The Two Piers Podcast
The Two Piers Podcast is focused on discussions of workplace culture and inclusion, as well as providing tools and resources for individuals. We tackle the underlying systemic issues, while also giving the support needed in the short term for those facing challenging work environments.
The Two Piers Podcast
Choosing Possibility: A Conversation on Optimism, Awareness, and Nature-Based Coaching with Adam Bouse
Choosing Possibility with Adam Bouse: Grounded Optimism, Self-Awareness, and Nature-Based Coaching
In this episode of the Two Piers Podcast, we talk with Adam Bouse, founder of Optimistic Coaching, about what it means to choose possibility in an uncertain world. Adam shares his path from emotional intelligence imbalance to becoming a coach who helps people build grounded optimism, deepen their self-awareness, and reconnect with nature as a source of resilience.
The conversation explores how optimism can be a disciplined practice rather than a personality trait, why understanding our own internal signals matters more than we realize, and how nature-based coaching opens up new ways of processing stress and finding clarity. Adam also talks about his own experiences with grief and how they shaped his understanding of resilience.
Listeners will come away with practical ideas for managing energy, building presence, and applying optimism in a realistic and meaningful way.
Topics Covered
• Adam’s origin story and his work with the EQI 2.0 assessment
• Balancing empathy and decision-making as part of emotional intelligence
• The philosophy behind Optimistic Coaching
• The difference between dispositional optimism, learned optimism, and toxic positivity
• Viktor Frankl’s concept of tragic optimism
• How cognitive biases and interoception influence perception
• The role of nature in regulating stress and shaping perspective
• Evidence-based benefits of forest bathing and nature exposure
• Practical ways to build resilience and grounded optimism
• Self-compassion, realistic expectations, and everyday presence
• How to connect with Adam and learn more about his work
About Adam Bouse
Adam Bouse is the founder of Optimistic Coaching, where he helps individuals explore possibilities, build resilience, and develop deeper self-awareness. He uses emotional intelligence assessment, grounded optimism, and nature-based coaching to support personal and professional growth. Adam offers a free 90-minute discovery session to help people gain clarity and explore next steps.
Learn more at https://optimisticcoaching.com
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo, and today we have guest Adam Bouse joining us. Adam is the founder of optimistic coaching, where he helps people move from feeling stuck to finding new possibilities. He draws on more than 15 years of leadership experience and over 1000 hours of coaching to guide clients in navigating change and living a more grounded, fulfilling life with a philosophy rooted in positive psychology, neuroscience and nature based experiences, Adam believes everyone deserves the chance to thrive and discover the clarity, connection and fulfillment they've been longing for. Adam's here to talk to us today about staying optimistic when there's plenty of reason not to be and we're so excited to have him on the podcast. Adam, thank you so much for joining us.
Adam Bouse:Thank you, Erica. I'm really excited and looking forward to the conversation with you.
Erica D'Eramo:I you know I typically a lot of our a lot of our focus is on challenges, overcoming challenges, navigating challenging workplaces. And I just feel like this optimistic framework that you, that you've been sharing about, really resonated for me, and it's sort of a breath of fresh air and a very different way of thinking about things. So I was really, really looking forward to having this conversation with you.
Adam Bouse:I appreciate that. Yeah, I think it's something that can be maybe overly simplistic in the way that we talk about it. Of let's, you know, pursue happiness and let's find our satisfaction. But I think there's a deeper, richer story to tell around optimism and that it's all inclusive. It doesn't have to just be sunshine and rainbows, but it's like, how do we actually walk through the hard stuff and maintain a positive outlook and have that sense of optimism?
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, so I almost always open with kind of asking, what's your origin story? What? What brought you to this point in your coaching journey and your professional journey?
