I was wondering about role models, especially in the type of work where people are being assigned to do things that they have never done. I didn’t have to look far to find the excellent book Mirror Thinking, and its author, Fiona Murden. She is an Organizational Psychologist and the founder of Aroka Ltd. She joined me to talk about how we learn by taking cues from people who set an aspirational example, and where to find those when its not immediately clear.
Find Fiona at www.fionamurden.com and her podcast Dot to Dot.
Find your host, Adam Pierno at www.adampierno.com
The Strategy Inside Everything is the podcast for people who thinkfor a living. If you have an idea, a question or you want to push back on something you hear in this episode, go to https://thatsnotaninsight.com and leave a message or a voicemail for me. The best and most interesting messages will be added to future episodes, and I can’t waitto hear from you. Music for The Strategy Inside Everything is by Sawsquarenoise. Host Adam Pierno is an author, speaker and strategy consultant. Learn more atadampierno.com.
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Transcript here:
Adam Pierno 0:02
This is The Strategy Inside Everything. I’m Adam Pierno. The Strategy Inside Everything is the podcast for people who think for a living. If you have an idea, a question or you want to push back on something you hear in this episode, go to thatsnotaninsight.com and leave a message or a voicemail for me. The best and most interesting messages will be added to future episodes. And I can’t wait to hear from you. All right, welcome back to another episode of the strategy inside everything I have today. The author, the organizational psychologist, and a managing partner at Aroka. Fiona Murden, Fiona, how are you?
Fiona Murden 0:48
I’m good. Thanks, Adam. It’s lovely to meet you and chat to you.
Adam Pierno 0:52
Yeah. Would you do me a favor and your your career background is a little different than some of the folks we’ve had on in the past? Would you mind giving people a sense of kind of what you’ve done and where you’ve been?
Fiona Murden 1:04
Yeah, sure. So I went to university called War University in the UK and did psychology Bachelor of Science and then thought I can’t be a clinical psychologist. It’s too. I can’t you know, I can’t deal with people who are upset all day, every day. So I chickened out of that and did a business master’s and then went to work as a management consultant. Many years ago, what used to be called Andersen consulting now Accenture, I was there for four years and worked at the London Stock Exchange, Sony PlayStation four launch, PlayStation two, actually worked with a marketing team there and worked at Disney, one of us International, and then went back to university because I thought it’s, you know, it’s the people stuff I love. So I did a an MSc, a Master of Science in Organizational Psychology. And then following that went to work for a global boutique firm where we profile leaders for footsie 100, fortune 500 companies, looking at so far out in depth, psychological profile, looking back to their childhood up to where they are today. What were the things that might derail them? What where would they need more support? What was their fit with the team that existed in the role already? How did their values fit with the organization, all those sorts of things. And then 14 years ago, founded a broker, which did the same thing, but doing so under my direction rather than someone else’s. And I’ve written two books, and worked with doctors and surgeons and all sorts of different people. And I’ve absolutely loved my career.
Adam Pierno 2:48
When you when you found it A Rocha, and you mentioned that it’s under your direction, which I I noted that you said that, what did you want to do differently than what you had been doing? Under the direction of a you know, a boutique consulting firm or, or what was a big six consulting firm? When you were in a Andersen? Did you have a different philosophy or something you wanted to do differently?
Fiona Murden 3:09
The philosophy I actually brought to my old firm anyway, because I turned my boutique firm down originally, because I didn’t like the way they did things. And they said to me at the time, or you’re making a big mistake, I thought that arrogant as well. Not going well. And I actually worked for another company very briefly and then thought, You know what, they were right. I was making a mistake. And I went back and I said, Look, if I’m working here, the things that I want to do differently are, and so I did things my way at that company. It was more than the fact that I, by the time 15 years ago, I had my first daughter. And so and I was on maternity leave, and I was a bit bored. And the chief exec and the CFO of a company I was working with went to be CEO and chairman of a footsie 101 of the HR directors from that same company went to be HR director at Lloyds of London and both lots of people heard I was bored, which must have been moaning so much. They said, independently, they both asked me to come and do some work with them. And I And it worked because it meant that I could I could have the level of challenge that I wanted, working with senior people, but I could do so completely on my terms. Obviously not completely because you’re you’re trying to construct Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you’re trying to meet your client needs, but it worked with having a child. And whilst now work is far more flexible, even though that was only 15 years ago. It wasn’t as easy to have that level of flexibility.
