One of the key components when planning an expedition is risk management. When I plan an expedition, the very first thing I do is identify: What is the goal? The goal is not the summit. It’s not the highest point nor the success in terms of binary standing on the top or not, but really, the goal for every expedition is that people come home safe, secure, and healthy.

The secondary piece is that we also return home as friends. As I’m approaching this experience from that perspective, one of the very first things I do, after kind of acknowledging what the goals are and what the intention is behind the expedition, is I create a risk management plan. Once that’s solid in place, it then allows me to be able to relax into the challenges, the uncertainties, and the unknowns. It serves as a backstop from which I know things are going to be managed if things go poorly, or things reach a challenging place. I’ll use the word “container” for our conversation.

This risk management plan is essentially a container from which I can then operate my business. I can be in a relationship with my family. I can take in and digest information from the outside world knowing that I have this kind of space to work in in the event that things go poorly. I’m not working from a reactive space. Instead, I’m responding to new inputs using this risk management plan as a way of framing that.

One thing I’d like to do today is talk about what does a risk management plan for this sort of situation really look like. A few hours of work on our end is a gift to our businesses, to our families and loved ones, and to ourselves, so that we can then let our guards down, and start to slow down and enjoy some of the unintended consequences that have come as a result of this situation.

Sean Murray  06:12

Yeah, I’d like to dive into that. I’d also like to acknowledge the other point that you made about the objective of the expedition. Maybe we should think about the objective for ourselves and our families as we go through this crisis. The objective you mentioned for the expedition was to come back safe, healthy, and with relationships intact. We so often go on an “expedition” or life with the goal being the summit. We’re so used to that in our normal life, striving for the summit at all costs, no matter what price. But when you reframe it in the way you just did, it already sort of has a calming effect of thinking about that as the ultimate goal. We should all think about what our goal is coming through this.

Matt Walker  07:02

Yeah, that slight reframe and acknowledgment of what is our end goal in this gives us grace, and the ability to be able to lead our businesses and our families from a different place. We’re in the social distancing space right now, so many of us are living in our homes full-time with everyone in them.

In my case, I have four adults, including myself, and two children in my home. It’s a very tight space. What the reframe allows me to do is to give more grace to those that are around me. If someone’s having a bad day, someone’s challenged, sad, overwhelmed, feeling lonely, feeling isolated– whatever it is, it gives me an opportunity to give that person more latitude because I’m going to be able to work in service to what that goal is. That’s a substantial gift that we can give to each other during this time during the uncertainty.

Sean Murray  08:03

Absolutely! I’ve also read someone put out a tweet that said, “Be kind to yourself as you go through this.”

Matt Walker  08:12

It’s incredibly difficult to be kind to ourselves when we have expectations of high levels of performance and high levels of output. There are always ways that we can be doing better and doing more, but sometimes we really just need to take a break. I would have to put everything down. I would have to close my machine, tell my loved ones I will be back in 15 minutes, and go for a walk to get some air. It’s definitely working smarter and not working harder. I think that maybe an unintended consequence coming out of this is we have to slow down and work smarter. Working harder is not a solution to this problem nor to this challenge that we’re in.

Sean Murray  08:48

Keeping the analogy of mountain climbing or being on an expedition, I think about the next three to six months in my own business. I do leadership development and deliver workshops as do you out there in the world, but many of those workshops and that business has gone away. It’s almost as if you think about climbing a mountain with the summit as the ultimate goal, but things don’t go as planned, and everyone has to collectively realize, “Hey, we’re not going to make the summit today. Now, it’s all about getting off this mountain and surviving.” It’s almost like we collectively went through that transition in the last couple of weeks.

Matt Walker  09:32

I would shift the analogy slightly. There’s a phenomenon when you’re on bigger mountains on a ridge, where the last thing that you see on the skyline looks like the top when in actuality, it’s a false summit. It’s not the top at all. It’s just the last perspective that you can see from the angle you’re at. Once you top that part of the mountain, then the landscape opens up and you get to see what’s beyond that. I feel like that’s where we’re at right now, looking at a place we thought was the summit. Now that we’re there, we realize that, actually, we’re not there, and there’s considerably more terrain to go, and it looks different. And until this point, it was completely unknown to us.