Adam Bouse:Yeah, my origin story goes back probably 15 years by now, the 13, 14, 15 years and I was working an organization in Oklahoma, and just part of the culture was six months into being on staff, you took an emotional intelligence assessment. Now I'm a nerd like that, and I love that kind of stuff, assessments and tools and things like that, and I took it, and it was really powerful. It's called The EQI 2.0 and it gives you this really intentional process of understanding how skillful you are at these measurable, teachable, trainable skills of emotional intelligence. And there was a lot to be like, excited about and to feel good about. But then there was also this massive imbalance that I discovered I had, and the imbalance was between empathy and decision making. Turns out, I'm really, really good at empathizing and understanding other people, but because of that, and this was I was in my, you know, mid to late 20s, pushing on 30, I was really good at taking all this information about how other people are feeling and thinking and what they're experiencing, but oftentimes, when it came to decision making time, I would, I would freeze because I was so worried about, well, how will this impact other people and so things like independence and assertiveness just really, really low and in the basement. So I, had the chance to work with a coach on my specific results, and just in that short amount of time. It wasn't a very long engagement, but it was a really cool opportunity to just sort of synthesize life experiences and talk about nature versus nurture, and really dig in and figure out, like, okay, so it's not that I need to get rid of my empathy. Empathy is a good thing, and I will, I will fight tooth and nail for that belief. But how do I bring them into a balance? Because I was over weighing or overvaluing data I was getting from what other people were experiencing or what they might grew up in life, experiences, whatever. It's a potentially experience, so I was thinking a lot of thoughts for people, but not actually tuning into what they were actually experiencing. So all that to say is I did a lot of work and strength for me 100% and I can over rely on it. I can use it in experienced a ton of growth, personally and professionally. And when I got done, I said, I want to do that for people too, like I want to be able to take them through that assessment, have those conversations and help them learn and grow. And so I got certified, I was able to take my team at the time with that through that assessment. And I've been using that assessment now for 12 years, not always as a full part of my full ways that aren't actually productive and helpful. So it time job, sometimes on the side, sometimes in different nonprofits or organizations I've been connected to. But that's, that's how I got started. It's just this sense of like, oh, I experienced this new level of self awareness, and I was able to grow and develop. How do I how do I do that for other people? That's what I want creates the shadow of like, well, I'm just stuck. I want someone else to make the decision, because I'm afraid of upsetting people or making the wrong decision and having a negative impact on other people, all the while kind of ignoring how that's having a negative impact on me. So it was really eye opening. I, you know, it's I haven't perfected it, something that I still have to keep my eye on, but it's something I've definitely seen a ton of growth in starting with those first coaching conversations about, hey, empathy is a really good thing. How can you bring that back into balance?
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, and shout out to EQI 2.0 so, yeah, big, big fan of that assessment, actually, which is interesting, because that is one of the few assessments that there's really good data behind some of the the the outcomes and the measurements around that. Then there's assessments out the wazoo. And especially when you're in coaching, you kind of see a lot of them. But EQ, I was one of the ones that for a data person, because I am sort of stuck in that logic side of things that I do love, that it's really, yeah, has the rigor behind it. So how would you describe some of your philosophy in this realm, when we talk about optimistic coaching, like, what? What does that mean?
Adam Bouse:Yeah, I think you actually have to have a really good to be a great coach. You actually have to have a really high belief in the potential of people. Because, as you said, like, I'm not here to fix you, I'm not here to solve your problems. I'm actually here. I love the way that Jerry colonna, he's someone that I see as a coaching mentor from a distance. I don't know him personally, but he sometimes is called the CEO whisperer, and he's a coach, and he runs his company, reboot.io, if people want to check it out, but he describes coaching as helping people become better observers of themselves. And so I really, I really believe that people are capable. I believe that they have the resources that they need in order to take their next steps. So I really start from a place of like, yeah, everyone is inherently worthy of belonging in the conversation, in their own potential, in their growth. You know, I use the word love sometimes, which maybe isn't the most professional thing in some circles, but I believe everybody is worthy of that love and that belonging. And so I really want to just come from a place of I believe in you and wherever you are is okay, and I'm here to help you see yourself in the world around you, maybe a little bit more clearly based on your own discovery, based on your own observations, based on your own motivation. And when we tap into that, we know from the science and the research, but we also know experientially, when people take ownership of their own development and their own growth. So so much more powerful than someone coming in and saying, hey, you need to do this. You need to do that. You know there's, yeah, there's all kinds of research we could dig into. But that's where I start from, just that place of everyone belongs, everyone is capable, and everyone deserves the chance to figure out what thriving looks like for them.
Erica D'Eramo:So where does optimism come into play?
Adam Bouse:Yeah, so optimism is something that I've been thinking about for probably five or six years. And you know, I think it started from just a place of curiosity in the research, hearing a talk or reading an article and going, Oh, optimism. I haven't really dug into the into the research on that, what that means. And as I dug into it and I read around it, Martin Seligman is, is one of the great writers and fathers of positive psychology, and he has a book called Learned Optimism, which is a great primer, a great way to get started in understanding it. The more I dug in, the more I realized is that optimism really is, from my perspective, just this cornerstone skill and also just a way of being that really shapes what your experience is going to be like going forward. So for me, the definition I use, the description I use for optimism, is choosing to find possibilities in an unknown future. And I use that definition because I think sometimes people hear optimism and they go optimistic, pessimistic, half glass, half full. Glass, half empty. And. Okay, I get it. It's one of those words that we've heard it so many times, it kind of starts to lose its meaning, which is why I've come up with this definition about choosing to find possibilities and unknown future. Because I believe, and the research backs this up, is that it's actually a skill. It's something that you can develop. It's in the EQI 2.0 right? It's in there. That's something that we can measure and we can teach and we can develop and we can remeasure. And really it is this skill that says, hey, you know what? I'm going to actively choose to believe that from where I'm standing today, there's, there's an option, there's an option, there's an option, there's, there are options. And I'm going to actively decide to look for the options, look for the possibilities, especially when I don't know what's going to happen, because if I know what's going to happen, well then I'm not it's not a practice of optimism. It's certainty. Yeah, there are some things we can be certain about, but there's so much in life that we cannot be certain about. Life is nothing, if not out of our control. And so I see optimism as this fundamental belief of, you know what? I don't know what's coming. I don't know how this is going to play out, but I'm going to choose to believe that I have options.
