How to work well under pressure (With Helen Hopper)

RPC Radio Hello, you're listening to Insurance Covered. Welcome to the podcast that covers anything and everything to do with insurance, coming up in this episode. So how you relate to yourself and how you relate to other people is at the hearts of managing stress and managing how you respond to the pressures around you, which you usually sort of manifest in other people. My name is Peter Mansfield and I'm a partner in the law firm RPC. In each episode I'm joined by guest and we discuss the wonderful world of insurance. And this week our guest is Helen Hopper and our topic is how to work well under pressure. Helen has a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and one in psychology from the open university. She is an accredited master executive coach and has a certificate in psychotherapy and counseling. And she's currently studying for a diploma in reflective practice in organizations. In 2010 she co-founded H.Cubed, a collective of executive coaches, facilitators and change professionals and she's recently co-written a book, the art and psychology of board relationships, the secret life of boards and she speaks regularly on many, many issues including how to work well under pressure, which is what we're going to discuss today. So Helen, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, lovely to be here. And Helen, in that introduction I mentioned that you're currently studying for a diploma in reflective practice in organizations. But my first question is, what on earth is a diploma in reflective practice in organizations? Well, about three quarters of the way through so I'm still working out but from what I've got to, it is a structured way of bringing people together to think about and talk about the work they do and the impact it has on them. And it's often used in roles that have a lot of emotional impact so it's a technique that comes out of the NHS user particularly in psychiatric wards, that kind of thing. So I'm sort of exploring how to bring some of those techniques across into the world of work, from the world of more sort of social work and mental work. Brilliant, very good, very good. And I mean, we are here today to discuss how to work well under pressure. So what that means, how to recognise pressure and how we respond that sort of thing. So let's start with that word pressure. I mean, what do you mean by pressure? Really simply, the requirements needs constraints in the world around us and the sort of pressing in effect they have on us. I differentiate it from stress. So I see pressure as our experience of what the world wants from us and then stress as the sort of the feeling, the internal response we have in relation to that. Pressure is inevitable and sometimes good in the world of work and elsewhere. Stress, it's the response, it's what we experienced day to day as a result of that. And there are things we can do about it. Okay, so I mean, the heading of this podcast is called how to work well under pressure. While we're talking about pressure, I mean, do we actually mean stress? Are we actually talking about stress rather than pressure or both or what are we doing in Helen? What are we doing? I think we're talking about working well under pressure and part of that is becoming aware of, I'm more able to manage your internal responses and so you're sort of levels of stress. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. So how do we recognise when we are under pressure? What are the physiological and psychological symptoms? And I guess we probably mean when it's becoming unhealthy for, becoming unhealthy. Physiologically, you're going to notice, well, sleep is something that often becomes more difficult and so people will often find themselves either having difficulty getting to sleep or the 5am wake up and if you have a smartwatch, things like your heart rate, you can really notice under pressure. If you've ever got a really big piece of work coming up, if you track your heart rate, your sleep heart rate on the run up to it and then once it's completed, you'll probably notice a significant drop. So overnight our body kind of keeps this level of alertness and sometimes wakes us up. I also think stress has an effect on your immune system so you may find yourself more liable to colds, flu, picking things up, you know, rashes, whatever it might be. And I also behavioural signs, I mean, it's usually a difference. So perhaps if you're, if you usually enjoy doing something and you don't, you know, you can't work up the interuse as many things, I'm just not going to do that. Those sorts of signs are quite important so not enjoying things or feeling that you can do things that you usually like or if you have, you know, an out of character or a exaggerated response. So I'm normally quite curious and I'd like to ask people questions and listen to the answers under pressure when I'm stressed. I may just tend to sort of, you know, come back to questions with a quick answer and move on. You know, it's not so like me with colleagues or, you know, people that you live with family and friends, you probably are quite sensitive to this and have a checklist and they probably have one for you as well. Mike, I've just become even more grumpy than I normally am. So I have a very, very high level of grumpyness normally, but yeah, pressure pushes it to the next level. Yeah, some people double down on how they usually are and other people flip into something very unusual. So maybe we've become, I don't know, very excited. Very nice. That's never going to happen, Helen. Okay, and I mean, that's what happens when we're under pressure, how we start to recognise it. But if we're under pressure for extended periods of time, what are the long term consequences? Yeah, the data is really growing on this over time. It can affect