Podcast Transcript

[00:00:41] Sean: G’day everyone and welcome to the ScaleUps Podcast where we help first-time Founders learn the secrets of scaling so they can fulfill the potential of their businesses, make bigger decisions with greater confidence and maximise the impact they can have in the world. I'm your host, Sean Steele. And before I welcome our guest today, Stacey Copas, a quick shout out to Big Biffer, who left a review on Apple Podcasts. Great name. And Big Biffer has said; “Scaling up can be lonely. There's not an easily accessible cohort to provide feedback or inspiration across different industries. Love this place that provides a place to learn, and I love Sean's interview style. Interesting and diverse guests, lots to learn.” Thank you so much. Big Biffer, the team and I are stoked that you are enjoying yourself. Folks, if you'd like to have your reviews read out, just head over on an Apple and leave a review. But without further ado, over to our guest, Stacey Copas. Welcome to our episode today, Stacey. How are you?

[00:01:33] Stacey: I’m fabulous, thanks. How are you doing? 

[00:01:35] Sean: I am well, I'm very, very good, very good. Stacey, typically on our show, we focus on Founders who share stories and strategies around how to scale, and we interview experts who spend a lot of their time sort of analysing or mentoring or coaching or developing, or consulting to businesses who can see all the patterns and various sort of strategy and tactics focused. But every now and again, we take a bit more of a personal approach and have a look at the Founders themselves. Because ultimately, the business’s growth rates never going to outpace the personal growth rate of the Founder. And it's no surprise to anyone that being a Founder is really hard. And there's times where we want to give up. And there's times where the amount of change is overwhelming for the Founder and their teams. And sometimes stuff is just not working, and they take big knocks and the Founders of course have the majority of the risk and therefore, feel the significance of the personal responsibility and the skin of the game attached to making it all work. And you know, the final thing on our episode that I say every day or every week is that you have to stay unshakeable in your faith that you're going to achieve the goal and flexible in your approach. Because the only thing that's going to stop you 100% guaranteed is giving up completely, removes your opportunity to scale entirely. And which is a perfect segue for you today because you're the Founder of the Academy of Resilience. And you're a published author, with your first book, How to be Resilient, the blueprint to getting things done when things don't go to plan. And I know you do lots of keynote speeches, inspiring audiences and helping people build rituals for resilience and more. So, I wonder Stacey, if maybe you kick us off today by telling us a bit of your story, you know, what you've been through that has sort of informed your views on how to become more resilient and the thinking, then the thought leadership you're doing in the space.

[00:03:23] Stacey: Absolutely. So, I guess to start with, is that from a resilience perspective, I think the majority of people that are in the space of speaking about resilience and possibly coaching and doing like things like that, most tend to come from an academic or a psychology background. And I come from neither of those backgrounds. And it's quite funny because when I first sort of started in this space, I didn't feel I was qualified to speak about resilience. And it took me a couple of years to actually get the courage to say that I was worried about that, and it was in a room full of CEOs when I actually said, “Just to let you know, I'm not an academic or a psychologist.” And they all said, thank goodness for that, we've had so many org-psychs and stuff coming to our organisations and they tell all these great things in our people sit back and go. So, what do we do with that? So, my perspective of coming at it from a life experience has been very well welcomed, I discovered after hiding it for a long time. So, I guess the biggest life experience that has informed my journey on resilience was back when I was 12 years old, I actually had a devastating accident that left me a quadriplegic and needing a wheelchair for the rest of my life. So, I was actually cooling off in a backyard swimming pool, one of my relatives pools with my younger brother who was 10 and a couple of other boys around the same age. And being the only girl and being a bit older than them, I did what I did every time I visited there was like, I left them alone and I just kept climbing up on the edge of the pool and diving in, and this didn't go unnoticed. I was getting yelled at to stop, but being 12 and bulletproof and invincible, as we all were at that age, I was like; meh, I'm not going to listen to that. But there was just one particular time that I was standing there and I thought that I was splashing too much as I was diving in. So, I stood there for a moment and I thought, how could I make a perfect dive. So, I thought in theory, if I was to hold my feet together and keep my legs straight, I thought that I would be able to dive without splashing. So, I took a deep breath. Did exactly that. And it felt like any other dive that I'd done before, except when I went to try and swim up to the surface, I realised I couldn't move. So, I was completely conscious, didn't feel any pain, didn't feel like anything had gone wrong. I was just stuck at the bottom of the pool, holding my breath, panicking, desperately trying to get the attention of my brother to help me, which I couldn't do. So, I held my breath for as long as I could. And then when I couldn't hold it any longer, I had to give in. And as my lungs filled with water, I blacked out. And eventually the others realised that I wasn't mucking around, they thought I was just joking, and they raised the alarm for help. And it was later that night at the third hospital that I was taken to that a doctor came and told me that I'd actually broken my neck and drowned and that I'd never walk again. So, to me that felt like an absolute death sentence, because prior to that I was an athlete. I was a pitcher in the softball team, first girl to play soccer for the school, rep runner every distance from the 100 meters, right through to the cross-country, you know, just gotten into a selective high school to pursue my dream of being a vet. And so everything that I sort of was aspiring to and I identified with for my future was, was gone in that moment. So, I really struggled to accept what had happened. I ended up really bitter and angry and resentful, and that was all directed at myself. And, you know, the years that followed, I would have given anything to have turned back the clock and not have taken that dive or at the lowest points to have not even been around at all. But it wasn't until, probably into my 20s that I began to actually just go look, I can't change what's happened, but I can change the story I tell about what's happened and I can change what I do next. And then I actually became grateful for what had happened and how it had changed my life. And most people think how the heck can ending up a quadriplegic and needing a wheelchair for the rest of your life, be positive. But when people would spend time with me, they realise that I am genuinely grateful and happy about what's happened and the opportunities it has presented. So, I guess that's the sort …

