Dr. Trish Berg
A lot of times we think once we achieve something, then we'll be happy, right? So once I get that promotion, then I'll be happy. Once I graduate from college, then I'll be happy. And happiness is always on that other side of the goalpost. But what happens is we reach it, and then we just reset a new goalpost. So we never get to happy.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. But we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from and we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Moss and today I'm joined by longtime co hosts but been a while since you've been here. Mohammad Anwar, what's up Moh? How's it going,

Mohammad Anwar
man? It's going good, Jeff. Glad to be back. Yeah,

Jeff Ma
I dragged you back onto the show and said it's been too long. And I need you back. And it's also because we have a special guest we have Dr. Trish Berg here with us today. And Dr. Dr. Berg is currently a professor of business at Heidelberg University. And she's had an incredible career of over 25 years in university education, during which she's earned numerous accolades such as three time nominee for the job as the Educator of the Year Award, winner of the Christian Business Faculty National Teaching Award, etc, etc. I have a whole bunch of notes here can't read them all. Which is also published published author of two books co author of four books, I just my notes page, I have to scroll it. So I'm gonna save all that y'all can look that up. But Dr. Berg, thank you so much for joining us Trish.

Dr. Trish Berg
Thanks for having me. Got it. Just my head gets big or I feel really old one of those two things a long time.

Jeff Ma
Trish, we do a very awkward icebreaker here intentionally every time. But you're lucky because if it was just you and me, I would just make you do it. But because most here, he has to go first. Moh when you die, what do you want to be remembered for? Whoa, boom, just like that. We're in the show. We've begun Oh, he's deep in thought.

Mohammad Anwar
That's a deep question you just asked I'd This is not ready for that.

Jeff Ma
It's been a while since you've been on the show. We go deep now. Uh What are what's one thing you like?

Mohammad Anwar
I think the book Love is a Business Strategy is you know, it's kind of cliche to say, like, I want my legacy to live on. But really, if anything, I think I, I think the book is the way to live on, even after I'm gone. So I think remembering me to the book would be probably what I would hope for, at least at this stage in my life.

Jeff Ma
I mean, the book paints you in some not so good light. So I mean, that's what if that's what you but I'm just kidding. I agree. I do. That's a good answer. Cool. Trish? What? Same question when you die, what do you want to be remembered for?

Dr. Trish Berg
Now, ironically, I have thought about this because even though I'm a positive person, and I believe in resiliency, I've mentally plan my funeral several times, just for kicks and giggles. So I just hope that people remember me as someone who loved other people encouraged other people, when I meet someone or teach a student more than the content, I hope they feel better about themselves than when then before they were with me. So just that I loved on other people

Jeff Ma
love it. Wow. Simple, powerful. And kind of segues into I guess how I want to start the conversation is, you know, as almost expounding on that, can you tell me a little more detail about your passion and where it comes from?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, so I went back to school to get my doctorate at 40 years old. So I was a mother for my husband was so gracious my husband, Mike and supported that 100% Because I wanted to teach full time at that stage in my life. So when I went back to school and started doing actual research, because prior to that I really hadn't done a lot of significant research and focus my dissertation on the topic of psychological capital, which is basically a form of positive psychology. And through that research really was attracted to resiliency. It's one of the four components of psychological capital, and it's one that we have shown in research can be improved. And then can have this really great impact on things like health and grit and well being. So that's kind of what brought me into resiliency was just starting to research it from an organizational behavior standpoint. And then really feeling passionate about this is something that can change people's lives. This is something that is really not complicated to do, but can have a lasting impact.

Jeff Ma
And just so we're all speaking the same language, can you define resiliency, in your terms, the best in the simplest way possible?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, resiliency is bouncing back after a failure, a plateau or even a success. Because even a success can cause you to kind of freeze up. So if you get a promotion, and the promotion means more responsibility and more travel and more subordinates. And that's intimidating. And so you have to be resilient, even in that state. Right. So it's not just about failure, though. We tend to think of failure most with resiliency. But it's in simple terms, the ability to bounce back. So you don't make the basketball team. What do you do? You get laid off at work? What do you do? And it's just that bouncing back in the moment.

