081: VOY: Body and Soul

Welcome! Thanks for joining me today. How are you doing? Or, as the computer in Star Trek 4 asked Mr Spock, How do you feel? As leaders we have to check in with ourselves often and ask these questions. But we also have to do something about them. We are going to talk about self care! Not only how important it is, but also how to prioritize it and make sure you are doing it. Let’s get right into it, in the 7^th episode of the 7^th season, Body and Soul.

<<Transporter>>

The Delta Flyer, with Ensign Kim, the Doctor and Seven of Nine are out investigating a comet while the USS Voyager is off doing Delta quadrant stuff. The Doctor is finding some cool stuff and everything is going smoothly. Until it isn’t. “We’re under attack!” 1:56 An alien vessel is attacking them and charging them with a crime. “You’re transporting a photonic insurgent.” 3:57 These Lokirrim are at war with photonics, or holograms, and have read the Doctor being on board. To save the Doctor, they upload his program into Seven’s Borg tech. She claims the Doctor’s program has been destroyed by their weapons. They arrest Seven and Kim and are taking them to their homeworld for trial.

Kim is kind of freaking out. The Doctor is gone, they’re locked in a call. And then, um, Seven, tells the whole story. “The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” 6:34 Yep! The Doctor is basically co-inhabiting Seven’s body. He’s in control and she’s along for the ride. This is the first time he’s really experienced a lot of what biologicals take for granted: smell, feeling, pain. He, in her body, bangs up against the forcefield in the cell just to experience it.

On Voyager, Tuvok is not doing well. With the Doctor gone, Tom Paris is handling it. Luckily, he’s well prepared for the situation. “This wouldn’t be an every 7-years imbalance?” 9:05 Yep! Tuvok is experiencing Pon Farr; the mating drive of the Vulcans that cycles every 7 years. Tuvok wants to use a treatment the Doctor cooked up, along with meditation to get through it, but Tom has other plans. Plans that of course Tom Paris would have! “I do have one area of expertise. The holodeck.” 20:41 Tuvok resists, he will stay loyal to his wife, “I am a married man.” 20:50ish but Paris makes a strong case, and he begrudgingly agrees. And it works! “I have fully recovered.” 41:14

Unfortunately, the holodeck triggers the Lokirrim patrols and they go after them. Janeway flexes, “Your sensors should also confirm we are ready to fire.” 22:59 and they agree to escort them outside of their space.

Doctor Seven is really enjoying their time. “I had no idea eating was such a sensual experience.” 10:17 They get way out of hand with this, eventually downing cheesecakes…yes, plural, cheesecakes, and so much more food. They even get drunk! They get to do a lot of that because the Lokirrim are questioning them and they’re responding in a way only The Doctor could. “Can it be used to make bioweapons? Only Neelix’s stew.” 12:16 They get on very well with their captors, becoming friends with the one acting as their doctor, and the captain taking maybe a little too much of a liking. “I once thought this was the most beautiful sight in the sector.” He says as he’s showing Doctor Seven a pulsar, and then, “I see now I was wrong.” 25:49 Nice try, my dude, but, swing and a miss! “You were wrong.” 26:46

It wasn’t all for naught, though. In between the beautiful scenery and the failed come-ons, Seven was able to observe the command codes for the Lokirrim ship. They use that to send their location to Voyager who breaks away from their escort and heads in for the save. Voyager uses the command codes, along with some help from Seven, to disable the ship’s weapons and shields. In the fray, the Lokirrim captain is injured, badly. They convince the crew to let the Doctor help him, and he does.

The Doctor, Seven and Harry Kim return to Voyager and this Lokirrim crew have a slightly more enlightened view of photonic lifeforms. On the ship, the Doctor and Seven enjoy a meal together as she describes the dishes to him.

<<Red Alert>>

A kinda weird, but fun episode that, above anything else, really showcases Jeri Ryan and her next level acting skills. It also really lays some groundwork for the exploration of holograms and their potential sentience and the rights that come with that. But I am most excited to talk about some of the acting and the choices made in this one.

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There was a real deep story in this one that kind of hand-waved away, focusing on their captivity instead of body autonomy, but they didn’t completely ignore it. The Doctor was literally inhabiting and controlling Seven’s body and all she could do was observe. Imagine being an observer in your own body, powerless to take control! “You’ve had quite a shock. You’ve been abusing my body.” 16:17

This would have been a cool story to explore, but it wasn’t at all what this was meant to be. I’m just grateful they acknowledged it. Instead of diving into this, they focused more on the duty of a captured officer being to escape, and that’s cool too. Just a cool sci fi concept to think about a little bit. Maybe what made this especially ok was that they even took a step to have them reach an agreement. “You’re saving my life. Remember that.” 17:54 And this even came up a few times when Doctor Seven had to say no to more food or booze.