your mental functioning, so your memory, your decision making, your ability to sort of hold and use information. The more physical effects in your heart, so heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and it's a sort of accumulated effect of almost, if your body was a machine, you've been kind of running it high all the time with no breaks and your heart, your brain, and your immune system that that's what we tend to show up and starting to get links into, you know, chronic immune diseases may have some relationship to long-term stress. I have a chronic immune disease, Helen, just so you're aware. Oh. Yeah. I have chronic disease, so I had that before I was pressurised, so I had an impression, so I don't know, I don't think we can blame you on that, but no, I had it, yeah, anyway, dog knows when I was 20, I think I was, so I was at university. Yeah. Well, she's a very pressured time, actually, potentially. It should have been, yeah, I accept that you should have been a pressure time, but it wasn't really. Oh, no. Okay. So why is it that some people thrive under pressure, whereas others wilt? Some of it, as I was saying, is personality-based and that we have different sort of tolerances for different kinds of pressure. But I think a larger part of it is our relationship to pressure, that if you have learn and become adept at noticing when pressure is building in you and picking up on your own stress signals and having ways to manage them to build a life that works well for you. I think if you've been able to do that and then that makes you much more resilient, I suppose is the word, a pressure tolerant, stress tolerant. Yeah. I mean, as we've been talking, I've been thinking, okay, how, looking back over my career, how did stress and pressure reveal itself in me? I can certainly, you know, there were plenty of times when I'd have that 3am wake up panic about a file situation, and I mean, we'll come on to how we deal with those moments later on. And yeah, so that is my inability to control time, I think was always my worst one. So I would just work longer, which then cuts into all the things which, you know, I should be doing like being a father, being a husband, being a friend, all of those relational things. So I think that's probably how pressure revealed itself to me. I mean, I've always been a person who's actually quite enjoyed pressure, particularly deadlines, I've always enjoyed a deadline that makes me work better, I'm always much more focused and much more improved. So what can we do practically in the short term if we become aware that we are under pressure? Yeah, and I think the first thing is that is absolutely that is becoming aware that you're under pressure. So I think the first thing is to really sharpen your own radar for your own tells. How would you know? You told me yours is grumpiness, and I'm not sure if I believe you for anything. And you know, how do you notice it or how do you be open to other people when they're signaling it to you? Because it's much easier to catch the process earlier in terms of a build-up of stress. We're much more able to do things that help us to release some of the stress earlier on in that process and it gets harder and harder the further into it. It's almost like a, you know, if you have a strong emotion, if you catch it early, you can go where as if you're, I've got quite a temper. If I'm full into it, it's really hard, once I've gone to come back and the same with stress. So get really good at noticing it and picking up on the small signals and again, ah, okay. One thing I think is is useful. Well, there's the fundamentals. I mean, they're very boring and we all know them, but it's amazing how nobody really does them, you know, sleep, food, exercise, you know, these things will just make a massive difference. So that's one thing. The other things you can do, I quite like the world of cognitive behavioural therapy. So you can, if you just google cognitive behavioural distortions, cognitive distortions. So under pressure are thinking changes and when we're stressed, it really starts to kind of come in narrow and become more negative. This is just a sort of physiological effect on the brain because of different parts of your brain are sort of foremost. So a good way, because, you know, thoughts, feelings and actions are all closely related and all feed each other in humans. It can feel harder to control your feelings. Sometimes it can be hard to control your actions. Your thoughts, however, are quite easy to catch and potentially challenge. So an example of a cognitive distortion would be something like jumping to conclusions. Over generalisation, I always, I never, they won't ever listen, you know, magical thinking. If I do this, that will happen when, will it disqualifying positives? Sorry, what's that? Well, when you look at only the negative aspects of a situation, you know, you're just focused on the one thing that you think's going to chip you up. And it means that the rest of it is just kind of out of your thinking. And again, it's that sort of narrow thinking that just folks is in on something very negative. All on nothing thinking as well is another aspect of that, the kind of black, it has to be this or that. And it's a kind of absence of creative thinking. So if you notice these kinds of thinking, a personalisation where you think everything is about you, you know, the Peter came in and was really grumpy, I must have done something wrong, you know, it may not necessarily be the case. So you can, if you notice, I should, I must, I have to, all of these sorts of things in your mind. If you notice, if you listen to your thoughts, if you notice yourself getting stressed, you know, just pick one and challenge it. You know, what might be going on from Peter today, you know, but so there's nothing to do with me. Actually, Peter always seems to be grumpy. Maybe it has nothing to do with me at all. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's just, maybe it's just his own soul is rotten. That's all of me. Exactly. That sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, challenging your own thoughts where they're negative and limited is a really good way of just sort of getting a bit more perspective in the moment and just giving things up a bit. Brilliant. Okay. And I mean, I sort of want to take that to the next level because I mean, you touched upon it, but it, I mean, how do we balance our innate desire to do the very best we can at work with our need to protect our mental health? And I mean, yeah, I've heard others say this, but it is absolutely true for many parts of my career, which is I felt as though there were many, many times when I was doing nothing well. So I was, I was being up, you know, I wasn't being around for my kids as much as I wanted. I wasn't being a particularly good husband. You know, I wasn't a great friend and, and, but even then, I was so busy at work that I wasn't actually doing any individual file as well as I would have wanted it to do it. Everything was going out. That's good enough, rather than, you know, that's as good as I can do. So it's that it was that feeling of I am doing nothing well in my life. You know, people talk about work life balance, but, you know, these are times when neither work nor life are going well. So how, what's the answer to that, Helen? Since I've got you here and you know, taking a free counseling session. Well, you know, if, and if I had the answer, I would be wearing much nicer shoes. And I also would have applied it to myself and not tortured myself with my own standards for many years. And, but I think you, you, you touched on the answer there. And, and what you're describing, I think many people will recognise and certainly have had versions of it myself. So from the world of psychology, the thing you, you put your finger on there, and say someone called, um, Winnicort originally came across these, or put these sorts together, thinking about parenting and being good enough that no parent is ever perfect. Like all of our parents did as a, this service, and I'm doing my, there's a poem about that. Miss you up. Yes, they miss you up your mum and dad. Exactly that one. Yeah. Um, and we just have to accept it as, as part of human life and, um, that if we have good intentions and we do our best, that is good enough. And you can say the words, you know, my good enough work went out, but for you, that also wasn't good enough. But what if it actually could be and that if it was good enough and the client was happy and it did the job, then that would be fine. So it's almost a recalibration. And a, a, a home man at work for, for what is, what is good enough? Yeah. And it's a, in a way, it's on, it's unpalatable because it's a lowering of an internal standard. But it's more realistic. And they've a client and for kids and other family members, you know, they won't love it, but it will be good enough. And the magical kind of thing that comes from that is if it lowers your stress, then you do become a, a better parent, a better lawyer, you know, a better team member. And sometimes some pieces of work will need 100%. And others will need 75. And you won't look at it and go, yes, that's the best thing I ever did. But we fit for purpose. And the other things that you're doing around it will also happen in a fit for perfect way. And at the end of the week, you'll be fit for purpose for, you know, being a human. So, yeah, good enough is the antidote, although it's not always that attractive. No. And that's never been the strapline for any insurer. Is it kind of, you know, we're going to be good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And so then how do you create that sense of satisfaction and reward if, if, how people value you and whether that's as a person or as a, you know, a professional is because of your exceptional delivery and because of the standard and the effort, are there other things that you can bring in up alongside, you know, perhaps it's flair and ingenuity and that don't come from extended, really hard effort. And probably happens as a result of something different. So I think it's finding ways that are very congruent, very true to how you are that you can make what you do and how you are exceptional and valued and loved without feeling you've got to grind yourself 24/7. Okay. So I mean, we talked briefly about what one does in the immediate aftermath of pressure. Actually, I, you know, I said earlier that I would wake up in the middle of the night and whatever and the way I learned to deal with that was because after you then have intuitive thoughts about a file, something's gone wrong, you catastrophise because it's the middle of the night. Yeah. Like some other cognitive distortion. Yeah. And what I would do would be, I'm a Christian, so I would pray, but others would meditate or something like that. Yeah. And you focus your mind deliberately on something else. So I would pray for family members. I'd pray for friends. I would pray for the world. I would pray for peace. I do all that sort of thing. And you just focus your mind deliberately on something that is positive and nice as opposed to what your brain's actually wanting to do, which is catastrophise about the file that you can't do anything about because it's 3 a.m. Yes. Yeah. That's a great. And so that is a coping or a managing mechanism that's really personal to you and really aligned with who you are. And so I imagine really works well for you. Yeah. Because you're taking your mind, you're putting the focus area of attention somewhere else. So you're stopping that spiraling thoughts. Try to take control of your thoughts. Yeah. Challenge your thoughts. Take