Jeff Ma
That's amazing. I have yet to use resume admittedly have not used resiliency after positive changes yet. And that makes perfect sense. So already, my mind is blown.

Mohammad Anwar
Yeah, Jeff, just just to caryy back on that. Like, I think I've used complacency after success. Don't get complacent. Just because we reached access, we cannot lose, you know, our focus, but I never used it in the positive sense of resiliency. That's it. Yeah.

Dr. Trish Berg
And one of the researchers that I follow His name's Shawn Achor. And he talks a lot about moving the target. So you talk about complacency after success, Moh. But a lot of times, we think once we achieve something, then we'll be happy, right? So once I get that promotion, then I'll be happy. Once I graduate from college, then I'll be happy. And happiness is always on that other side of the goalpost. But what happens as we reach it, and then we just reset a new goalpost, so we never get too happy. And one of the things that if you can be resilient and kind of retrain your brain to find that positivity and that happiness, wherever you are, you actually we'll have more success. So our brains at positive, are 31% more effective than our brains at negative, neutral or stressed. And that's from Shawn Achor. So, in fact, doctors are 19% more effective and accurate when they're positive in their thought process. So it's very powerful. Our brains are amazing things, and we are in control of them. You know, it's not something that controls us. So we can make the choices as to how to handle things, how to think about things, and then find that success through being positive in the present.

Mohammad Anwar
Wow. So in simplistic terms, then, is it fair to say resiliency is directly proportional to positivity?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah. So, positivity, one of the ways to define positivity is so called psychological capital. And it has four components, hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism. So those four components, they spell hero, if you're looking for an acronym, Oh, nice. Um, those four components make up psychological capital, which is the technical definition of positivity, one of Yes.

Mohammad Anwar
One of the attributes of positivity

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, yeah.

Mohammad Anwar
Okay. Very cool.

Jeff Ma
Well, that's the whole show. We've got plenty to think about. I got a process this, I'll be back next week. No, this is, I love it. I love it. This is already profound in so many ways. And I'm sure we'll, we'll be touching about resiliency the whole time. But I'm also curious how this all kind of how this all incorporates into kind of what you do currently. So I know you you've, you've got education in like Business and Management, things like that. And then you've worked in in the workforce in so many different places. And now you're in education and mentoring all these things throughout. How does that all connect? Like how are you what's the connective tissue here for you?

Dr. Trish Berg
I think for me, and it's funny because I talk to my students about the why. And that's a big thing that I try to get them to focus on Simon Sinek and the Golden Circle, and what's your why. And so whatever job I've had, my why is always about the people on when I worked in real estate. You know, when I worked in banking, the different jobs that I had, even when I was writing books, I was speaking at women's conferences across the country. And it's always about that connection with the people. So for me, that's kind of the common thread. But I also try to teach my students that you don't have to stay in one lane. I think, you know, students come in at 1817, or 18, as a freshman in college, and they're expected to know their major, and what career they want. And, I mean, that's young, you know, I'm still figuring it out. So I try to use my life as an example of a very jagged career path, you know, I've done very different things, it has not been a straight path. And I also do diverse things, you know, the books that I wrote, have nothing to do with business. So, you know, that was a passion of mine, when I was raising children, I wrote about motherhood and Christmas. And those were things at that time in my life that I was really passionate about. That doesn't discount what I now do as a business faculty, you know, so we can, you can be an accountant, and an artist, you know, you can have these diverse passions and be successful in various ways. And so, an education, I get a little frustrated when we funnel these kids in, and we kind of put them in a path. And I tried to break that mold a little bit. And try to teach them to, you know, understand that there's multiple ways they can go.

Jeff Ma
That's really powerful for me, because what you said about resiliency earlier was profound. And to me, connecting the two is so important now, because I myself have encountered so many people in the workforce who basically define themselves by their educational path by their one craft by their one most important talent. And they box themselves in there. And based on how you talk about resiliency, they're like, there's no, there's no was it psychological capital at the end of that road, right? Because they're like, if I can just if I can just become manager, a director, if I can just become a VP, if I can just become a president. I mean, where's where does it end to achieve that happiness, and it sounds like starting from colleges, where it kind of at least, kind of begins because we're like, pick a major is like the only thing you got to be good at for the rest of your life. Kind of how it feels. So that's really, really crazy to think about.

