Being Your Best Self

Transcript

KATE MORRIS:  Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us at the Being Your Best Self webinar.  Delighted to be with you.  I'm Kate Morris, joining you from Bastow, and delighted to have Ben Palmer with us today from Genos, Jo McQuinn from Irymple Secondary College, Kristy Keenan from Wangaratta West Primary School and our Bastow panel that I'll introduce in a moment.  If you could just drop into the chat where you're joining us from, your name, your role, if you're with your team, and a quick hello and shoutout, that would be fantastic.  Thanks, everyone. (Pause). How are you feeling, Ben? All ready for today?

DR BEN PALMER:  All ready for today.  We've got over 1,000 registrants for today.  We've already got 700 of us who have joined from all across the great state of Victoria.  It's fantastic to be here.  While we're just waiting for a couple of other people to rock up, let me do a shoutout to St Helena Secondary College, where I went to school, and indeed Yallambie Primary.  I hope some of the staff from either of those schools might be here and just let me shout out and say g'day to the wonderful people at both of those schools.

KATE MORRIS:  Thanks, Ben.  Always great to see our public education graduates going on and doing great things.  Fantastic to have you with us, Ben, and partnering with Bastow and supporting schools as we work through this incredibly interesting and complex time and honour the great work that's happening out in our schools.

So, as you join us today, can you just drop in the chat where you're joining us from, your role, your school, who you're with in the room, if you've got your team with you.  That would be fantastic.  Thanks for joining us.  And David Howes is also with us this morning.  Thanks, David.  We've got our Bastow team with us.  We've got Peter Hough, Maria Oddo and Louise Stewart who will be working with us today.  They're going to be 'DJing' the chat is how we describe it.  They'll be making sure your comments come through the panel and we'll be collating those comments across the session and ensuring that we pick up all the key themes and what's happening for you out in your schools and we'll be collating that and sending it back to you soon.

We'll begin now.  Welcome, everyone.  Kate Morris here from Bastow.  Thanks for joining us.  We've got a fantastic panel with us today and I'd like to hand over now to David Howes, Deputy Secretary of Schools and Regional Services.  Thanks for joining us, David, and over to you.

DAVID HOWES: Great.  Thanks very much and good morning, everybody.  We're almost at 850 people, which is just extraordinary, but I think extraordinarily important as well, thank you to each one of you for making the effort to carve out this time.  I think it is really important.  We are meeting from right across Victoria. Our facilitators are Jo in Irymple, Kristy in Wangaratta, but to the north, the south and the east and the west, wherever we are, we meet on the lands of traditional owners, the land that always was and is and always will be Aboriginal land, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging right across Victoria and to Aboriginal colleagues who are part of this today.

I'm only going to say a couple of words by way of introduction but I think we are all learning with our colleagues and with our students about the importance of paying attention to ourselves.  So I want to do something that I'm learning and I know many of you are practising with your students, which is just to take a minute as we start kind of centring ourselves here because you'll have been in the chaos of the morning.  I know one of our colleagues was sharing one of the dramas they've already had this morning, and that will be true for everyone, but as a way of helping us focus together, Ben, I'm just going to take a minute to do an exercise that I've learnt that has been useful for me and I hope for you.

So wherever you are, if you can find that primitive implement that we call a pen or a pencil that are increasingly rare these days, but if you can find one around, or if you've got a touchscreen with a writing capacity, you can use that.  But from where you are, can you just look around and find five things that you like the colour of and write those down, wherever you're sitting.  Five things that you like the colour of and write those down.  Then four things that from where you're sitting, you can touch or feel.  Four things that you can touch or feel.  Three things that you can hear, and that might be near or far.  Three things that you can hear. Two things that you can smell or taste, which might tell us who had a quick mid‑morning coffee.  Two things you can smell or taste.  And then can you take a deep breath and write down one thing that in this moment you're grateful for.  One thing that you're grateful for at this moment.  And if you wanted to share any of those on the chatline as well as keeping them for your own reflection, that would be a good thing to do.

This is a subject that's close to my heart, bringing your best self, because I think I have struggled to do that through this second round.  I think it's been a common experience for lots of us that the first round was hard and it was difficult but there was a sense of the new and the challenge and I think a sense of how extraordinarily collectively we responded to that first challenge, and having to go through that again has been tough the second time around, and for those of us in metropolitan Melbourne who are living under Stage 4 restrictions, to be living under a curfew has lent a sense of heaviness, I think, to the times that we're in and I know that people right across Victoria are kind of feeling that heaviness in a way that perhaps we didn't the first time around.  And for me, I realise the kind of cumulative stress might be building.

Just actually this week, I think it was Monday night, 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and woke up in a really deep state of anxiety because I was convinced that I had been told that we had to close every primary school completely in the state, none were allowed to be open, and that I'd forgotten to do it.  And you know those moments when you wake up from a nightmare and you have that kind of glimpse of that moment of recognition, "Oh, it's just a dream" and then you're relieved and you go back to sleep?  Well, I walked downstairs and went to the kitchen and I was still convinced that I had missed something and it took me 'til morning to realise that that wasn't the case.  And I'm sure that one of the interesting things that people have commented on is the different way people are dreaming and that being a sign of the stresses that we're all bearing, and they're to do with work and they're to do with the impact this is having on family and friends.  So I do think it's really important that we take time out for a session like this.