If we collectively look out across the landscape, we’ll everyone rejigging what the norm is in terms of their workflow, how they’re interacting with each other, what the cash flow looks like, how to manage capital differently, and how to manage resources.

Another piece I want to talk about is there are so many shifts and changes in terms of the input. The necessity to rejig our businesses is happening all the way across the board that it can feel incredibly overwhelming and lead to high levels of anxiety and depression that we can get frozen into it.

The only way to work through that space is to increase our self-awareness so that when we are triggered to feel that sense of overwhelm, we can identify it within our bodies. Whether it’s an elevated heart rate, or holding our breath, or having circular thoughts, or being short with those around us; whatever the trigger is for our anxiety, we then go back to that self-care so that we can create more space.

If you think about a target, it has concentric circles coming off of a bull’s eye. The first two concentric circles are kind of where we operate normally, and where we can learn and meet challenges. Then, as we start to expand outward, and the demands are higher on us, we reach a point where we actually redline, and we can’t function in that space anymore. That happens when we simultaneously take in the information that our businesses and our norms are restructuring. We’re not sure how to actually do that. We spread ourselves out so far that our nervous system can’t handle it anymore, and we shut down. And so, we want to get into a space of being able to come back and center ourselves to do different types of self-care. Exercise, diet, relaxation techniques, and connecting with friends and family, whatever we can do to be able to come back to center and to recharge so that we can go back out again and not get redlined.

I think one of the substantial learnings from this experience is that everyone has to increase their capacity for self-awareness and their self-actualization so that they can then show up and run their businesses and not just be totally shut down and redlined by it. I think that’s going to be the differentiating factor that leads us to success: How aware are you of how you’re responding to stress and anxiety and overwhelm? Are you able to regulate that?

Sean Murray  12:57

Yeah, that’s a very good question. To that, I would add a kind of a second-order effect. How do we come out of this transformed? How do we come out of this stronger? Some ways I can think of are maybe emotionally, mentally stronger, able to manage stress in new ways, better able to center ourselves, calm ourselves, and make better decisions under uncertainty. I hope we can dive into all of that.

I want to transition back to something you mentioned very early on, which was a risk management plan, and how that plays into an expedition. You mentioned that once the goal of the expedition is clearly stated, the risk management plan is the key to ensuring that we all come home safely, and with relationships intact. It also provides a calming effect as you go through the expedition that you know the plan is in place.

Matt Walker  13:49

What I’ve done for my own family, and what I would encourage others to do, is to take a couple of hours, open up a document, and literally hash out what is your risk management plan. So, what is your plan for what if someone in your household gets sick? Do you have the materials that you need? In my household, we’ve created manila envelopes that have each family member’s ID cards, insurance cards, medical history, code to their phone and to their laptop, emergency contact information, and any sort of information that you would want if a family member was sick and needed medical care. We keep that information on hand, so we don’t have to search for it. That’s the kind of detail I go into in terms of having the materials to take care of somebody if they are sick. When I say materials, I’m talking about meds, paper products, trash bags, and all the details of what I would want to have. Aside from that, what would I do in terms of medical care? How would I want to support them? How would I connect with their loved ones and their extended family, and pass to the word through?

So, I’m not fear-mongering or acting from a place of terror. Instead, I’m just creating a plan, so that if someone does fall ill or get sick, there’s some sort of system that’s already in place in order to support them. That only takes a couple of hours of work to create that.

Additionally, I would do the same thing for my business. What am I doing for my business? What is my goal over the next three months? What are the things I need to attend to? I kind of come up with a plan or a map. I do the same thing with my financial situation. How am I handling my bills over the next three months? How am I handling invoicing?

So, my encouragement is not to go into a place of fear-mongering or terror. Instead, take some time to create detailed plans for handling negative business what-ifs, and family health and well-being. Once those are completed, that’s the risk management plan. You’ll see the gaps, and those need to be attended to with whatever’s missing from them or whatever needs to be done. Once those pieces are identified, you can let go of all the anxiety and fear you’ve been holding in questioning the unknown. Your nervous system can relax into the container of knowing that there is a plan in place in the event that XYZ happens.