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, and I've always taught at liberal arts university. So we do have, you know, liberal arts courses, but I still feel like it's very tunneled.

Mohammad Anwar
Mm hmm. Trish, I was gonna ask you, so what, what is the? Can you give some tips or advice on how somebody can build upon their resiliency? What are some advice? or tips or tools or ideas do you have for that? Can you share that, please?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah. So back in 2017, a colleague of mine and I did some research on freshmen and seniors at a university. And we introduced them to a simple acronym, a simple way for steps to increase resiliency. It's based on a lot of research and all four of these areas. But it's a simple way to start. And what we showed and I'll share that is called the Flex Plan. And I'll share that here with you guys. But what it did, what we were able to show is that it helped the students increase their resiliency anywhere from about 10% to 35%, in one semester, based on a brief resilience scale. So it was it was profound and exciting, which was great. Now, the downside is, with resiliency, you need booster shots, right? We've all been talking about shots with COVID. You need a booster shot of resiliency, it's not a one and done, you know, you can't just increase it, forget about it, and you're good to go. So, the Flex Plan is what we created and it's FLEX like flexibility. And F stands for failure. And part of what we start with is making sure that students understand failure is going to happen and failure is a part of life and growth and is expected and if you don't fail, you're not trying. So it's that expectation. It's removing the fear of failure. You know, how to get rid of that stigmatism that failure is bad. So that's step one, the L is lean into the emotion. And that's about allowing yourself to experience when you fail, the sadness, the anger, the frustration, whatever emotions you're going through, in a safe place with appropriate people, let yourself go through that emotion, you can't just say it doesn't matter, it's not a big deal, right? We all are emotional beings. And you need to allow yourself to go through that the E is elect a positive response. And it's all about understanding that you cannot always choose what happens to you. Sometimes it's your fault, sometimes not. But you can always choose your response. And that's about giving people the control to understand that I am in control of that response. It is my choice how I respond. And then the X is X ray. And that's about being transparent. So once you failed, you've allowed yourself to go through the emotion, you've chosen a positive response. So you've gone through those three stages. At some point, you need to be transparent about that failure with someone else. It might be about supporting someone else, it might be about encouraging someone else. But we tend to put a facade out there, because we want everyone to think we're perfect. And the reality is we're not. And when other people think we're perfect, it doesn't help them because they know they're not. So that transparency. And I'll give you a couple of examples. And I'll be real open, I'm a transparent person, my students probably know me better than almost anybody because I I'm real open with them. So when I went back to school for my doctorate, I was at an in person University, Anderson University in Indiana. And it was a four year program. And I should say leading up to that I actually taught economics as an adjunct for 17 years. So I knew economics pretty well. At the end of the program, you took four comprehensive exams before doing dissertation, I was more nervous about the accounting, finance comprehensive exam. But unfortunately, I didn't pass the economics comprehensive exam. And that was like a gut punch, you know, because I knew it, I missed one key graph in the in the comprehensive exam. So I had to retake it, but you're supposed to wait a year. And long story short, I was able to retake it in a couple months, and I was able to pass it. Now that was after, I'd say a couple months of shedding some tears, for sure.

In between that, I went to a conference with a lot of business colleagues. And I was very embarrassed, I didn't want anyone to ask me how do your exams go? You know, I was just very embarrassed about it. One professor came up to me, and he's very well known. He's written books. You know, he's someone that's very advanced in his career. And he said, Trish, how did your exams go? And, you know, my head went down, and he put his arm around me, and he walked me to the corner, and he said, what happened? And I told him, and he looked at me, and he said, Trish, I failed an exam for comprehensive, you just retake it, like, it's all good. And him sharing that, like, gave me the confidence to petition the school retake it, and have that confidence back. I didn't feel like a slug under a rock anymore. And it was because he had enough confidence to be transparent with me. And so that's something we share. And I've told my students this story, because I don't think that vulnerability, and I know you talk about vulnerability a lot in your book as well. It doesn't make me weaker, it makes me stronger. And I'm very vulnerable with with my students, because I want them to be as well.