I think this is one of those instances where we need to draw on expertise outside our own organisation because this is requiring new knowledge about the ways to manage this.  So, Ben, very grateful for your input and for Genos's input, but just as grateful to everyone here because I think it is only through people spending a bit of time reflecting on how we're going and developing the strategies to indeed bring our best self that that will make a difference for us and it will make a difference for our colleagues and it will make a very profound difference for our students.  So again very, very thankful that people have made this time.  You're in very good hands with Ben.  I'm sure it's going to be a very, very useful session.  So, Ben, I might hand over to you.

DR BEN PALMER:  Thank you, David, and indeed I'm very grateful for being here with you all today.  I'm really looking forward to taking you through this session.  So thank you for that great introduction, David.

Without any further ado, let's get going.  Let's start with a little bit of background.  If we look into the science of emotions, we know that our environment shapes the way we feel.  Teachers know this.  That's why they set up their classrooms a little bit like this, to create that pleasant, positive emotions environment.  And I'm sure, Kristy, at your primary school, you've got a few classrooms that look like this.  Is that right?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Absolutely.  Our staff here really aim to make warm, light, bright classrooms.  We're very lucky that we have spacious rooms with a lot of natural light but we also focus on trying not to provide sensory overload so we try to minimise too much clutter but certainly the staff try to make kids feel that they're entering a warm, inviting classroom.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes.  Excellent.  So our environment shapes the way we feel.  Now, this becomes significant when we start to dive deeper into the science of emotions where we'll also see that the way we feel influences the way we think and the decisions that we make.  You wouldn't go and ask your boss for more resources if your boss was in a bad mood.  They're probably more likely to say no.  And, of course, the way we feel influences the way we behave.  Where do emotions show up? In our tone of voice, in our facial expressions and in our body language, and because of that, they're fundamental to how we connect, communicate and collaborate with each other.

This becomes even more significant when we think about the environment that we're in at the moment.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look quite like what we've got up on screen here just now.  In fact, it looks a little bit more like this.  So today, we're going to draw deeply on the science of emotions because we can't change our big environment but, like Kristy and her classrooms, we can change our immediate environment, and through things like that, we can start to change the way we feel.  And when we change the way we feel, we change the way we think and we change the way we behave, and, of course, changing the way we think and behave can help us be more of our best self more often.

So we're going to use this medium today to really think about and, indeed, meet that objective.  How can we be more of our best selves more often? What would it mean to you to be more of your best self more often right now? Jo, I'd like to bring you in and ask you for a comment, and for everybody in the chat box, please give us a comment too from you.  I know that the chat box has already been going wild with over 1,000 people who have joined us.  So, Jo, what would it mean to you to be more of your best self right now?

JO McQUINN:  Thanks, Ben.  For me I think at this time it's just stay the course.  For me, this means I continue to be passionate about my work and ensuring that I'm authentic and supportive to my school community.  Kids always should come first, I think, in our decision making, and a simple example of that for my school is that I have provided all my students and parents with my mobile phone number, which means that they have me available to them at any time that they require it, and that just gives them a little bit more confidence in dealing with what they have.

I also made a big deal to myself when I started working 37 years ago ‑ so I am old ‑ but that deal to myself was that if I would go to work two days in a row and I'm not passionate about my work, I would change it.  I'd either change my job or go to another workplace.  I've stuck to that deal that I made to myself and I've done it a number of times.  So I think we need to be confident to challenge what needs to be challenged and to be passionate about what we're doing.

DR BEN PALMER:  Thanks, Jo.  That's been great. Kristy, while Jo has been speaking, I have noticed the chat box has been going wild.  What are a couple of things that people, our colleagues from right across the state, are saying in response to this question?

KRISTY KEENAN:  It certainly has.  Some things that kept coming through were the ability to stay calm, so Alisha was talking about taking action from a calm and focused mind.  Anne was talking about being able to stay positive, productive and open to new things.  Again, that sense of calm and in control came through from Katherine, and Kylie mentioned being confident in the work she does.  So very similar themes coming through there.

DR BEN PALMER:  Excellent.  Thanks for sharing, Kristy, and thank you to everyone who is contributing in the chat box.  So how are we going to get there? Here's a quick overview of our session.  We're going to start by doing a bit of definitional work.  What does our best self actually look like? How do we feel? What are we like to be around? We're then going to think about how do we get there, and the first step, of course, is to think about investing in our wellbeing.  How do we set up a day that's most likely going to bring out our best self?  If we can change our immediate environment, what might that look like?

We're then going to look at the second big step, which is to think about those times when we're not our best self.  What are the triggers that we commonly have and what are some of our reactions? From that we'll also do some more definitional work around our responses, a more considered response, and we'll finish by looking at a four‑step process that can help us more readily and easily move from a trigger reaction mode to a trigger response mode, a response that better reflects what we're like when we are our true self so that we can catch ourselves ‑ in those times that some of us have 1% of the time, 10% of the time, sometimes 50% of the time, we can catch ourselves and move from trigger reaction to trigger response.

Please contribute in the chat box.  Note that when you're doing so, select 'All Attendees' or to 'Everyone' because I know that people love the learning that comes from the content, the learning that comes from the discussion and the participant learning.  So I really want to encourage you to hit the chat box as you have been doing and thank you to everyone who has been doing so.

