Planning for Wellness and Personal Resilience with Dr. Mary Beth Janke

[00:01] Sue Schwartz, FAICP:  We've all had that moment in our professional careers where we've had to do or get through something tough. Maybe it's a city council presentation, a pitch to secure a client, or running your public engagement event with a difficult topic. In the 40 years I've been a planner, I've had my share of moments. I'm APA President Sue Schwartz. Joining me today is Dr. Mary Beth Janke, a forensic and clinical psychology consultant and former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. Dr. Mary Beth is our NPC25 opening keynote speaker.

Hi, Dr. Mary Beth. It's great to connect again.

[00:42] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Hey, Sue. It's so great to be here. Thank you.

[00:46] Sue Schwartz: Well, let's just start off with a couple of questions, so people get a sense of why I asked you to be the NPC keynote speaker.

[00:54] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Okay.

[00:55] Sue Schwartz: As a special agent with the Secret Service, you've been in some tough job assignments, especially abroad. Did you experience any self-doubt or fear?

[01:04] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Every day, to be honest. I mean, I'd say a caveat to that is, I had the self-confidence that I received the best training in the world being a secret service agent. But every day you wonder, is that going to be enough to take on what might come my way? You never know. We have a saying is that we have to be on every single moment, and the bad guys only have to be on one. And so you just wonder, is my training enough for what might come my way? And the fear factor, especially in overseas assignments where terrorism was a far bigger threat. I would just say, there's a saying also that someone shared with me several years ago that works for me, "Just do it scared." And you figure it out after. In other words, and I know this is going to come up later, probably in our conversation, but you really, really in any high-stress job, including being a planner, including being a former protector, is you need to figure out how to then deal with the aftermath. You do it scared, you get through it, but it's not like you then just go on. You got to figure out a way to process that stress.

[02:25] Sue Schwartz: Is that how you learn to overcome it? It's not really overcoming, it's getting through it and then processing afterwards?

[02:35] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah. I think it's preparation before, again, having that confidence, in that particular case, that I had the training that I had been through. With each mission, with each assignment, you get more and more confident because, of course, you probably had to overcome another hurdle. Again, I think this is very parallel with a planner because I think every audience is different for you guys or every task of every day just presents something that can be stressful, that can be a new challenge. But learning to overcome, I still feel like I'm learning to overcome as a forensic and clinical psychologist, because, again, I have great training, but will I be able to understand the person that I'm working with, and will I be able to help them with their struggles, or with the consult, or with whatever they're bringing to me?

So in this case, Sue, my secret, so to speak, I guess, would be that for me, self-care is huge. And I'll say this that day that I'm your keynote is, self-care isn't just for everybody else. I hear people constantly say, Oh, yeah, I tell my team, self-care, whatever, I go, "Yeah, well, what about you?" So it's not just for everybody else, not for my clients, my friends, et cetera. It's a huge facet of my life if I want to get through any struggle, any stress, healthfully. Lots of people adapt, but they don't adapt well. And so if you want to adapt well, you need to find coping mechanisms. And for me, there are a lot. And I just got to remember, we have a toolbox full of coping mechanisms. And that's anything from meditation to long runs. I even say my glass of wine at the end of the day and de-stressing or debriefing with my husband, that can be a huge stress relief for me. But I'm not putting down four shots of tequila and two bottles of wine, right? So you need to find... Each person really needs to find what works for them to destress and make sure they're doing that.

[04:41] Sue Schwartz: Wow. So I heard a couple of things in there. The first is preparation. Yeah. You're going into a big event or getting through something. The more you prepare, the more confident you can be, probably get through it as you get through it, process on the other side, but then also practice self-care so that you are downloading, recovering, and getting ready for the next challenge.

[05:05] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yes. And making sure that you remember those self-care tools, because, again, what works during one situation might not work in the next. You might go, "God, that run used to help, and now it's not helping." Well, I got to try something else. Don't give up. Just don't stop just with one. You got a whole toolbox. If you don't have that toolbox, add to it.

[05:26] Sue Schwartz: Well, let's talk beyond the self-doubt or fear. How do you manage burnout? A 2024 SHRM survey found that 44 percent of respondents feel burnout from their work, 30 percent often feel stressed, and 22 percent feel anxious. Planners can face a lot of these challenges, whether it's NIMBYs from neighborhood folks or changing political situations. How can planners prioritize their wellness more, be more resilient and avoid burnout?