Erica D'Eramo:It's so interesting to hear you frame it that way, because, on the one hand, I mean, I don't know that many people would describe me as overly optimistic, because I'm an engineer, right? I'm always looking for, how could this go wrong? And yet, I also feel like I am one of the people in life where when I come up against a barrier or a roadblock, I'm like, okay, but there's got, there's got to be a way right, like, how maybe we go right, maybe we go left, but there's, let's just get creative. There's got to be some options here. And I have seen that that's not always, not not everyone has that same ethos of, kind of, what? So what do we do now? Like, okay, not this, but maybe something else, like, what? What are the possibilities here? And I don't know that I've ever thought about it as optimism, necessarily. And the whole glass, half empty glass, half full thing has always made me laugh. Because when I was kid, I was like, But wait, which one's a good one and which one's the bad one? Because to me, I'm like, the glass is only half empty. Isn't that good? Which maybe goes to show, like, just that engineering orientation was built in pretty early. But the idea that optimism is not necessarily just Pollyanna thinking or kind of this toxic positivity of like it'll all work out in the end, totally. It might not all work out in the end, but there even then, there's still options. You will always have options in one way.
Adam Bouse:Yeah, absolutely. And I think you get to a really important point is that, like, there is this sense of like, oh, that we think about optimistic people being the ones who are, like, full of energy, and like, they're going to run through walls and nothing can stop them. And I think, okay, maybe that is a flavor of optimism. But I think we have to make a distinction between dispositional optimism and more of a learned optimism, or what I like to call it, a grounded optimism. Dispositional optimism is essentially this sort of personality trait, this characteristic that may have some connection back to our DNA, where we tend to believe that yeah, things are going to work out, right? I think there are people who have that disposition. There are also people who have the disposition of Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not going to work, right. So we might call that a dispositional pessimism. And I don't know that we need to put labels on good, bad, like people are the way that people are right. What I'm glad for it too. Yeah, right. We need those voices. We need to test, we need to push and challenge and have these debates about what is and isn't possible. But I think what I'm most interested in is really sitting down with people and helping them lean into this idea of I can see reality clearly. I can see the challenges and the risks and the gaps and the needs, and it doesn't make me quit. It doesn't make me give up. I can actually choose, this is the definition, right. I can choose to believe that there are possibilities. I may not know what the possibilities are, but I'm going to remain open to the idea that there are possibilities, and I want to go find them.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, I I never want to be dismissive of people's experience or pain. And so when people say like, I have no options, it's, you know, I want to receive that and hear that and acknowledge the pain or frustration or hopelessness in that. I also think, like, you know, there's been a lot of writing done by people like Viktor Frankl about how, you know, even when it looks like there are no options, no it is the bleakest it could possibly be, there is still choice in how we show up that day, how we put one foot in front of the other, and that the loss of hope, or the loss to loss of, you know, visibility of any options at all can that, in and of itself, can actually be what becomes fatal, right? Can be such a determining factor. And you know, Nelson Mandela wrote a lot about this as well. So there are some really incredible folks throughout history who have explored, even when we our physical environment has been limited so extremely, like, there's still options about how we relate to it and how we decide to engage with hope. So...
Adam Bouse:Yeah, there's two things that come to mind for me, and that one is, is that Viktor Frankl literally calls it tragic optimism. Like, that's the phrase he uses in the book man search for me, and he calls it Tragic Optimism. Gosh, and if that's not a story that compels you to believe that, like, we do still have some agency in how we show up now again, we could this is the second thing it brings up, is this idea of toxic positivity, which I kind of again describe as this sense of like, everything will always and only be okay, and we should always and only talk about the things that are going well. And it's like, Well, I understand the impulse, because sometimes the world is overwhelming and hard and scary, and so sometimes it feels like the best choice is just push that aside and just focus on the good stuff that may work, that may be necessary at times, but in terms as a like life philosophy or a strategy for how to really have resilience and endure hardship, I think we all know that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it just makes the pain and the anguish get louder and louder and louder until it forces us to stop and face it. You know, I'll be vulnerable here and even say this, that I'm in a grief journey myself. My wife passed away nine months ago, and she died from a rapid brain disease. And so me and my kids, we are in a season where we are still trying to figure out which way is up, and how do we move forward. And some days are okay, and other days I'm flat on a couch. And for me, I had to really slow down and think, can I still talk about positivity and optimism? Because this is the work I was doing before she got sick. And Stacy was a person who who gave me so much inspiration for the work that I'm doing, but I had to really slow down and think about it, and what I realized is, is that I, I I've always believed that optimism was a sense of choosing to find possibilities in an unknown future. It's not like I just came up with that because I've gone through this horrific loss, and I've always had this sense that positivity wasn't just sunshine and rainbows, but it's the sense of, how do I stay open, how do I stay soft? And one of the phrases that I've been using more recently, I thought about it, or in the early days of the year, and I've brought it back recently, is just, how do I stay in a place of being tender, not bitter? And for me, this is optimism. It's waking up every day, and it's eating breakfast like that is okay. I I'm not going to solve all the world's problems. I'm clearly not going to be able to bring my wife back. I don't know how to really navigate solo, widowed parenting with three teenage Age. Age ish, boys 11 to 17. I don't actually know how to do that, but simply showing up every day and trying is an act of positive mindset and is an act of optimism.