Mohammad Anwar
No, this is a I, I'm listening to this. And I'm like, Oh, this is like a therapeutic session for me. To share this, you have no idea because, you know, we go through this at work too. Like there's so many times as a leader or as a team member, we go through failures. And, you know, sometimes we get stuck in the head, so much about the failure that we're not able to pull ourselves out of it. And, you know, while you've shared this, this FLEX philosophy, which by the way, I I didn't think of flexible I thought of flexing muscles, but anyway, that's a different thing altogether. But that's how I remember it. But it's it's so important for us to recognize that failures are the path to success and they think Something else you just shared in your story that I'm really resonating with is, us as leaders have the responsibility to create an environment where we can show the rest of the team that it's okay to fail by, by putting ourselves not not failing on purpose, but sharing our failures, transparently allowing us to share it for our own health reasons. But also for others to see, oh, wait, I have the permission too, I can fail and still be okay, and still be successful. So I think that was very important. So I appreciate you sharing that, that's I will remember flex now.

Dr. Trish Berg
I think it makes us stronger, just like flexibility. You stretch your muscles before you exercise. We have to do that with our brains. Because it's a thought process, you know, and it's really getting a hold of that, getting that power back. So you're taking the power back away from the failure, and you're owning it, and then coming out stronger.

Mohammad Anwar
So can I ask you a question like with today's environment, and you know, it COVID And some of the burden and stress it's put on people's lives or certain industries like the frontline workers, and, you know, we talk about resilience in that context. But the way that I feel it's, it's perceived is all about just putting in the hours and putting in the hard work. But I've not heard of any failures as it relates to resilience. So is that my mis perception of what they're trying to portray as resilience with the frontline workers versus a true resilient definition that I just heard? Or is it the same as a different? Can you help me understand?

Dr. Trish Berg
So? Maybe I'm not sure I understand your question. So frontline workers showing resilience going through COVID? Is that what you're talking about? Well,

Mohammad Anwar
yes. Like, like how the world is talking about, you know, the frontline workers are so resilient, putting in the extra hours taking the extra burden. Yeah, putting in all of that extra effort to be in the front line. And they're the heroes and all of that, is that what is that? Is that resilience as well? Or is it is it like and how does that differ from resilience from bouncing back from failure versus putting in just that extra work? What is there a difference between the two?

Dr. Trish Berg
It's still resiliency, what you're talking about is the frontline workers. There's courage in there, too. You know, before we had vaccines before, we really knew what we were dealing with. Nurses and doctors and health care workers were on the frontlines caring for people putting themselves at risk. So there's a lot of, you know, courage in what they did. But resiliency would come into play that they in the face of fear, right, they went beyond it. So they got up every day, no matter what was going on, and they did their job. So that still resiliency, that could be maybe the plateau. It could be instead of a failure, a challenge. Right? So there's they're being resilient in the face of a challenge.

Mohammad Anwar
Got it? No, thank you for that clarification, because that's what I was struggling with. Like, okay, so is that resiliency or bravery? Like, what is it and you're helping me understand that resiliency is not just to do with failure, it could be courage, challenge or coming a challenge and, and all of the above, okay, that's the

Dr. Trish Berg
courage can come into play too, with trying something new, right? If you fail at something, sometimes the right response is to try it again. You know, with my exam, I had to do it again and do it better. Sometimes it's making a 90 degree turn and going in a different direction, you know, so it's not always necessarily going the same way. And trying again, it just depends on your space. There's no right answer to that bouncing back. It depends on your situation, and what you're facing.

