Adapting to a Chaotic World With Anne Grady

0:03Paula Felps:Thank you for joining us for episode 559 of Live Happy Now. We're living in a time of rapid and dramatic change, and that requires us to become more adaptable. This week's guest is here to tell us how to do it. I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today I'm joined by author and resilience expert Anne Grady, who teaches people how to break out of reactivity to begin living on purpose. Her latest book, Evolvability, teaches her unique formula that blends neuroscience, gratitude, and humor to help us navigate change with confidence and stay grounded under pressure so we can make decisions based on our priorities, not panic.

0:41Paula Felps:Let's have a listen. Anne, thank you so much for joining me today.

0:46Anne Grady:Thank you so much for having me, Paula. I'm thrilled to be here.

0:49Paula Felps:Well, thrilled to have you on the show. You've got this great new book. It's called Evolvability. And first of all, the title was intriguing to me, so I had to go a little bit deeper. And for our listeners to understand, this is something that you define as our ability to adapt, learn, and grow forward. And so instantly, that's something I want to know more about. Can you talk about, first of all, how you became such an expert on adapting?

1:12Anne Grady:Well, the big picture is that I raised a child with severe mental illness and autism and developmental delays that really forced me to have to adapt in the moment and build resilience that I didn't know I had. But what led to this book was a camping trip that I would have done anything to avoid. Like I was the most non-outdoorsy outdoor person you can imagine. I would have done anything, including have a colonoscopy, to not have to go camping. But it ended up being the thing I really didn't know I needed. And it led me down this whole road of adapting when there is discomfort. And right now, there's a lot of it in the world.

1:54Paula Felps:There is. And trying to find that ability to adapt is so difficult because we're not taught how to do that. And we do learn about resilience. but you teach that adaptability actually goes beyond resilience or just bouncing back. Can you explain the difference or that nuance there?

2:13Anne Grady:Bouncing back is returning to your state that you were before, but it's also how you survive. It's not how you thrive. It's not how you create the life you really want. So in biology, the term evolvability is an organism's ability to adapt over time in response to pressure. We are constantly under pressure. Our brain views uncertainty and change as like other than death, it's the greatest threat of all to the human brain. And we're in a state right now where we have been on such high alert for so long that many of us, our nervous systems have adapted to that. And it's not helpful. It's this chronic state of stress and overwhelm.

2:58Anne Grady:The beauty is these are skills and anybody can practice them and they allow you not to remove any of the discomfort, but build your capacity to navigate through it, to bounce back faster, to recover more effectively, to lead, whether that's a team or your kids. It's really just about learning how to get comfortable being uncomfortable and build the skills to get through that messy middle.

3:24Paula Felps:And what's important to point out is that you let us know that this is not a soft skill. It might sound touchy-feely, but it's not. And you say it's really an essential survival skill in today's world. So can you talk about why that is so important right now? You mentioned our nervous systems. They are overloaded right now. Why is this so essential for us to learn?

3:47Anne Grady:Well, you know, right now, our world is changing faster than our nervous system can adapt and keep up, right? And so your ability to pivot when things don't go as planned to recover to make meaning of that, and to give yourself a roadmap in the middle of it is what allows us to live with intention instead of react with panic and profanity, right? What we know right now is that mental health is, you know, I used to think that when organizations talked about mental health, it was a soft skill kind of thing. But what we know now is that one out of five adults and children will struggle with a major mental health issue within their lifetime.

4:27Anne Grady:But right now we're looking at like 84 % of employees saying that their mental health is struggling at work and they're looking for workplaces that can learn to help maximize their mental health. You've got seven out of 10 adolescents dealing with depression and anxiety. And for so many of us, this has just become the new normal. It doesn't have to be. We can live intentionally. We can step out of reactivity. But it requires us to be deliberate about how we show up and recognizing the things that are helping us and the things that might be getting in our way.

5:03Paula Felps:So what are some of the things that are driving that overwhelm and maxing out our nervous systems? Is it the same for everyone or is it different factors?

5:12Anne Grady:So everybody has a buffer, right? Like a resilience buffer. It's kind of this ability to absorb stressors. Some people have a bigger buffer than others. That could be from childhood experiences. It could be genetic. But there are ways to build that buffer and build that capacity. And one of them, one of the most important, I call it an emotional thermostat, right? So the first pillar in Evolve is emotional aptitude. How do you read, recognize, and respond to emotions to support the life you want, not just react to the one you have? So your brain loves familiarity so much that it would rather be predictably unhappy than risk being unpredictably better.