Now, if you ever do a search for Voyager gifs or memes, you will see a lot of images from this episode! Seven with her hair down looking more than a little loose and drunk, the Doctor making a squishy, weird face, and a few more. It was cool when I watched this one and I turned into the Leonardo DiCaprio meme, pointing at the TV and being like, that’s the thing! They did the thing!

Being this is a leadership podcast, I do feel like I need to point out that Janeway was honestly a bully in this one. Threatening the Lokirrim and even blasting their escort to go off and get the Delta Flyer. She was swinging a heavy hammer and that we really uncool of her.

Oh, one more really cool story buried in this one that would have been cool to dive into. I mean, ultimately they do, later in the season. Kind of. Later in the 7^th season of the show they really explore holograms and their potential for becoming sentient. Echoes of Measure of a Man in TNG with Data. But this one kind of planted some seeds for that in that the Lokirrim are basically at war with holograms, or photonics, as they call them.

When Doctor Seven is working in their Medlab, it comes up that holograms were a part of normal life for these people. And then they apparently rose up. Reminds me of the Kaylon storyline in the 3^rd season of The Orville. As they talk about it, the Doctor sees it from the photonic viewpoint and it leads to a short back-and-forth that I wish we got more of. “Before he joined the insurgency. Did he feel subjugated?” 19:05 But, again, in a roundabout way, we revisit this theme later in the season.

But, like I said, the magic in this episode is Jeri Ryan. She is playing the Doctor for most of the episode and she is amazing! I read that Robert Picardo would film some of the scenes, as the Doctor, for her to study and mimic. That prep really shines through. Her voice changes, her mannerisms, and how she carries herself. Super well done.

This is very entertaining episode that also has some Vulcan Pon Farr stuff in it. You’re not going to get a lot story out of it, but it is an absolute clinic from Jeri Ryan.

<<Command Codes>>

How do you take care of yourself? Leaders often have to share the emotional impacts and burdens of many people. It is hard enough to handle the emotions and stresses of our own lives, but sharing them with 5, 10, 50, 200 or even more people? How do you do that? Thanks to Doctor Seven’s approach to sensations and experiences, we get glimpse into how to actually take care of ourselves. I also get to talk about one of my favorite subjects: choice.

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How often have you heard someone say, or how often have you said, I have no choice? We hear it all the time on TV and in movies, usually right before someone gets hurt or they go to war. But we hear it in our real lives all the time too. As of the time of this recording, layoffs have been in the news a lot. And a common refrain from CEO’s – who often still get some sweet bonuses after they do these layoffs – is that they had no choice. The Lokirrim captain even pulls this out when Doctor Seven confronts his about arresting them and Ensign Kim. “I hope you understand, I had no choice. Just following orders.” 14:32 When I hear this excuse, I call bullsh*t.

You always have a choice. Always. That doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant or even acceptable choice, but you have one. I will acknowledge that we often feel like we don’t have a choice, that we have to do a thing, or bad things will happen, but, even in those cases, we still have a choice. I’m reminded of an episode of Babylon 5 I watched just a few weeks ago for my other podcast, Babylon 5 For the First time. In the third season episode, Point of No Return, Maj…spoiler alert, go ahead and skip ahead like 15 seconds if you haven’t watched that episode yet, but, Majel Barrett shows up! Yes! Star Trek herself is on Babylon 5! She plays the widow of an Emperor and, it is believed that she still speaks for him. And that she certainly does! She drops some real wisdom in this one. But, to this question of choice, she says, Lwaxana Troi hitting us with the tough messages even in an entirely different universe. I love it.

These moments pop up in our work quite a bit. Sometimes it’s when you’re setting the schedule. ‘Sorry I scheduled you to close, but I had no choice,’ or it’s much more extreme, ‘I hate that we are having to lay all 1,200 of you off, but I had no choice.’ I mean, really? You really had no choice? Let’s play these out. Let’s say you don’t schedule the person. What happens? You’re short a person for a shift? Maybe you have to cover. Maybe someone works a double or a shift they haven’t been trained for yet. See? There are 3 or 4 choices right off the top of my head.

