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Hello, it's Pete here, welcoming you to a mid-season review of Slice of Pie. It's been a steep learning curve in this world of podcasting, how to record, audio quality, editing, RSS feeds, it's like another language sometimes. One of the things Apple, Spotify, etc. like you to do is split the show into seasons, so we're currently halfway through season one. I thought, well, a nice big pie you could probably get 12 slices if you cut it well, so that's going to be the format. 12 slices per pie, 12 episodes per season. So, following Helen's interview, that makes us halfway through season one. Hence I thought, just like the sporting calendar where you might have a mid-season break or a review, this would be a good opportunity for a pause and reflection after six episodes. The first thing that came to mind was the word careers. Now, this is not a careers podcast, and I really didn't foresee at the outset how much this would crop up. However, I think it's been a running theme, whether it's been discussing the merits of building a wide base of experiences with Richard Keegan, transferable skills from education to psychology with Helen Davis, or the benefits of developing new skills to your main performance area with Switch the Play CEO Leon Lloyd. I've been reflecting on why a podcast aiming to investigate the psychologically informed environment would meander so much into careers chat. And I think it's because careers are what the pie ultimately serves. Within every environment, whether it's sport, business, medicine, education, leisure, the military, most of us are all building, managing, and navigating a career through it. The pie affects what skills we are able to develop, how well trained and supported we are, how challenged we are, and whether those challenges are appropriate and lead to growth, or are partnered with a lack of support and lead to unhelpful outcomes. The HR director at My Marketing Company says that all employment is an interaction between the organization and the employee. The organization has a responsibility to provide a certain level of support, access to opportunities, etc., but it's also incumbent on the employee to engage in this process, create their own opportunities, or even make a case for changes they feel are warranted. It's a partnership where both parties engage. Particularly in the sport world, the onus on building skills for a long-term career as well as short-term demands of elite performance seems to be gathering more momentum. It was great to hear all the work switch the play are doing in this area, and I'm glad to say that I managed to recently catch up with and interview Dr. Emma Vickers from TASS, the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme, and their mission is to help athletes in education to get the very best from their sporting and academic careers without having to choose between the two. So I'll be putting out that episode in two weeks' time, so look out for that one. So I mentioned this isn't meant to be a careers podcast. However, if you are looking for a careers podcast, Squiggly Careers by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tapper is a good one. Or if you're interested specifically in a career pivot, an old client of mine produces a podcast called The Slick Pivot Sessions. And books-wise, I've mentioned it in the podcast a few times, but I'll mention it again. The Startup of You by LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman is the best careers book that I've read. There's loads of clear and reasoned thinking, some really useful models like his ABZ planning tool. I've recommended this to a few people, and anecdotally, speaking to everyone who reads it, tends to have the same positive experience. Right, what else has cropped up over the first six slices of pie? I suppose another running theme which will continue because it's the main thrust of the podcast, are the elements that apply across environments and those that are contextually unique to different environments. It was a great reminder from Mark Jones in our conversation that in order to be a responsible, evidence-based practitioner, we should always take the time to understand the unique organizational, cultural demands of an environment first. However, in the same conversation, we also talked about how rest and recovery is probably one of those elements that can apply across all environments. This is one area where the focus, tracking, measurement of it in sport is really something where other environments such as business could learn a lot from. Another thing that could apply quite nicely across domains is Dr. Mustafa Saka's resilience framework or mental fortitude training. I really liked the 2x2 model for challenge and support, a tool for reflecting on the level and nature of challenges in any given environment and how we might match those challenges with support and resources. And crucially, how that support is then communicated to people. As Mustafa noted, the perception of support is almost more important than the actual support itself, which I found really fascinating. Frameworks and tools like this are great things to apply across environments because inherently they are flexible and able to become contextually relevant to the domain you're in and how it's applied. Another takeaway from that conversation was the importance of others in developing resilience, and for me, one of the key quotes of the podcast so far was Mustafa's assertion that we need to get past this thought that resilience is an ability to endure on our own. This really resonated for me personally as reflecting on every great period of challenge or stress in my life has only been navigated with the support of others. And really the points where I've been closer to breaking have tended to come when I've decided to shoulder things on my own in preference for opening up to others and risking showing that vulnerability. Maybe those listening will be able to make similar connections in their own lives. That brings me on to the final reflection, which is if sharing our challenges with others helps us build resilience, how do we know when to share and when to shoulder it ourselves? For me, this plays into one of Josephine Perry's main points in our conversation about helping to build more self-awareness. In psychology, there seems to be many terms for this metacognition, the observing self, self-awareness, but I suppose being ongoingly reflective allows us to constantly monitor how we feel, what we're thinking, whether this thinking is helpful, whether we need to make plans, whether we need to act, or whether we need to share with others. In my chat with Helen Davis, we talked about how when you've experienced lots of different environments, like how teachers might visit many, many other schools to learn about how they do things, this gives us a bigger picture of the world and an ability to triangulate what helps or hinders you within the environment you perform in. And linked to Josephine's self-awareness point, potentially the bigger your frame of reference, the more information you can input into that reflective machine. Right then, that's enough reflecting for now. If that sparked anything for you, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts, reflections, challenges or ideas. Feel free to reach out on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on my website, petejackson.co.uk. I've really enjoyed the sid conversations these podcasts have spawned in Twitter DMs, in Instagram DMs, over email, WhatsApp, so please keep them coming. The next episode will be out on Tuesday this week, opposed to Monday, so until then, have a good one and hopefully see you then. Cheers.