[00:07:43] Sean: Stacey, what were the catalysts, you know, something changed in you or something that you experienced? I mean, that's also a pretty decent period. So, you're in your twenties, right? That's 10 years after having to go through what is an unbelievably life-changing event for you and your family. But then in your early 20s, something shifted in you. What preceded that?

[00:08:07] Stacey: It was a pretty gradual thing. It was over time during, you. know, the high school years. I think there was an element of acceptance that, okay, I couldn't do what I was going to do. And I had to look at what I was going to do next. I actually spent a great deal of my High school years getting drunk and getting stoned. And that was my escape from dealing with the reality of the situation, and I guess it's not unlike a lot of teams, but I think for me, it was a real escape. It was moments of artificial happiness. And once I sort of realised that I was heading down a path that was not going to be a good outcome for me, then over time as I started to get foggier, then I realised, okay, I need to stop doing that. And then I think that probably the biggest thing for me was then finishing school, I got into uni, I deferred, never went, got a job. And I think it was once, once I, you know, I got it, I got a full-time job, I got my license, I got a car. I started doing all the things that everyone else was doing. And I kind of felt like, okay, I can still do pretty much everything that everyone else is doing. That really started to go, well, okay, I can't keep focusing on what I've lost. There's still so much opportunity ahead and just looked at it and go, okay, well, that's where I start to take control of what comes next. 

[00:09:31] Sean: Wow. What an incredible journey you went through. And so you started to make this, mind shifts happening gradually, you get to your 20’s; okay, actually, there are some really positive things about this. Actually, I've got a future that I can create for myself. Actually, I'm in control of this story and I don't get to choose the hand that's dealt to me, but I do get to choose what it means for me. How did that start to change your life?

[00:09:59] Stacey: Yeah, I think just touching on what you said about the hand you're dealt and I didn't realise until much later on that it's like, even with poker, you can still win poker with the worst hand, you know, it's just how you play it. And sometimes it is just bluffing. So, as I said, I went on, I got a job, did all that sort of stuff, but then I have always had this thing that I was here to make a difference. I just didn't know how. So, then I sort of started to look for, it's like, okay, how could I make a difference? It was almost like, I was like; okay, time to road test some things. And being an idealistic, 20 something, I thought that politics was going to be a great way to try and make a difference. And you know, in my fairly early 20’s, I found myself in the guts of a political party and I ended up running for council. I ran for the state election in 2007 here in New South Wales. 

[00:11:03] Sean: And was there any history in the family of anyone do politics or government or anything? 

[00:11:05] Stacey: No, my goodness. Nothing. My parents, like in my family, no one even spoke about politics. It was even like mum and dad said, you don't even talk about who you vote for because that's personal. So, it was just one of these things that I had no exposure to politics other than what I saw on TV. I had no friends that were involved in politics, just 20-something Stacey thought; “Wow, what a way to make difference.” And so yeah, I got right in the guts of it. And I thought, look, get involved in policy. But I learned over the few years that I was involved that, there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that isn't so constructive. And it was not something that. Sort of felt that was the way that I'd like to make a difference. So, after many years in doing that across two states, then I walked away from that proverbially, and then just went on to other things and thought that there's other ways that I can make a difference in the world. 