So, without any further ado, I would invite you to turn to page number 4 and 5 in the workbook.  Let's do this definitional work around our best self/worst self.  We're not going to do this from a blank canvas.  Indeed, we're not going to take some guesswork to it.  We're going to bring in a little bit more science.  Indeed, I'm going to draw on the theory of personality that underlies one of the most commonly used models of personality in the workplace, the DISC model of personality.  This was first theorised by William Marston in a book called 'The Emotions of Normal People' in which he theorised about two major needs that explained a lot of our feelings, a lot of our triggers and a lot of our behaviour.  Those are, of course, the need for control ‑ some of us have a high need for control; some of us have a low ‑ and the need for affiliation, that sense of involvement and belonging with a social group.  Some of us have a high need of that and some of us have a low need.  By understanding where we sit on these dimensions, we can more accurately describe what we're like to be around, how it feels to be our best and worst self.

So, without any further ado, on page number 5 in your workbooks, you should see a graph like this.  If you haven't got the workbook, don't worry.  Just get that piece of paper and a pen.  You'll still be able to engage in the activities that we're going to do.  So, firstly, let's look at our need for control.  Do you think you've got a high need for control or a low need for control? Do you not mind not being in control? If you are at a party and you were describing yourself to a stranger, if you have a high need for control, you'd probably choose words and phrases like this: active, assertive, energetic, bold.  Indeed, I tend to have a high need for control, and 'active' is certainly one of the descriptors I would use.  Conversely, if you're like my partner Georgia at home, she would probably describe herself as having a lower need for control.  She's much more thoughtful, calm, methodical and careful.  Of course, we all have both elements of these but we tend to be a little bit more of one than the other.  So the first step is to think about would you be more towards the higher end or the lower end.  Kristy, where would you put yourself? High or low?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Definitely on the lower end, which is interesting, being a principal, but definitely on the lower end for the need for control.

DR BEN PALMER:  OK.  Well, Kristy, like you have ‑ and I would invite everyone else to ‑ what I'm going to invite you to do is to choose two numbers that add up to 10 but are not 0 and 5.  So no 5s and no 0s because that's density.  Choose a number for the top line and a number for the bottom line.  Now, if you're like Kristy and you think you have a lower need for control, you're going to choose a bigger number at the bottom of the graph, maybe like a 7 or an 8.  If you're more like me with a higher need for control, you're going to choose a bigger number at the top of the graph up here.  So choose two numbers and circle them on the graph so that you can see where you sit. 

OK. Hopefully everyone's got their two numbers.  Let's go to our next dimension now: the need for affiliation.  So this is our sense of belonging and need to be feeling like we're a part of the social group, if you like.  Now, if you have a high need for affiliation, again words and phrases that you'd probably use to describe yourself are words like these.  You're probably quite accepting and receptive, open to what people have got to say and think.  You're quite people‑focused and enjoy being with people, if you like.  Conversely, if you have a lower need for affiliation, like me, you probably tend to be a little bit more task focused than people focused; a bit more challenging than accepting and receptive; a little bit into logic and objectivity.  You probably like your documentaries like I do and questioning.  So, again, where do you sit on this compendium? Of course, we both have a bit of both but where would you put yourself?  Jo, would you say you have a slightly higher need for affiliation or a lower need for affiliation? Where did you go on this particular one?

JO McQUINN:  I went with higher.  I chose 4 on the left side and 6 on the right.  I think these numbers change, though, depending on the situation that you might be dealing with and whether you're dealing with a situation on your own or in a group.

DR BEN PALMER:  Absolutely they do.  So again, just as you heard Jo there, I'm going to invite you to choose two numbers ‑ no 0s and 5s ‑ but a number to the right and a number to the left.  Firstly, think which one is a little bit more descriptive of you.  Of course, as Jo said, we can be both of these, but under pressure, we probably see more of one of these come out.  Choose the two numbers that add up to 10 ‑ and not 0s and 5s.  Again, circle them on the graph.

OK, let's move to the final part, which is by now you should have four dots on your graph like this.  What I'd like to finally invite you to do is to join them with straight lines.  Don't make it a triangle or a diamond.  It should be a box of some kind.  Here is mine.  These are the numbers that indeed I've chosen for myself.  So use a pen just to square it up and give yourself a box. So what have we done? Well, what we've essentially done is located the largest or the most descriptive element of our personality and some of the other areas of it that are not so descriptive of it.

Indeed, what I'd invite you to do is to turn to page number 6 in your workbook where you'll see the words and phrases that describe each dimension of the model.  If, for example, you have a high need for control and a high need for affiliation, the area that will be the biggest is probably this and the words and phrases that are probably most descriptive of you are things like talkative, enthusiastic, persuasive, people oriented and so on down.  So transpose your box on there and in a moment I'm going to invite you to answer the reflective questions at the bottom of page 6: how would you describe your best self? What are you like to be around? How does it feel? Once you've done that, let us know a couple of your thoughts in the chat box, and while you're taking that moment for yourself, Kristy, I'd like to bring you in here and just share with us what did you come out the strongest on and how would you describe your best self?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Ben, I came out in steady.  So I think those words really reflect me as my best self when I'm calm, supportive of others and really dependable, and I think that has stood out most during the COVID pandemic, where my staff have really relied on me to stay calm and in control so that they have a sense of calm themselves and they understood that there was a plan in place and that they could depend on me to have everything under control and everything in place.  I believe when I've been my best self, I'm supportive of others, very steady, level‑headed and I trust others around me so that helps to empower them.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes.  Fantastic.  Well, I hope that while Kristy was talking, you've had an opportunity just to capture some words and phrases down to those reflective questions there on 6 ‑ how would you describe your best self; what are you like to be around; how does it feel? ‑ just as Kristy has done for us now.