[06:02] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah. The way I understand burnout, it's essentially a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. What did we just talk about in the last question, how are we mitigating stress through self-care? So we're going to talk about this during my keynote, how to deal with mitigating stress healthily. Again, we got the healthily. But one thing I think is really important for for me as a psychologist and for a planner is, someone shared this with me, and again, I always give credit that these weren't original ideas, but they gave me this saying, and it's "observe, not absorb." So observe, like notice, pay attention, but don't absorb.

In other words, if I were, as a psychologist, somebody that absorbed all of the pain that my clients brought to the table, I'd end up with vicarious traumatization. And so I am present with my clients, I'm listening to them, I feel what they're saying, but I do my best to not then take that for the rest of the day or the rest of the evening because it could ruin my life in a way that I could end up traumatized myself.

So I would say the same thing for people that are experiencing those NIMBY experiences where people are just ornery and rude and angry. And you can look at them and you can learn to navigate it such that you aren't going to harm yourself and it doesn't stay with you for the rest of the day, the week, the month. So you're listening, you're being present. You might not agree with them. You might be really annoyed and frustrated inside, but you need to do your best to tell them you'll take things into consideration, that you have a job to do and that you have to do what's best for the city. You're going to collect all the data, you're going to analyze it, you're listening to what they're saying. But in the end, it almost has to be a little a bit clinical, because if you take it and it's so emotional, it's just going to end up really... I'm picturing like an icky garbage dump full of stuff that people are just dumping on you because they're pissed off. And we don't want that. For anybody, especially for your group of city planners.

[08:19] Sue Schwartz: I'm laughing because I'm sure our listeners, planners are going, "Yeah, I know that garbage dump. I know that icky. I got you." And I will say this resonates with me. Early in my career, but even up till recently, I knew I was empathetic, but I had a counselor friend say, "You know you're more than that. You're an empath." And she said, "You really got to be careful because you're the person that worries about everybody else. You take everything in. You worry about your staff. You're going to worry about the neighborhood. You're going to worry, just making sure they're okay." I think a lot of planners are more than empathetic or empaths, and you can just you have to get your head to a point where — you don't want to lose your empathy because that's one of our greatest strengths. But you don't want a strength overplayed as a weakness. You don't want to do it so it then becomes harmful to you. I think those are important things to talk about is keep your perspective, then observe, which gives us a slight space of detachment in what we're doing. But not aloof. Again, watching. I think those are great lessons, great things to help people think about this.

Ok, so we're the profession of collaborators. It's what we do. We tend to shy away from the spotlight. That can be detrimental when the public and elected officials do not actively seek our contributions. Like, "Oh, yeah, the planners, whatever. They just do zoning," or, not to diss on the zoners, but not thinking through, and we have to get more comfortable. So how can planners become more comfortable with being in the spotlight?

[10:08] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah. When you say that, how do you become more comfortable in the spotlight? I'm just going to tell a personal story, and then I feel like I have a multi-tiered answer to this.

So I taught at George Washington University for four years, and probably, I don't know, a year after I stopped teaching, one of my former students went to work for Fox News, and she contacted me. Do you remember the Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie case?

[10:39] Sue Schwartz: Mm-hmm.

[10:40] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: She said, "We want you to be on the show tonight to talk as a clinical psychologist." Initially, I was like, "Oh, no effing way. No way." Then I was like this, "So what if I screw up? At least I can say I did it." That's how I see getting in the spotlight... so this is what went through my head. It's a famous Henry Ford saying, it's, "Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right."

So if you tell yourself, "Oh, I can do that," like I did for Fox News when I shifted my mindset, I was just like, "Okay, I'm going to do it." I might not be the best forensic psychologist they've had comment on something. But what if I keep telling myself, Sue, in life that I can't, I can't, I can't? The spotlight is part of the job as a city planner. So it might not be your favorite part of the job, but it is a necessary part of the job. And I think with each time you do it, you learn, like — okay, picture like a White House press secretary, how in the beginning they look like a deer in headlights. After like their fifth or sixth press conference, they figured out the BS. They figured out who they're going to ask to ask the questions. And so you're just playing the players with each thing. You aren't expected to be perfect the first time around.

And I'll tell you, it is very scary the first, second, and third time doing, say, a podcast or a public whatever. But each time, I think you get more comfortable. And I think that's part of what we're going to talk about, too, in our March, April, in my keynote and building resilience and how you deal with that, the whole shifting of the mindset of, what are you telling yourself? What's so hard about this? Yeah, I might flub up, but I flubbed up before, right?

