Personal Leadership - your secret weapon

Society just doesn't know yet what to do with the newly transitioned who can live another 30-40 years of full of vibrance, you may have to lead the charge.

From the Olympics to the classroom, Dr. Jennifer Walinga offers insights and tips that are both honest and encouraging.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Scott

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Retire and Aspire Podcast. I'm Scott Armstrong. Today, the most common question I get from those about to retire or those who have retired as I travel this great country of ours is where am I going to find purpose once I leave my career behind? To help us answer that question today, we're joined by Dr. Jennifer Walinga of Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. And Jennifer is also a former Canadian Olympic athlete and has set several world records. Dr. Walinga, I can't wait to dive into your story, but before we do that, let's start here. As a lifelong athlete, as an Olympic athlete performing at all the highest levels, what mindset traits have you cultivated that are going to help you in your life going forward that could help our listeners as their lives go forward into their next phase?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I think a lot of it is paying attention to what you're actually learning is important. So what the sport is teaching you. So whether it's sport or theater or art or gardening or whatever you love, you know, really pay attention to it as a educational experience. So I would say, you know, focus was a huge thing, realizing that my mind was my strongest muscle, that if I was distracted, it was going to take away from my performance. And so what was it going to take to be focused? Another thing was that I really started to recognize as I came into a more professional setting was how important tolerance or, you know, embracing diversity was, because we understood how important collaboration was and how that can lead to like this unleashing of truly, you know, that synergistic gestalt greater than the sum of the parts concept. And that it started with accepting one another, right? As how different we all were. Yes. And that's where it always had to start. And living together, operating together, traveling the world together, being in each other's hip pocket nonstop. Um, but then it trying to achieve something we all wanted was probably the most powerful thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah. I I know, and you and I haven't talked a lot about this, but I imagine you had injuries along the way. And I imagine there were setbacks. And uh, you know, from an athl athlete's perspective, because I I work with them as well, there's a fair bit of um tenacity or or get up off the mat and try again rather than surrender and give up. Any sort of thoughts or comments on on those kinds of traits as you as you get to you know your 60s and and beyond? Is that something that uh you think is going to serve you well or or how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, I mean, I learned the hard way. I think I I had a pretty serious injury in '92 and had to re I had to stop, which I didn't want to. I wanted to go to one more, one more quad, one more Olympics, and but couldn't because I wrecked my back because I trained through it, like I actually raced through it and I did it for good reasons, but I actually realized later, of course, much later, that oh yeah, yeah, you have to really be able to distinguish between, and I've actually had a done a webinar on it because it's so important. Distinguish between wounding pain and and training pain. So training pain is lactate and you know, your muscles, it could still you the fatigue, all those things, yes, you can push through, but wounding pain you can't. Like it's you have to really be able to recognize when you're actually harming yourself and be able to understand that it's okay and necessary to recover, that you'll be you'll be way better off if you just stop, let it heal, and then carry on.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

How about with the work optional lives? You know, people who are our age. And, you know, we often hear words when we get into our 50s and 60s, oh, that's too hard, that's too difficult. I I know there was uh an article put out by some Canadian researchers. Uh uh, I won't give you the exact source of it because I don't want to misquote it here, but they took a set of expert birders and analyzed their brains over a period of 10 years and uh of novice birders. And they said uh the expert birders uh had a denser connection or density of neural networks that remained as they aged. And that, you know, and what to what you're saying is yes, distinguish between training pain and wounding pain. But you know, your thoughts on, you know, and and for you for sure, but people that you see, do we surrender as those who are just retiring? Do we surrender too easily to training pain, thinking that we don't have to train anymore?