Need to lay people off? Well, let’s say you don’t. So you run out of money and shut the business down. Maybe you, as the owner or CEO don’t get paid as much, or at all. Or maybe, if you’re in the CEO or executive director type position you just refuse to do it and the Board fires you. Again, right here, off the top of my head are 3 choices. Now, I’m not kidding myself or trying to kid you. These are terrible choices, but so is laying someone off or scheduling them against their availability. But you have already made your decision, already made your choice and, just like the Lady Morella in Babylon 5 said, you’re saying you have no choice just to comfort yourself over a decision you’ve already made.

I even think of the movie Alien 3! I wildly divisive film that came out in 1992. I remember seeing this in the theatre when it came out. It has some absolutely iconic scenes in it! One of them is, again, spoiler alert here, if you haven’t seen the movie, but Ripley kills herself to stop the xenomorph embryonic queen from being unleashed. I was shocked when this happened and I remember my Dad telling me that she had no choice. The queen would have been able to establish itself and ultimately destroy humanity. But, again, she had a choice. She could have let the Weyland-Yutani corporation get the queen, she could have escaped and let the queen bust out and then be on its own. Both choices would have been extinction level events, most likely, but they are, indeed, choices.  

So, my unique call to action on this one. Take that phrase out of your vocabulary. There is always a choice. Always. Just sometimes, the decision you make is the best, or the most right, out of a series of really, really bad ones.

And a really, really bad decision that a lot of, specifically those of us in leadership positions, is not taking care of ourselves. And not just getting enough sleep and staying home when we’re sick. I’m talking real self-care. The World Health Organization defines self-care as the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. Wow, that’s a lot to chew on! Let me break it down a little more for you.

Self-care is taking care of yourself. Getting enough sleep and staying home when you’re sick is part of that, but so is eating right, exercising, and generally taking care of yourself. But not just your physical self. Self-care also addresses your mental, emotional spiritual self. So, that’s it. Super simple, right? Just take care of yourself and you’ve checked the box on self-care. Congratulations! But if it’s so simple, why do I need to talk about it and why isn’t everyone doing it?

That answer might be pretty complex and dive into our unhealthy obsession with work. The fact we tend to equate personal value with our professional successes. The impression that some people have that needing care is a sign of weakness and the perception of weakness is unacceptable. But, the reality is it take strength to know what you need for yourself and to get it.

This episode of Voyager gives us a very extreme example. Seven of Nine tends to practice a lot of personal restrictions. “It’s not often that I overindulge like that.” 25:00 Some might call it self-discipline, but the Doctor thinks of it more as self-deprivation. Neither here is wrong, but neither is actually right, either.

Part of self-care is enjoying what the world has to offer. That can be nature, or music, and, yes, even cheesecake sometimes. But another part of self-care is moderation or self-regulation. Having a slice of cheesecake as opposed to an entire cheesecake, for example.

What I don’t want you to hear here is that eating cheesecake is self-care! This is just an example, and this example illustrates some of the misconceptions around self-care. It is neither self-indulgent nor selfish, and, as the episode shows at the end, it is about taking time away from the day-to-day to experience something. For Seven and the Doctor it’s time together with her basically making a mukbang video for him.

Let’s just do a quick recap of this self-care stuff so far. Jeff says you need to do it and that it means taking time away from your day-to-day. He also said it can involve cheesecake but not an entire cheesecake. If you are at all like me, that’s not quite enough. So let’s dive into why self-care is important, specifically for leaders.

One of the biggest is stress. When you practice good self-care, you can better handle the stresses that come with leadership. You are able to see the bigger picture more clearly and not get bogged down in the weeds. This happens because your mind will be more open to seeing all the angles. It also helps you recognize and enforce your boundaries and barriers. It builds self-confidence and reinforces self-esteem, both being critical for effective leadership. Practicing good self-care naturally builds an attitude of gratitude. Yeah, that’s become a cliché, but it’s also a very real thing that actual, for reals science shows us makes you a happier person. Finally, this practice, when done by you, as the leader, encourages the people you work with to do the same. They will also enjoy these benefits which ultimately results in a higher quality of work on a more consistent basis.

So, you’re in? You get it? I mean, to belabor the point, the opposite is all true if you do not practice good self-care. Stress builds up, you put blinders on, you can’t pause to see the bigger picture so you lose sight of what you’re working for. It is no good. But, how do you actually get into the practice?