[00:12:11] Sean: Wow. And so, at what age did you start sharing your thoughts with others on what it had taken you to build a resilience to actually make this kind of significant mental shift to make the most of this opportunity?

[00:12:28] Stacey: It was something that I didn't do intentionally. It was just things I would share in conversations with people. I think ever since I was quite young, people always came to me for advice and I'd even joked at different points, even at different jobs that I had, that I needed to put a sign on my door that said “Stacey Copas - Social Worker”, because everyone just came to me and liked to just come and share their problems and ask for advice. But when people did sort of say; look, you're so inspiring and you know, how did you get so motivated and all this sort of stuff? I used to just brushed it off. And for many years, I realised I have what I call now, “little old me syndrome.” There's nothing to see here, nothing special about me. And it wasn't until, it was 2011 that I was asked to go to the Solomon Islands as a volunteer to mentor people with disability. And when I'd come back from that trip, because that was like, it was just such a unique experience that it gave me an insight to the power of my own story and how it could make a difference to people. But I still was looking at it through the lens of; I could use my story to help all of these people over here and was not looking at so much sharing my own story, but sharing their stories. And I started to work with coaches and mentors and it was through that, that one particular mentor said to me, he said; “Look, you need to share your story.” He said, “With a story like yours and the lessons that you've learned and the impact that you can have. If you don't share your story, you're being selfish.”

[00:14:16] Sean: I love that.

[00:14:16] Stacey: And I thought, geez, how can I argue with that? And that was 2011. October, 2011.  

[00:14:26] Sean: Was that quite confronting to hear that?

[00:14:28] Stacey: It was, especially when it was in a room full of people, and it was said in front of other people.

[00:14:31] Sean: Great.

[00:14:34] Stacey: But I know I took it on board and I didn't take it on in a way that I felt that there was any shame or guilt or anything like that involved. I thought; no, look, you're right that here I was always been wanting to make a difference and what greater opportunity. But the big thing I said to him too as I said, “I didn't want to share my own story because I think being Australian, we've been brought up, you know, don't stand out, don't say that, you don't celebrate any achievements.” I said, “I don't want to talk about myself because everyone will think I'm a total wanker, and so that's why I was happy to share other people's stories.” And you know, within a month I was on a stage at the gold coast, like a little bit of a speaker competition, when I shared the five minute version of my story on stage in a room full of people and yeah, I didn't die and no one said I was a wanker. But for the next couple of days of that event, I just had constantly people coming up to me and just saying how impactful that was. And I ended up winning that speaker competition. So, that gave me an insight to; okay. Maybe there's something in this. And, you know, I had a conversation with an amazing speaker in the room who ended up being a great mentor, and he pulled me aside and he said, are you speaking professionally? And I'm like; no, that's the first time I've ever done that. And you know, from that conversation, I got some great advice and 11 years later here I am and years ago in May, I left my last job and pursued this as a full-time career and haven't looked back since. 

[00:16:16] Sean: That's awesome. What a fantastic story. Stacey, I'm conscious of how much time we've got on and there is so much I want to get out of you. So, I'm thinking, all right, this is super important, and let's get stuck into resilience because you clearly had an incredible journey. You've learned a lot. I love the fact that it comes through a very practical human approach because nobody…there's plenty of people that we all know who seem to be incredibly resilient. They've never been trained in it, but there's something in their psychology and their habits and in their beliefs, in the way they think that enables them to have that resilience. And there's other people who really struggle when things are tough or they're feeling overwhelmed, and find it difficult to sort of get back on the horse or make it through, or make that event means something to them that's actually empowering rather than something that really holds them back. But how often is it that someone shares with us the sort of makes it conscious for us. And so, I'd really love to unpack that with you today. So maybe, can we start with actually why it matters. Why can't we just muddle on through, like, why does resilience actually matter?