So what I'd like to do now is indeed run a poll.  I can see some of you in the chat box are already sharing with us the area that's the biggest.  Let me launch the poll here and get you anonymously to let us know which dimension of the model was most descriptive of you.  What we're about to do now is probably one of the single biggest, quickest research studies across the state of Victoria on the different personality dimensions that exist amongst the Department of Education Victorian staff.  So I can see a lot of you are voting.  We're over 50% already.  Once you've voted, take a guess:  which area of the model do you think on average we display the most ‑ dominance, influential, conscientiousness or steady? A lot of people have voted now.  I'll just let it go for one more second.  Take a guess and then we'll move to the next part. It's great to see some people letting us know in the chat box there as well.

Now, there is a method to all this madness.  We're going to use this model particularly when we get to the triggers and so on as well.  So a lot of us have voted now.  I'm going to end the poll there and share the results.  Have the results come up there for you, Jo? Can you see them at your end?

JO McQUINN:  Yes, I can, yes.  Very interesting.

DR BEN PALMER:  Very interesting.  'Steady', Kristy, is the one that's come out the most but we can see all elements of the model are present in the staff across this great state of Victoria.

Alright.  Well, thank you, everyone, for voting and I hope that's been of interest.  This is the kind of information you cannot find anywhere.  You won't read this on the internet, which dimensions of personality are more prominent in teaching and education staff across the state of Victoria.  There we go.

I'm going to end the poll there and I'm going to go to the next part of it, which is our worst self. So page number 7.  Again, I'd invite you to transpose your box on to the model, like I have done just here, and again I'd invite you to use your findings in the descriptors there to help you think about your worst self.  How would you describe yourself when you're being your worst self? What are you like to be around? How does it feel? And, Jo, I'm going to bring you in here and ask you to give us some reflections on what you can be like in those one, or two, or 10 at a time, how you've been when you've been your worst self?

JO McQUINN:  This could be interesting too.  I'm a bit of a square but slightly more on the left‑hand side of the quadrant ‑ dominant and conscientious being even.  So my numbers were 6 and 4.  I think for me, my worst self is when I'm being a bit too harsh.  I'm probably a bit impatient when dealing with a situation that might just pop up, and it might pop up a couple of times.  An example of that is dealing with a student (inaudible) issue.  I'll admit sometimes I do this but what helps me when I do slip into that worst self is that I share my office with three others so we're able to tag‑team and recognise between each other who's managing the situation best, and that gives me the chance then to stand back a bit when I'm becoming my worst self.  We're also able to challenge and support each other in this safe environment and, to be honest, I'm so used to now sharing an office with others that I don't think I could operate in any other way.  I have total trust in the guys I share with and I know they have total trust in my motives as well.

DR BEN PALMER:  Thanks for sharing, Jo, and I hope that's helped everyone who is with us today think about the best self and worst self.  We're going to move on now and think about how we can be more of our best self more often, and, of course, we're our best self most of the time, but it's when we're our worst self that it can bring us a bit undone.  I like to think of that time in my year when that worst self came out ‑ for me it's a small amount of the time, not a large amount, but when it does come out, it can unwind a perfect day or a perfect week, sometimes even a perfect year, and, indeed, at the moment in this kind of environment, we can be more triggered.

So how do we be more of our best self more often? Of course, step number one is to invest in our own wellbeing, and indeed we've done a webinar already on this and I've put the URL on the slides up here.  Get your phone out and take a photo of it or go to the Bastow website and Google it.  You can still go and watch the recording of this webinar and indeed download the workbook and all those sorts of things.  It's really important to invest in your own wellbeing.  In that particular webinar, we went over four different buckets of strategies that we can all engage in readily and easily to boost our wellbeing, and it's really important.  It's going to help us bring out more of our best self.

In that webinar, we went through thinking strategies.  We went through physical strategies ‑ sleeping better, exercising, engaging in mindfulness.  We went through relationship strategies.  One of the strongest predictors of our wellbeing is the quality of our relationships.  And, finally, we went into environmental strategies, and I've been burning a little bit of lavender here this morning in the office just to create that little bit more calm kind of atmosphere for our webinar this morning.  So you can see on page number 8 in your workbooks all the sort of things that we talked about in that webinar and they're going to become important for our next activity.  But before we go to it, please let us know in the chat box: what's something you've been doing lately to boost your wellbeing? Let us know.  Make a contribution.  And while you're doing that, Kristy, I'd like to bring you in on that question.  What's something you've been doing for your wellbeing lately?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Thanks, Ben.  Like you actually, when you mentioned in that webinar that when you get home you actually put your phone on flight mode, that's been a big thing, that when I leave school, I can go home, I put the phone away and I spend some time with my partner and our kids, particularly things like prioritising reading with my daughter, teaching her how to do that.  She's only 2 so I might be getting in a bit early but just prioritising that time with her.  But also at school, in terms of the professional school life and prioritising those relationships, I get a lot from, I guess, the gratitude side of things and recognising what the staff are doing and I will often send emails to my staff to just individually recognise what they've been doing at the school and their contribution.  I think that helps them but it really helps me in my wellbeing.  And also the phone call check‑ins.  During COVID that's been so important, just the connections.  You mentioned that in your webinar too, that those connections with people are so vital, but more so during this pandemic.  So just making the time to actually schedule it in my diary to call people at home and say, "How are you going?".