Erica D'Eramo:Right, we just need to take one. It's just that, like most finite amount that we can see in front of us, it doesn't need to be years and in the future that we need to be looking at like, what is that one step that we put in front of the other each day?
Adam Bouse:Yeah, yeah. And really embracing that sense of unknown, right? There's a lot in our world, and there's a lot in our marketing and our advertising, and there's apps, and there's technology that tells us we can figure it all out, we can optimize, we can maximize, we can biohack, we can do all the things. And sometimes those things are really good. It's not, for me, it's not it's not binary. It's not like they're all good or they're all bad, like, that's the hard part. Is they're good and they're helpful and they're terrible, all at the same time. You know, I'm not the first one to make this observation after a loss, is that life is really precious, and you really don't the next day will bring and so for me, standing up at my first workshop after a nine month break and saying, Hey everybody, today we're going to talk about practicing positivity, but first I have to let you know that my wife died like that's me not knowing how that's going to go, how they're going to receive that. If I can get through that first workshop, that's me saying I don't know how this is going to go, but I think it's worth trying.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, there's that level of like openness and almost curiosity, not curiosity as like a driving force, but just that remaining open that just feels like such a common thread, and not needing to have the answers and not needing to have the certainty of it. And I guess that's kind of this big piece around optimism is probably a lot easier when we have a lot of the data that things are going to work out okay and and when we don't, then what? Right? That's, that's when it really comes when push comes to shove. So what I. What are some of the areas that you are finding yourselves really delving into right now, with optimism, pessimism coaching?
Adam Bouse:Yeah, I mean, I think so. I've mentioned a couple of these briefly, but maybe a little bit more detail, like this, idea of seeing reality clearly is so important not overestimating how difficult something is and not underestimating how difficult something is like if we have a skewed perspective, either out of self protection or, you know, naiveness, we're already starting out by holding back on the idea that we can, we can get where we want to go, right? There's a really fascinating study around having people look at a hill and estimate how steep the hill is. And they brought in just some average people off the street, not athletes, not people who are climbing mountains regularly, but they just said, Hey, how steep is this hill? And they were all way off, like, way, way, way off, right? Then they brought in a group of cross country runners, and they said, How steep Do you think this hill is? And they were right. They were accurate, right. So there's something to say about experience, about our ability to accurately estimate the steepness of a hill, and I think there's some applicability to that, of if we've done something before, we might have a better sense of how hard or challenging something might be. But here's the interesting part, send those cross cross country runners out for a run. Get them tired, put them back in front of another hill, and their ability to assess the steepness of the hill disappears. Wow, just by being tired. So like, for everybody listening, do you feel tired right now? And just make the connection to like, how hard things feel right now doesn't mean that they're not hard, but your fatigue plays a role in both your ability to do the hard work as well as your ability to accurately assess how hard is this going to be.
Erica D'Eramo:It's funny, I sometimes will ask clients, like, if you were a house plant, how would you be doing right now? And and now, I'm thinking of, kind of just how those base needs, about fatigue, blood sugar, stressors, sensory inputs, like all of those things, are probably diminishing our ability to see things clearly. But it's that self awareness too setting yourself up for success, or at least knowing your limitations on how accurately or perceiving things, that's right, that you can then use, and I this came to mind earlier, but I think that there's something so, I guess, powerful in equipping people with the trust to be able to understand their perceptions of things, and that the top what I call like, that Pollyanna syndrome, or that toxic positivity of like, it'll all be fine. It'll work out in the face of no data, one way or another is almost the opposite, right? It's almost like, just ignore what's around you and trust, and that's a very different message. And for me, like, that's not when people say, like, I'm sure it'll all work out. That's not soothing at all. It's just sort of detaching me from what I'm perceiving. And it almost feels gaslighty, right? Like, what are you perceiving? Okay, how accurate is that? What other information is out there, but that's more empowering than the sort of just ignore what you're seeing. And so I love that you kind of bring it back to our perception. And the, I don't want to say the flaws in our perception, but how our perception is influenced by our context.