Jeff Ma
And what you said, just there helps me understand that resiliency after success much better, because now it's like, Hey, I just did something. It was great. Do I have the courage to try something different? Even though I know this works? Like I could get comfortable now and go with what just happened? Or can I have that that that not not be afraid of failing and still push harder and go even beyond what I just did?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, and accurate. That is very accurate. And the fear of failure is what holds us back from those things. Um, a friend of mine who worked at American Greetings, and I've told her many times I stole this from her. She used to talk about hiring people who could ship it. So when they fail, oh, shoot, I better pivot Ah word, well, I wasn't gonna cause he has to use the other word, I'm going to say shoot. But she worked with all the creative designs in American Greetings. And so she hired creative people all the time. And a lot of their designs were failures. And so she talked about, I don't hire anyone who can't ship it. That was bottom line. So you know, you want people who have failed, and have found a way to bounce back. And I'll just share a personal story, my oldest daughter, who's now 26, when she was a freshman in high school, she had played on a travel basketball team where you try out and make it. So the first year she was on a great team. The second year, she went to try out she didn't make a team. And she was crying up in her bedroom. And I went up and I said, Hannah, I know this is frustrating. And she's she's very strong, academic, very athletic things came easy to her. And she said, Mom, this is the first time that I haven't gotten something I wanted. And I said, well, then it's about time. So this is a good thing. Now, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to quit? Do you want to find another team to try out for like, what do you want to do? And she said, I'd like to find another team. And we did, she tried out, she made it. And this is how I know God has a sense of humor, because then her new team played her old team in a weekend tournament and beat them by a lot. That was like, that was awesome. That's amazing. It was good for her to face that, you know, and she's an a full time occupational therapist. So she's, you know, gone to grad school, had to take many exams, that failure has helped her face these other failures, you know, your life is a training ground. So even with our kids, we have to allow them to fail. So that they can feel that failure, and then figure out how to choose the response.

Mohammad Anwar
Got it? That's, I was gonna ask. So I know, in a corporate context, you know, individual to individuals, and how we interact with each other, there's this ability for us to either, you know, help elevate that resilience, or bring it down, right? Like, it's really how we respond to failure is going to propel it or like, take us down even further. But how do you anticipate us building like systems around resilience? Have you thought about that? Like, are there ways to process fi resilience or bring tools or systems to bring out resilience?

Dr. Trish Berg
I think that in organizational structures, there has to be a way that failure is a part of the process. So and I know in an organizational setting, failure can be very expensive, you know, depending on on what the failure is. But I think there needs to be a process where it's learned from and people are able to go through that experience, grow and come out stronger with a better idea. I mean, one of the videos I show my students in marketing is like the 20 biggest failures of advertising or, you know, there's failures all over, right? I mean, New Coke was not a good one. But I think we learn as we fail. So process wise, I think if the organization can, and I think you guys are doing that, that's one of the things that attracted me to Love as a Business Strategy. When I, when I picked it up and thought about using it for a class was, you have some structure in place, and resiliency is a part of that. So having a culture where failure is a part of the process, and the employees see themselves not Haha, you failed, I'm better than you. But okay, as a team, how can we support you and move forward from here? And it all comes down to that, that culture?

Mohammad Anwar
Got it. Awesome. Thank you. Since

Jeff Ma
that makes a lot of sense. No, I think that that's why the book is so good, because it's just full of failures.

Mohammad Anwar
know, right? That's, that's all I think I remember Trish telling me once and why she thought a book was interesting for a business book, anything it had to do with failures.

Dr. Trish Berg
You know, what it was when I actually compared your book to numerous other books when I was choosing about a year ago, and your vulnerability and your honesty in that book is what drew me to it, that and that resiliency was a part of your culture, and your secret sauce, but um, you know, a lot of times you pick up a business book and a market book and it's written in the context Here's all the answers. You know, here's everything you need. It's a set formula, and then you'll be successful. And it's a lot more complicated than that. And so I appreciated the stories. And I think for students, as they read stories, I'm a big storyteller. You know, I believe in it as a cultural benefit. And I think that as they read your stories, what you experienced and what you learned, comes to life.

Jeff Ma
Okay, just for my own curiosity, because when we, when we wrote the book, we definitely had, you know, kind of a base audience in mind, like the business person, if you will. I'm really curious from your perspective, like, what do you like? How is this landing with students are really, how are students consuming this that you might think are different from people in the workforce? You know, they haven't they haven't been there yet. So what does this book mean to them?

Dr. Trish Berg
I think that it surprises them a little bit, when they read about the stories like when you share your story of your darkest day, when you share some of the challenges you faced, that actually catches them more than here's the positive, you know, because you're right, they don't have that work experience, for the most part. They haven't been in large organizations. So they are coming from a different perspective into it. They don't necessarily have personal experience with what you're discussing. But we do kind of go through the roleplay. About if you were fired, if you were laid off, how would you want it to be handled? You know, put them in the position? So we talked a little bit about that. But I think they take it from the standpoint of wow, I didn't know that's how it was done. You know, that's, that's interesting that that's how companies they I don't think ever would have thought that's how layoffs should have been done. When you talked about here's how it's done. Here's what the consultants are telling me, this is how I should do it. I think that's surprising for them.