Once your nervous system acknowledges that there is a plan and that it can relax, you can then move back into a place of creation. That’s where our businesses need to be right now because we have to create in order to thrive and operate in this landscape, but we can’t do both at the same time. We can’t hold fear and terror while also holding creativity, or having a shifting perspective. In terms of running our businesses, those two pieces run counter to each other.

So, I see that an integral part of a successful expedition is being able to plan for the worst and prepare for the best. So let’s take the time to do that, but don’t stay in that space too long. I think you mentioned earlier is how to manage all the news and information, and that sort of thing. Having a plan in place allows you to release yourself from that anxiety, and I think, once you reset point, you don’t actually need to take in all this unknown information because already have a plan and a plan in place to take care of yourself.

Sean Murray  17:21

I really can relate to the idea that it’s very difficult to create when you’re under a sense of fear or anxiety. We do need to create to move forward in this, whether it’s moving your family forward towards your plan, or moving relationships forward, moving your business forward. There is an opportunity to move forward, but if you’re debilitated by fear or anxiety, it’s very, very challenging. So, I can relate to that idea that, if you’ve got the plan in place, it sort of frees up the mental space to apply your mental energy, which is, really, a limited resource right now. Put your mental energy towards something that’s going to allow you to move forward.

Matt Walker  18:08

Right, and the reality is you can’t do that until there’s a sense of safety and security. That sense of safety and security comes from that risk management plan. Also, I would posit that, as leaders, we owe to our community, our businesses, and our families to be able to create that opportunity for safety and security in uncertainty. We’re never going to be able to be safe and secure against all risks, but we can mitigate those risks by having a plan in place, and it’s not going to come from an external source. It needs to come from somewhere internal within our circles.

Sean Murray  18:49

You mentioned obligation or duty to our community if we have the capacity to step up and lead in some way. Because most likely, others will not be dealing with us at the same level. Not everyone’s going to have a plan in place. But if we’re able to put the plan in place, have the mental space to, and mindset to make decisions and move forward, then we can think beyond ourselves, to our family, to our relationships, to our community. Reach out to others. Don’t just look internally, but look externally, how we can help others. It’s really difficult to do that if you can’t lead yourself first.

Matt Walker  19:27

That’s right. When I created this risk management plan for myself, my business and for my family, I would say that, it wasn’t immediate, but within 48 hours, of finishing, my entire Nervous System relaxed, and I was able to just breathe more. I didn’t feel as much tension. I wasn’t having post-traumatic emotional mood swings. I was in a much calmer place, and was frankly more enjoyable to be around for other people and myself, and was able to take my business in a different direction and start to think more creatively. But it was creating and going through this process that allowed me to then move into a place of creation, which I was did not have access to previously.

Sean Murray  20:09

I know that when you work with executives and teams, you do a lot of work with helping people manage their breathing, manage their physical presence in some ways through your meditation or stretching or yoga or other forms of creating more presence.

Matt Walker  20:28

What you’re referring to is what’s called “embodiment work,” which is connecting your emotional and cognitive experiences together with your physical experience. From a Western perspective, we really quickly go to critical thinking and problem-solving. What I ask my clients to do is also to check-in and understand how their body is physically responding and reacting. How do they hold stress? How are they blocking themselves from thinking with more creativity and shifting perspective by only staying in their head? And instead, open up their body to more information and to have more of an open channel.

I’ll share one thing that I’m doing with my clients right now, which I think is really helpful. I am doing 7-day challenges right now with my clients. What I ask them to do is to take a closer look at four different domains in their lives: their physical health and well-being, their personal relationships, their spiritual life, and their professional life. Then to identify one specific goal that they want to attend to just in a 7-day period. These are short 7-day challenges which, as we know right now, and in the environment we’re in, seven days feels like an eternity. Each day feels like a week in itself.