Adam Bouse:Absolutely, yeah. I mean, there's a very long catalog on all the different ways that we can experience cognitive distortion and cognitive biases. And I'm not advocating that we all go out and memorize all of those so that we can disassemble them like they're going to happen, right? But just being aware that we can't always trust our thinking so helpful, like, if nothing else, right? I may not know about the about all of the different biases that can exist, and we could rattle off a bunch of them right now, but at the end of the day, if I just go, hey, you know what? My mind isn't always accurate. It's usually pretty certain, but my brain wants to be certain, but it's it's less concerned with accuracy. It wants to keep me safe and alive, right? That's what my brain wants. And so sometimes, when I in this per this is personal. This is in my own work with my own anxiety. Is really just having a conversation with that anxiety and saying, Hey, sounds like you're really scared about something right now. What are you scared of? Because sometimes we feel that in our bodies, because our mind body is a system. It's all connected. They're not these two different warring factions, even though it can feel like that, but our mind and body are working in concert to keep us safe and to keep us alive. And sometimes when those physical symptoms come up, I ask myself, Hey, what's going on? I may not have a cognitive thought, a narrative, a story going on yet, but my body's picked up on something, and so sometimes it is really just about slowing down. And like you said. Getting curious of Huh? I wonder what I feel like is at risk right now? That's a question that I'll use in coaching conversations. If someone's stuck, or they're afraid to take that next step, or they're resistant to the idea of change altogether, even though they're in a coaching conversation. So hopefully they want to be in some mode of change. What do you feel like is at risk right now? What's the thing? Is it a relationship? Is it a sense of identity? Is it control? Is it money? Like there's 1000 things that we are all trying to manage and juggle at all times, and when we go through a change, or we're trying to overcome some kind of a challenge, it's so easy for our mind body system to go, oh, there's a risk we better slow down.
Erica D'Eramo:Yep, it's, yeah, the lion in the grass, right? Like, and this is, it's interesting, because I'll often say, like, let's shine out. You know, it's like the monster under the bed. Sometimes, let's we sense it's there, but if we shine a light on it, hey, it might, it might be a raccoon, right? I'm not saying it's safe, but at least then we can do something with it, and we can assess, like, How dangerous is this? Do I need to go get a series of rabies shots? Like, you know, we can do something with it. And it may just be an old pair of sneakers that we misinterpreted, but shining a light under it, and that can be strange for people, and they're like, Well, I don't want to look at the risk like, I don't want to stare the bad thing in the face, but it doesn't take it out of the situation, if it's if we're still operating in response to a fear around it.
Adam Bouse:Yeah, absolutely. There's a neuroscientist that I've become aware of in recent years. His name is Dr. Jerome Lubbe, and he talks about the Enneagram, if listeners are familiar with the Enneagram, but he talks about it from the perspective of a neuroscientist, which is fascinating. And he uses the language when you are feeling a threat, a risk, when you have that sense of anxiety or uncertainty. The question he asks is, is this a bear, or is it a deadline?
Erica D'Eramo:Right? Like this email is not actually trying to kill me.
Adam Bouse:That's right, that's right, but our brain is looking at any risk as a potential life threatening risk. Yeah, and there are real there are real risks that we do need to attend to, but it's helpful if we can sort out which ones are actually worth giving that time and energy and attention to, from a mind, body system perspective, versus the ones where we go, oh, actually, that's a false alarm.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah. Or the difference too, between a, you know, there, think there's even been some research done around like test taking and perceiving our own fear or own physiological responses to it, and how we interpret those and do we see ourselves as the gazelle that's about to be attacked by a lion, or do we see ourselves as an as the lion who's also activated because they're about to go try to get their dinner? But it's not the same threat, right? Like, okay, if you miss dinner day after day after day, yes, you're going to be looking at a problem, but in the moment, this is more of a opportunity, achievement, risk that you're going after, you know, presenting in front of a crowd. Yeah, no one is going to, you know, take you away and throw you in jail if you don't present. What? Well, debatable, but, but I think that, like, ultimately, you just want to do really well, that's what it's tied to a goal. Or I'm doing really well, and we're trying to achieve that goal, but we our brains, can't always tell the difference.
Adam Bouse:Yeah, and I think there's something too to be said about just our awareness of what is going on inside of our body. Our body is part of a meaning making machine, and we're trying to constantly interpret our environment and our relationships and what we're hearing and seeing, and the big, fancy, technical term for this would be interoception, what's going on inside of my body, right with my pulse, with my with my breath rate, with the butterflies in the stomach, my toes curling up, my leg might like do I have a sense of what's going on, not just physically, in terms of where I'm looking or getting hot, but like, what's going on inside of my body? And there's, again, there's another really cool study where they went to a stock market and they looked at the traders on the floor, and they wanted to figure out, how can we predict who were the most successful traders going to be? It wasn't academics, it wasn't their pay, it wasn't their gender, it wasn't how long they'd been in the job. The number one predictive factor of whether or not someone be successful in the stock trading floor was their interoceptive skills. Can they pay attention to what's going on inside of their body and use that as a data point to help them make more effective decisions?