DR BEN PALMER:  Thanks, Kristy, for sharing and we hear in Kristy's response too things that she's engaged in that align with her personality type.  The high need for affiliation, those check‑ins and that connection is something that's probably really fuelling your wellbeing, Kristy, given what you shared with us around your personality.  So thanks for sharing.  Jo, the chat box has been going wild with lots of contributions from people.  What's caught your attention in watching the chat box there for a bit?

JO McQUINN:  Yes, it certainly has been going wild, that's for sure.  It's really interesting.  A lot of the things are around I guess stuff that sometimes we forget to do in our normal lives because we get so busy.  So reading has come up a lot.  Yoga.  Exercise.  One that really took my fancy was professional learning opportunities that sometime in our busy lives we don't get to do.  Now, working from home, we have more opportunities to do that.  One from Laura, which I love, was to drink more water.  So some of us might drink more wine but to drink more water and remember to try to keep ourselves healthy.

DR BEN PALMER:  Well, particularly if we live in that wonderful region where you are there, Jo.

JO McQUINN:  Exactly.  There is beautiful wine. 

DR BEN PALMER:  Thanks for sharing.  Thanks to everyone who is putting things into the chat box.  We're going to build on this now and think about how we can take some of these things that we're reading in the chat box and we can see on page 8 there and actually use them in combination to define an ideal day.  So the day we have today not only helps with our emotions, but if we have an ideal day, we've actually set up the right mood and emotions not only for the day but for the next day and the day after that, the science shows.  So we're going to take three minutes for ourselves in a moment to define an ideal day.  If you've already done this and you have one, take the opportunity perhaps to finesse it and to reflect on it and perhaps polish it up a little bit, or if you've done a lot of work on it, maybe action plan around it.  Maybe the action plan could be around: how do I get more of these ideal days or how do I help someone else who perhaps doesn't have their ideal day defined?

So, again, so it's not a blank canvas, on page number 9 in your workbooks, I've put my ideal day in there.  My morning looks like this.  My afternoon looks like this.  And my evening looks like this.  My favourite activity in the morning is the mindfulness meditation.  I love getting my Smiling Mind app out and doing 10 minutes of mindfulness.  My favourite afternoon activity is the ride home on the bike.  I find again that just helps me really switch off, gives me my half an hour of exercise and there's a big hill right near my house so I get into a full sweat and I know I've ticked that box for that day.  And my favourite evening exercise is the music time with the kids.  One of the things we've been doing in COVID‑19 is we've been getting out guitars and the trumpet and learning instruments and I love going home for the music time that I have with my kids.

But what about you? What does your ideal day look like? I'm going to play a song in a moment.  It goes for three minutes.  And I want you to take these three minutes for yourself to define your ideal day.  What does your morning, afternoon and evening look like? Once you've done that, let us know something in the chat box.  I'll bring Jo in to reflect on hers.  OK, here comes the song.

(Music plays)

DR BEN PALMER:  OK, that was, of course, an instrumental version of 'Good As Hell' by Lizzo and I love the words to that: 'I do my hair toss,

check my nails, baby, how you feelin'? Feeling good as hell'.  Lovely metaphor to think about our ideal day.  Jo, what did this get you thinking? What's some of the elements of your ideal day?

JO McQUINN:  So I've gone with an ideal work day because I was noticing on the chat there that a lot of people are saying that our work day is different to our weekend day.  So I've gone with the ideal work day.  I really enjoy having a morning routine at home.  I'm lucky, I've got grown‑up children so that makes it easier.  I can imagine with little tackers, you can't do that quite as easily. And when I arrive at work, if I arrive after our school dog Wallace arrives, that starts my day much better.  Wallace is the best meeter and greeter that you will ever see.  He's always happy to see you and I love to hear staff and kids greeting him each morning.  It's the best.

From then I will move on to touching base with staff, and having a good laugh always sets me up for a good day. It reminds me to take my job seriously but not myself, so I can have a bit of a laugh at things.  Getting a chance to stop and have lunch or recess is a really nice thing to be able to do, and to get home before it's dark is even better still.  That's ideal.  Once I get home, I love relaxing on the balcony or down at the fire pit.  I'm lucky I have a shack on the river.  And before COVID‑19 and the restrictions, I'd love to do that with friends and family with good food and wine, but obviously in these different times we're currently in now, my ideal evening is the same spaces but only with my St Bernard dog and husband, and we tend to spend a lot of time listening to music, watching the footy frenzy and Facetiming our kids and grandkids and family that we can't see in person.  So trying to keep connected at home.  If I have an ideal day, it means I have a great sleep and I'm ready to start again the next day.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes, absolutely.  Sleep the night before sets up the ideal day in my opinion too.  So thank you for sharing, Jo.  And, Kristy, I notice in the chat box we're getting some wonderful contributions coming through from people in there.  Share a couple of the things that have really been catching your attention as the discussion's rolled on.