The course is seven days. Identify one specific goal to attend to, and then one specific action in order to get there. What I ask people to do is to mix up their routines so that they are connecting two perspectives together, doing both cognitive and critical thinking, and physical and emotional work. It could involve breathwork. It could involve just consistent exercise, keep on eating more and as healthy as possible, getting more sleep, decreasing alcohol intake, and things like that; so that we’re actually creating opportunities to experience what’s happening in our bodies, instead of just trying to stay in our heads and put problem-solving plays.

We live in our bodies. Our bodies give us a tremendous amount of information. When we are tense and anxious, we hold our breath more. We only breathe from the top of our lungs. We pull our shoulders up and tense up our ears. We don’t sleep as well. We’re not able to relax. And so, when I work with my clients, it’s really about trying to connect the dots on all those things. In doing so, we tap into our bodies as teachers for letting us know what we need in order to be able to soothe our nervous system and be able to move into that place of creative flow that we were talking about earlier.

Anxiety and overwhelm is a great teacher if we can do it in moderation. But right now we’re definitely not in the place of moderation. That’s why we have to then be more aggressive about taking care of our physical bodies to be able to handle this level of uncertainty and overwhelm. What we’re in right now, the longer it goes on, it is becoming more and more of a challenge because it’s going to take that much more discipline to be able to take care of our bodies.

Sean Murray  23:27

It’s a really good point. Just a few weeks ago, I had Brad Stulberg on the podcast. He wrote a book, Peak Performance, and has a growth equation of Stress + Rest = Growth. He emphasized that a certain amount of stress is helpful for us to grow. Too much stress becomes distress. In the case of debilitating anxiety, it prevents us from growing. But if we can manage the stress in some way, it’s really important to get the rest, which I think is what you’re talking about there.

One thing I’ve noticed in my own life in the last couple of weeks is I am more physically tired at night. I am sleeping a little bit longer and deeper, and I think it’s the counterweight to the stress during the day. My body needs to rejuvenate. I think we all have an opportunity to grow through this and come out stronger and transformed in ways that will help us in the rest of our lives, but we need to take care of our bodies to do that.

Matt Walker  24:31

Just to put a pin on that, I think what I’ve seen and heard so far with my clients, whom I’ve only been coaching now virtually instead of seeing them in person, all the way across the board is, “I’m not willing to go back to the way it was before.” After just three weeks where people had the option to slow down a little bit, they expressed that they are no longer willing to go back to some of the old patterns they had before where they were running redlined all the time. I think that could be one of the big takeaways from this experience.

We’re being forced into a position where we have to really tap into an understanding of how our bodies are responding. When we do that, it gives us information that we’ve neglected, like personal health and well-being, so much by consistently pushing so hard that we’re not willing to make that sacrifice any longer. We’ll need to make adjustments in our professional lives in order to address that. So I think there are going to be some substantial outcomes from this experience where we won’t return back to the same baseline whereas before.

Sean Murray  25:41

I think we’re all asking what societal trends are going to come out of this? How is this collective experience going to impact society and culture moving forward? I agree with what you’re saying, as far as this has forced us all to slow down. It’s forced us all to spend more time with family. I found I’ve had more family meals together in the last two weeks than I probably had in the previous two months. The kids also aren’t doing their sports that they do, which often fall during times of meals. I also think about people that might be used to commuting that aren’t commuting right now, and people that might have their schedules completely filled up with meetings and might now have more time for reflection. So, I hope we all come out of this with some positives and become unwilling to re-insert the things in our life that were negative.

Matt Walker  26:38

I was just doing an audit for a client in terms of time management for the executive team. What we found going into this whole crisis, and then also in it, more detail, was that people were really unwilling to give up their time for cursory engagements, like meetings that they don’t necessarily need to attend, but were invited to. The sentiment, “My time is valuable,” was found up and down the chain. It wasn’t just executives that felt that way, but also the frontline workers. All of our time is valuable. We should be able to honor that across the board.”