Erica D'Eramo:I love talking about interoception. I mean, that is well, and I'm also a yoga teacher on the side, too, so like proprioception and interoception is my jam. But I agree that so often we are so caught up in the moment. I talk about it, like being on the top of the waves, you know, that we can't actually, we're in the churn. We can't actually tell, like, a my heart rate just went up. My pulse just went up. I'm activated. I'm sweating. Lisa felt so since we're sharing, I've written down already, like Jerome Lubbe, I'm gonna look into some of these folks, but Lisa Feldman, Barrett is another first. Okay.
Adam Bouse:She's the best. I was gonna bring her up, but I didn't.
Erica D'Eramo:Oh, you. Let me do it. Thank you. She's, I think she's got a TED talk out there that's, you know, definitely I her book how emotions are made is not, it's not a quick read if you love to nerd out about the stuff like, It will be fascinating about how our brains interpret, you know, like, emotions are not just this thing that exists. It is our brain interpreting our context around us, interpreting our physiological responses, and then putting a label on it and calling it a thing. And she talks about how, like, our brain's purpose is not to think, you know, we all think our brain is there to think, to make us happy, to navigate decisions. No, our brain is not concerned with that. It just wants to keep us alive. It wants allostasis. It wants to send the chemicals to the right places so that we can either run away or hide or whatever. But it's not actually that concerned with, are you happy? So we have to go a little higher order.
Adam Bouse:Yeah, if people want, uh, that book is amazing. It's on my shelf, right back here, on the pile with all the other emotions research books, if some if people want an accessible book that she has written Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain.
Erica D'Eramo:Yes!
Adam Bouse:It's a great one, she's got an audio book version of that too. And again, I don't think everyone has to become a neuro, you know, specialist. I am not a doctor. I don't play one on the internet, but I love this stuff because it helps me understand more of how does this all work? Like and I'm gesturing I know we're on a podcast. I'm gesturing to my whole my whole body, because what I know from raising kids, but then also having 1000s of coaching sessions with adults, is that when we don't know what to do with what we're feeling, life gets a lot more challenging, because we end up just the temptation is to just shut it down, right? I don't know what that is. I don't know. I don't like feeling this way, and so I just want to get rid of it. And again, I think there are moments and times when we have to do that. That is a, yeah, it's a necessary survival skill in certain circumstances. But humans were not designed, developed, created, built. Why are we not evolved to the point where we're supposed to stay in those hyper, aroused, emotional, anxiety driven survival moments, and that's where we run into all kinds of critical, challenging chronic problems, both in terms of mental health and physical health, which, again, to bring it full circle, this is why I think it's so important to teach and talk and train around concepts of optimism and resilience. I see optimism is one of the core practices of resilience, yeah, but being able to say, hey, you know what, things are really hard and really challenging, seeing that clearly now I can face it, and if I can face it, you can figure out a way through it. And it doesn't mean it's easy, and it doesn't mean that it's an algorithm that you just plug in and say the right things and do the right breathing, and everything will be fine. There's a lot of tools that can be really helpful, but I think we have to start from a place of I have some choices here, and they may be only internal choices that nobody else can see.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah.
Adam Bouse:But if I can practice these things where I believe in myself, I see myself as resourceful, whereas I see that I have choices, and how I show up, and what I say, who I spend time with, those things are going to start to have a real compounding effect on my overall well being.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, yeah, that's really that is really powerful, and it does bring it full circle. And I have this deep yearning question about a topic we have not yet talked about, which is nature based coaching,
Adam Bouse:Yeah!
Erica D'Eramo:What is that and how does it fit in your framework?
Adam Bouse:Yeah. So again, this starts from a place of just personal curiosity. I love how in academia, sometimes they call their researchers. Will call their research, they'll call it me search, because they're really just trying to feel called out right? All the good stuff comes from a place like, if you're not curious about it, why would you dig into it? So I've always loved nature. It's been a lifelong thing, starting way back when I was a kid, took a trip out west. You know, I've just really I find a sense of peace and grounding when I spend time outdoors. I think back to the pandemic, and it was a really hard and challenging time for a lot of people. But I wasn't the only person that that was like, Hey, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to go outside. I'm going to go to a state park or a national park. I need to be near water. Because instinctively, I think we all know that being outdoors is good for us, and again, mountains and mountains of research to back this up, green space, forest access, looking out the window in a hospital and improvement rates after surgery. Like there's so much data about how good nature is for us, visually, experientially. Yeah, but then a couple of years ago, I discovered this corner of the internet where there's a bunch of people just sitting around talking about nature coaching. And I was like, What is nature coaching? Am I like, am I am I like, really encouraging my tomatoes? Like, am I am I hugging trees? Like, what are we doing here? What is this? And I discovered that this really rich evidence based philosophy exists where people say, You know what, human beings aren't just in nature. We are part of nature. And so what we actually should be doing is we should be help facilitating connection to nature so that we're spending more time out there, where we have evolved to survive, and we should also see ourselves as part of nature, from a perspective of all of the climate change that is happening. And what's our responsibility as coaches who are working for the well being of humans, to create awareness of and connection to the giant ecosystems that we're all a part of and contributing to, whether we realize it or not. So I've dug in. I've done a lot of reading. You know, there are all kinds of things on Tiktok now about forest bathing, which comes from Japan in the 1980s the term is Shinrin Yoku. And actually, just a month ago, I finished up my certification, and so I am now a certified forest bathing guide.