control of them. Replace one thought with another. So it's yeah, taking control, sort of hijacking your own thought system and being able to send it down a slightly different path is extremely useful. Also, some people like to keep a notebook. I don't recommend your phone by your bed because that's another thing that I think can be stress inducing to write down. If even getting up, you're supposed to. Also, if you create a body difference, weirdly, sticking your head in the fridge will do this, 'cause it's cold. There's light, there's cold. If you get up in the night, stick your head in there. And it's sort of resets your mind and your thought patterns again. You have to be careful in my case, not to eat cheese at that point, 'cause it's very great to eat. - Oh, yes, nightmares. Allegedly, it's one of those, I think. - I don't think I've found it happen to be very hot. - I think it's a myth, isn't it? Kind of the whole cheese-creating nightmares. Anyway, we're talking about a kind of immediate response to the pressure, but how do we avoid the build-up of pressure in the first place? We've already said pressure is an inevitable part of everyone's jobs, underwriters, claims people, whoever you are in the insurance world, there is going to be pressure that you face. That's just the nature of modern life, kind of asking more or less. So what's all the things do we integrate into our lives to ensure that we do not get the build-up long term of pressure that ultimately will break us? - I think boundaries are really important. So most, I think most difficult problems are not technical, they're relational. So technical problems in a way are quite easy to solve and people problems tend to be trickier. And when I'm talking about boundaries, I'm talking about what you want and need from other people and what they want and need from you and how you set an agreement somewhere in the middle that is good enough for both of you. So if a part that comes to you and says, "Can you work on this later on this week?" It needs to go out in the Friday and you haven't got, you literally don't have enough time to do it. Do you say that and how do you say it? And do you have in your back pocket the words that you can say, even if it takes a bit of a breast to do it and to say, "Oh, I'd love to." Thank you for thinking of me. I'm very committed at the moment and I'm concerned that I might not be able to do that to the quality that we both want. Do you have whatever it is in your back pocket so that you can hold that boundary when the time comes, recognizing that sometimes you won't be able to, sometimes you will, you can make an attempt. So those conversations and your ability to assert your own needs to some extent in realistic response to what other people want and need, I think that's really vital. And I also think having. Some people talk about and stress as a container that kind of fills up and I think that's true. So having ways to release that container. So it might be, you know, hobbies. It might be just some downtime if that's what you need. It might be to deal with relationships, but to really value those things in life that aren't productive in the work sense, that are extremely valuable in enabling you to come to your work in the best condition that you can be and recognizing that those are serious and important and worthwhile and making time for them. But as you say, it's really hard. We get tunnel vision about work 'cause it's the hair and it's urgent and it just stimulates us and calls us. And we get a bit of a dopamine hit from finishing the thing and validation with money. All of that. So I think we need to recognize how we're being pulled and motivated and try and think about the bigger picture and over time. It's a bit like sprinting a marathon, something like that, isn't it, recognizing that pace, it takes a different, there's a different approach to sustainable performance. And then there is from quick hits, especially if you want to repeat the quick hits again and again. - Okay, how is working from home affect all of this? 'Cause obviously more people work from home now than was the case five, six, seven, 10 years ago. I thought I can see it both being a positive and a negative. So it's a positive in a sense of you are surrounded by your familiar things. And therefore that is a more comfortable working environment, potentially. But at the same time, you are separated from your colleagues and then when something stressful happens to you in the middle of a day, you don't have that outlet that in our office, you just turn to the person next to you and you say, you won't believe the conversation I've just had, the idiot who's on the other end of the phone. And you don't have that when you're working at home. So it does working from home, making pressure worse for us, or better. - I saw something recently. So I worked with leaders mostly. And I saw something in Forbes or something like that to do. And it's very recent research or from last year looking at the effect on leaders of working from home. And the takeaway was interesting because what it said was that levels of stress, experience stress are lower in leaders working from home. And there's something about, as you say, you're in your own environment. Leaders won't show as well. So when you're in the office, people are looking at what you say and do and taking their cue from you. So that brings an element of load and pressure with it. So the stress is less, but burnout is more likely to happen with leaders that work significantly at home rather than in the office. And particularly with people that are just working completely, remotely. And what they provisionally assumed was happening was that when you work from home, it's harder to detach from work. So it's there all the time. So that level that you were talking about sort of chronic, you