Greg McKeown:
Welcome everyone. I’m your host, Greg McKeown, and I am here with you on this journey to learn to be able to make our highest contribution together. But without burning out, have you ever struggled with a major transition in your life? Could be moving house, a new job, or a death in the family? It could be serious ill health, the loss of a job unexpectedly, moving to a new state or country, a relationship shift that you weren’t expecting, or many, many other small but still disruptive transitions. Well, today, in part one of a two-part interview, I’ve invited the wisest person I know, Anna McKeown, to come to the podcast to discuss the journey she has been on over the last 25 years as she has transitioned in her approach to transitions. From, on the one hand, struggling with transitions to becoming quite masterful in how to handle them. By the end of this episode, you will better understand what makes transitions challenging and what you can do about it immediately to cope better with them. Let’s get to it.
To get more out of today’s episode, listen with the intent to take one action, tiny as it can be, immediately within the first five to 10 minutes of having listened to today’s episode.
Anna, welcome back to the podcast.
Anna McKeown:
Hello, how are you, Greg?
Greg McKeown:
I’m disoriented. That’s how I’m doing. We have been talking about doing this episode for weeks now about one word, one subject, transitions. We just keep coming back to that theme. Share your own view about why that subject is the one we keep coming back to.
Anna McKeown:
Well, you just said you were disoriented, and it immediately made me think of the fact that you just flew in this morning.
Greg McKeown:
Yes. And not just flew in this morning, but have been going back-to-back flying. No, not just me, you, the whole family flying from various places going through an enormous number of transitions. So to suppose that’s self-explanatory, but there’s something you said when we were first married that transitions were something that were a challenge for you. And I just wonder, if you can, either from that perspective or from your perspective now, why are transitions so difficult for people in general?
Anna McKeown:
Well, that question implies that I’m an expert on this subject, and I am definitely not an expert on this subject in any kind of student. Like I haven’t studied this, I just know from personal experience I sometimes struggle with transitions. And I started to notice a pattern that I would have some sort of transition, be it moving away from home or leaving college and moving to a new country serving a mission, which was a very particular kind of experience with very strict rules and lifestyle. And eventually, somewhere in the transition, I would have some sort of struggle. And I don’t know if everyone feels that way. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of people don’t. A lot of people seem to transition really well, and for some reason, I have a little bit more of a difficult time. I’m not sure why. I just know kind of what happens.
Greg McKeown:
I don’t think you’re alone in this. I do think that for a person who is aware that they struggle with transitions, you might have married the wrong person. Because I mean, I think that in some ways, being married to me is just, is like to live in transition. Your thoughts.
Anna McKeown:
Is that a question?
Greg McKeown:
Yes. Is that what it’s like to live with me? Is life together a life in transitions?
Anna McKeown:
Well, it depends, you know, how broadly you wanna encompass what a transition is, you know? But do you love new adventures? Yes. Do you want to experience new things? Yes. Do you wanna travel to every country in the world? Yes. Do you like to explore new ideas continually looking for new ideas? Yes. You find all of that very exciting, and I, yeah, I enjoy that about you. I am attracted to that in you. And so it’s not a problem, you know, for me.
Greg McKeown:
Are you still attracted to that in me?
Anna McKeown:
Yes. But from our recent adventures and putting my foot down that I do not wanna move for at least four years.
Greg McKeown:
I mean, you are putting that out there now.
Anna McKeown:
I know. We’ll see, we’ll see how well I stick to that. Right. And how well you stick to it.
Greg McKeown:
Four years is such a long time when I think about the last four years.
Anna McKeown:
But, it’s not a long time. I mean, a lot can happen in four years, but to live in one place for four years, I mean, they say it takes two to three years to really settle into a community.
Greg McKeown:
That’s so true. I mean, you can do things to accelerate, you know, your adjustment and orientation to a new environment, but nevertheless, just building all of the relationships and building all of the routines and sequences of life, you, you know, you can get through the first wave of them quickly. But that seems consistent with my own experience.