Adam Pierno 4:47
Yeah, we were culture was not ready for that level of flexibility or to or to give people that flexibility in their work. We still wanted butts and seats at that point. Absolutely. Say we’re putting you were pretty much lucky to have that that organization recognize that.
Fiona Murden 5:04
Yeah, I mean, I was pretty clear on what I wanted. Because when I’d worked for a lady at Accenture, one of the partners, I just saw that she, she was miserable because she didn’t see her daughter. She enjoyed the work. But the other option was to just take a three day work a three day a week job in in head office, but not really doing work that stimulated her. So I actually went into my career as an organizational psychologist with that in mind, so I probably thought ahead a bit too far. And I was, I guess, I was lucky that that particular company approached me, those people, but if they hadn’t, I would have gone out there and looked for it anyway.
Adam Pierno 5:47
So when you went back to get your Masters, do you think you were trying to chart that course from kind of ending up in buttoned down consulting world into something that you could create and chart your own course, today? Yeah, that’s really interesting. Well, I want it I know you’ve written two books. I was interested in talking to you today about your your book mirror thinking, and how it applies to people listening to this show? Would you give people kind of a background of the book and kind of the theory of mirror thinking?
Fiona Murden 6:21
Yeah, so one thing I noticed working with senior leaders is they would say, I don’t really have any role models anymore. You know, I had role models when I was younger, but I don’t really have anyone to look up to anymore. And I would say, I don’t I don’t think that’s true, you know, because do you think you’re the best communicator in the world? And of course, everyone says, Well, you hope everyone says no, because you can always improve your communication skills. And so I’d say, Well, who is who’s the best person either alive or dead or, and I would get leaders to piece together the different elements of what made up a role model for them. And I think the mistake was that people think it has to be everything in one person, but it doesn’t. So I got more and more interested about role modeling and the mechanisms behind it, I was also really interested in social and emotional learning. And as a result, I wrote this book. And it looks at the neuroscience behind how we learn through observation. And not just through observation, it’s actually through daydreaming through using our own imagination and visualization. But being immersed in a social context. And there’s something in the brain known as the mirror neuron. And that’s the functionality of how this all works. And it was discovered by an Italian professor called Rizzolatti, Palma University in 1992. And I find this a bit sad because they were looking at macaque monkeys, they were looking at parts of the brain to try and work out which parts of their brain were involved with grasping motion. But to do that, they had to take the top of their head off and have electrodes into their brain. So I always say, That’s really sad. But one day, these researchers were in the lab, and they noticed that on the screens, or there was activity on the monkey’s brain, in the area that involved grasping, but they weren’t doing anything. They were sat still. But the researchers were eating their lunch and they were putting their hand to their mouth. And what was actually happening is the monkeys through watching what the research was doing, were playing it over in their own mind.
Adam Pierno 8:34
They were feeling the the effort of grasping through watching someone else grasp.
Fiona Murden 8:39
Absolutely. And what they realized is that’s what happens in our own brain. So it’s when we’re watching sport. If we’ve ever caught a ball or thrown a ball, we get an element of that sensation. Because we’ve done that before and our brain is playing over, even though we’re not carrying out that action. But it goes all the way from things like activities like that through to emotion. So can you feel what someone else is feeling? That’s empathy. And psychopaths, for example, can mirror what someone else is feeling but not actually feel it themselves. So there’s a lot of there’s loads of really interesting research and I’m not a neuroscientist. I talked to neuroscientists about it. Like Marco Jakob Boney, who’s brilliant. He’s head of Brain Sciences at UCLA, so generous with his time, brilliant man, has done some really interesting research on empathy, the mirror neuron and all sorts of things like that.