know, long-term stress, it kind of ramps that up. And particularly because technology is everywhere and you're always on and there's no sort of work to home distinction. It just kind of bleeds into everything. And also the isolation, as you've said from colleagues, just hearing what other people are going on, having a bit of mucking about, play, laugh, you know, lunch with people, we've really built for that, whether we're introverted or extroverted, just that contact with other people. And when things are tough and if we're facing a really difficult problem or, you know, perhaps a mental health challenge or something like that, having that sense of community is absolutely vital. Even if it's just a quick word or a smile from somebody, or they say they like your t-shirt, but by the way, I do. You know, it makes a difference to your day. And so I think it can be, in the short term, makes things feel easier in terms of pressure and stress. And in the longer term, probably remove something that's quite vital for long-term sort of healthy well-being. Yeah, and that's for leaders, and I can imagine that's even more so for the juniors who are learning the ropes and getting the skills that they need. Yes, and if you look at this, this came out sort of immediately post-pandemic, but I think it stayed the same, is that, generationally, people knew into the workforce and people at the end of their careers were the two that really wanted to be in the workplace. And it was something about those transitional points, coming into the workplace. You want to be with others and understand how it works, and over here, conversations, and check things out with people. And then towards the end of career, actually, it's more about legacy, and what you're creating, and how you're developing people, and having a sense of what's been built. Whereas mid-career, and that tends to be often children, or caring responsibilities, or whatever it might be, people seem to be keener to be out of the office. And we've been talking about ourselves when we're under pressure, how do we notice, how do we, what do we do? Let's talk a moment for about when we see a colleague under pressure. How do we see the signs in them, and what do we do to help them? It's such a good question. And I think being alert to a difference, if someone is different from how they usually are, and significantly, that's a real hint to ask them. And I would say, just that very simply, ask once and ask twice. How are you? Yeah, I'll find. No, you're right. And it's so easy to do. I have a side interest. I work in some mental health charities, and I do work with an organization called The Listening Place. We do face-to-face support for suicidal people in London. We don't advertise. We get 900 referrals a month. And so the skate of the people with significant mental health issues is extraordinary. And many of them will just be turning up at work, and people will think they're fine. And they're really, really not. And just asking, as if you want to know, and if people do start talking, really listening, and you don't even have to make the time there are names, also busy, but if they do want to start saying, "Oh, actually, I've got a real problem with that, so I'm just feeling I've just, at the end of it, you know, I can't." Because it's just working like this, it's just sterile off. You don't have to make the time there, and then you could say, "Oh, yeah, that sounds bad. Do you have lunch?" Do you want to, you know, you later, you can find the time. And equally, I think we can sometimes be concerned to ask other people in case they tell us time-wise, but also then does it become my responsibility to try and help that person, or even fix their problems? Because sometimes we can really want to, from the best intentions, but no, just asking, and just listening, with genuine sort of care and curiosity, is a massive service, and it makes a massive difference of people, and so the listening place, That's all we're doing. It's not therapy, it's not counseling. It's just people that are like you and me, every day, people trained to listen compassionately. And that has a significant impact on people that have really extreme difficulties. - Right. - So yeah, asking like you want to know and then listening as if you cared. It's really simple, but actually really rare. - Yeah, oh, great, yeah, very rare. Particularly in the workplace where everyone is busy. And therefore, yeah, you don't always have the time to listen, or at least you don't believe you have the time to listen. - And you could also feel like awkward. - Yeah, yeah. We're coming to the end. I mean, there's inevitably hundreds of questions that one could ask about all of this 'cause it's something which we all experience and are aware of and we know how it affects us and it's not always great. But you mentioned there about anxiety and we know that anxiety is increasing in terms of diagnoses and people's experience of it. I mean, is that proof that the pressures upon us are increasing? I can't help but think that social media and 24 hour news, all of that sort of stuff. None of that helps with our levels of anxiety or mental health, our wellness to use that phrase. And in the words of David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, it's the terror of knowing what this world is about watching some good friends screaming, let me out. I won't sing it because it's actually quite difficult to sing and yeah, I'm just not going to do it. But I can feel you're paying nonetheless. - But yeah, is there evidence that pressure is increasing and maybe not necessarily the short term pressure of a deadline or even the relentless pressure but the background levels of pressure that we all experience because of the things that are going on in the world and our awareness of the things that are going on in the world. But when