Unni Turrettini - Combatting Loneliness with the Three C's (Part 2)

Mental Health Awareness Month 2024 continues with Part 2 of Sara's discussion with Unni Turrettini.  As a consultant, author, and speaker, Unni helps us understand how loneliness (especially in leadership) can become overwhelming to the point that it stifles our effectiveness and sours our relationships.  Middle managers are experiencing burnout which often includes a sense of loneliness.  Great guidance will be found here.

Click HERE for Unni's website
Click HERE for Unni's LinkedIn page

Listen to these related episodes:

• Sara and John - On Being the Right Size

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Transcript

Sara Best: 0:04

Hi everybody, welcome back to the Bossh ole Chronicles. This is Sara Best, your co-host. Actually, I'm a host today. John is out in the field working, but in the meantime, this is May, it's Mental Health Awareness Month, and we have a special series this month. Today is part two of a two-part episode featuring Unni Turrattini. She's from Oslo, Norway. She is a human connection expert and we're going to pick up the ball right where we left off in our previous episode, with Unni talking about contribution. So let's dig in.

Announcer: 0:44

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Sara Best: 1:10

Well, Unni, welcome back to the Bossh ole Chronicles, part two of our two-part series with you. It's so good to have you back. Thank you so much for having me back again, Sara.

Sara Best: 1:16

Yeah, as we know, it's Mental Health Awareness Month and we're trying to at least highlight and shine a light on many things this month, but including the epidemic of loneliness, what leaders and individuals can do to move from that. In our last episode we covered so much ground. We talked about loneliness, we talked about survival mode, we talked about ways to find balance, because when we're in survival mode we're out of balance and you offered up three powerful ideas that I think our audience needs to remember Connect with you. It's connect, confidence and contribution. In our last episode we kind of ended with this idea of contribution. So I encourage our listeners, if you're just tuning into this one, go back and listen to the first one, because now we want to kind of move back into this idea of contribution and what it can provide for the person. So, Unni, let me just throw that to you.

Sara Best: 2:08

Tell us more about the gift of contribution.

Unni Turrettini: 2:12

Yes, this is one of my favorite topics, because contribution is one of our basic human needs, because giving of ourselves makes us feel important, makes us feel like we matter, and when we matter, we belong right. So contribution is crucial to, and I think also a lot of our loneliness in our society today is lack of contribution, it's lack of importance, it's lack of purpose. And so I was just working with a company in the US, without mentioning any names, but we were talking about the importance of contribution, and I pointed out because I always survey the companies that I work with before we get into it so that I know what their issues are. One of the issues with that specific company was that they didn't have a very exciting goal for the business. So of course, they want to grow, they want to. You know all that but so what we are coming up with now for them is okay. What can we get behind? What would you like to accomplish in the next five years, 10 years? The next five years, 10 years, come up with the big, hairy goal that everybody can get behind and you make everybody feel like they're part of that vision and that mission and let them know that, their specific part, on all the levels in the company matters and that they matter so that they can get up in the morning feeling excited about taking part in something that is bigger than themselves. That is a really big part of making people feel that they're contributing, that they actually matter. It's just not only the fact that you go to work from eight to five or whatever the hours are, you clock in and then you go home. You're actually part of something much bigger, and knowing that we spend so much of our waking hours at work, having a vision and being part of something that is bigger than ourselves, is really important.

Unni Turrettini: 4:14

Something else that I love to talk about when it comes to contribution is that contribution is giving of ourselves, yes, and it's also receiving, and I think we mentioned that perhaps last time.

Unni Turrettini: 4:24

That receiving is really important, but so is asking for help, and I see that with a lot of, especially leaders and people you know manager leaders they're afraid to even you know, actually everyone are afraid to ask for help, because when we ask for help, we might think that, oh, I will seem like I'm not competent, like I don't know this, I appear as someone who's weak, and so we are afraid in general to ask for help. Also because we live in a culture where we've been told from childhood that we need to be so strong and independent and do it all on our own right.

Unni Turrettini: 5:06

So asking for help, though, is really important, because when you ask for help, you're actually giving a gift to the other person that gets to help you, because when they help you, they feel important, they matter. That creates relational energy, again like we talked about when it comes to connection and relating to other people in the last episode. So, asking for help, I think we just need to remind ourselves that we're not weak. When we do it, being thoughtful in our requests and asking other people for help is actually being of service.