Adam Pierno 9:44
And so, C suite level, you took this, you took some of these findings, and you tried to get people to find what could be observed it other people to create, like partial role models or role models in vertical scale areas that they needed that improvement in?
Fiona Murden 10:07
Yeah, absolutely. And you’ll find that people have done that, unknowingly to some extent. But we can leverage it so much better if we do it consciously. And we choose and we’re deliberate about it.
Adam Pierno 10:23
How does it is it in your in your work? Are you trying to expose them to someone in their daily life that they can learn from as a role model, or can be anybody that they that can be observed, they can learn from?
Fiona Murden 10:40
It can be anyone that can be observed, it can even be someone who’s read about certain things, when we read them, or we hear them in a story will trigger the same areas in our brain in the same way. So it could even be a fictional character.
Adam Pierno 10:57
Oh, that’s pretty interesting, just by observing the way they’re written or the way they’re described, or in someone in a film. Are people resistant to that? Like, I would imagine, like CEOs have a sort of stereotypical reputation for for big ego? Are they resistant to the idea of taking on role models, real or fictional? Or does fictional help them? Because it’s like, well, it’s not like comparing yourself to Bob jpg. It’s, it’s Robert Downey Jr. and that’s fine as Ironman. Well, yeah. I mean, that’s, maybe you’re not sure if he’s the best role model either, but
Fiona Murden 11:33
not sure whether reality kicks in or not. But if the thing is, I tend to work with CEOs, so I might profile CEOs who have a big ego, but I won’t then work with them. Because not because I’m not because I’m special. And I’m saying, Oh, I won’t work with them. But they they’re not interested. The ones with the big ego aren’t interested in learning. Got it? So so the ones that you’re having these conversations with are the ones who are intrigued, interested, open. I will say that, most of the time, they don’t tend to use fictional characters, it will be it will be looking at someone like Martin Luther King for communication and saying, Well, how, how did he communicate? And it might be, but something like someone who’s very good at negotiating, you might be the CEO, and no, you’re not the best negotiator. That might be something you look at, you’re one of one of your colleagues, it might be that you’re looking to become more chairman or chairwoman. Like, you look to the Chair of your board. So it Yes, it can be people in their immediate environment, it might be people who no longer alive, it could be watching on film. I mean, the downside with fiction and film is that the actual sequence as it plays out is not real. So however much, you know, there’s nuances aren’t quite accurate,
Adam Pierno 13:01
right? Of course. When do you when you’re talking to someone who, who is you’re trying to guide towards a role model? Are they when I think of the word role model, I think of someone either older than me or ahead of me and my career, you know, like literally looking up at a Big Brother or Big Sister or the person in the job that I would get promoted to? So is, is is that takes some coaching to say no, it actually could be. It doesn’t have to be someone in that role that’s, quote unquote, superior in that way could be someone, anyone around you can be a role model for some behavior. If you’re if you care, so thoughtful about it.
Fiona Murden 13:43
I think there’s what you can use there is use language that they’re familiar with. So reverse mentoring. If you introduce concept reverse mentoring, they say, oh, yeah, I’ve heard about reverse mentoring. And it’s good thing and, and since I’ve been talking more about this publicly, the number of people at senior levels have said, I was I was paired with someone on the reverse mentoring scheme, and I learned so much about digital. I just didn’t know these things before. But also the process of mentoring someone you’re learning and you can, I think it involves a level of curiosity and open mindedness. But good leaders have that they want they want to know how they can learn.
Adam Pierno 14:33
How important is that? Low ego to curiosity? I mean, if you could be curious you’re usually not open minded when you have that that ego of something if something encroaches on that ego, it’s usually like, the walls. The walls close in pretty quickly.
Fiona Murden 14:48
Yeah, I mean, it goes.