It’s funny when I say the phrase, you know, is being married to me, living life in the transitions. And I was saying that phrase authentically, spontaneously, but it’s also the title of Bruce Feiler’s book, Life is In the Transitions, who I just interviewed as you know, on the podcast, people can go back and listen to episodes 193 and 195. He wrote a book about that, and he’s just written another book about it, how it applies to career transitions. But the reason I mention it is that one of the primary things he suggests is that all of us go through major transitions every two to three years of our lives.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.
Greg McKeown:
Tell me more.
Anna McKeown:
Well, I mean, I’m speaking from my limited perspective, so…
Greg McKeown:
No, we want your perspective.
Anna McKeown:
That’s gonna inform though my point of view. But raising children, I remember feeling like little children between the time they’re born and three years old. It is just one transition after another. And I remember thinking, oh, there’s just no end. There’s no end to this. There’s getting them on a day-and-a-night schedule and then teething and then food transitions. You know, you’re feeding them something, and or you start to feed them solids, and that affects them, and that affects all sorts of things. And naps constantly change. They go from sleeping all the time, just sleeping three times a day, two times a day, one time a day, every few days. Those are all transitions that required a lot of attentiveness as a parent to be in tune with and to recognize what was going on with them and what their needs were and such. But I just remember that epiphany maybe of going, oh, this, this is what being a baby is right now is what having a baby is, tuning into one transition after another.
Greg McKeown:
Well, and you are describing something that’s even more extreme than a major transition every two to three years you are describing Absolutely. Perpetual transition.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah. And then you multiply that by however many children you might have.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, well, exactly. And so, each child is going through perpetual transitions. And then, if you’re having multiple times, I mean, I think parenting is something like the ultimate startup in business. You know, when you talk to entrepreneurs, and of course, I am an entrepreneur, everything is in flux. You are constantly dealing with the next challenge, the next opportunity, the next shift in the market you are building constantly. So, but I think all of that, as challenging as that is, I think it pales in comparison with the speed of change when you are raising children, when you are helping them to grow and just seeing them grow so rapidly.
Anna McKeown:
Well, your description just brings to mind the curiosity that comes with all of it. I think entrepreneurs are, must be innately curious. That’s part of who they are. And that was a really important part for me of being a mom to my children was curiosity about these transitions, about these changes, about what’s happening and the effects that it’s having on them, and how I can smooth that for all of us so we can have, you know, as pleasant and healthy and experienced as possible.
Greg McKeown:
Well, I think that’s part of your genius, though. It’s the ability to help, well, that’s how you said it. Smooth the transitions, add this sort of bomb on the process so that it isn’t so jolted for everybody, that it isn’t, so you’re not banging into each other as hard as you otherwise would.
Anna McKeown:
Something that’s come to mind as you’re restating that is that smoothing the transitions. That’s a really interesting phrase. It helps me recognized, I think, the challenge that I had with transitions, particularly in my adolescence and, you know, young twenties or whatever. And that was that I didn’t anticipate any challenges with transitions. So when challenges become be it physical fatigue, mental fatigue, emotional fatigue, and the effect that would have on my emotional, physical, and mental state, that was shocking to me. It was surprising. I hadn’t expected it. And that was unpleasant for me because I didn’t know or anticipate those things. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t understand that this was a normal thing that would happen to someone in my situation. So my curious brain was going, okay, why is this happening? What’s wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me? Rather than this is just a part of transition, and you’re gonna feel crazy and upside down, and these things are very normal, so just allow it and wait it out. Or, you know, smooth the process, that kind of an approach. Yeah. I didn’t have those tools. I didn’t have that knowledge.
Greg McKeown:
We ought to feel disoriented in disorienting experiences.
Anna McKeown:
Yes. What I experienced is more compassion for myself and others. The more I’ve experienced transitions.