I have a feeling that this is going to have larger repercussions as that perspective is taken on by businesses. Everyone’s time has deep value, and it’s not just tied to the organization, but also tied to our families. It will affect how we make choices, in terms of if we want to return to a pace of life where our families are being pulled to six different curricular and extracurricular activities after a full day of work for the adults. Is that the sort of model we want to return back to? Do we want to return back to a model where we’re in six hours of meetings a day, and then have got six hours of work we need to do between work and home, in order just to execute? I think our time management is going to shift dramatically as a result of this.

Sean Murray  28:04

Yeah, we’re going to be asking ourselves what’s essential and looking at them through the frame of what’s really important. Kind of getting back to that very first idea that you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast around, what’s the goal? Are we using our time wisely and investing it wisely to achieve that goal?

Matt Walker  28:21

I would ask that from that risk manager perspective, as well. What is essential? What is essential for me to relax into this uncertainty? This may be a new question that people are not accustomed to asking themselves. If I embrace and recognize that uncertainty will always be present and will never go away, and there’s no amount of planning nor control that I can attempt to muscle in to shift the uncertainty, what can I address? What can I bring to the situation to allow me to relax into uncertainty?”

I think that’s a great place to operate from in terms of how we rejig our business by creating a risk management plan for your business. But also create a risk management plan for your family and your home. “How can I create safety and security and relax into the uncertainty of this experience?” I firmly believe that if you can answer that question, and create that framework for yourself, your family, and your business, it will open up the door for you to be able to then really step into being present during this time, decreasing fear and also relaunching your business time when everyone is kind of scrambling and not sure how to operate.

Sean Murray  29:38

That’s one of the more profound changes that this pandemic has sort of thrust on many of us. We’re used to being in control, having a lot of control over our time, over our lives, and over how things are going to unfold. Many of us are finding that in this experience, we don’t have as much control. That’s where the uncertainty comes in. But what we can control is that plan. We can control how we take care of ourselves. We can control how we react to events. We can control the embodiment that you were talking about as far as being aware of our bodies and how we’re dealing with stress, getting the right amount of food, exercise, mental rest; all of that is under our control.

Matt Walker  30:21

Right? I mean, I know it’s a little bit of a paradox, but the more structure that I give myself, the more I’m able to relax into the unstructured time. To be able to play with my children and not even sweat what’s happening in my business or my inbox, or be able to put my phone down for hours at a time not feeling like I need to check to see what the latest update or news is; all that freedom for creativity and for thinking more clearly about my business and the opportunities there and how to serve my clients comes from being more proactive about having a vision for how to manage risk.

So, ironically, we just left a time when there was a very robust economy where there was a lot of opportunity flowing freely that we didn’t have to be that proactive about. Then, all of a sudden, this is thrust upon us, which is a significant, but beautiful challenge, and it really just pairs down to what is essential, like you’ve mentioned a couple times now. What is the essential step that I need to take? Is it in alignment with how my business is structured, and even more importantly, am I in a place to execute? Without calming our own nervous system, we’re not going to be in a place to execute. We’re not going to be trustable by our colleagues and by our family. The more grounded we are, the more trustable we’re going to be. That’s going to come from creating a structure and the embodiment work by being grounded so that we’re not sitting out with anxiety.

Sean Murray  31:53

I’d like to go back to your 7-day challenge. What I like about that is it gives you something to focus on at the end of the seven days. You can reflect on hopefully making progress on that one thing. It’s what I call a just-manageable challenge. I picked that up from Brad Stulberg.

Matt Walker  32:12

Let me just come back to the 7-day challenge for a second, and encourage any listeners that want more information on it, or want to be held accountable, to send me an email. I’ll send them a PDF for this in the show notes for you, but you can send me an email at matt@mattwalkeradventure.com. I’ll follow up with the documentation on it as well.

What we’re trying to do is create digestible habits that aren’t so significant that they’re radically shifting your behavior, but in small increments. We’re making adjustments so that your values and your actions are in alignment. That’s really what we’ve been talking about all along, all your values and your actions in alignment. That risk management plan is your values and your actions coming together like this. This is my plan for worst-case scenario. It’s the same thing with when we were talking about rejigging our businesses during this time, our values, and our reactions, and alignment. If they are, then we’re trustable, and our nervous systems are calm and cool because we know that our behaviors are in alignment.