Jeff Ma
No, thank you for that. Didn't mean to make us truly just curious didn't mean to make it about the book. Talk here to talk about our book. Go ahead. I think yeah, something.

Mohammad Anwar
No, I was also gonna talk about like, grit. And, you know, I, you know, being a man. And it's like this thing about being strong and like having that grit and not giving up. Can you help me understand? Where is that in? Correlation to resiliency?

Dr. Trish Berg
Yeah, that's a great question. And grit is passion and perseverance for long term goals. So that's how grid is defined. So resiliency is bouncing back in the moment from a failure, success, plateau. And grit is passion and perseverance for long term goals. So grit actually has three components, and one is passionate interest. One is long term goals, and one is resiliency. So resiliency is a component of grit. And as you become more resilient in the short term, that will hopefully help you become grittier. Angela Duckworth out of University of Pennsylvania is a phenomenal researcher on grit, and has some great research in that area. For anyone who wants more information on grit. They've done a lot of studies. Of course, the nice thing now that I'm getting older, you actually get grittier as you get older. Because you've been through a lot. And you know, the sun comes up the next day, and you know, you'll get through it. So as we age, we get a little grittier. The goal is to try to increase that when we're younger.

Mohammad Anwar
Got it? And another area I'm curious is how do you see like, empathy, play in with resiliency or supporting one another? Like, for example, if someone is failing, or someone is giving up or not having that grit? How do you think people can support each other in that regard to bring up that grit on resiliency? Yeah, what are your thoughts?

Dr. Trish Berg
So many years ago, I'll share a little story that relates to that. Probably 15 years ago, I had a student who was one of my favorite students, great young man, and he plagiarised a paper. And when I saw that my heart sank. I was like, Oh my gosh, like I don't want to deal with this. I love this kid. Bye. I have to call him out on this. So I had him come in, in my office, we talked about it, he cried, I cried. And I told him, I said, Listen, this doesn't define you, unless you let it define you. So if you use this as a learning curve moment to make changes, it's not going to define who you are. I gave him a zero on that, which brought in a student down to a B or a C, right. So there were consequences, of course. But before he graduated, about a year later, he reached out to me and wanted to meet for coffee. And we did. And we cried again, because he thanked me. He said, You were the first person to hold me accountable. He's very smart, he got away with a lot of stuff. And he said, I wanted to thank you that changed my life. And this young man and I are still friends, he's in his 30s. He's a great guy. But I shared that story in class this week, with my current students, because I wanted them to understand failure doesn't define you, even when it's your fault. Unless you let it define you. And after class, I had a young man here at Heidelberg, just come up to me and thank me. And he gave me a hug. And he said, I really needed to hear that today. So empathy comes into play. Because when someone fails, there's always accountability. I am a believer of accountability. But you allow that empathy to shine through as well so that you love the person, even though you don't like maybe what they did in that moment. And again, it comes back to love, you know, showing that empathy is someone who needs empathy at that moment, you know, people need to hear that. And so I'm just sharing that yesterday, and having this young man come up to me just made my week I was like, That's awesome that I got to lift him up a little, I've no idea what's going on in his current life. But he just thanked me. He said he needed to hear it. So again, hopefully go back to our icebreaker. That's the thing I want to be remembered for, you know, that someone needed to hear something positive. And I was able to do that for them.

Mohammad Anwar
While you're making my week, so here we go. All of that because I think one of the struggles that I'm personally facing out speak for myself is like I do struggle sometimes with balancing love, empathy, and accountability. Like how do I speak to my team and help hold them accountable for like, certain inactions or certain results that we are not aspiring for. And I feel very guilty at times when I'm like, trying to hold my team accountable. And then I walk by Maybe I was too hard on them. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Maybe. I don't know if this is a good thing. I did this and they keep doubting myself. But hearing this story from you is like giving me confidence that in the moment, it's probably hard to to hold the person you care for to accountability for those results. But at the end of the day, if you do it, empathetically, you can guide the team to come out of it and being be resilient and bounce back from that failure. But but at the same time, like I feel like as a leader, you have to have courage to do that. Yeah, it has I am scared to practice.