Greg McKeown:
There’s so many places to go here, but this idea that a normal response to an abnormal situation is abnormal is one of the most helpful ideas for me. When I talk to people, when I listen to people, and it doesn’t really matter who it is. It could be someone I’ve just met. It could be someone I know well. It could be, you know, my best friends in the world, when you listen to them, they’re struggling with something, they’re suffering with something, they’re going through challenging traumas, no, that’s not the right word. They might be going through traumas, but they’re certainly going through transitions. And what you’ve just articulated, I think, is one of the most interesting things where people seem to have the challenge itself. Then this double whammy where they’re going, as you described, what’s wrong with me? I should be able to deal with this. I shouldn’t be struggling with this. And I, I always find myself saying, of course, you should be struggling. This is your life. This is what’s going on. It is, as ever, I keep; everyone keeps correcting me in England disorientating rather than disorienting. But I now, I’m now, I’m just all, now I’m disoriented about being disorientated. So I don’t know how to write this language problem, but do you see what I’m saying?
Anna McKeown:
Yeah. As an outsider, it’s much easier to see what’s going on and to have that perspective, which is why I think friends who are outside of your situation are such an asset. Right. Having those people to talk to who can see sometimes clearer than we can all the things that are affecting us.
Greg McKeown:
Yes. There’s something about transition and change that so captures our attention. By definition, you have to give attention to it. It’s a little bit like when, if suddenly right now, you know, if there was a sound of a crash or there’s a loud sound of any kind, we would involuntarily, we would turn and look. You can’t not do that. And that’s what transition and change seems to be. It is just you, it just captures your attention. You have to look at it when you yourself are dealing with a transition. Your attention gets pulled to the transition. But sometimes, to such an extent that you don’t see, you know, you’re just dealing with it rather than being aware that you are dealing with it, which isn’t the same thing. You just get into a pattern. I mean, I think about the last nine months of our life, and we just have had so much transition. It’s been an adventure as well. So it’s both of these things.
Anna McKeown:
Yes, yes. And anyone who’s experienced lockdown went through a massive transition too. So I think everyone can remember some of their coping strategies for that, whether they were healthy or unhealthy.
Greg McKeown:
But the types of transition that people listening to this are going through are immense. Let’s list some of them. Let’s talk about that. Things that people could be dealing with right now, serious health challenges affecting themselves. A close family member that can be discombobulating more. Yeah. Your turn.
Anna McKeown:
Anything to do with a family marriage, baby pregnancy, death.
Greg McKeown:
Somebody going through a career shift where they’re trying to get a different job than they have, or they don’t have a job now. And that came unexpectedly in their career, and that’s completely thrown all of their assumptions up into the air.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah. I’m sticking with relationships. So the ending of a relationship, the beginning of a relationship, friendship, romantic, any of those tend to be massive transitions on either end.
Greg McKeown:
The decision to move to a new home, to go to a different state or a different country, or even just a different house within the same community.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah. Yeah. What grocery store is nearby, and where is the peanut butter in that grocery store? Or, you know, whatever the items are that you shop for.
Greg McKeown:
And a thousand decisions, literally a thousand decisions that you used to know how it was done and where it was.
Anna McKeown:
And it kind of on do on autopilot. It’s not on autopilot anymore.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. And the list could go on and on. And then you’ve got situations in which you have multiple major transitions happening at the same time. You know, because it doesn’t work that you just nicely get one major transition, and then everything else is normal. There’s a psychotherapist that I was listening to that made this argument that every major mental health crisis a person experiences has the same root cause. And what he was arguing is that the root cause is overwhelming complexity.