Adam Pierno 14:51
Yeah. Is it is which is worse or which is more challenging to overcome ego or insecurity
Fiona Murden 15:00
That’s a good question. And I think the thing is what, in some ways ego because it’s blinding, insecurity. If someone has reached the level of leadership, that insecurity can show itself as arrogance or ego, or it can and this is where being a psychologist, or it can be channeled positively. So one lady I saw once I was really angry with the particular well known business school that had done this with her but had used something called the Neo pie, which is a psychometric, which is usually used in clinical settings. But it’s got the the labels we some of them were familiar with. So extraversion introversion, but it’s got one scale, that’s neuroticism. And she was told that she was really high on neuroticism, and they didn’t know how she had got to the position that she had got to, oh, that’s damaging, it was really damaging. So I ended up meeting her about something else. And we started talking. And then when she met me a few times, she just said, can I talk to you about something? And she told me, and she said, it’s completely destroyed my confidence, you know, I’m getting really nervous of public speaking now. And so I ended up coaching her and we put it back together. Again, that’s incredibly damaging. But the point being Yes, on that scale, she wasn’t highly neurotic. I don’t think that’s the correct word to use personally. But what often happens is people will channel that positively. And that’s something she’d done. So whilst that was causing a discomfort for her, it’s not a nice mental state to be in. It wasn’t coming out negatively in terms of how it was displayed to other people.
Adam Pierno 16:43
Right, but again, that that word is such a loaded word. It’s horrible, plus the context to say we don’t know how you got to that position. I mean, that’s, that’s you should be I don’t they don’t disbar psychologists or people.
Fiona Murden 16:57
That’s the thing. It wasn’t even a psychologist that did it. And I was like, it’s a clinical measure. And it’s not even a psychologist feeding back. But beyond that, because there’s a whole other thing.
Adam Pierno 17:08
Yeah, well, those tests are fraught. I mean, those tests are really, depending on who’s administered. Now, is there a test that you rely on more? Or is there a method that you use for? You mentioned earlier that you work with leaders to figure out what their personality is, is it just through a conversation or series of conversations, you’re not using some sort of test or scale,
Fiona Murden 17:32
we use psychometrics, but the way I always use them is likely. So I use them as a point of discussion, rather than this is what it says
Adam Pierno 17:41
and don’t tell someone they’re too neurotic to be on the other end.
Fiona Murden 17:45
It’s I mean, it’s a really useful it’s a really useful way of hypothesizing because one of the things you’re doing there is, you can’t know for certain what someone’s personality is or how they are or even how they’re going to be tomorrow. But you can look at patterns of behavior, and then you can hypothesize with that person. And if you’ve got something in front of you that they filled in about themselves, you can say, Oh, that’s really interesting. You know, you’ve come out as more extrovert there than I would have thought, given that we’ve just talked through your life, and you describe situations where you are getting your energy from being alone. Tell me a bit more about that. So it helps add texture and depth to the understanding, but it should never ever label or book someone.
Adam Pierno 18:31
So yeah, so even at the end of your conversation, if it’s someone you don’t think you can help, they shouldn’t they could have learned something about themselves that’s constructive and not afraid that they’re in the wrong job. Yeah. Call the recruiter and start looking for a new job. That’s pretty well, learning more about what you’ve been working on. And the ideas and mirror thinking I was wondering about. In the weird, we just talked about work flexibility at the introduction here. Is it harder for people to find role models, or even mentorship? When we’re decentralized? You know, in the, in the old model, when you and I came up, you had to go to an office and you had to be present, and you had to be there but but that gave you an opportunity to go to bed to witness behaviors. I saw some. I saw some crazy things. I saw people behave in wild ways that I was like, Whoa, I learned not to do that. You know, don’t don’t throw food at people. But we also pick up a lot of good habits. You say, Oh, that person’s an excellent look how they just disarmed this whole tension here. Now it’s all zoom. And so in a way kind of what you said about fictional, you know, where fictional characters in films are edited, and you’re only getting the sound bites. Zoom is sort of that as well where if if the tension gets too high, someone could just turn their camera off and disengage. And then come back on when they’re calm. And that’s, that’s a great thing. It’s sometimes. But it is hard for someone who just joins an organization to get a sense of what it is. It’s
Fiona Murden 20:11
so hard, it’s really hard. And I think whilst Zoom is amazing, IT teams amazing. They don’t give us the immersive human experience that we have in being in the same room as someone. For a start, you feel like you need to stare at the screen the whole time, when you’re talking one on one, for example, actually, in a normal conversation, you’ll be looking up, you’ll be looking out the window, you’ll be looking down at your hands, you’re looking around, and it so it makes it strained, you’re concentrating very much on what’s being said, which means you’re potentially missing some of the social nuances, the emotional nuances that are being communicated as well. So to try and learn how to do your job, how to fit into a culture in that way, is really hard.