Dr. Trish Berg
But you guys are both parents, right? You both have kids, okay? You hold your children accountable. You know, my kids are all old adults now in their 20s. But raising young children. You know, I remember many times when there was a timeout or a sent to your bedroom, or whatever the conversation we would have with our kids after that consequences. I held you accountable because I love you. Because if I didn't love you, I wouldn't care how you behaved. I wouldn't care that you were disrespectful. But because I love you. I'm going to hold you accountable. And so I think it goes hand in hand and you can do it. It's your approach too Moh. You know, are you doing it in that empathetic way where you're not not letting anger guide you?

Mohammad Anwar
Agreed? And true story. One time I tried to share exactly what you shared and they told me but I'm not your kid. Seriously, I would like responded. I was like, oh, yeah, okay, that's like, yeah, got a point. Yeah, but I since then have shifted to try and use that same concept. But from a coach to a athlete. Yes. Like we're a team. Yes, I'm your coach. I am going to hold you accountable. If you miss that opportunity to make a play. I am going to call it out so that you can do better next time. So I've had to switch that because I've got an actual response today, believe it or not, there's a lot of Reddit posts and stuff like, Oh, that's a red flag if someone sees, you know, practicing a family type examples, people are away from it. Yeah. No. I'm in alignment with you, but unfortunately, yeah, like, it doesn't sit well sometimes because you've lived but I'm not your child. So don't treat me like

Dr. Trish Berg
one right? And they want and they want that respect as an adult, right. They're older, and they're an adult. And that's totally understandable. You know, on a basketball team, if a player gets four fouls in the second quarter or third quarter, well, they're gonna have to sit the bench, you know exactly yet, you can't allow them to fall out if they're your best shooter. So you hold them accountable for getting those fouls by pulling them out sitting on the bench. But that doesn't mean you love them any less, you know, and then when you can get them in. So it's, you know, there's a lot of analogies you can use, but I would be in favor of accountability with empathy. But I think the minute I've had bosses that don't hold people accountable in my work history, and when you have a leader who does not hold people accountable, it creates a very toxic culture. So you definitely need to keep accountability as a part of it.

Jeff Ma
Absolutely. Well, Trish, this has been a journey, a wonderful conversation.

Mohammad Anwar
I think we need to do many more podcasts. I'm not.

Jeff Ma
I can tell. I can tell.

Dr. Trish Berg
I'll come back anytime you want me to come back, guys. This has been a lot of fun.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, this is really, really good. And it's given me a lot to think about, I can tell Moh's just live thinking with us. And I'm sure the audience is the same way. So Trish, thank you so much for taking the time today and sharing all this wisdom with us. It was really, really insightful.

Dr. Trish Berg
Well, thanks for having me. I just one more thing I want to share when I started this a few years ago, and it's a small thing. And I think we can start with those small things. When I respond to a student email, every time the signature is cheering you on, Dr. Berg, because I want them to understand I'm on their team. And it's made a difference in my student rapport and in how they respond to those challenges. So just a little thing can make a difference.

Jeff Ma
Oh, yeah, language matters for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Mohammad Anwar
Thank you. Trish, I learned a lot from this podcast, I continue to learn and I'm so glad that there are other people out there such as yourself doing research and trying to like evaluate this from, you know, a scientific process. And I think it just continues to validate that in the practical world, this has so much applicability so thank you for that.

Dr. Trish Berg
Well, thank you guys. I like I said I showed my book with all my post, it's like it's highlighted like crazy. And when I see you, I'm gonna make y'all sign it. But I I've learned a lot from the book and just from getting to know you both as well. So greatly appreciate the connection.

Jeff Ma
Absolutely. And to our listeners, thank you as always, please continue to tune in. Trish has done a great job of plugging for me but please check out our book, still available on Amazon Best Selling on other retailers as well and subscribe to our podcast, rate it give us feedback, all those good things, tell a friend. And with that, we'll see you next Wednesday.