Erica D'Eramo:Congratulations.
Adam Bouse:Thank you. We can dive in and talk more about that, but essentially, for me and my practice as a coach, I'm just looking for opportunities. Hey, can we have this coaching session outside so that nature can be a co facilitator of the coaching conversation? Again, nature's not going to fix your problems for you, but it's going to be there as a resource to help you see and understand yourself and the world around you in a fresh way.
Erica D'Eramo:It's also just such a reorientation, too, right? Of like the broader when we're just sitting in a closed room with no windows, we feel like the our problems feel like the biggest problems and and they feel they can feel so overwhelming when just taking a look at the river or watching the bald eagle, for me, is so such a reminder of like The just infinite expanse of experience and complexity and interconnectedness out there that kind of just helps to reorientate my my challenges and my place in this world. And yeah...
Adam Bouse:Yeah, absolutely the I've talked about this in therapy for sure, but like, I go into nature, I go through a walk through a state park, and my main thought is, all of this exists and it has nothing to do with me, like I didn't make it happen. I'm not responsible. I mean, I am responsible for it at a certain level, but I didn't make this happen. I didn't orchestrate it. I didn't plant these trees. I'm not giving them sunlight. Like the world does not revolve around me. And it's a very comforting thought that I don't have to be responsible for everything, and it gives me permission to slow down, to catch my breath. Now, again, in the research around forest bathing, spend three hours in a forest really intentionally slowing down, not on a hike, not trying to accomplish something, but just slowly meandering and soaking things in through your senses there are, there's evidence that suggests you know decreased blood pressure, increased immune system response, like, and these things last for weeks just from a single forest bathing experience where the whole goal is, hey, like, just look, just here, just listen, just smell, yeah. And it's a really powerful thing that is accessible to all of us. And there are some spaces right where it may be harder to get to, green spaces you may not have a part you may not have a park, you may not have you're locked in a concrete jungle, so to speak. But again, I choose to believe there are possibilities, get up, get a plant. There's even evidence that looking at a picture of a forest on your computer, yeah, I know mindfully can give you a sense of relief and calm, and more often than not, I think when we get stuck, it's because we're taking the same way of thinking that we got. It's Albert Einstein's famous quote, right? You cannot solve a problem at the same level in which it was created. You need to get to a different level. You need to experience life in a different way to be able to solve that problem. And from for my money, one of the quickest ways to do that is to get up from your desk and go take a 20 minute walk shift. The way that you relate to that problem.
Erica D'Eramo:I do love going for a walk. The other thing I love doing, and this is gonna sound really well, I don't know, maybe not to you sound weird and nerdy, but I love hanging out with my chickens in the backyard and just watching them, the little dinosaurs that they are, like living their little chicken lives and wandering around and finding joy and the little grub that they found or whatever. I mean, it does so much restoration for me and gets me out of my head so quickly that it's just. And I need to remember that. So thanks for the reminder. The walk is good, and so is the chicken viewing. I call it chicken TV.
Adam Bouse:Bonus points, don't, don't take your earbuds, don't take your phone, right? Like, I think we can do that. I went for a walk this morning. I listened to an audio book. There's no judgment, right? And there are days where I go, man, I've got nothing in me. I've got no energy. I don't feel like I can really accomplish anything today. You know what I can do is I can put one foot in front of the other, and I can take a 20 minute walk in my neighborhood, and I'm not going to listen to anything because I don't have the energy to listen to something. And you know what? There have literally been days in the past year where that was the one thing I accomplished, and again, in therapy, we've talked about this high performer, driven, motivated. I own my own business now, like there's lots of reasons why I should be Go, go, go, go, go, go. And one of the questions my therapist offered to me was, Adam, you really, you're really focused on being capable right now. Can you be capable of doing less?