Adam Pierno 21:02
Plus, Plus, you’ve just opened my eyes to something else, because we’re both focused on the blinking green light. We’re not, you’re you’re looking at it, and I’m looking at it, we’re kind of locked in this, look at that. So you’re also not giving off the social cues that I wouldn’t receive anyway, by the way, because I’m looking at that green light. But you might be fidgeting with your bracelet, or you might be changing your posture. But I wouldn’t even know because all I’m looking at is that is the camera to try to make sure that I’m you know that I’m engaged. That’s the primary thing I’m trying to communicate to you.
Fiona Murden 21:41
Absolutely. And the thing is 95%, or more of our cognitive activity is unconscious. So all those sorts of things, we don’t realize that we’re picking up and we’re understanding and we’re interpreting, and they’re feeding iteratively, to our understanding of the world around us. But when but when we miss them when we don’t have them actually, it’s, it’s really bad for our emotional well being as well as our understanding of where we fit and how to behave and all those sorts of things.
Adam Pierno 22:12
Yeah, and I wonder what we’re pretty early in this hybrid workspace. And I know there’s people that are really proponents of it, because of the flexibilities huge upsides there. I’m a beneficiary of of having the opportunity to work at home or to be in the office, it’s great at times. But I wonder long term, what it means for people’s relationships with one another that the bonds that you form with colleagues at work, through working through 10s things together or working through big projects, where once you felt like, Oh, we’re all here together in this place, solving this and now it’s like, okay, meet it, we solved it meetings over, click the button and you’re gone. Have you observed in any of your organization work, any changes in that regard?
Fiona Murden 23:04
I think it has, has a huge impact on the 20 something year olds, because they’re, I mean, in terms of from a neuroscientific perspective, the brain is still developing until you’re in your late 20s. I mean, the brain is plastic till we die, but it’s still developing till the late 20s. And something called emerging adulthood. And there’s a need for those social interactions it feeds, it feeds that understanding of the world and their well being. And, and I, I’ve seen it most in in that population, who are, I think, sometimes struggling a bit to understand their place or where they fit. And it’s all the intangible things, it’s the things it’s hard to put your finger on and say, This doesn’t feel quite right, or I don’t fully understand this. Because it’s not a black and white thing. It’s not a tick box, which makes it difficult to articulate or, or to do anything about.
Adam Pierno 23:59
And you also, I mean, we’re humans, so we’d never know, we don’t know what we don’t know. And so if you’re new to the workforce, or if you’re new to a company, or new to a job in the same company, you could always have that feeling like it’s not going quite right. I don’t have any idea. Or nobody’s complaining. So I guess it’s going fine. And Obama, you know, and that’s a disaster. But it’s all because everything’s confined in some ways to much less stimuli, about your work relationships and your performance.
Fiona Murden 24:35
Yes, totally.
Adam Pierno 24:37
How do you help people? And maybe you don’t help people, but have you thought much about how people can find role models in that kind of a hybrid situation? Are there other other tricks or other tools that they could use or is it pretty much the same ones and just being more intentional?
Fiona Murden 24:56
I think it’s being more intentional. I think it’s making sure that where As a possible, you’re having those human interactions. And that can be someone outside of work if if you’re having if you’re, if you’re living like in a different state or a different country to your team. And you still want to develop and grow, well find someone locally who you can talk to just talk to, there’s just go and talk to someone, ask them how they do things, ask them how they found things, because all of those things add to our understanding of the world, maybe not the company that we’re working for in that context, but our understanding of the world and our place in it, which is also very, very important.