Big caveat before I dive into this. The real answer to how is entirely up to you. Only you will know what is effective and what isn’t. That said, lean on your trusted people: colleagues, mentors, friends, significant others. People that know you and can help you find the practices that work for you.

If you look in the show notes, you’ll see a link to a document from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA. This goes into great detail on overall wellness and how practicing good self-care impacts that. It’s an easy read and I highly recommend it. So, let’s hit the highlights.

Our overall wellness is multidimensional and all dimensions must be cared for. The dimensions are emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational, and social. You can see how these all overlap and influence each other. If my occupational wellness isn’t very good, meaning, for example, I am underemployed, there could be direct impacts to my financial and intellectual wellness.

The document goes on to share ideas on how to address each dimension of wellness and some of them make for good self-care. I’ll give some examples. Physical wellness focuses on nutrition, exercise and sleep, along with others, but these three things are a great, and relatively easy way to start a self-care practice. Intellectual wellness practices include brain exercises and games. Financial wellness is harder from a self-care perspective, but the one thing this document brings up that I encourage as much as I can and that is to avoid debt when possible. A great environmental wellness practice is to get outside. Give yourself a change of scenery. A few years ago I started plugging my headset into my phone and taking meetings while I went for a walk. It doesn’t just get me out of the house, but also gets me some exercise and helps keep the meeting on topic because I am a little more eager to complete the meeting. Spiritual wellness will, of course, be very personal. This can be meditation, prayer or even study.

Social wellness practices really boil down to meaningful interactions with other people. In workplaces I have seen walking clubs, gaming clubs and other groups that meet on breaks or lunches and spend time together. From a self-care perspective, occupational wellness, to me, comes down to two categories. First, is your job satisfying the things you want to do. Does it fill your bucket? I’ll share a quick story on this in a minute. Second, are you balancing your work time with your personal and self-care time? Finally, emotional wellness. The SAMHSA document literally lists self-care as a thing to do for this. But it also offers journaling, yoga and social interactions.

So there are a handful of examples of self-care that address, directly, the 8 dimensions of wellness. Again, yes, these take time, but they are a no-lose investment. And if you’re thinking any of this sounds selfish or self-indulgent, listen to the Doctor. “When did it become a crime to enjoy a sensation or two?” 30:17

I said I was going to share a quick story. A few years ago I was assigned to a position for a very administrative team. It was to be a short-term assignment but there was a lot going on. So my supervisor, the CAO, and I were meeting regularly. He was so keyed in to my occupational wellness, he would regularly ask me if the job was keeping me happy and filling my bucket; I always loved that phrase. He knew that these administrative tasks the team was responsible for wasn’t high up on my list of interests, but ensured I was finding ways to stay occupationally well. And I was. I was able to make a real difference in the work-lives of the people on that team and that is absolutely what fills my bucket.

So know that taking care of yourself, practicing self-care is critical in being an effective leader. It takes time away from the tasks right in front of you, but it makes you better at accomplishing those tasks. Self-care is a necessary investment that does pay off.

And, while the Doctor says “Indulgences are what make life worth living.” 30:36, that is not really what this is all about. I would take his assessment and tweak a little bit and say that self-care is what makes life rewarding.

<<Hailing Frequencies>>

I am going to come right out and say it. No beating around the bush. If you are not subscribed to the Starfleet Leadership Academy mailing list, you are really missing out. You can click the link in the show notes or visit starfleetleadership.academy to sign up.

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Here’s what will happen. You sign up and will get access to this really cool tool I developed, based on the 30th episode of the podcast where we watched Discovery’s Choose Your Pain. Saru asked the computer to rate his leadership and I thought that was great, so I adapted it into a document you can use. After that, there is a short series of emails you will get sporadically over the next few months introducing you other aspects of the Starfleet Leadership Academy, like the blog and patreon. Outside of that welcome series, I send an email every other week, along with each episode, that will often add to the discussion to the podcast. I also share other podcasts, videos or blogs that I think you’ll find interesting and valuable as well.

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Computer, what are we going to watch next time….

It’s a two-parter! And for two-parters we watch both of them. The 26^th episode of the 4^th season and the first episode of the 5^th season of The Next Generation, Redemption. The Klingon Empire is on the brink of civil war and it’s up to Worf, and his brother, to make sure everything ends up ok. These episodes get pretty wild and a lot happens. It’s going to be exciting to watch this one with you.

Until then, Ex Astris Scientia!