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Oh, absolutely, right? I mean, I think and I think the key to being able to push through training pain like that lactate, the fatigue is love. Like you really have to love what you're doing and and you won't notice it maybe as much, or you'll be kind of so determined to achieve whatever you it is when you wanna want to see a specific bird, and so you're willing to hike through crazy jungle to get there, or whether it's you know, running as hard as you can around a track. I think if you you have to love it. So listening to what you love, but also there's research on doing things with others reduces your perception of pain. You actually feel less pain when you are in sync with someone. So having a body or partner can also help. But yeah, it just um I think we give up if we either don't love it enough or if we don't have the confidence in ourselves. And that's something else sport teaches, right? When you just try something and you surprise yourself that you're able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Tell me, you know, that uh that little bit about uh I know some of the folks will have looked ahead of time, but I still love hearing your story. Just you got involved in sports. Can you tell me us a little bit about that that journey in sport that you had at a younger age?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Sure, right? I grew up in a small town in uh Ontario, Peterborough. We were always on a bike, always hiking through the woods, always exploring and on adventures. We had so much freedom, right, back in the 80s and so unsupervised, lots of swimming, like you just had to figure it out to survive, really. But it was so much fun, and we were constantly creating games, playing pickup basketball or baseball or hockey or just games like Red Rover, you know, and chasing each other all the time. This big gang of kids in the neighborhood. It was great fun. But I think that actually gave me quite a base of fitness because you're you were constantly having to compete against the boys as well. And of course, they're faster and stronger, and you just you had no sense of that gender, you know, so that it became quite uh competitive.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Can I uh there's one connection that that you and I found out we had, but we didn't find out till last week. You got into sport and you had a phys ed teacher who I knew, right? What was her name?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Well, you taught at my high school, which I just think is so beautiful. So her name is Cheryl Delareux. That's the thing. You have these um these, but I mean, she was a great model of that, that she just she kept learning. She became the principal eventually. I was always so kind of um lamented that I wasn't there when she was principal, because I think that would have been just so cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

And so somewhere along the line, you found rowing, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yes. Well, you know, you have these seasons of sport, especially in Ontario, because you have so much snow and ice. So so I looked at cross-country skiing and I tried that, and that was great, but I didn't really have. I mean, we were pretty poor single mom, four kids. So I didn't really have the great equipment and the opportunity to go practice or to race. So I thought that's not really gonna work. And I saw these people running in the winter, and I love to run, so I thought, yeah, that could be good, and whatever they're doing, I don't know. It looked like they're training for something, so I found out it was um rowing. And I thought I didn't, I have no idea what rowing was, but I thought, well, maybe it's something like canoeing or you know, uh high kneel canoeing or some kind of outrigger or something like that, was what I was picturing. But I just trained with them all winter, and then in the spring we got on the water and uh I literally sat in a boat. I don't even know if I took a stroke. I can't really remember because you're when you're novice, you don't really do much. You're really mostly learning how to just balance the boat, all the different technical elements of the equipment. And so I think I just sat in the boat and held onto an oar, but and I was wearing jeans because I had no idea that it was, you know, what it is. I remember just flying home on my bike, thinking I have found like my first love, you know, it was that that strong. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And so where did that love take you? I mean, you know, we haven't tipped the hat yet here, but uh, you know, you pursued the rowing and still do, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

It totally do, yeah. And I'm 61. And so, of course, there's a lot of master sport out there, but rowing is a really good one for older individuals because it is weight supported, you know, you're it's not as hard on your joints, or uh it's beautiful, like there's a real recreational aspect to it too, like canoeing. So it's something that people do. We have a lot of people at our club who are 80 plus, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