Adam Pierno 25:40
How do those people if you know, younger people, I guess, are a good example. But anyway, this implies anybody. How do they know if they’ve chosen a good or bad role? Model?
Fiona Murden 25:54
That’s a good question. I’ve not been asked that question, actually.
Adam Pierno 25:59
This is what I do. That’s great. I
Fiona Murden 26:01
like I mean, what I would say if I, if I take it back to what I would say you’re looking for when you’re looking for a mentor? It’s, do they share your values? Do they share your outlook and beliefs? If they do, that’s a good place to start from. You also want to consider what you said earlier, which was I saw like how not to behave, I saw not throw food at someone, for example.
Adam Pierno 26:33
And by the way, don’t do that. Don’t do that. No, no good. Especially
Fiona Murden 26:37
not if it’s your boss. Not even on Zoom. I call it counter mirroring. And we learn an awful lot from seeing things done badly. But often because we’re more conscious, but it it violates our values. It’s one thing often when we see things done badly, or in the case of the fruits, right, it’s just a big mistake. And we’re very aware of it. So whilst we’re not aware of most of our social interactions, when it’s something that we think wrong, we are aware of it, and that embeds it in our memory more.
Adam Pierno 27:17
Because it registers as as kind of a violation. Absolutely. Is there a what’s the what’s the role of peers in this, I think of another element of having a shared space is knowing okay, this is my, my partner, my peer, whatever it is. That’s, that’s a colleague, we’re both learning and we’re triangulating lessons. Have you? Is that something that you work with in organizational psychology that, that you coach people on how to how to do that kind of shared learning and shared modeling?
Fiona Murden 27:53
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s invaluable. We can’t learn on our own, we can’t grow on our own. And that’s, you know, my first book is known as a self development book. And that’s great. But it’s very hard to sit and read a book and do something on your own, for example, you need someone as a sounding board, someone as a guide, someone who says, Yeah, don’t do that. Do this, or, and you know, when you say things out loud, they just make more sense. And it’s actually to do with where it is in our brain and how we’re organizing it.
Adam Pierno 28:25
Or you realize, oh, that’s crazy. Yeah. When it comes out of your mouth, you go, Oh, I can’t think that that’s not right.
Fiona Murden 28:32
Exactly. So you might have been awake in the middle of the night worrying about something going over and over and over it. And then you actually say it out loud. You get oh, oh,
Adam Pierno 28:41
really? Yeah. You’re the book you’re talking about as defining you. Right. That’s the first. Yeah,
Fiona Murden 28:47
I mean, I was really lucky that I want self development. But yeah, so I shouldn’t be saying, Yeah, self development, whoo. But I do think it’s really hard to do on your own. And you can get tips from reading and of course, you can stretch your mind and your thinking through listening to podcasts and, and all those sorts of things. But really, we need other people to tell us whether we’re being a bit crazy, or whether it’s a good idea to benchmark our own behavior, to help give us support to be a sounding board to hold us accountable, and appear as a really safe place for that to be.
Adam Pierno 29:29
Does does mirror thinking work better? I mean, your thinking is not a series of exercises, but do role models have a more beneficial effect when it’s a team learning from a similar role model or or working towards a similar goal or do you do coach people to work as for like, share in progress or is it more individual when I want that in your in your work?
Fiona Murden 29:57
Oh, we do. I mean, I work with you leadership teams as a team, and I work with. And with mentoring, we work with group mentoring. So it’s all helpful, it comes down often to those values again, do people have shared values. So if a team has shared values, they can have completely different personalities, different opinions, they’re far more likely to work as a team if they have shared values than if they don’t. And so with any group it’s looking at are those values shared? And then from there, you can extrapolate, and you can have really useful learning if you’re doing something together as a team.
Adam Pierno 30:45
So in the, in the hybrid world for people do you have? Have you had any experience with people kind of figuring out how to transcend zoom to find success with modeling behavior and achieving like a more meaningful mentorship? Or is or is it just more how you tap into the tools?