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah? Yeah, well, yeah, that that is a thing a lot of people do struggle with and are afraid of their many of your because then there's a sense of loss of control, right? If I'm not motoring, maybe I'm adrift. If I'm not reacting, maybe I will get maybe I will miss something. And, yeah, that is really powerful and almost stoic, in a way, in terms of, like, the challenge, setting the challenge as it is to do sometimes the challenge is to do less, to just exist, to be.
Adam Bouse:Yeah, one more nerdy study to mention, yeah, bring it. There's a study. I can't remember all the I'm not going to get this exactly right, but you'll get this the gist of it. Here. They put people in a room. It's a blank room. There's a chair and there's a table and there's a little buzzer.
Erica D'Eramo:Oh, my God, I think I know which one you're talking about, which I talk about a lot.
Adam Bouse:They put people in a room. They say, Hey, you're gonna sit here for 15 minutes. No phone, nothing to do. Just sit here for 15 minutes. I'm minutes. There's also this little buzzer here that'll give you a little electrical shock, and you can touch it or not touch it, but it's totally up to you. And some insane number of people like they touch the button. And there was actually even one participant I miss. This is me being judgmental and potentially sexist, but I believe it was. I'm pretty sure it was a guy. There was a guy who was like, correct we touched it like 170 times or something ridiculous. Just like the point the researchers, I believe, are trying to make is, is we're really uncomfortable spending time by ourselves in our own heads, and sometimes we'll actually take pain in order to avoid that.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, I Well, and I work with a lot of neurodiverse clients, and I am also diagnosed ADHD, and I think, like just acknowledging it out loud that that sitting with your own thoughts, boredom might be physical, almost like physically painful for you, people will actually opt for physical pain rather than boredom. So now that we understand that, like now, what now do we? How do we show ourselves some compassion there and set you up for success?
Adam Bouse:That's absolutely right. And again, I don't think that the the goal here is to a treat everyone as the same. Neurodiversity is real. Neurodiversity is the norm, actually,
Erica D'Eramo:Right! Yeah!
Adam Bouse:And so therefore, it's really about what's good for you. What's healthy is good for you. Yeah, and that's such a simple question. And I could be like, oh, like, you know, Reese cups every day. That's good for me, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But, you know, on the I can think, two weeks ago, I had a day where I just didn't feel like I could do anything, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go for a walk by the river, and I'm going to do a little bit of meditation, and then I'm just going to binge watch whatever I want to binge watch whatever. Those are good things for me. I'm not doing that every day, but I know in that moment where I'm like, hey, you know what? Today's a 60% day. I've only got 60% to give. I could give it to work. I could give it to another blog post. I could give it 30 note emails trying to get the next client. I could do all of those things. Could I have pushed through maybe? And I think it's counter cultural, and I feel like I've given myself permission to do things that are counter cultural, mostly as an experiment. Can I pull this off? I'm gonna do some things that are good for me, and then we'll see where I'm at after that.
Erica D'Eramo:I love that. It's a reminder for me coming into the weekend about how I need to reframe things as I approach some downtime, and what that's going to look like for me. But for our listeners, though, who might want to reach out and maybe connect with you and hear more about nature based coaching, or optimistic coaching. How do people find you?
Adam Bouse:I appreciate that optimism.coach is the website, all the normal social spaces, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all those things, and I do like again. And in a spirit of in a spirit of creativity and curiosity and generosity, I offer anybody that wants one a 90 minute discovery session like no no strings attached, no cost. Because again, I overuse the metaphor. I haven't used it today, but now I'm going to, I overuse the metaphor of planting seeds, and I really feel like that's what most of my job is. Is is like, I'm a I'm a seed planter. I help people put seeds in the ground, and we don't know what's going to grow, but I believe optimistically that there are possibilities in those seeds. So let's plant some seeds and see what comes of it. Sometimes I do a discovery session, somebody has a huge breakthrough, and they go on, and I could not be happier. Sometimes they go, Oh, I've planted the seeds. But they didn't. They didn't, like, bloom yet. I'm like, Yeah, we usually don't see seeds turn into fruit in the same day, so this might take some time, and we work together, but at the end of the day, that's what I want to I want to help people learn and grow. I want to I want them to help them feel grounded, and I want them to be able to find possibilities that matter to them, not what society tells you you should have, not the possibilities that are just the sort of path of least resistance. But what is it you actually want? What is it you want to be doing? Who do you want to be and how do you want to be? Let's go find those possibilities.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah. Well, we will definitely be linking to your site on in the show notes and to some of the ways that people can connect with you. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences, the vulnerability and some of your wisdom today. Thank you so much. Adam, it's really just been an honor.
Adam Bouse:No, it's been great. I really enjoy the conversation. Erica, and yeah, you keep doing good work too, because I know you're doing it.
Erica D'Eramo:Yeah, my fellow neuroscience nerd and all keep the recommendations coming. I love it. And for the folks who would love to see a summary of this or catch those links, definitely head over to our website or the show notes, and we will see you next episode. Thanks for listening.