KRISTY KEENAN:  Thanks, Ben.  A lot of people were talking about the mornings not being rushed and having time with their family.  It was mentioned a couple of times by both Vicki and also Louise that it's different whether it's a work day or a weekend holiday and also very different pre‑ and post‑COVID because that's changed our lives so dramatically.  But some common other themes were Bev and Andrea both talked about going for a walk with their dogs.  Reading a good book came up, so Lauren talked about reading with her daughter, similar to me, and Jill talked about just getting that time to read a good book.  Andrew spoke about the work day ending when he gets to go and start cooking dinner, and that's a great part of his day.  And Tracey talked about after work she priortises something that she likes to do, so similar to Jason, meaningful interactions with others, and Natalie also mentioned that meeting with colleagues every morning during COVID, that's one of the best parts of her day.  So some great things coming through.

DR BEN PALMER:  Absolutely.  Let me put you on the spot and ask you: how many days of the week or days of the month are you getting your ideal best day at the moment?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Oh, look, at the moment I wouldn't say every day but certainly there's ideal parts of every day at the moment.

DR BEN PALMER:  Ideal parts of every day, OK, good.  And I ask that because I really want to have everybody thinking, I suppose, if you want to get that boost in your wellbeing, if you want to bring out more of your best self more often, it's great to know where your starting place is, but to add something to it; for example, I probably only get this ideal day once a week at the moment, so my action plan is going to be more around how do I get two of these a week?  Or if you're getting a little bit of it most days, I'd really encourage you to push that a little bit harder, put something else in or try and stretch it out little bit more.  If you want to get that 2 or 3% uplift in your mood, in your emotions and in your behaviour, you need to stretch yourself in this area.  So I'd encourage everyone on the call to think about not only to define it but to really get up on the balcony and ask yourself those critical questions: how often am I getting this, could I get more and what little more things could I do indeed to get there?  Does that make sense, Kristy?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Absolutely.

DR BEN PALMER:  Alright.  So let's shift gears a bit now.  Of course, step 1, invest in our wellbeing.  Step 2, how do we be more of our best self more often is to think about our triggers and our reactions.  Some of us have a reaction to something once a year.  Some of us have it once a month.  Some of us have it once a week.  Some of us have it more often than we'd like.  We're going to do a little bit of definitional work using that personality model to think about our triggers and reactions.  We're not just going to define those, however.  We're also going to think about responses.  We're going to do some definitional work around a more considered response, if you like, because once you've done that definitional work and you have those two pictures of yourself, next time that trigger goes off, you'll be more readily available to grab the response rather than make that automatic kind of reaction, if you like, to the trigger, and, of course, doing so is going to help you be more of your best self more often.

So on page number 10 in your workbooks and up on screen here, I've got the textbook triggers for all the different elements of the personality model that we've been working with, and again I'd invite you to transpose your box onto this model so you can see the kind of triggers that might go off for you.  And from that, I'd like you to identify just a trigger of yours for a moment.  For me, being taken advantage of and criticism are real triggers for me that can set off that automatic quick response.  Kristy, what about you? What's a trigger for you?

KRISTY KEENAN:  Mine's very similar, Ben.  It's that criticism or disapproval.  For me I'm very focused on trying to make the staff and the parents and the kids happy, and so when I find out that they disapprove of an idea or something I'm implementing, I can respond in one of two ways.  One is defensiveness, if I really believe in what I'm doing and I feel misunderstood.  The other is self‑doubt.  Sometimes I start to question my decisions: have I acted the wrong way? So they're my two default responses.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes, OK.  So step one in this process is to think about a trigger.  Step two is to then think about and define for yourself the default reaction.  And again on page 10 and 11 in your workbooks, I've put the textbook kind of descriptions and definitions of the typical reactions that occur, and these aren't here to box you in.  They're there to stimulate your own thoughts on what your definition of your reaction kind of looks like.  And, Jo, I'd like to bring you in here and get you to share with us one of your reactions.

JO McQUINN:  That's really good watching the chat box, seeing that people are feeling the same as me, Ben, because my trigger is fake people who are not always truthful, as well as handling criticism, particularly of my team.  So my default action is that I often withdraw, so I'll become a bit of an avoider, and for me that gives me a chance to think, plan, have a talk to my leadership team about what might be the best way to approach it; do a bit of a draft copy of an essay, I guess, before responding.  But, in saying that, there are times where I don't think like that and I attack and I become a bit of a lioness when I'm trying to protect my teachers and kids if I believe they're being criticised unfairly.  So that's something I do know I do.  I do get the claws out and attack, not so much if they're criticising me.  It's more if my team and my kids are being criticised that I don't like.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes.  Look, thank you so much.  I can see people have been sharing a lot in the chat box as well, which has been great.  In fact, I'd like to invite you all now to again take three minutes of yourself to do some definitional work.  So in your workbooks on page number 12, you should see a table that looks a little bit like this.  Here I've put my example up for you.  My trigger usually comes from my partner Georgia.  It's criticism.  My reaction is usually defensiveness, particularly when she's criticising how I'm managing the kids.  I usually mansplain her and give her quite longwinded explanations of why what I'm doing indeed is the right thing to do.  I try not to but sometimes I have a bit of a belligerent tone to it.  And so my more considered response to that is openness, where I listen more to what she's got to say and I explore that in a little bit more depth and I go more into a questioning mode.