Fiona Murden 31:08
I think, you know, to be honest, mentoring can happen over zoom. And while mentoring you’re learning, you can be learning in a sense of a role model, and you’re observing that behavior, but you’re more learning the response that that person has to what you’re saying, and using them in a different way. I call it I mean, I say there are three levels of mental there’s personal, situational, and aspirational. And when we think about role models, we tend to think of the aspirational. So the person that’s amazing that we’d like to be like, the situational ones, that people that are potentially influencing us. But they’re just there. So a teacher that we don’t like at school, or a community worker, or a fitness instructor or someone that we have contact with, we might like we might not like they might influence us, they might not. And then the person is the people that are like mentors. They’re the people who are role models in our own life. And when you ask a group of people who has had the biggest impact on you in your life, so I did I actually speaking to a group of CEOs last week, and I asked this question, and it’s amazing, because it will always be a relative. Not Oh, actually, no, that’s a lie. There are there are a few examples where it’s not. But most of the time, it will be a parent, a grandparent this this last week, there was someone who said it was actually a daughter, they didn’t know they had and they met, but it’s a really close emotional bond. And mentary is more fits into that personal space. So it’s it’s learning from that person who’s guiding who’s helping us think things through who’s working out helping us work out our way and find our path. Or
Adam Pierno 33:04
is it is it because there is a they’ve passed the emotional barrier, there’s like a, your guard is down, their guard is down and they’re able to guide you in a in a more intimate way.
Fiona Murden 33:19
I mean, the foundation to it is trust. And without trust, it just doesn’t really happen. And that’s where the situational can sometimes just have no impact because you don’t necessarily have a strong bond or some trusting relationship. Right? That person,
Adam Pierno 33:34
unless it’s unless it’s like a really intense situation where you have to quickly jump in, you know, in a crisis situation. That’s what bonds are formed really quickly in a situation back.
Fiona Murden 33:46
Exactly. And you do trust one another in that situation, because you have to do, because your survival is dependent on it.
Adam Pierno 33:52
But that’s I was, as you were describing the family roles, I was thinking, Oh, maybe there’s a time dependency that you know, it’s over time it is, but then the person that just met their daughter, then I was like, Oh no, then then that then that breaks that maybe that breaks the time thing. It’s more about some sort of an emotional.
Fiona Murden 34:10
So I mean, the emotional and the trust is the biggest factor, then there’s how much you’re exposed to someone, of course, has an influence. So if you I mean, if you have a step parent, for example, you’re growing up who wasn’t very nice to you. You don’t necessarily trust them, but you’ve been exposed to them over many years, it will shape your behavior and it might shape their behavior as in if they were, for example, think worst case emotionally abusive, you may then be emotionally abusive to people around you or your children, or it can do what we were describing before it can create that counter mirror. I do not want to do this to anyone else. That doesn’t necessarily need to be the trust in that situation. But there’s a high level of exposure to a person
Adam Pierno 35:00
Very interesting. Fiona Martin, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks so nice to talk to you for having me.
Fiona Murden 35:05
I really enjoyed speaking to you. Thank you.
Adam Pierno 35:08
You too. Where can people find you online?
Fiona Murden 35:10
Oh, well, website is my name Fiona merdan.com and Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn are all the same Fiona.
Adam Pierno 35:19
Yeah, you’re clever. You got that you got your name every way you need it.
Fiona Murden 35:23
I just don’t think there are many fewer buttons.
Adam Pierno 35:25
That doesn’t hurt either. Yeah. Well, thanks again for making time for is really lovely to speak with you. Thank you so much.
The Strategy Inside Everything is produced by me, Adam Pierno If you like what you’ve heard, leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Actually, I have no idea if that helps, or if it’s ever done anybody any good. If you really want to help the show, and you liked what you heard, share it with someone else who you think will dig it. That’s the best way to help the show and keep the conversation growing. New Music for the strategy inside everything is by Sawsquarenoise. If you have an idea, a question or want to push back on something you hear here, go to thatsnotaninsight.com and leave a message or a voicemail for me. If you want more information on your host Adam Pierno you can find it on adampierno.com and learn about my books, speaking and consulting practice. Thanks so much for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai