Episode #34. R U OK? with Graeme Cowan
“I don’t believe in work life balance because that can assume that work is bad and life is good.”
— Graeme Cowan
In the age of modern technology when we are all available all of the time, burn out is becoming more common. Cybersecurity, a notoriously 'on-call' industry, is a prime example where working long hours can take its toll on our mental and physical health. But what can we do to address it, before it gets out of hand?
My guest this week is Graeme Cowan. As a mental health and resilience author and speaker, and Board Director of R U OK?, Graeme spends his professional life helping people understand just that.
Graeme uses his first-hand experience after coming through an experience of extreme burn out to help others appreciate and understand the importance of looking out for themselves, as well as looking out for the people around them.
In this episode, Graeme talks us through his personal experience of burnout, and his evolution out of that period of his life. Crossing paths with Gavin Larkin resulted in the launch of R U OK? Day in 2009, and Graeme shares how its simplicity helped it to grow. We cover a whole range of topics on how to consider and address issues that can lead to burnout, an issue that we know is prevalent in the cybersecurity industry.
My goal for my discussion with Graeme was to give you the knowledge to build safe, resilient, and healthy security teams and leaders, but this episode goes so much further than that. It is PACKED full of information, resources and simple, actionable ideas that you can use today immediately to check in not only with your team, but also with yourself.
Enjoy!
Links:
Time Stamps:
00:30 - Graeme’s introduction and background
01:46 - Graeme’s story
03.10 - The origin of R U OK?
06:12 - The impact of stress and long working hours
07:01 - “I don’t really believe so much in the concept of work-life balance, because that assumes that work is bad, life is good. And if you believe in your work, work can be very good for you. Lots of evidence around shows that work is essential to our well-being. But having said that, we also have to make sure there is time in our day, in our week, for the things that really help us.” - Graeme Cowan
07:38 - Three areas that we need to regularly top-up
08:02 - Harvard Study of Adult Development
09:04 - How to wind down and disconnect when working in an on-call role
14:36 - The role of mindset on burnout, and the benefits of self-care
20:28 - Creating a safe space to empower your staff to call out when their resilience is being tested
21:13 - “From a leaders perspective, I really recommend that if they want to have a high performing team, they need to be continually asking themselves these three questions; Are we connected? Do we feel safe? and Do we have a shared future?” – Graeme Cowan
26:14 - Key advice for building safe, resilient, and healthy security teams and leaders