[00:17:19] Stacey: Yeah, I think the thing with life is, is that things are going to go wrong. You know, it's not a matter of if it's when. And without having some form of resilience, then we just don't have the ability to keep going and keep dusting ourselves off and keep picking ourselves up. But for me, I see resilience as more than just, how do we just dust ourselves off and keep going? And how do we cope? Because I've found particularly in my work in businesses and in the corporate space, particularly. I feel that over time resilience has become synonymous with coping. And I feel that that does sell it short. And often we hear the phrase; oh, you know, resilience is all about bouncing back. And again, I feel that sells it short because it keeps implying, you keep coming back to this same starting point that you were at when something didn't go to plan. So, what I've sort of learned through my experience and my applications of the rituals and the methods that I use is that I see resilience as a proactive skill in something that we build before we need to use it. But also, it's a skill that gives us the ability to actually learn and grow and become stronger by being challenged. So, I look at it that, resilience is how you actually can grow through challenges rather than just go through challenges. And again, it's also how you thrive rather than just survive and we hear that sort of mentioned a bit. So yeah, I think it's much more than coping. And particularly if we're looking at it in the context of entrepreneurial space and creating and scaling businesses, there's so much that goes into that, where you're constantly needing to take risks and take chances. And you know, really, you need to have the confidence to do that. And I think part of having the confidence to do that is having the resilience to know that no matter what happens, that you're going to be fine. 

[00:19:33] Sean: Yeah. And how much of that do you think…it's almost a lot of good question though. I’m saying, you know, I was thinking, how much of that is experience that you've, like from the first time that you actually went up and did that speech and at the end of it, you realise, well, nobody laughed at me. It didn't turn out as bad as I thought it was going to be. Actually, great example of my own life. My 13-year-old, son just starting to apply for his first jobs. And he was not excited about taking, he was terrified actually about taking his resume down to this café that's applying for jobs at the moment. Did some rehearsing of what he was going to say and all the rest, “Dad, would you come with me?” I'm like, “Man, you've got this.” That’s like a 400 meters from my house. And of course, what are you imagining happening? Because I could see he was really nervous and concerned and he's like; Well, they might laugh at me. They might go, you know, because he's relatively short kid and they might think he's too small or too young to even be taken seriously. And so, he was imagining, of course, all these things turning out terribly. And I said, “Well, what if we worked on actually imagining what it's probably more realistically to be like, you know, there might not be, you know, singing songs and dances, but they're probably not going to be laughing at you and telling their mates to laugh at you.” So, we sort of worked on that. Anyway, to your point, he got through the process and he came back. He's like, “oh yeah, that was fine.” And there was no issue. And now he's got the confidence to go and take it around to 10 or 20 other places to try and find yourself a job. But sometimes you have to pass that threshold through experience, but how else do then people build that confidence so they can take those risks, if I haven't had the experience before?

[00:21:04] Stacey: Yeah, it's starting, it's starting with small stuff and I think it's using your son as an example, we've got, I think a generation of young people, that haven't had opportunities to do things like that because they have been almost protected from disappointment and boredom and failure. So, whereas when, I guess I feel really old now when I can keep them when these things come up. But you know, when we were younger, we were just encouraged, just go out and do it. And that was the same with anything. And when we decided to give things a go and, you know, and if something, and often our parents weren't as encouraging and helping us rehearse or anything that, it was like, just go and do it. You know, just don't cry about it, just go and do it. And so we did, but we also, we also had disappointments along the way. Whereas I said these days, I think that there's been too much protection. So, I think that sports are a really good way to do that over time because there's an element of learning to lose is, as good… 

[00:22:17] Sean: Regular failing.

[00:22:18] Stacey: Yeah, well, but then again, even in some contexts that's been tampered with in the everyone gets a trophy generation, younger teams, they don't keep score. Whereas all of these things are really healthy ways for kids and people in general to learn confidence, to learn disappointment, and to also have an element of competitiveness, because in reality, life is competitive. And especially when you start to get out into the real world, it's going for jobs, it's asking someone out on a date, you know, it's all of these things that happen that you need to get out there and do it. So, I think that, that kind of just finding ways to just try things in safe ways. Even I find with my nieces that are very young, you know, I've had my parents yell at them not to climb on something, whereas I've just gone. Hang on. How about you climb on that, but climb on the other side. So, don't climb on the side, that's got concretes climbed on the side, that's got grass. So, it's just finding ways to, I guess take informed risks and take risks that aren't going to be have dire consequences if they don't come off. 

[00:23:33] Sean: Now I'm probably diverting you with stories about my son, but given we've got an audience of Founders with 2 million to 20 million businesses that they're doing well, but they're also figuring it out as they go. They typically first-time Founders, which means they haven't done it before. So, they, to your point, they don't know what's coming. They end up in challenges constantly that they haven't faced before. How do you, and I love the psychology around, seeing a challenge as reframing that challenge as something that's not a pushback and get back to where you were, but as something that is actually necessary to allow you to grow, which allows you to almost get excited about the challenge. It's like, this is awesome because I know on the other side of this is growth and if I didn't have this opportunity, that wouldn't occur. So, at that reframing I can see is one way. How do you teach Founders, business owners to think about how to build more resilience themselves. And I'm particularly interested in how they think about building this in their teams and into their cultures? 

[00:24:35] Stacey: Yeah, so I look at resilience as, resilience is much like going to the gym. You know, it's to build and maintain your physical strength. It's simple practices done consistently and over time that helped to build it. And even going back to what you just said about, seeing that there's going to be some pain in order to get to the growth, then lifting weights is the same, you know, if you keep lifting weights and you're just lifting something light, then there's never going to be any growth. There's got to be some kind of discomfort in order for that growth. So, it's finding these practices that you can do consistently, and the things that I sort of teach, they're very, very simple. And often people go, aw, that sounds too simple. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, simplicity is that's where the power is. So, I find, personally, one of the biggest things that I've found has been gratitude. Gratitude has been incredible, but I guess most people here from here could hear gratitude in the sense of “Keep a gratitude journal, and write down three things you're grateful for every day.” Personally, I found that process a bit wonky and it just felt like it was a chore and it was something from obligation and it just didn't create an experience of gratitude for me. So, what I used is mantras, and I developed mantras over time. And what I love about mantras is that they're controllable. You can do them at any time. And also then, you know, you don't have to be searching for something. So, just working with mantras is really powerful. Also too, particularly… 

[00:26:13] Sean: Sorry, just to add to that. For anyone who's like, oh, mantra is, they're a bit wonky as well. If anyone who's of a 40 plus would have grown up with Tony Robbins and Jim Roan and Brian Tracy. And there's not one of those people that has not taught mantras as part of the work that they've done. And sometimes they feel a bit dorky doing it until you actually get into the swing of it. But it can be incredibly powerful because why, because it resets you, it changes your state, doesn't it? You know, it's an opportunity to, if you can get into it and get rid of the embarrassment, you know, do it in your private room or whatever it is that you got to do, but it's an opportunity to actually shift your state and your body, which creates an opportunity for different behaviours to be possible because you can't be feeling scared and make really great decisive decisions.
You know, you actually have to build a state of confidence and of decisiveness to make better decisions, as one example. So, mantra can really help you get there.

[00:27:12] Stacey: Yeah, totally. And the beauty of mantras is it brings you back in the moment. And as you said, you need to make great decisions, then you need to be present. You can't be worrying about what might go wrong or dwelling on, or beating yourself up about what didn't go right in the past. 

[00:27:31] Sean: And what would be an example of a mantra that you might recommend for a business owner?

[00:27:35] Stacey: So the mantra that I sort of developed over the years and this is the one I use morning and night and any time I feel a bit overwhelmed is I use, thank you for the opportunity to be who I am, where I am with what I have at this moment in time. So, “Thank you for the opportunity to be who I am, where I am with what I have at this moment in time.” And I think that just encompasses, you know, yourself, where you are and what you have, and it's not searching for items, it's just purely bringing you that experience. And again, you say it in your head, you can say it out loud, you can do whatever I decided in my head, and that can be super powerful. I guess from the gratitude perspective as well, is helping people to focus on the good, so it's not so much looking for, what are you grateful for. What I like to do is, you ask people what's the best thing that happened today, what's the best thing that's happening in your world this week?
You know, what are you most looking forward to? So, it's what you focus on, that's where the energy goes and that's what grows. So, it's a matter of getting people to focus on the bright spots rather than what's going wrong, that's super helpful. Also from a business perspective, rituals around connections are super, super powerful. So doing things as a team, so scheduling time to do things as a team. So, sometimes some of the team building stuff can be, again, a bit wonky, but I think if you're doing things where there's a relevant tie back to a business, a business experience that can be really helpful. And also particularly from Founders and Managers and Leaders, it's actually spending time getting to know the people they're working with, and having consistent informal conversations can make all the difference. I'm all about the proactive stuff, because I think if you put the work in ahead of time, then when something doesn't go to plan, then there is far less negative impact. So, for example, with your team members, you know, spending 30 to 60 seconds once a week, just asking a few questions, like, you know, how are you feeling? What are you working on this week? What you feeling is going to be a little bit of a challenge? How can I best support you? And if you do that on a regular basis, then you're not going to get blindsided by something going in mess with a team member because you're going to have your finger on the pulse a little bit more. And also, people are going to feel more confident to come to you as well. 