[12:31] Sue Schwartz: Exactly. Well, we talked about how we met doing TED Talks, and we talked about how I was scared to death. I give talks all the time. But this one is no PowerPoints, no notes, and if you screw up, it's 18 minutes that's out there for posterity. You never know. I hear from people — we did this in 2022, and I hear from people relatively frequently, like, "Hey, I saw your TED Talk. It was great," or, "Wow," and I can't remember the points I made anymore. I mean, some of them, but the details, I'm like, I don't know. But part of it, for me, it was just I was very resistant. And then I thought, well, I'm at the point in my career, if I'm not doing something that scares the hell out of me, then I'm just coasting.

But the other piece of it — that one's a little different — but on the day-to-day stuff, I'm going to go back to something you said in the first question: preparation. I mean, getting comfortable with the spotlight, the more prepared you are, especially if you're doing interviews or if you're talking in front of council, or whatever. And part of it, I would say that to embrace our training that says it's not really you, it's your position. It's not Sue Schwartz, it's I'm speaking to you as the President of APA. And to have that little bit of separation helps, I think, at least for me. But I think that their idea, the one idea of preparation, the more prepared you are, the more muscle memory you build doing this, I think you can get more comfortable. Doesn't mean — we don't want to showboat, because that never ends well.

[14:13] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: You're the expert. I also think, too, what popped in my head is, you know, because you saw my TED Talk, is, Nike chose Just Do It, right? They didn't say, oh, Just Worry About It. They didn't choose Just, oh, I don't know, Try. They chose Just Do It. So get out there.

I think I would never, ever, if you would have asked me through my, I don't know, early '30s, I would never have thought that I would have been somebody who was in the public eye. Because remember, I was a protector. So the protector is always in the shadows. We don't talk unless we're spoken to. So it's just of those things where you go, "Okay, well, this was presented to me, and I'm going to do it." Again, I had a lot of rough, hilarious stories of not doing so great, but here I am, and hopefully I've learned and polished myself a little bit.

[15:13] Sue Schwartz: Well, I would say so. [laughs] I think you did okay.

[15:19] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: [laughs] Yeah, thanks.

[15:21] Sue Schwartz: You've experienced and continued to have a remarkable career that continues to evolve. What lessons are there for anyone, regardless of age, on how to keep evolving in your career?

[15:37] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah. I think one of... It's not that it's easy, but one of the things that was my superpower that mesmerizes some people is I really ignore the outside noise. And what do I mean by that? Everybody has a judgment about, I'll just use my life here. "Oh, what do you mean you've graduated college and you're going to live in Spain? You should be getting a job." And I was just like, "No, I'm going to live in Spain." And, "What do you mean you're going to apply to the Secret Service in the DEA? That's a job for a man." F you. No, women do this job as well. And that riled me up even more.

So just that getting rid of the noise and trusting your own self to go, you know what? I don't want to live a beige life. I want to live a life that I'm proud of. And so, just getting rid of the noise and trusting your own heart, because it's not saying don't ask advice from other people. I'm not saying that, but I think ultimately, a lot of times we do what we think we "should" do, and I put that in air quotes, the shoulds in life. And then life can be so in a box and boring and beige and vanilla.

So what do you have to lose? I mean, I'm not saying go quit your job tomorrow if you have a mortgage and four kids and whatever, unless it it's your whole dream and you have enough money to pay that for a while, right? I'm not saying being reckless, but I say if you want to evolve and you're bored, you have one life.

[17:12] Sue Schwartz: Well, I couldn't agree more. I find it amusing. Last night, I was speaking to a men's group at a church. They wanted to know about a planning topic. It was fun because I grew up with three older brothers. So talking to a room full of men was just... I had them. I think I called them a rogue's gallery. From that point on, they were mine.

But this one gentleman, as you were speaking, I just remember him introducing himself, and I said, "Are you retired?" He said, "Well, I was an attorney for 48 years, and for 47 and a half, I loved it. Every day was a challenge. Every day brought something new." He said, "And then at 47 and a half years, I just didn't like it." I said, "Oh, well, what did you do?" He said, "I figured out how to retire and took golf lessons to pick up my game so I could move." But he had that self-awareness enough to go, "Aha." I thought that was incredibly insightful, incredibly self-aware. You have to give yourself permission.

If you're having that challenge — I'm still a planner at my age for 40 years because I love what I do. Sometimes I don't like it so much because there might be some of those, some opinions, but I love the mix. I love the variety. I love the challenges. But if it ever came to that point, I have those ideas of what could come next, or start working on other things in addition to. This isn't the only thing that's about who I am.