So I'm going to play you another song.  If you find the music distracting ‑ this song goes for three minutes ‑ turn your music down.  If you find the music stimulating, leave it on and let the music play because that will help you think about this.  Take three minutes for yourself.  Take one of your triggers.  Define that default reaction and your considered response and, if you have time, the personal benefit.  Once you're finished, let us know in the chat box.  When you're done, let us know your default reaction and considered response labels.  Now, what do I mean by that? See these bolded terms up here?  I'd like you to come up with a label for your reaction and a label for your response and that will become obvious why that's important in the next part of this exercise.  When we're done, I'm going to bring Kristy in to talk to us about her reaction and response and I'm going to ask Jo for some reflections on your contributions in the chat box.  Thanks, everyone.

(Music plays).

DR BEN PALMER:  OK.  I hope you enjoyed that reflective music.  That was, of course, an acoustic version of 'Thunder' and it reminds me of my little acoustic boy, my eldest at home, who can certainly be the lightning and the thunder.  Kristy, I noticed in the chat box we had some great things going on and I'm going to ask Jo to reflect on that in a moment, but what's one of your reactions and responses that you're able to articulate when doing this work?

KRISTY KEENAN:  A big one is that disapproval, the unhappiness of others or the criticism, that default reaction like others were talking about in the chat box, which is that defensiveness.  The other part of it is I can turn to victim mode particularly when I get home.  Sometimes I'm able to hold it together at school and then go home and that generalising ‑ maybe I'm not a good leader ‑ tending to blow things out of proportion, that self‑doubt can creep in.  But the considered response is that reflecting, bringing it back into perspective and then being open, so listening to people, questioning what is the actual crux of the problem so that we can try to work through some things.  I do that a lot through feedback surveys to the staff.  Being open to learning conversation skills that I learned at Bastow years ago, that's also something that's really helped me to have those open conversations with people, and I love Janelle's comment in the chat box to stay curious, not furious.  That's a really great way of summarising that considered response.  And the benefit of that is that you can learn from others and it also helps to maintain those relationships that are so important to me.

DR BEN PALMER:  Fantastic.  Thank you for sharing, and, Jo, I'm sure you've picked up on a couple of other things in the chat box there.

JO McQUINN:  Yes, there was, and it was interesting there that Kristy ‑ the notion of holding it in at work and struggling when you get home, it's certainly come through in the chat box.  Robyn talks about criticism and being defensive, just like you there, Ben, but Alisha is talking about it being more emotional responses at this time, particularly with COVID and the situation that we all find ourselves in at the moment.  I love the phrase ‑ and it came up a couple of times ‑ the default reaction is to let it go.  I think that might be from 'Frozen'. I don't think have little kids but I think that's from 'Frozen' and probably something that we can all look at, just letting that go.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes, absolutely.  That's what I'm trying to teach my 11‑year‑old, let it go.  He's got a brother that likes to niggle him and turn him up a bit, and just to walk past that and let it go.  I really thought that one too.  Thank you to everyone who has been sharing in the chat box, and these labels, of course, are important.  They're important for our last step: how do we move from reacting to responding?

Well, we've done half the work.  This definitional work that we've just done now is really important but what I'd like to encourage you to do is come up with your labels and put those labels in places that remind you to engage with them.  So for me and my partner, the criticism defensiveness, as you can probably imagine, it most comes up in the kitchen.  So on our fridge at home, we've got two big words, 'defensiveness' and 'openness', and they're there to remind me to engage with my response, not my reaction, if you like.  So at work, if your trigger goes off at work, if you've got a compendium or you've got some sticky notes on your computer, put your words up, any sort of visual reminder can be really useful so that you catch yourself in that moment and you're able to respond, not react.  Bring out your best self and your best self responses to things.

Here are the four steps that my colleague Susan David talks about a lot in her book 'Emotional Agility'.  If you want to go deeper on the subject that we've been looking at today, I'd really recommend that.  It's a great read.  You'll also notice on page number 15, I've put some more resources, some other books and some video clips and articles and things that you can go to to deepen up on a lot of the content that we've been talking about today.

But, generally, how do we go from reacting to responding? First step is to read the warning signs, recognise that here is a potential trigger situation, and that's why defining that trigger is important because that helps you read the warning signs.  Then, secondly, if the trigger has gone off, try and catch yourself in the moment and name the feeling.  Take that disassociation, if you like, with it, put a name to what you're feeling.  Say things like "I'm noticing that I'm feeling frustrated by what's going on".  The third step then is to elevate yourself to a best person perspective.  You should have caught yourself now in the moment, notice the trigger and the reaction could go off, now is when you want to say and remind yourself "I want to be open, not defensive now" or "I want to be curious, not furious".  I love that one that we caught in the chat box before, moving from furious to curious.  Love it. So how do we get into that best person perspective and ask ourselves that question? And then, of course, you should be able and more likely to bring out your best self response. So that's our little four‑step technique, if you like, for doing that and I hope people have found that useful.