No, but you were, you know, when you were rowing, um, you you ascended through so many different levels in the was it 1992? I don't know the date, so correct me if I'm wrong. Uh you did something rather special.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah. We um so I've gone to a couple of Olympics. 1988 was the first one, so in Seoul, Korea. And then uh again in 1992, which was in Barcelona, Spain, we actually raced in a little place called Banyolas, which is about an hour and a half north of Barcelona. And so the roaring village was a separate little village. You could go to the main village, but we mostly were up in Banyolas in this beautiful setting. I just went there last summer actually to compete in a Master's regatta. And so that was pretty cool, you know, 30 plus years later to go experience the same lake.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Coming up next, we'll talk about a few ways that Jen's going to show us on how you can find your purpose in your work optional life. I'm Scott Armstrong, and this is Retire and Aspire. If you're looking for an inspired next phase of life, then MindSwitch may be for you. From retirement roadmaps, informative publications, complimentary webcasts to immersive masterminds and retreats, we've got you covered. Head on over to mindswitch.ca and sign up. There is no cost, and you will receive a work optional life blueprint to start you on your journey. Your next phase of life in MindSwitch, you know it, you're just getting started. My guest today is Dr. Jennifer Walinga, and we're talking about finding your purpose and passion in all its many forms in your work optional life. You discovered your passion early on, and you know, you I know you would consider yourself one of the fortunate ones to do that in terms of rowing, and that's just been a good sort of set of life guidelines or values, I guess, to go through. For those who haven't discovered their passion, you know, you're in the 50s and 60s, and you're going, I hear Dr. Jen. She sounds so jazzed about rowing, you know, that kind of stuff. And there's a lot of people are, and I've met a lot of people go, I'm just not like that. I haven't got that passion. Two questions, and you feel them any way you like. One, are they, is it just that they're not switched on or being open enough to find something? And two, if they're actually going to go look out, how did how does one find their passion when they're in their 50s and 60s? And this is, you know, an unstructured question, but I'm just interested in your visceral thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

God, you know, I always feel so lucky because I love a lot of things. And I'm just I was a weird little kid who who wanted to always explore and try things. And, you know, I was always making something. I was always alone. I was the youngest of four, but by quite a lot. So I was always having to kind of figure out what to do with my time and but also pretty naturally inquisitive and curious and creative. So I think a part of it is you you just either like to learn or you don't. I also think, though, that it's luck. Like you just have to be open to trying things and out put yourself out there and and stuff will strike you. Uh, I think you have to listen to your heart and pay attention to what it is and ask yourself every once in a while, like, what do I like doing the most right now? Or what's nurturing me? I know I've had to really protect my rowing because I start, you know, as you do, you you raise kids and you're out in the community and you're sort of serving others all the time, which is wonderful and rewarding. But who's serving you? Like you have to make sure you're serving yourself with something that replenishes. Um, so I think it's a few things, you know, being lucky, but also exposure, listening to yourself, though, too, and asking yourself, what is it that jazzes me up? You know, it doesn't have to be, and that it doesn't have to be some big thing. It can be any little thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