[00:30:25] Sean: I think that super interesting Stacey, just to add some context that when I think it makes me think back to my leadership journey, sort of through the management ranks into executive ranks and into my CEO roles. And I always, because I'm a very open person and I'm super curious about others. I sort of had this internal assumption that I must be sharing enough about me, because I'm always in a conversation that can get very deep, very quickly with others. And so, I learned lots about my team and then I realised after a period of time, and I didn't really share anything about me and I actually don't have to almost train myself to instigate conversations in a way, not in an artificial way, but that would allow that sharing and their feeling of safety to become more connected. Why? Because to your point, when the shit hits the fan and they look to their leader for…they looked at two places. I think they looked at their leader and I looked at their team and they go, is this leader going to help us get through it? Are we going to feel safe together? And can we go through this together? And so how do you get to that stage? You build that trust through the personal connection. And as you said, also through team development experiences, which can be done in lots of different ways. There are heaps of professionals out there who do it well, that can bring the right level of vulnerability, safety learning, and that which leads to a development of trust can, of course it can be done really poorly and go the opposite way. But if it's done well, if that team feels safe together and builds that muscle of knowing that they've been through stuff together. They know that if they have to take risks or they'll have to do things in a really high-pressure situation that they're going to feel safe, they're not going to be judged, they're going to be encouraged, all of those things happen, then all of a sudden they're going to feel like they can take more hits and that nothing's going to phase that team.

[00:32:15] Stacey: Yeah. I completely agree. And it can be difficult to share stuff with yourself as well. But I think that that does take practice. And also too, I guess the difficulty is sometimes you don't want to feel like you're almost, one-upping people either, sometimes in conversations either. So, yeah, I think there's a bit of an art of it. But I think just getting a sense that people know each other and also getting to know what inspires and motivates people because, you know, from one person to the next, that's going to be very different. So, you know that you might find that some people might be encouraged by taking a risk and that might be something that excites them, whereas somebody else might be terrified of that. And they have a bit more of a need for safety. So, I think that's the thing is it's just getting to know each other is super important. And also I think if it's, you know, in helping people maybe with coaches and mentors and things like that as well, is super valuable for their growth too.

[00:33:15] Sean: Yeah, that's so true. And you know, when you think about that, if you've created a context in your team that our job … somebody said this, I think it was Tony Robbins might be like, you know, I've probably heard it 20 years ago. Who said; “Your job is not to get rid of problems. It's to increase the quality of the problems.” And I always really tried to hang onto that because I thought, wow, that is just so powerful. It's so easy to assume that when you're going through tough stuff, actually the goal here is to get to, you know, you're going through a choppy water that the goal is to get to some nice, even calm surface where everything is lovely and the sun shining and the boat sailing along beautifully. But actually, business is white water. It's always white water. It pretty much has never not going to be with white water. So, if you're waiting for it, all of a sudden to be settled and perfect and wonderful. You could be waiting a really long time or have a really disappointing experience because you're constantly taking, to your point that, you're not present, you're not finding any way to actually get meaningful joy through the experience. You're waiting for it to be over. And if you continue to wait for it to be over, you're going to run out of energy. I would assume you're going to run out of resilience because you're not going to have the appetite to keep going because you're not getting anything from it.

[00:34:31] Stacey: No, this is true. And again, it comes back to that then people, they're living in the future as well. You know, they're constantly looking to something in the future rather than being in the moment and going, okay, well, you know, what is it about this moment and going, okay, well… I mean, checking in with questions and going; well, okay, well, how am I being of service? And I guess it sort of comes back to with especially when you're scaling and those types of things is being very clear on what's the vision. So knowing what the vision is. So, in any moment, you know, if people are feeling a bit overwhelmed or lost, then that can be the thing to check back in with the north star type of thing. It's like, okay, first of all, get back in that moment, get grounded and go well, okay, what are you here for? Because there's always going to be change. Change is only going to get faster. I said in a keynote recently, I said, you know, today is the youngest you're ever going to be again. And the pace of change is probably the slowest it's ever going to be again for you as well. So, it's just learning to embrace these things and looking for the opportunity in it and looking at, there's an element of variety and novelty in change as well and things not going to plan. And I think also what I love about change and things not going to plan is, it shatters complacency. Because I think complacency is like, complacency can kill businesses. It can kill ambitions, it can kill so many things. But that's very similar to that, you know, wanting it to be smooth is that people, if people get comfortable, then that's so dangerous. And that's where, things not going to plan can be really good because it just smashes that autopilot. The last thing you want is a group of people that are just going through the motions mindless. 

