Your emotional intelligence helps you separate your personal life from your work life, allowing you to concentrate on your tasks. This is called compartmentalization, which is a way our brain manages multiple conflicting perspectives at the same time. But, to what degree do you engage in compartmentalization? Or in other words, do you categorize things to make sense of them?

Join me for a fascinating conversation with Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D., the founder of Blue Bamboo Leadership. With a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Indiana State University, Mary is a seasoned expert in the field of leadership development. Mary shares her insights on how to overcome anxiety and make better decisions in less time, by improving relationships and breaking down internal barriers. 

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from one of the leading voices in leadership development!
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Listen to the podcast here:

Achieving Mental Resilience with Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D.
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote for the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One thing a lot of us tend to do is really compartmentalize our lives and this kind of goes back to some of the old school work cultures we used to have where this time of day, you’re working, this time of day, you’re taking care of this stuff, this time of day, you’re taking care of that, and we tend to do the same thing with our initiatives, with our mindset on everything. Your work is here, your business is here, your social life is here, your whatever else is important to you in your life is over there. However, unfortunately, or fortunately for a lot of people because it can actually expedite some of the improvements we want to make into all of our lives, they are very well connected. The idea of leave it at the door when you come into work, leave your personal life at the door, that is quite possibly one of the 20th century’s most unrealistic ideas. My guest today, Mary Meduna-Gross, has a business called Blue Bamboo Leadership where she advocates to her clients that we actually take care of ourselves in order to take care of our business as well as some other kind of personal initiative.

 
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Mary, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you. It’s so great to be here. I’m really looking forward to this, particularly this topic about compartmentalizing. It’s something that I am personally well aware of my own habits to compartmentalize and it’s often a topic that comes up in my coaching with my clients.

 

So what I want to do is get to the beginning of this. Where does this urge to compartmentalize our lives come from in your belief?

 

Yeah. Oh, I love that question. Well, literally just before this call, a client and I were having this conversation. We were talking about it. And based on what that part and my own experience, I think that compartmentalizing is one way that we control our experience. I love systems. I just love it. Like if I could put everything on automation, I probably would. I think that is compartmentalizing to the 10th, maybe even 11th degree. But I think we do that as a way, again, to control what is happening. When our work life and our personal life and our relationships and Lord knows if we have kids or pets or anything else, like things just get muddied, and so by compartmentalizing, I get to say, “Okay, I’m gonna just focus on this right now and nothing else matters, and then when I get to my home life, I’m just focusing on this now and nothing else matters.” We literally can’t function that way.

 

Yeah, but is there an advantage to having that level of focus? Because it is really hard to really get anything done when your mind is everywhere all at once.

 

Yeah. I think it’s the middle way again. There’s the everything is automated and just happens on a routine, and the other side of that is nothing’s automated and we’re recreating everything every single day. We can’t live like that either. 

 

Yeah.