It doesn't British have a great term called cotton womping. And it means to meander purposefully in a vague direction. And love it. And I know, and it's sort of like just hop on a whole bunch of stones, you'll slip and fall off some of them, but at some point one's going to stick and lead you perhaps to something else. So, you know, cotton womping. You said something really interesting a moment ago. You know, either you like to learn or you don't. And and I I have to ask, you know, what if I'm one of the people who just doesn't like to learn? You know, either I've got it, I I know I've been there, I've done that, I bought the t-shirt. I hate those sayings, by the way. I just it's sort of like, I want to be relentless. How, how do you, as a, as a professor of communication, as a a lifelong highly competitive athlete, how would you, or what advice would you offer to folks who just go, yeah, and yeah, I don't want to bother with that. I don't like learning.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah, I know. And I never used to believe it to be true because I've been a teacher all my life. And so I just, you know, when you look at little kids and the way they are so inquisitive and incredibly uh, it's amazing to watch it on the beach, right? And how they'll work together so industrious and collaborative, and they'll just come up with some crazy fort. And then, but you of course they can't pick up a towel in their in their bathroom floor. But you know, it's amazing to watch the energy. So I always used to believe that absolutely every everybody has that in them, that this desire to learn and uh be curious. But someone said to me at one point, because I was getting frustrated at work, you know, that well, why would everybody wants to try new things and learn things? And they kind of looked at me with their head on the side and said, Well, not everybody does so, Jen. And it it occurred to me, yeah, of course, not everybody is as jazzed to learn. And I shouldn't assume that about everyone. I think some people get more satisfaction out of, you know, order and peace and it being calm. It doesn't have to be, and I guess that's where I went with it doesn't have to be some extraordinary thing. It can be something simple that you just get joy for, right? So sometimes I think we yeah, we overestimate this concept of passion. We make it too big, yeah. It can be something little and still make you feel make your heart sing just as much as whatever, sailing or something that seems really exotic and extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Micro passions are are great. And yes, so you know, yes, to no to the big thing, the one thing that's gonna make your life incredible. Um, it can be found an awful lot along the way. Um, gosh, you were just you're just talking about people who who did not want to learn. There's so much research coming out. It's a great thing because you know, society doesn't know what to do with us yet, uh, thus who are in our 50s and 60s and could have three and four decades of more vital lifting. You just talked about the uh the quad 80s or you know, or the eight, whatever the thing was, you know, and I have a feeling, you know, five, ten years from now, we're gonna be bumping that up to the 90s and things like that. I mean, there's constant boundaries being set. So I'm fearful for somebody who doesn't want to learn and they're shutting off their brain from learning in their 50s and 60s in a meaningful way, because again, the research will show that we all need to learn things to create more, if you will, roadways in our brains so that if as we age and some of the roadways shut down through various neurological diseases, we have alternate routes to go. And and so, you know, that's why when someone that idea of comfort and routine um is really it may be good for peace in someone's mind, which is worth it a lot, but it's not good for long-term vitality. So that uh, you know, your your your brain just goes, it's uh, you know, I think it was again in that study I was uh quoting earlier, it's a use it or lose it kind of organ. And uh that's uh the the big thing. So that that's always been the the challenge, is to everybody does learn in a different way and different things excite different people. Um, but at the base of it all, I am hoping that there's some level of curiosity uh for each individual. That's what scares me the most is when I come up to somebody and talking to them and you go, yeah, no. And sometimes I wonder if it's a protective mechanism that they don't want to be the newbie in the environment, that type of thing. Um, you know, just uh so that was that was the source of the question. And obviously I have some passion about it, but you know, you as a as a professor, you know, would have had students who don't want to learn, but you probably also have some friends who are, you know, probably, yeah, this is my life, and and and that's that's pretty good. I'm just wondering if there's any more insights into how to activate learning.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, because I still reject the idea that people don't want to learn. I still think it's more about, like you said, there's some kind of constraint. I think it has to do with fear or a lack of confidence for whatever reasons throughout the path of their life. Because I've never seen, you know, a baby that isn't inquisitive, right? And trying and squishing and looking. And so I think it has to do with a fear that can get in the way. But but I've learned that fear and love are connected. Like I think we think sometimes love and hate are, but it's fear and love. So we're only afraid of something as it threatens something in ours, something we care about. Usually it's our sense of self or something we feel like we um, you know, we're on earth for that something someone else we love or something we love. So we'll shut down, we'll get protective, but we're just protecting what we love. So I think that's where other people come in. And I our job in the world really is to learn. That's all we're here to do. What's all we can do in the world? And but I think as a community, we're here to support each other's development and growth. And so we can notice those people who seem a bit stuck or timid or constrained or and ask them, you know, what's going on. And what's what's what are you worried about? Why do you need so much order? Like what does a lack of order stepping on those stones that might tip you'll slip on, what does that threaten in you? Ask them to dig in a little bit, have those conversations with people so that they can unlock them sent their sense of self. I know that sounds kind of philosophical, but I think it's everything in the world. That's why I teach really is to help people figure out who they are at their core. And I always tell all my students, you know, there's only one of you, there's only ever going to be one Scott Armstrong for all of eternity in the universe. So who are you at your core? And what is that, what's special about you, different about you, unique about you?

