnesses, if these are things that we need treatment for, it's actually the first point of call is to check in with your GP and to check in with your GP as a reference point.

You know, if you're finding yourself having lots of sick days, if you're finding yourself feeling really flat, if you're finding yourself thinking suicidal thoughts or thinking stuff that's very dark, check in with your GP. You know, talk, talk to a mate that you really trust and feel safe with that. You feel that shame thing isn't an issue.

Um, chat with someone about it. You know, it could be a local priest or pastor or rabbi or someone, and it's just someone you feel safe with and that you can sort of talk to. GPs are great like that in our society. Um, and it's okay to reach out. It really is like, it's okay to go, look, I'm not coping. I remember a mate of mine once, he was going through a role transition.

This is years ago. And he said he went to work one morning. So I just can't work this out. And he said it to himself a few times. He went, I can't work this out. And then he went, I can't, I can't work this out. I need help. And so he went to his GP, contacted a friend who connected him with a psychologist and they helped them work it out or on the journey to it.

You know what I mean? So it was kind of like this kind of space where when we can't work out what to work out, right? Um, that's, that's what we can do. And that's, that's really proactive. Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, I think, yeah, 100%. And sometimes, um, the whole goal of this too. And I kind of wanted to really emphasize this.

Is when we remove the anxiety, we remove or get proactive in dealing with it, we can then run and we can run in what we feel like we're, we're created to do, we can, we can actually, the whole purpose of it isn't to be medicalized. It's actually so you can fly that that's the whole point of it, the whole point of dealing with the mental health.

Isn't to be full of shame and full of, you know, great. I've got a gravel for the next five, five months or something. It's actually, it's actually, Hey, let's deal with the issue. So then you can run hard and be better. Yeah. I mean, be more amazing and be incredible in what you're. Now that's, there's lots of individual circumstances with that and there's different illnesses that people deal with.

So I'm not going to cover all those kinds of things, but the main ones are really anxiety, depression, burnout really at the moment. Um, when it comes to an employer, um, I think, and I don't know the law, it's like totally myself. So, um, but from my understanding in the areas I do work in, it's just being reasonable.

So it's not being, um, unreasonable with your staff's requests. It's being reasonable when I talked about a fear based culture. Um, and, uh, you know, like a supportive based culture that's actually quite important to mental health in an organization. So I've worked with a number of organizations that have quite a fear based culture.

And so often they're moving into spaces where this bullying in the workplace. So that's a work cover issue we deal with. Um, and a lot of it's because the culture of the organization across years. Has been, we will bully the next generation because that's what happened to us. And it's sort of, um, it's perpetuating cycles.

So you've got to kind of look at that and go, you know, what sort of environment am I in? How, um, how am I, uh, achieving performance? And is that performance, because we all need to produce something if we're in the workplace. I mean, that's kind of why we're employed, right? Is to produce, but how are we getting those results?

And so it's really sort of asking, well, are we being reasonable? Um, if someone has a request for us for sick leave, are we yelling at them and, and texting them, you're an effing idiot, you know, which I've seen, I've seen in situations, you know, people having a root canal and then they got texted by their boss that they're an effing, you know, all this sort of stuff.

And it's like, wow, like what, what kind of employer is doing that and why are you doing it? And like, you know, obviously it's pressure and stress from whoever they're. whatever, but it's not, it's again, what sort of cultures are we building as employers and are we being reasonable? Like, and you know, you can kind of give yourself the pub test for that one.

You know, like you can talk to, talk to your mates at the pub and go, are you, do you think that's reasonable? And if they look, you know, if you're swearing at your employee, you're probably not, you know, like it's probably not that reasonable. Um, and again, you know, um, so. There's a couple of thoughts with that, both both individually and so individually, it's actually taking responsibility.

Okay, that's probably the key as an employer. It's probably being reasonable to me, being reasonable and not in your approach to your staff.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. Because I know a question like that is like, you've got about three million different scenarios to cover. I think you did it well by giving a good summary.

And if you do approach things that way, you're right. It pretty much, you know, it helps in the culture is such a major, major thing, which is really cool. And that's come seems to be coming up pretty much every podcast is that whole thing about culture in the workplace. So that's, um, it's obviously a major, major thing.