I think that's great advice of just, what are you? I will be honest, I used to be a very scared kid. I didn't like taking risks at all. I didn't want to get in trouble. I didn't want to get hurt. I wish I could tell you what the switch that got flipped, but something did at some point. Taking, it's like, why would you play it safe? Again, you don't want to be reckless, but you don't want to, why just get through the day. If your life is such that you're just getting through the day, that's a signal that you might want to rethink some things that you're doing or adding some things to you.

[19:32] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: You know, it's not really something as simple as doing a TED. I mean, that's not simple because we've both done it. But I'm saying something as simple as doing a TED talk. That's evolving yourself as a human. Maybe you aren't totally changing jobs, but do something like you always said you wanted to do, or you take a class that you said, I always wanted to learn how to, I don't know, cook pasta, or I don't know, cook chili, or whatever the heck. It doesn't matter.

Do something to spice up your life. It doesn't have to be major. But I do — literally, this is how I work on my resilience — I do something different every month. And it's funny. One of those things I said about a year and a half ago that I put on my list is this year I'm going to do an audiobook, which sounds funny because now I'm on my 20th audiobook. I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe I waited this long.

[20:18] Sue Schwartz: Yeah. Hopefully, folks, have pulled some lessons from that. But it's about taking risks, not being afraid to fail, because you will fail. Something will go wrong. But you get up and you try something else, and that's okay.

[20:35] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah and lucky for us, we can do that.

[20:38] Sue Schwartz: Exactly. So what is something that today's Dr. Mary Beth would tell her younger self?

[20:51] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Hmm, yeah. So just to throw in there, because I think this comes to mind for me a lot, is I'm one of seven kids, and I'm six girls, one boy, and I'm the fifth child, number five, of five in a row. So we were one year apart, the first five of us. And so there was — yeah, it was insane, to be honest with you. And I say that because I don't know, I think I just felt when I was younger, I didn't really know how to trust myself because I just watched my older brothers and sisters a lot. I thought, "Oh, that's what I'm supposed to do." And then after a while, I was like, when I got to high school, I was like, "No, I'm not going to play tennis. I'm taller. I'm going to play volleyball. And no, I'm not going to take German." No offense, anybody that took German. But I was like, "I want to take Spanish because I'm going to be able to use that." And this is four people that I'm following. I would just say, I guess, in that case, just to trust myself more, even though I was so little, and I'm not little, but then moving into high school, I started to make decisions pertinent to me, not that what I thought my parents wanted or what my siblings did. So just being more confident of what I knew.

And once I did put that stuff out there, I might got a little pushback, but my life turned out like... Spanish. Come on! I mean, Spanish was like a miracle for me. I studied in Spain, I worked jobs in Bogotá, Columbia, Lima, Peru. I would never have had those if I wasn't decently bilingual. So German would have done me no good in the field of protection.

[22:25] Sue Schwartz: Well, a very limited area. [laughs] Your assignment would be one corner of Europe.

[22:33] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Yeah. In my experience during that time, it wouldn't have been very dangerous. The countries I went to were pretty dangerous, the Spanish-speaking ones, Central, South America.

[22:44] Sue Schwartz: Well, as always, you and I could talk for the rest of the afternoon. But I hope for folks who hear this, it gives you a little taste of what we're going to be doing in Denver, because it's not just the keynote. We have a follow-up session, and I think your books are going to be available. Yes, they are. Your book's going to be available.

I do have one last question. What was your lesson you learned from doing the TED Talk? Other than you met fabulous people like me. [laughs]

[23:15] Dr. Mary Beth Janke: Of course. Again, I think it goes along that thing of, okay, in July, I'll be 60. It's one of those things where... I did it two and a half years ago, so I was probably 57, 58. It's just one of those things. Every year, I have this big goal. And one time, it might have taken me three years to write the book, for example. But the TED Talk was a huge thing. And I say, you don't have to do something that huge. So go take a cooking...go do something. That's what I mean. I thought that was a ton of work, Sue. I don't know about you, but I'm glad I did it. I'm not doing it again. No, I know you're shaking your head right there because you want to vomit. But, again, we didn't fail, but it's not one of those things that you go, "That was so great. Let's do that again." It's like, "Okay, I did it. What's next?" Okay, yay, okay. But then what's my next thing to keep evolving as a person and not being bored with my life? And again, living a life I'm proud of.

[24:19]  Sue Schwartz: Mary Beth, thank you for sharing some insights on how we can advance our wellness and be more resilient.

And thanks to you for listening to another episode of the APA podcast. You can hear more from Dr. Marybeth at NPC25 in Denver and online. To hear previous episodes of the APA Podcast, visit us at planning.org/podcast. You can also subscribe to the APA Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.