I was growing up, there wasn't 24 hour news. You had very little awareness of what was going on. You watched the six o'clock news or the 10 o'clock news and that was it. Whereas now you're just relentlessly told through social media and through 24 hour news that the world is going to hell in a hangout. So surely that cannot help. - So it's a really huge question and I've just got a few, I guess, headline reflections. I think each generation does have its own existential Angst, mine was kind of, my generations was nuclear war. - Indeed. - And so I think it's always there that as humans we do create these things to fear. There is more access to information and it's not always great and we can feel flooded by it. And I think in the earlier days, probably it's different generationally but generations that were sort of teenagers and 20s when the internet was kind of new and we were less aware of its limitations and potential for damage. I think we're getting better filtering and to the extent where nobody expects any of it to be true and there's this sort of cynicism which is I guess there's a kind of defense against the massive anxiety that we're probably going to rep the world in one way or another and there's not much we can do about it. I mean, that's what existentialist philosophers and psychologists would say about it and the time is limited to do it. So I think it's always there in humans. I think technology kind of exacerbates things particularly at New Frontiers. And then there's an interesting book, I think it's Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation and he takes a database approach to looking at the big surge in anxiety amongst people that were I guess in formative teenage years and as the internet became fully available and he sort of tracks it around different parts of the world was quite interesting to see which phenomena kind of tracked with availability of information through the internet. And so he does that piece and he also looks at parenting because our relationship with pressure and how we respond to demand in the world is shaped by how we're parented at first with sort of our automatic responses and our defenses come from those early years. And he noticed a couple of things one that's parenting became once more sort of close in. So children have very little unsupervised time when they learn to deal, you know, they're playing, they fall out of a tree, they break their leg, you know. - That's quite an extreme example, Helen. - Well, I mean, he tracks admissions at A&E with play related breaks in countries and says and relationship with anxiety and they're actually getting to the stage where you can cause quite significant problems or see other people do them and deal with them yourself being in risky situations and learning that you can do some things and not others and gradually sort of upping your risk tolerance. It's really, really healthy for anxiety so that it's not very to fall out of tree and break your leg. Actually, that type of play environment is probably great 'cause kids are falling out, they're having to deal with it, they're not having their parents come in and sort of out for them. So there's something about so parents in our very close-in so kids get less used to dealing with their own difficulties and finding their own way through that. They're more costeted and cocooned. And at the same time, they have this full access to the amazing lot of the internet and all of the terrible things you can see on there and fears and this combination, particularly for teenage girls, has been really difficult, the internet side of it, so for, you know, looking at images and now we're seeing it with young men and the whole kind of looks maxing and all of these, what we should be and how we feel we could ever match up to that does have a really formative effect. So the long answer is yes, probably, and I think that generations coming through are developing their own ways of dealing with that as well. - No, I mean, because this is an insurance podcast, I was immediately thinking, okay, well, I mean, playgrounds and whatever will insist on health and safety, lots of your health and safety rules, insurers actually pushing that because it's in there interest to make sure that people don't fall out of trees and break their legs. And it's fascinating, you know, to what extent is insurance part of that society that costs us and protects our children too much? - Yeah. - So in other words, by transferring risk to insurers, are we removing risk that actually we need in our everyday life? - Yes. - But that's a big question and we're not going to start talking about it now. So finally, Helen, these sorts of skills, such as how to deal with pressure, are often described as soft skills. What's your view on that phrase and how important do you think these soft skills actually are? - It makes me smile because they're remarkably hard. So I think soft skills does make them sound sort of, you know, nambi-pambi and unimportant. I think they're relationship skills. So how you relate to yourself and how you relate to other people is at the heart of managing stress and managing how you respond to the pressures around you, which you usually sort of manifest in other people. So I prefer to say relationship skills and self-management, you know, those sorts of things, self-regulation, but you know, if you want to call them soft skills, that's fine. - Thank you, Helen. That was wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. - RPC Radio. - Radio. - Thank you so much for listening to Insurance Covered, which is an RPC production made possible by Joe Burgess and Mary Mitchell. If you enjoyed this podcast, you'll also love our other RPC Podcasts. Faxing matters, money covered and the work couch. Thank you once again for listening and I hope you have a great day. (upbeat music)