SPEAKER_01 20:09

And then there's that link where if you are moving to work optional life and you're leaving your career behind, all that thing that you may have identified as what you are, I love your distinction there between, you know, what and who. Um, so you know, one of the last questions I had for you was, and you can talk about yourself or you can talk about others from a theoretical perspective, but when you do leave your career behind and you no longer Dr. Professor Jennifer Walinga, Rural Roads University, um, you know, you are, you know, you're no longer Olympian athlete, you know, all those kinds of things. And I've talked to some pilots, some doctors, some people from all walks of life whose identity is very much wrapped up in what they do.

unknown 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Well, it's funny, one of my favorite exercises to do in any class I offer. So it doesn't matter if it's creative problem solving or sport leadership or communication. I always do this exercise with people where we do some of that self-exploration. Because no matter what you're doing as a professional, you need to have a strong core, a strong sense of where you stand, what your priorities are, who you are at the core, what you have to offer, all that good stuff. And so we talk about the roles we play. And of course, that, like you say, links to identity. And often people identify maybe too strongly or only with what they do. I actually spent a lot of time kind of separating myself from my athletic past because I felt like, well, now I'm a teacher, though. I want to develop that aspect of my professional life. But you can be both, right? It's okay. Uh, and ultimately, though, we do this exercise where I ask people to then remove the roles, like, let go of that one, let go of another one. Which one would it have to be? And they go through this process of kind of letting go of everything. Everything they do in their life. And there usually we stop at one left. What's the one and what's most important to you? And are you serving it well? But then I ask them to let go of that. And all that's left is them in their center. And you see some people freak out, like, oh my God, I have nothing now. And they feel really untethered and sad and lost. But some people will say, Well, wait a second. No, I feel kind of free actually. And I feel like I can finally think about who I am. And that helps all the other ones who feel lost because then they start thinking about it differently. And I ask them, okay, well, what are you at your center? Like, what do you bring to everything? And that's when people have that epiphany of, oh, so personally, I feel like I've gone, I've done that exercise with my students a million times, but I always end up at kind of just loving, I used to say people, but I think it's just life. I love creatures and the environment and people. I love living and interacting with. And so no matter what the hell I do going forward, it's just going to be more of that. But and I used to think I would be just be a professor forever. We have lots of professors at our university that carry on into their 80s and it's, you know, even half time or something. You can always be doing research and working with students is wonderful supervising people working on their research. It's lovely and partnering with others. So there's always opportunity there.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

If you had to think of, you know, one or two things that for the folks who are listening and who are, you know, transitioning to work option life or preparing for it, from a personal leadership perspective, what would be one or two things that you would say, hey, you know, have this front and center, have this in your back pocket, uh, be aware of, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Well, I'll draw back on rowing. I think I learned the most important thing I learned from rowing was rhythm, the power of rhythm. And it uh I learned it from Trisha Smith, who was a real mentor to me. She's an amazing woman in rowing, and then she now leads the Cleaning Olympic Committee and just an amazing leader. But she demonstrated with with her exemplary rowing style, how if you pull harder, you create space for recovery. Like you have more time to recover up the slide, the harder and more powerful you are through the water. And so it just stuck with me for the rest of my life because I then leveraged that rhythm as an athlete, and we were very successful, very ordinary on paper, extraordinary on the water, set world records, and it was like this amazing combination. But it was because of that rhythm. So I think I've applied that to life, and it's the biggest piece of wisdom I could share with others is always, you know, do your work your hardest. But the harder you work, remember you're creating space for recovery, and you need that recovery in order to be as excellent as you're trying to be. So always that balance. And it's not work-life balance, it's just hard work and recovery balance, you know. I think that's the key to resilience and success.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Uh, I appreciate that very much. I know people are gonna go, hey, I I want to get me some more of that Dr. Jen. I hope you don't mind that as the new calling podcast for you. But is there uh there a website or something for folks to to check more out on you? Because I I know there's a couple.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Sure, sure. You can find me at Royal Roads for sure, really easily. And then I have a website, integratedfocus.ca. It's called. That's all about the insight problem solving stuff we do with people. And um and you know, that's in LinkedIn. I'm on I love LinkedIn because that's where people share knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Jen, thank you so much for for joining us today. Um, I'm gonna listen to this several times before it gets produced because I I there's things here I was taking notes on that I I know I need to think about deeper. Our next podcast will be released in a couple of weeks. And in May, we're going to have a live webcast retreat on finding purpose. Jen, thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Thanks, Scott. Such a pleasure. Take care.