Sara Best: 5:47

Yeah, I love that.

Sara Best: 5:48

I know when we were talking before we hit record today, we were kind of chewing on this a little bit, and all I would have to do is think about what it feels like to be able to help someone else and what a gift that is to me.

Sara Best: 6:00

Why would I want to rip somebody off of the opportunity to feel that goodness as well?

Sara Best: 6:05

So I think that's a great spin on it. I also I feel it's important that we acknowledge for some people because it's Mental Health Awareness Month for some people there's such a level of distress or even depression that that does not even seem doable, like it's not even an option or there's no access to asking for help in their mind. And to that I just want to say a lot of the things that you've talked about, Unni, in this episode and certainly in the previous episode, are action oriented, and I don't know where I heard this or where I bought into this idea that there are just some things we cannot think our way out of, and I think depression and other challenging mental health issues are like that that we have to take an action and the action, combined with support and help, begin to create a new energy and a new pathway. But asking for help, as daunting as that may seem to some people, is a simple action that could break open, or break free some of that stuckness that people may feel.

Unni Turrettini: 7:08

I love that. And when you talk about sort of the mental health aspects of that as well, when we're down, when we're feeling maybe a little depressed we've all been there and when we're in that state, the best thing and the most efficient thing that we can do to get out of it is to focus on someone else. Because in that state, when we're feeling lonely, when we're feeling, when we're in that sort of fight or flight, feeling lonely, depressed, that nobody has our backs, you know, feeling a little, it's a little bit self-centered in that space, it's a little bit self-centered in that space, and that's not a criticism, it's just the way that survival mode works, right? Yeah, it isolates you, right, it isolates us. So then, being able to focus on someone else and there's something so simple that we can do every day to take us out of that state, and that is something I call hope. Help one person every day, yeah, tell us more about that, yeah.

Unni Turrettini: 8:13

And the thing about that is that it doesn't have to take a lot, it doesn't have to be a lot. It can be as simple as picking up the phone, sending a text message or, you know, to an old friend, giving someone a call, someone you know, to an old friend giving someone a call, someone you know. You think that, oh, I know that person is probably struggling a little bit, or you know not you know, or perhaps super busy or just like overwhelmed, or just send them a message. I'm thinking of you. How are you? Or even you know, as we're scrolling on our social media feed, you see something that resonates with you. Take that post and share it with someone that you think could need it that day, or you know, that way you're helping the person who wrote the post, but you're also helping someone else, so it doesn't have to take a lot.

Sara Best: 8:58

No, it doesn't. And that one is a pretty important one. We talked in our last episode about morning practices and ways to center self and ways to kind of get out of that fight or flight response, and I think that's something I've incorporated into my morning practice is just carving out some time to think about who comes to mind, and it could be something I thought about earlier in the week and didn't take an action on that. I think about sending a text message, or I'll drop a card in the mail, but if I don't kind of have that on my list, I might breeze right past the opportunity to reach out to people. But that's a simple one, and I don't know if you've ever gotten a text message like that or received a card that says wow, I was just thinking about you, I'm grateful you're in my life. That is so powerful, and it could be from somebody in the past, it doesn't matter. So, yeah, it doesn't matter.

Unni Turrettini: 9:50

Yeah, it's powerful. No-transcript. I don't receive a lot of those messages, but, boy, when I do, it feels so good, right, and that also reminds me to do that more often with other people as well. So I think that's a really good one. And, you know, and even if we forget to incorporate that part in our morning practice, what I like to do anyway is that when I'm out, okay, I'm stopping by and I'm buying a coffee and bread right for the house, and just the person behind the counter just looking them in the eye, I mean, maybe it's 20 seconds.

Unni Turrettini: 10:30

You give them your undivided attention. I mean, what a gift is that undivided attention in this day of distractions? Right, and just asking them so how are you today, you know? Or just oh, this like there's a lot of, there's a long line there. That must be really stressful for you.

Sara Best: 10:48

How's your day? How's your day so far? I was thinking about. There's a great restaurant here in town and where I live it's crowded. They make really good New York style pizza and I always like when I'm walking out because you walk out and you walk by all the people who are making the pizza and I always say thank you for my dinner or thank you for my lunch because it's so good and I feel such gratitude for how they do this. So those are the things you're talking about. Just share that. I'm guessing too, Unni. There are people listening going. Yeah, I'm really private. I'm just not going to extend myself that way. Well then, choose to find. You know, I'm born that way. I always want to connect with people, so it's not difficult for me to do that, but it may be for others and some kind of adaptation would be required here to just think outside yourself. But if you did, look what the benefit would be.

Unni Turrettini: 11:38

Yeah, and even just the text yeah. I think that is something that even the most introverted and private people we can do. That right quote from someone else that you find and that really warms your heart, forward it send it to someone else.

Sara Best: 11:57

Yeah, yeah. And if I may, Unni, I want to dial back to contribution for a quick minute. You talked about how important it is for people in the ranks of any organization, top to bottom, to feel some kind of purpose, like I am connected to what we're doing, there's a why and I actually have a part in achieving that why. I love that example and that's measurable. Like we can use engagement surveys or we use a tool called line of sight. It helps to capture the level of confidence people feel about, hey, I have an important job and what I'm doing contributes to something good, or it's connected to our strategy, and I think that's significant. And so for organizations that have never really thought through that, hey, are we communicating to each function and each role in the organization how they contribute to our results and are we doing that effectively? And even if we said it once or twice, do they get it? Do we need to say it again so they really understand that we need them and we see them?

Sara Best: 12:59

Then you also talked about this asking for help, so I want to just double click on that one for a minute, just about leadership and vulnerability and ownership of challenges, and I think that vulnerability is the heart of asking for help. You know you talked about the challenges people feel and what prevents them from being able to ask for help, but yet what we perceive that would make us weak actually in the long run makes us stronger in other people's eyes. So tell us your take on leaders, vulnerability, ownership and how that can create connection and trust.

Unni Turrettini: 13:44

Oh yeah, and trust is a crucial element to feeling connected, because when we don't trust and we know that today, as loneliness, more and more people are feeling lonely trust is on the way down. So we have less and less trust in our institutions and in leadership in general, in government, in companies. So trust plays a really important part in the whole, our mental wellbeing, feeling that we belong and that we're feeling connected to ourselves and others. And I think, you know, with leadership, with a lot of influence and responsibility, comes a level of, you know, we expect more of them, of course, and it comes, you know, it comes a greater responsibility with influence, with leadership. And I think it's also important to remember that our leaders, our gurus, whatever you know, whoever it might be, they are people too and as we, we and we spoke about that right before we, we, you hit record as well, and it's really important for us to remember that that it's tough to be in those positions as well and not to expect perfection from our leaders, because you know, we talk a lot about perfectionism in our society today and, as a recovering perfectionist myself, you know something that I, you know, still struggle with right, yeah, but it's important also to not expect our leaders to be perfect, but what we should be able to expect from our leaders, which also starts with ourselves and how we practice this ourselves.

Unni Turrettini: 15:28

When we mess up, when we fail, when we do something that we realize in hindsight oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that, maybe I shouldn't have done that, said that, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Say it like, don't like the silent thing that you know, not saying anything, just sweeping it on the under the rug, expecting it to just blow away, and everybody will forget about it. Right, it's not working. And so I think we need to start with ourselves. And I do this with my kids, for example, at home, because I mess up all the time and I, you know, I like take out my frustration. And on my family, you know, it happens, luckily less and less now that I'm aware of it, but it happens and I have to sit them down and I say you listen, I apologize, I was stressed this morning.

Unni Turrettini: 16:18

I was completely in fight or flight, I don't know what happened, but I shouldn't have snapped at you like that and I apologize, it has nothing to do with you and this is all me right. So sometimes we I think we have to just practice, not just sometimes. I think we have to practice this in our daily life and I think it's really important for leaders and research shows that most leaders, a majority of leaders, are afraid to apologize, afraid to admit to mistakes, because they it again. They think it's going to weaken them, they think they will lose respect. But we know from research again that we gain respect of leaders who do that, are willing and able to say listen, I messed up. Now I know better, I'm going to do better.

Sara Best: 17:13

I love that. Yeah, it was Maya Angelou who wrote that piece right. When we know better, we do better. I love that, and I do think people being willing to say they're sorry it's not easy. I met a great consultant who's become a dear friend. Her name's Liz Allo. She teaches Crucial Conversations and I was in a program that she taught a number of years ago and she kind of coached me to throw myself under the bus. Like always, start by, you know, not inauthentically apologizing, but start by saying you're part of what was wrong, and it does make it. As challenging as that can be, it does make it easier for the other person to own their part too, or at least it honors and references what their experience was. But I will say that it gets easier the more you do it. It's like a new pathway in the brain that we could develop this sense of ownership and responsibility and the ability to apologize, which is cool. If a leader can't do it, if somebody of high degrees of influence can't do it, other people aren't going to do it either.