5:54Anne Grady:That's why we stay in outdated routines and in relationships that no longer serve us, not because they're good for us, but because they're known. until we are able to recognize how our emotions and our reaction to change is impacting our behavior. It's very hard to make deliberate choices about anything. So, you know, I think of it like this, Wayne Dyer used this example. If you were to squeeze an orange, what comes out? I'm going to guess orange juice. Orange juice, right? It doesn't matter who squeezes it. It doesn't matter how hard it's squeezed. That's what comes out. Well, we get squeezed by life, by fear, by stress, by anxiety.

6:30Anne Grady:And what comes out is whatever's inside of us. The challenge is most of us are just operating out of a state of chronic overwhelm, and we're not taking back control to manage what comes out. So the first step is learning to take your own temperature. How are your emotions showing up and how are they affecting you? And one quick tool to navigate this is something I call a mirror moment. Basically, when you're in the bathroom and you're washing your hands, take a minute and look in the mirror and just ask yourself, what am I feeling? And how do I want to show up next? Because we let our internal temperature come out through our outward behavior.

7:10Anne Grady:Emotions are contagious. They can either calm a room or they can light it on fire. And you've seen this if you've ever been in a fight and someone's like, you need to calm down. And you're like, I am calm. Right? So we mirror each other's emotions, whether we realize it or not, the ability to understand how you show up and how your emotions are affecting you is the absolute first step. Emotions are muscles. The ones that we use most often become our default. They get stronger. So if you're in a chronic state of anxiety, it's easier to fall back to a chronic state of anxiety if you're not first taking the time to identify what's happening within you so that you can respond to what's happening around you.

7:49Paula Felps:And I love that approach. How do we remember to do that? Do we put something on the mirror and ask ourselves, like, how do we make that a habit? Because I think that check-in has got to be game-changing for the whole day.

8:01Anne Grady:So you are much more likely to stick with a new habit if you tie it to something you already do. You already use the bathroom multiple times a day. So if it's helpful for you, put a sticky note on the mirror that says, how am I feeling? How do I want to show up next. And it's just a quick way you could put it on the refrigerator if that's where you go often. It doesn't matter where you put it, but it's the habit of learning how to, you're almost conducting an emotional audit regularly. You're figuring out which are the emotions that are dominating my mood and are they the ones that I want? Because if you're in a chronic state of anxiety or emotions that are not helpful or serving you, every time you feel them, you're reinforcing them.

8:43Anne Grady:We reinforce what we repeat. It doesn't mean you have to fake it till you make it, but you first have to know how you feel before you can change it.

8:52Paula Felps:Yeah, that's a great starting point. Can you kind of walk us through the rest of your evolved framework? Because that is so effective. It's beautifully simple, but not easy.

9:03Anne Grady:Oh, that's right. It is simple, but it is not always easy. And I think the important thing to say here is like nobody has life figured out. We look at people around us. We see people's highlight reel on Facebook or on social media. And we're constantly wondering like, what am I doing wrong? How do these other people have a key to this magical, happy kingdom? And I'm like, you're exhausted and overwhelmed. You're not supposed to be happy all the time. I was just interviewed on a show earlier today. And the host was like, I think you should be happy all the time. And I said, well, happiness is just like any other emotion, right?

9:35Anne Grady:It's okay to not be okay. There is nothing wrong with you. You're not supposed to be happy all the time.

9:40Paula Felps:Right.

9:41Anne Grady:The key is to cultivate emotions intentionally. So for example, the first step is emotional aptitude. And I want to give you just a quick one more skill with that one. So for me, I have struggled with anxiety and depression my entire life. So I practice these skills every day. I don't always get it right because we're all human and it's all a practice. But one tool that has really helped me is that when you are feeling stressed and you're feeling anxious, we try to think our way out of it. What's wrong with me? Why do I feel like this? Where is this coming from? What should I do about it? You cannot think your way out of a physical sensation.

10:18Anne Grady:And stress and anxiety are physical sensations. You have to feel your way out. You literally have to tune into your body, pay attention to your tightening stomach or your clenched butt or your tongue shoved up against the roof of your mouth, right? Pay attention physically, intense emotional reactions, whatever they are, only last 90 seconds if we don't feel them with our thoughts. So while it's contrary to popular belief, you got to sit in the suck, feel the discomfort. It's a wave. It'll pick you up. It'll set you back down. The next pillar values, defining what is most important so that you can make choices that reflect it and using it as a filter to help you make decisions, to help you make sense of adversity.