Working from that space allows us to be open and engage with others. I think this goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway. The more normal habituated routine we can bring into uncertainty, the better. So, very simple things like washing your face, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, and putting fresh clothes on before you go to work each day, even though you’re working at home. That sort of routine allows us to be able to show up with more clarity and allows us to shift.

One thing that I really encourage people to do is to put on their uniform for the day. Get out of pajamas, put on real clothes, and go to work for the day. Then the crucial part of this is, when you clock out, is to change clothes again, back into casual clothes. The idea is that we need to be able to create spaces for ourselves where we play those roles. Those shifts and changes allow us to be able to step into that role, execute, and then have a clear definition when we’re out of that space.

When we’re working from home, it’s crucial to create boundaries and create differentiation between all of these things so that we can execute in that space, and then move into the next space and be present for that. If we’re carrying the energy from the uncertainty and stress of our professional lives, and we’re carrying that directly into making dinner and being with our children, they feel and know that. It’s also hard to be able to be present with that. Whatever little habits we can create to be able to create these little boundaries for ourselves, the better.

Sean Murray  34:46

The lines can get blurred. It can become very ambiguous. Are you at work? Are you at home? Are you there for your loved ones? For your kids? Having transitions, which we used to have when, physically, we’d walk or drive home. Reinserting or maintaining those transitions can help the mental transition, which is so important.

You mentioned routines. Find out whatever it is that rejuvenates you, and make sure you hold on to that. Also ask your spouse or your kids, what is it that they need to do? I like to run once a day. Sometimes, in the last few weeks, I just haven’t been able to do it. I haven’t gotten myself to do it, and my wife said, “Hey, have you done that today? It’s important for you to do that.” I’m trying to do the same for her, too. For her, it’s getting out and walking our dog. That’s important. We have to do that for our loved ones as well.

Matt Walker  35:44

I had a coaching call this morning with a client who was just noticing that her previous needs are no longer what her current needs are. Her previous needs were, having been at work all day and having been managing in a set of high-stress environment, she’s been super social, needing to have downtime after work in order to rejuvenate and come back. Now, the experience has really shifted.

Our needs now are pretty different than they were, and that of our family members’, too. Their needs may be shifting and changing, too. And that that’s just that the more that we can meet that with curiosity and openness, the more connection we’re going to have.

Sean Murray  36:30

What other advice do you have along the lines of the 7-day challenge that we should be potentially thinking about to help cope and manage through this?

Matt Walker  36:39

I use a tool called the Expedition Ascent Plan, which is essentially looking at our lives in quarters instead of years. That’s something I’m encouraging my clients to do right now. It’s to not try and jump ahead to a year at a time, to not try and think about what’s coming up next and what these next pieces are in our lives, but instead to think about it in smaller chunks. There’s a sense of a little more control. We can understand our impact a little bit deeper.

I’m actually doing annual planning with my clients right now. We’ve started just doing 45-day planning, and that’s it. What are we going to attend to for the next 45 days? What is the outcome we’re seeking? And how are we going to get there in the next 45 days? Because as things shift and change so dramatically, with new information and new technologies and just changing landscape, it’s not helpful to look out for a year because it feels inevitable, whereas a 45-day mark feels a little bit more manageable.

Sean Murray  37:36

That’s another great suggestion. Matt, where can people find out more about you and your work?

Matt Walker  37:42

They can go to mattwalkeradventure.com. There are downloads for different products and free downloads for information on some of these different tools I mentioned. There’s information about mountain climbing expeditions I take people on, which are clearly on hold at the moment, retreats that I run, workshops, and those sorts of things. I have a book on Amazon called Adventure In Everything, so go check that out. Also, as I mentioned earlier, my email address is matt@mattwalkeradventure.com. I will personally respond to anyone that reaches out via there and share any of the tools that I can to help support in this unprecedented challenging type of managing uncertainty.

Sean Murray  38:28

This has been a really informative and valuable conversation for me, personally, and I hope for the audience. Thanks for being on The Good Life!

Matt Walker  38:36

Thanks, Sean! I appreciate it.

Outro  38:38

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