[00:36:22] Sean: I remember you saying, we had a conversation where you said something about, people feel like sometimes when there's a lot of change happening, people take it very personally. Like, they feel like it's happening to them. Like someone's out there to get them, like, someone's trying to upset them with this number of change, because they're just finding it so difficult to get through. How do you coach people to think about that differently? Because I imagine the typical question that goes through your mind, if you're thinking, why is this always happening to me? Like when do I ever get just to kind of break, like, give me a break here, as opposed to, well, thank you. This is interesting. Thank you very much for creating this opportunity for the ride here and now. Like, it's such … the quality of that question and what you default to asking or how quickly you can reframe yourself out of a poor quality question makes a massive difference. Doesn’t it?

[00:37:19] Stacey: Oh, it totally does. I think there's sort of two of principles of resilience, kind of blend into one there. One of the principles I have is the element of personal responsibility. Because so often when something doesn't go to plan or as it said that there's change and things like that, then people often look for something or someone to blame. Like, it's always someone else's fault and someone's doing this to them. And what I've looked at is I've sort of heard it referred to as blame-otitis or people become excuse-eologists. But you know, the danger there is, is that it becomes a victim mentality. And that victim mentality is it's. You know everything, it’s like energy attracts like energy. So, you know, you meet somebody that has that sort of blame-otitis thing going on. Then it's just like it's a constant stream of things going wrong because they're getting what they look for. And it's around the language that they use. So, if a shift in language can change things entirely. So, even just a little shift from, oh, geez, I have to do this. Or, you know, we have to go through this, rather than we get to experience this. And so just shifting a couple of words so often can change the entire energetic experience of a situation. Because how you describe a situation is how you experience it. 

[00:38:48] Sean: Hmm. So, what do you think is… 

[00:38:50] Stacey: …people to become aware. 

[00:38:52] Sean: What do you think is in better quality questions that we can ask? So, we're in a business, things are going along. We've solved the last challenge. We're kind of on the why up. Things are seemingly going well. And then all of a sudden, we get hit with something, we’re like oh, my God, now we've got to deal with this. You know, customer had dependencies just blown up or stop paying their bills or something has gone deeply wrong with one of our products or services starting to fail in terms of quality. And it's at scale so it's really hard to fix. What are some better quality questions then? Why is this happening to me? And why does this always happen to me? Well, how would you encourage people to reframe that what are some options?

[00:39:31] Stacey: Yeah, I think first of all, one of the words you use there was “Always”. So, it's been very conscious of the words Always and Never, because if you find those words coming out of your mouth then that's like red flags, because neither of those are true. So, it's looking for the element of truth in that, because if something always happens, then you know that this is not true. So, stopping, I think, first of all, before asking questions is just coming back to gratitude in the moment, get grounded. So, you know, if it's using the, thank you for the opportunity to be who I am, where I am with what I have at this moment in time. Take a breath because that brings you back into not beating yourself up because something hasn't gone wrong and not worrying so much about something that might not go to plan. And then it can just be asking questions like; well, where's the opportunity in this? What can we learn from this? Where could we do something differently? 

[00:40:39] Sean: Hmm, what else? 

[00:40:40] Stacey: Yeah, what else is possible? 

[00:40:47] Sean: Yeah. What else is possible? What else could this mean?

[00:40:51] Stacey: Yeah, what else could this be? But doing it in an open, I think this is where they're getting in the grounded first is the important part, because when you grounded in the moment and you you're experiencing gratitude, you have an energy of abundance and possibility whereas, if you ask even some of those questions from a place of scarcity and lack and fear, then it's very, very closed energy and you're not going to see it from a place of possibility. You're going to see all of the things that could go wrong, or you start to catastrophise and awfulize a situation, you can't solve a problem from that space. So, I think that's a big thing it's coming back to, what could we learn from this? What can we see now that we couldn't have seen before? 