So they, they used a metaphor, they said, it’s like if you blow up a balloon, you know, larger and larger, at some point it pops because the weakest point in the balloon gets too much pressure. And so the whole thing bursts; it shatters. And that’s what it’s like when you have major transitions, especially multiple major transitions at the same time. It’s that the weakest point in your mental health gives way. And so that somebody then goes to a therapist and they say, oh, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling frustrated, I’m feeling depressed. I’m feeling, you know, whatever the manifesting symptom is. But underneath it all, it’s that major complexities will push somebody past their healthy mental state.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It makes me think of the metaphor where when you’re going through something, a transition, or a challenge, and you feel really weak, but metaphorically speaking, you’re caring more than you ever carried before. And so even though hopefully you’re growing stronger, you feel weaker than ever.
Greg McKeown:
I wanna build on that f first of all, I think of the times that you’ve expressed that sentiment to me. Oh, I feel, I just feel weak in this situation. It is so obvious to me in those moments that you are not being weak. That is such a misreading of the situation.
Anna McKeown:
Right. But it’s easy. I, and thank you for that. And thank you for saying that when I’ve been in those situations because it is helpful, and I need to hear that. I think how we get to how I get to that point is because I can’t do what I did before. So something has to change, and it feels like maybe a failure, or it feels like I’m not succeeding in the same way, and therefore, I’m doing less or doing worse, or that kind of thing.
Greg McKeown:
Okay. So we have, or at least I have, what I now call the green smoothie test for this. So, you know, we have a basic goal to drink a green smoothie every morning. Okay. So that’s like just a healthy thing. A healthy habit.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah. It works for us.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah.
Anna McKeown:
You like it.
Greg McKeown:
We do it. We don’t really like it. I remember when the Bridgedogs came over, and they called it the grim, you know, they drank it. They’re like, ah, this is this is pretty grim. So now we call it the grim. So it’s not that we like it; we just like torturing ourselves to drink this thing. This is not a fruit smoothie we’re talking about here. This is, this puts the green in green smoothie. This is what we’re talking about, serious greens.
Anna McKeown:
But we do add fruit. We do add fruit. It’s about equal parts fruit.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. Yeah. It, it depends on, it depends on the day. Which sort of gets me back to the point, which is that when we first went to England, it took us months to get back to that habit. Because the, because…
Anna McKeown:
The blender like…
Greg McKeown:
The blender in the US, and you can’t just bring it with you because that doesn’t work. And then the voltage has changed. And then, finally, after months of being there, you were able to get a voltage transitioner. And that worked pretty well. And then blew up after a few weeks. And it’s like, I remember when we finally…
Anna McKeown:
Well, every time we tried to use it, it would quit. Yes. Do you remember that? We’d have to reset it numerous times.
Greg McKeown:
Numerous times to blend just to get it done one time. And then, eventually, all the pieces are in place, and you’re actually pretty much getting back to doing that daily.
Anna McKeown:
But it took months.
Greg McKeown:
It took months. And so if you don’t have a disruptive transition, that thing happens. It’s just, you know, build the routine, all the pieces of that ecosystem, supply chain. And it is like that. Right? Because you, it’s not just do this new thing, every new habit’s like this, it’s not just do this thing that sounds simple. It’s you have to have all of the pieces in place where you buy those particular foods. On what days, how you have it either coming to you or you are going to get it. Then you have to have the machinery working, and then you have to have someone who’s doing it and assigned to doing it. And all of these threads, once they’re established, it all seems simple. But transitions, major transitions, disrupt all of those routines.
Anna McKeown:
Yeah, I agree with that analysis. That feels very accurate. Knowing that is half of the battle, I think with transitions is it’s normalizing that this is gonna be different, and it’s gonna take a while until we feel like we have a routine or like we have a new normal. I know that is a very tired phrase now.
Greg McKeown:
Thank you. Really, thank you for listening. What is one idea that stands out to you, and what is one thing that you can do about it in the next few minutes to put it into practice? And who is somebody that you can share this episode with so that you can continue the conversation? The first five people who write a review of this episode on Apple Podcasts will get free access to the Essentialism Academy for one year. Just go to essentialism.com/podcastpromo for details, and I’ll see you next time.