10:59Anne Grady:O is optimization. How are we making use of the limited resources that we have? How are we optimizing our energy, our attention, and our time? Next is leadership. We don't go through the journey alone. And this has nothing to do with title or whether you work for an organization or anything else. It's how do you inspire trust and create an environment where other people can adapt along with you? The V is versatility. And these all spell evolve. So the V is versatility. How can you shift the way you think, the way you behave, the way you approach challenges and your mindset so that you can meet what the situation demands?

11:34Anne Grady:And the final E in the EVOL framework is empowerment. You know, the human brain hates feeling out of control. Agency is this belief that we get to control not everything, but how we respond to the events in our life. And I found this one study that I've seen for a long time, but it really just brought it back to how powerful this is. So they went to a nursing home and they had two groups of elderly patients in this study. One group was told to make small daily decisions about what they did during the day. So they could have a house plant. They could choose their activities, what they had for lunch.

12:08Anne Grady:The other group, all of these things were chosen for them. So a couple of weeks later, they look back and the group that had some control had better health, cognitive function, energy, all that stuff. That's great. But when they looked at it 18 months later, the group that had some semblance of agency and control had half the mortality rate.

12:26Paula Felps:Really?

12:27Anne Grady:Yeah, this ability to feel like we have some control over the outcomes in our life is not just good for your mental health. It's physically reshaping your brain and making you better, like helping you live better. And so these tools have been hugely helpful for me. Everything from learning how to go on a camping trip to dealing with my son to working with leaders at organizations all over the world and helping teams navigate change. They're all the same skills and they apply across personal, professional and everywhere in between.

13:00Paula Felps:We'll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

13:08Paula Felps:And now let's hear more from Ann Grady. how does that work when it feels like the world is out of control i'd love to use for example with your son you could not control what his diagnosis was what all those things going on with him were i know you uprooted your lives and moved had so much going on and from the outside it would seem like everything is outside of your control. So how do you then gain some sense of order and control in situations that are completely beyond your control?

13:47Anne Grady:Well, first is understanding you can't operate at the level of intensity and overwhelm without it having an effect, right? So I didn't realize I had control. I operated in this victim mentality of like, woe is me, it's not fair, which is true, right? It wasn't fair. But that thought's not serving me. And what ended up happening is the level of stress and overwhelm led to a tumor in my salivary gland that left me with facial paralysis for a long time and a whole bunch of other health things. So I had to start by going, what is one thing in my influence of my control? Can I make one call? Can I go brush my teeth?

14:24Anne Grady:Can I choose what I want to watch on TV instead of it being chose for me. Like you really start so small, but we all have this locus of control. And a locus of control refers to how you explain the events in your life. So you've got two sides of this continuum. An internal locus of control is I don't control what happens to me, but I 100 % own my response to it. An external locus of control is the world keeps happening to me. It's not fair. I can't get out of the victim cycle. When you're stuck in an external locus of control, the world is happening to me. It usually comes from one of two places, blame or shame.

15:02Anne Grady:Blame is if I had a better boss, if I had a better spouse, if I had a better situation, then I would be okay. Shame is I'm just not good enough. It must mean I deserve this. Neither help you, both keep you stuck. And both are in this victim loop that keeps you perpetually stuck in that same helpless state. So agency is this belief that no, I did not control my son's illness, but I do get to control the boundaries that I set up, the respite care that I hire, the way I build this skill of acceptance. I hear people all the time and I'm guilty of it too, right? This is human. But if only my husband would be this, and if only my boss would do this, and if only my kids would do this, that relinquishes all of your control to everybody outside of you and creates powerlessness.

15:58Anne Grady:You have to accept people and situations as they are, not how you wish them to be before you can work on shifting your response to it. So the most critical skill when you're in a situation that sucks is going, okay, it is what it is. Given this, what's next? What's one thing in my control? Start small, anything.

16:19Paula Felps:And I love that because right now a lot of people feel things are so out of control. They're not happy with what's going on.

16:27Anne Grady:All you have to do is turn on the news to feel that way.

16:28Paula Felps:Exactly. There is no escaping it. And there's so much then division that comes with that, so much anger, so much rhetoric. So how does someone start finding that one thing that they have control over to start turning that around? Turn off the news.

16:45Anne Grady:Does it mean you can't read it or be aware of it, right? You're not putting your head in the sand. But stop breaking news in the background on CNN all day or Fox or whatever you listen to. None of that information flowing at you is helping you feel and live better. So take control. Turn off your notifications. Don't live on social media. It's not the real world. And the algorithms in social are created to feed you more of what you spend more time on.