Unni Turrettini: 18:19

It's not safe of high degrees of influence can't do it, other people aren't going to do it either. It's not safe. It's not safe exactly. But when you look at I mean, wouldn't it be I? You know, I'm just waiting for our world leaders to be able to do that right, to say that they're sorry and to say that, listen, you know, I made a mistake and I'm so sorry. I'm going to do my very best to make it up and to to write this ship. We would love them if they did that. You know, I would vote for that person.

Unni Turrettini: 18:45

You know it's it's just in our, in our human nature to do that, and I also think it's important when it comes to that, those expectations and responsibility and and to remember and this is something that I firmly believe that most people do the best they can with what they know, whatever they have of resources in the moment. I like to think of it that way, because that also makes it easier to forgive, to forgive ourselves, to forgive others when they do make mistakes. But it's always, even though we know that, it still feels really good to hear someone say to you or to anyone listen, I made a mistake, I'm sorry. Yeah, and no, like I'm sorry, you felt that way or you feel that way. That's not an apology. Have you noticed that, Sara? Oh, yes, like all the time, and it's like they're taking that responsibility, that ball, and they're throwing it right back at you when they say I'm sorry, you feel that I mean that's not an apology. So I think we have to learn how to apologize too.

Sara Best: 19:55

Yes, I think that that kind of an apology is out of integrity. That's a whole nother conversation, but I agree with you. So we're talking about things that cultivate trust. We are talking about trust being a pathway to connection, a pathway out of loneliness and isolation, but, interestingly, through vulnerability, through sharing and connecting on how we can do really stupid things sometimes and not have the best idea and get ego-driven and competitive and gosh. We could go on and on.

Sara Best: 20:29

So I love this, and I do think trust is also a verb. I mean, it's not a thing that's floating out there somewhere. It's something that gets created by a choice that we make, and I'm pretty sure you align with this idea that trust is a choice. It's an inside out choice. I could give you, uni, the benefit of the doubt that you have my best interest at heart, even when you do something really bad or something that hurts my feelings or something that leaves me excluded, or whatever it might be. I still could choose to give you the benefit of the doubt, but in order to do that, I have to get out of fight or flight, as you indicated. I have to find and be more able to tap into the center. Tell us your thoughts on that.

Unni Turrettini: 21:14

Oh, I love that. And just back to what you said about trusting being a choice, right, an act. I love that so much. That brings me back to our conversation about confidence, which is one of the three C's. You know connection, confidence, contribution.

Unni Turrettini: 21:35

Because confidence is not only confidence in other people, it's confidence in ourselves. And we know that building confidence, the only way to build confidence, to build self-trust, is to take action. It is a verb to me in the word confidence is there are two Latin words it's built on, so it's confidere, which means to have trust in oneself. And so before we take those actions, we have to teach ourselves, I would say, to trust more in ourselves.

Unni Turrettini: 22:08

I do believe that unless we can start to trust ourselves, it's really difficult to trust other people. So we have to start with ourselves again, and I always come back to that, like starting with ourselves, building that piece. And for me anyway, that starts with making easy decisions, like and for me anyway, that starts with making easy decisions like do I want to go out tonight? Do I want to go out and have those drinks, or do I want to go to bed early, wake up tomorrow morning feeling really refreshed and ready to get a head start on my day, you know, making those best decisions for myself in the moment and learning that way and respecting those choices, respecting those decisions For me, that builds self-trust and self-confidence and again, that builds trust in other people as well.

Sara Best: 23:01

I think that's so good. I hope many listeners tuned in to the idea that building trust in yourself comes from honoring choices Like this is what I prefer. This is what I would rather have. I don't want this. I'd rather do this.

Sara Best: 23:09

I talk to people all the time even my own family members who are debating and they're mentally beating themselves up because they're unsure and they don't want to let somebody down and they don't want to be seen as not caring. And I spent a lot of years I'll be honest, I spent a lot of years doing that too. So what you're talking about is, from the inside out, learning to honor and respect your wants, your likes, your dislikes. Make choices that reflect you. I was texting someone yesterday who is kind of caught between I'd like to go home. They're here helping someone. I'd like to go home because really, what I'm doing is I don't need to be doing this, but I feel bad. It's like wow. My first thought was do the thing that works for you, because it'll make everything else work out too. So the upside of trusting yourself and trusting your decisions is other people get to figure it out and it does always work out. So, gosh, we could talk all day about that one. I love that you identified this as an inside out deal.