Let's take a moment now just to summarise our webinar.  Follow along with me on page number 14.  So today we've hopefully boosted a bit of our self‑awareness.  We've done some definitional work around our best and worst selves, and that's really important because that helps you really be mindful and considerate of those things.  We've also planned, defined, finessed or action‑planned around our ideal day, and again I'd like to encourage you to think about just putting that little extra bit of stretch in there.  If you want to boost how often your best self comes out, you've got to boost that area, so invest in your wellbeing.  We've explored our triggers and reactions and, indeed, we've done some definitional work around responses.  Boil them down to those labels.  Put them somewhere that will remind you.  And we've engaged in an emotional management technique, the four‑step process where we recognise the reading signs and so on down.  So I hope you've found that useful.

What's something that's stood out for you today? What will you do to be more of your best self more often? We've had some content.  We've had some wonderful discussions with Jo and Kristy and we've had some fantastic contributions from you in the chat box.  I'm going to play one more song.  It goes for three minutes.  We've still got a bit of time left.  I'd love you to take these three minutes for yourself just to capture down even in dot‑point form some of the things that have stood out for you today, some of the things that you'll do to be more of your best self, and once you've done that, let us know in the chat box some of those things that you're going to do.  I'm going to finish by bringing Jo and Kristy back in for a couple of quick reflections and then I'm going to hand over to Kate for one final message.  So please stick around right to the end because we've got some other great little messages to go.  So here's our final song to help you with this reflection piece.

(Music plays).

DR BEN PALMER:  OK.  Great to have you back.  Kristy, I know you dropped out there for a little bit.  Jo, we've seen some great contributions in the chat box, haven't we? Do you want to reflect on just a couple of those before I hand back over to Kate to wrap up the session for us?

JO McQUINN:  Yes, absolutely.  The chat box went off just then. Ben, some of the comments were actually about you and your DJing abilities, as well as your dancing, so thank you for that.

DR BEN PALMER:  Dancing is so important.  We've got to do things that move us emotionally, don't we?

JO McQUINN:  That's exactly right.  A lot of people love the idea of putting the labels out there and reminders either on your computer or on your fridge, or whatever it is that you can do, that keeps reminding us.  Helen says she likes to put away her device as that's more often than not a trigger for her and causes her then to have a response that she doesn't necessarily like.  And it's pouring rain in Ringwood at the moment, I see there, so I hope you're all safe and well there.  And, lastly, I think it came in quite a bit that we need to breathe, that we have got this and please let's not be too hard on ourselves.

DR BEN PALMER:  Absolutely.  Thanks, Jo.  Kristy, final comment or insight from you that you'd like to share?

KRISTY KEENAN:  A big one for me was that, as you highlighted, Ben, the fact that we can't control everything about every day but we can purposely do things to make sure that we have more parts of an ideal day and then build that to create a full ideal day, two full ideal days, that we can't control everything but we can purposely control that.

DR BEN PALMER:  Yes, absolutely.  Thank you, Kristy, and thank you, Jo.  Kate, over to you to wrap up and finish our session.  Thanks, Kate.

KATE MORRIS:  Great.  Thanks, Ben.  Fantastic leadership today by you.  A brilliant example of a public educator who's gone on and done great things.  An absolute guru around emotional intelligence and social competencies, and educators love learning and we've all done that today with you.  Thanks for making it practical, beautifully designed and it's a real pleasure to be here.  Great to have our colleagues with us too.  Kristy and Jo, thanks for being here.  Thanks to your community for sharing you with us.  Certainly Irymple and Wangaratta West are in great hands, and I know many of the people in the audience today certainly are part of that.

So really for me today is that great opportunity where we reach out and allow ourselves some time to be cognitively and emotionally available, and you've done that.  You've elevated the things that you're finding tough, what you're doing well and you've popped that in the chat and, by doing that, you've reduced the barriers of us actually being here on a screen and not actually being in the room together.  So thanks for participating because that is the key when as leaders we step out and show our best selves but also the things we're finding tough and difficult, that we can actually connect with our staff, with our students and with our families. The leadership across Victoria that you've shown at this time is amazing and certainly it's a terrific representation of the quality of the people working in our schools.  So thank you all.  And also our corporate partners who are with us today, people from DET and the regions, thanks for the work you've done supporting our schools as well. I love the 'curious, not furious'.  Whoever that is, we are going to come and find you.  That is absolutely brilliant.  Also, love the way that you've really elevated the kindness piece, and that is absolutely critical to what we do.

We're back this afternoon at 4.30, so if you've got colleagues who you think would benefit from being part of this, get them to register.  Next week, Having a Positive Influence on Others will be part of the work that we do.  Another set of principles will be with us.  We'll be delighted to be sharing that with you.  And tomorrow, if you're interested in leadership and reflecting on where you're at, Steve Munby is presenting Imperfect Leadership at 4.30 tomorrow and that's another great opportunity to be with yourself or also bring your team in with you to be part of that learning.

So final point: tiny tweaks you can make to be your best self and lift others up who are around you.  Thank you.  Brilliant.  Loved being with you.  Thanks to the Bastow team ‑ Maria, Peter and Jillian ‑ Kristy and Jo.  Everyone, if you could do a thumbs up, big clap for them.  And thanks, Ben, also.  We'll see you soon.

DR BEN PALMER:  Thanks, everyone.