Um, now We come into the end. I wish we weren't, but unfortunately we have to. But at the end of each podcast, I always ask a question. Um, and that is, and then there's a follow up question that goes with it. We talk a lot about creating the ultimate tomorrow on here because that's what it's about. Not ultimate tomorrow.

Obviously it's not utopia, but it's what we want to be, what we want to do, the life that we want to live really. Um, yeah. In your words, in your estimation, either as a psychologist or personally, what is the ultimate tomorrow?

Wow. Okay. Um, that's a big question, mate. Is that for myself individually or is it? Oh, right. Okay. Um, yeah. Okay. I, yeah, I've, I've got a personal belief, which is aligned very much to my faith. Um, which is that, you know, we've basically been, you know, you know, made to some extent, you know, by a maker. And, um, my ultimate tomorrow is, is to be running in what I've been made for, um, and help other people run as well.

Um, and so that's what I was trying to say earlier on. Um, You know, mental health. I see and often what I hear from clients regularly is I want to live my best life now. And this mental health things getting in the way. And I totally understand that. I totally get that mental health is not the goal. Like it's not to sit and wallow in our depression or anxiety.

It's to treat it. But then it's to run. And so to me, people's ultimate tomorrows. Uh, are you running? To the capacity that you feel like you're made for and how can we help, you know, and that would actually be what I think I'm made for. So that actually then is my ultimate tomorrow too. And we're building a team around that concept.

We're building a team around that concept that it's not always about fixing people, but it's about removing things that people could run. And, and that's really, I suppose my ultimate tomorrow, my wife and I, that's what we feel like we're designed for. Yeah, the

follow up question to that is how do you create the ultimate tomorrow?

Yeah, great. My really good question. Um, I, I personally think exactly what you're doing. Kingsley's right on point is that I often find there's gaps in my mind when it comes to coaching, when it comes to skills, when it comes to motivation. I regularly have gaps in my noggin around those areas and as a business owner myself and um, I'm paying people, employing people, getting people to help you fill those gaps to then reach to that ultimate tomorrow.

Um, we've just engaged a coaching team around, um, you know, private practice recently who are specialists in that area and they've been absolutely phenomenal. And I, I'm like, where have you been all my life? And it's, it's been so great. So motivate, and this is why I specifically think Kingsley, what you, what you're doing and in this podcast too, is encouraging and motivating people.

To then join those dots. Cause I think those people are there. There's people that have gone beyond us that there's people that are turning over a million dollar businesses beyond us and we can engage them. And so how do you, how do you deal with that? And how do you fix this? And you know, next step, psychology and counseling, what we do is really help specifically with the mental health component of that.

But it's, it's like, you know, not holding back to then engage those people. Go, look, I've got a problem here. Who's a specialist here? Let me engage them. And then you remove that block and then keep running. And, um, and that can be all over the place. It can be accountancy. It can be business planning. It can be, um, you know, whatever it is.

You know, cash flow management, you know, you name it, you know, there's all these different spaces. Um, they're only the business ones. There's multiple other ones too.

Yeah, that's awesome. Mike, thank you so much. Um, As I said at the beginning, I knew it happened. You got, there's so much gold there to pull back.

I think it's one of those things we need to listen to two or three times to actually pull out little bits because you've covered so many people in just short spaces of time with everything, but the coverage of what you've done is a great summary of what we can do. So how can people, if people want to follow up with you, whether they want to make an appointment, follow you on LinkedIn or wherever, what's the best way people can get in touch and follow you?

Yeah, definitely, mate. Yeah. LinkedIn. Um, if you go in LinkedIn, um, just my personal profile, Ian Rumsey, uh, on that, there's a link to our website, uh, nextsteppsychology. com. au. You can book an appointment there. We do zoom. Um, so we actually have, uh, clients around the world, actually internationally. Um, literally, which is really awesome.

Time zone things. Interesting. But the, um, uh, and then just sign up next step. Um, and you'll regularly get our, uh, blogs, um, which are different to the LinkedIn. So the LinkedIn is probably more little snippet snippet and snacks. Um, but also our blogs on our website, you'll get a real gist of the way we think and the way we practice as well, which is along the lines of what we've been talking about today.

And I'm happy to support people any way they need it. Yeah.

Fantastic. Ian, thank you so much. Uh, lots of gold there, as we said, really appreciate you coming on the Tomorrow is not Today Podcast and have a fantastic day.

You too, mate. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers, buddy.