Sara Best: 24:08

When I listened to you back in June of 2022, and you were speaking at the All Rise Global Summit, I wrote in my notes when you were talking about confidence, Unni, I wrote down being the right size and I thought of this idea for so long. But when you talked about confidence to me being the right size and it has nothing to do with our weight or the size of pants we wear that's not what I'm talking about. It's how the comfortability on the inside is aligned with and matches the outside. When we're not the right size, the outside is too big or too small, but the inside is usually too small or not enough. I can't do that because it will make someone unhappy. I know that's what I'd like to do, but it just doesn't seem like that would work out well.

Sara Best: 24:55

Being the right size is the work you talk about, the daily practice, the connecting, the getting out of fight or flight, making space to better understand yourself and I remembered reflecting on that as an antidote. Could I imagine myself as big on the inside as I am on the outside? So there's no competition or lack or no place to get hooked by things. It's a figurative size, the inside people feeling small, feeling untrusting of their own worth or their own decisive power.

Sara Best: 25:30

But yeah, on the outside there's a full size, like, hey, I've got this all together, here's my social media presence, but on the inside I'm scared, I'm resentful, I feel left out, I'm lonely, all those things, I think, being the right size. When the inside and the outside align, then there's not a bunch of space for bad stuff to creep in or for us to get hooked by comments that are hurtful or distrustful. Thank you for letting me share that, because I know when you were talking about confidence, it resonated deeply, especially for women, women leaders, women who don't necessarily have to have a title or a bunch of direct reports. Women have influence in so many ways in their organizations and the influence is only enhanced and brightened by this confidence that you're talking about.

Unni Turrettini: 26:18

Yes, this is really important.

Unni Turrettini: 26:20

Thank you for saying that, Sara. This is so important, especially, as you say, for women, because that we there's a lack of confidence, a lack of self-worth in our society because, as we know, loneliness is linked, is directly linked to how worthy we feel, because when someone says they're lonely, what they're really saying is I don't believe I'm worthy of love and connection. So, and what we're seeing in our society today, with social media and people with lots of followers and influencers, and it's so much on the outside, that's what our society is pushing us to appear confident and boastful and almost arrogant. There's like an arrogance to the visibility that we can have outward, but it's not followed up by the substantial confidence on the inside, which is why we're seeing, you know, increasing narcissistic tendencies as well in our society, because narcissism is just, you know, it's really a lack of confidence and a belief that I'm not worthy, sure, I think people should resonate hopefully imbibe that resonate with that, because we think very differently about narcissistic people, but you're right, it's because they have no worthiness.

Sara Best: 27:41

It's all made up Good, Uni. We've covered a wealth of ground together in these two episodes geared toward just finding connection, addressing the dis-ease of loneliness and other things that are epidemic for people today. I would love to know what's coming up next for you. What should people be looking for? What should we be listening for? What are you working on?

Unni Turrettini: 28:04

Yeah, so I just actually have my most recent TEDx talk released. It's titled A Cure for Loneliness and I talk about disconnection there and survival mode, and it's 10 minutes long, so watch it and share it. If you think it resonates with other people, please do that. And I'm also writing a new book new book, uh, Sara on human connection. I don't know exactly what the title of that book will be yet or when it's coming out, but I'm writing it this year and I'm very excited about it and I want it to be kind of like a handbook, something easy, with simple tools that you can just put in your bag and take it with you everywhere, and something that companies can get for all their employees.

Unni Turrettini: 28:52

And just something that is not too theoretical, but really understanding the importance of human connection and how can we actually improve it by simple daily tools.

Sara Best: 29:02

Love that, and gosh we would love to have you back on the podcast as your book drops so we can outline some of the key ideas and share that with people. I also have the TED Talk, so I will put that in the show notes so people can access it directly when they listen to this episode. Unni, you're special. We're grateful that you would join us for part two of this series and thank you for what you're cultivating in the world. Thank you so much, sarah. I appreciate you. Thank you and we'll see you next time on the Bossh ole Chronicles.

Announcer: 29:35

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