[00:41:42] Sean: Yeah, that's great. I just want to jump in there. It's such a great insight. It comes back to the conversation we had about the state that you're in will dictate the behaviours that are available to you, but absolutely dictates the quality of the questions that you'll even able to ask yourself. So, in circumstances where you go specific to global in like half a second. Okay. Like, I've got this isolated issue. What if this always goes wrong forever and ever and everything. And then, you know, you've gone like seven consequences down the line. You've catastrophised everything that's coming up in the future, which is such a common thing that I see. And so, to your point, in that state, when you are completely wound up, you'll now like seven years down the path, the businesses fallen over, you’re imagining everything going wrong because of one thing that you're facing right now, how could you possibly in that state ask great questions. Like, what else could this mean? What can I learn from this? Why else is this happening? How could I learn something from this that could help somebody else? You know, there's all of these, you can't ask that from that other state. So, I think that concept of getting grounded, you know, whatever your strategy is, to your point, whether that's breathing, it's gratitude, it's a moment of meditation, it's a big breath in a language pattern that gets you into that calm space to go. Okay, settle down. Just relax for a minute. It's not that bad. It's right here right now. I totally get how that can change in a moment's time, all the languages to your point of possibility and exploration and curiosity rather than fear, because you can't make good decisions and you can't ask good questions from fear.

[00:43:19] Stacey: Yeah, totally. And as you said, you just mentioned the word decisions, you know, that's the thing is the last thing you want to be doing is making decisions in the awfulizing space where you're coming from a place of lack and scarcity and fear. So, I think that's a big thing is always having a rule that, no decisions are made until that's the thing is all of that stuff is brought back into the moment that you're in that space where you're looking at it from curiosity and possibility, and actually looking at all of the resources at hand, all the information at hand rather than focusing on maybe one tiny little piece of information, because we know, any information can tell any story, depending on what lens you look at it through. So, making sure that all the information is being looked at in context with all the other stuff alongside of it, and then make a decision from that open grounded in the moment space, rather than making a decision from a place of fear and scare.

[00:44:22] Sean: That's brilliant. Thank you so much, Stacey. We are right near the end of our time together. If there was one, I guess my final question would be if you're only able to give one piece of advice, you've got a Founder, who is feeling overwhelmed, they've got some big problem they're facing. You can see it in their face and they're sort of, you can see them catastrophising they're all over the place. What's the one piece of advice that you would give someone so that they can learn what they need to learn so they can become more resilient in future?

[00:44:50] Stacey: Yeah. I'm going to sound like I'm repeating myself a lot here. But I think just getting back into the moment is the starting point. So, as I said, you know, thank you for the opportunity to be who I am, where I am with what I have at this moment in time. And again, just the philosophy behind that is that you can't experience two conflicting emotions at the same time. So if you are experiencing gratitude, you can't feel bad, you know, you can't feel fear. And so, I think that if there was just one practice that people could do every day, I say that before I fall asleep at night, when I wake up in the morning and in those moments where I need to get in the moment is just pull that mantra, take a deep breath. And then that gives you the blank slate. And from that point, then you can look at possibilities rather than problems. 

[00:45:46] Sean: Super powerful. Thank you so much, Stacey. Really appreciate your time today and for sharing your story with us, we're very grateful. How do people get in touch with you or follow along with what you are doing?

[00:45:59] Stacey: Yeah, easiest thing to do is just pop my name into Google. So, Stacey Copas, and you'll come across my website and stuff there. If it's from a social media perspective, LinkedIn is the best place to connect with me. 

[00:46:15] Sean: Me too. Well, thank you so much, Stacey. Folks. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Big thank you to Stacey Copas. If you've enjoyed today, the best way for you to contribute to others is to take a screenshot, send a link, you know, send it, just get into the hands of someone somewhere, because I'm sure that, you know, someone who's going through something difficult or you're expecting, they're going to go through something difficult in the near future. This might be exactly the podcast they need to hear to help them through that time. So if you'd like to leave a review, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That's our favourite place. That’s where 70% of our audience listen to. So that's very helpful. You can find us on the socials @ScaleUpsPodcast and you can look at the full transcript on the www.ScaleUpspodcast.com website. You can go to YouTube if you want to watch the video versions, or if you hang around on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, you will see the video-grams and audio-grams and little snippets of the video and the audio that you've heard today from Stacey over the next week or so. But just remember, before you go today, the only thing that guarantee that you will not scale at any point in time is by giving up. So, you have to stay unshakeable in that faith that you're going to get there, remain flexible in your approach. You been listening to the ScaleUps Podcast. I'm Sean Steele. Look forward to speaking to you again next week. Thank you so much, Stacey.