ļ»æGirl around when it comes to wellness. But it was so cool because we also had this connection where we had worked at the same place way back when and we knew some of the same people. So the world is very small, and since then we've stayed connected and of course stayed connected on LinkedIn. And you have become a published author since our time at that conference with a book called Brain On.
Which is about mental fitness, and I wanna know all about this. So first of all, a warm welcome. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. Can you start with maybe sharing a little bit about your background and then what mental fitness means to you? Yes. Well, first of all, this is just awesome to be with you, Heather.
I'm a big fan and I am so glad that we did get that connection way back when and have stayed connected ever since. You're doing amazing work in the world as well. So, um. Yeah, huge fan. In terms of my background, as you alluded to, I am all about wellbeing in the workplace, but I didn't start that way. I was an accountant by education in my first early career.
Oh, I'm sorry. No, I. You know, um, there was a brilliant HR person named NEMA and she just saw in me what I didn't and put me into this cost accounting consulting role where I performed for five years, like a budget and accounting analysis for the fund departments, like the helicopter that used to fly checks back and forth from O'Hare to the bank.
And, um, I, I found that I just loved consulting and. Once we got bought out from my, my accounting days, I became an HR consultant, and I've been there ever since. So, 30, 30 years, don't tell anybody. Um, but in my time I've been able to finally document, there's three things I am just passionate about. My, my strengths evolve around creativity, innovation, and inspiration.
And I love the ability to work with. HR and organizations to help employees like live their best day. Mm-hmm. And that has always been my foundation. At the same time, I've struggled with mental health and stress management and anxiety, and you name it, both mental health and mental wellbeing. And I've just honed in on that practice for those 30 years too, through meditation.
Mindfulness breathing exercises, walk like everything. Mm-hmm. And I finally decided. I need to bring this to the world of work. Mm-hmm. Work specifically, right. And put it into context. Because really when we think about work, it's our brain being on for 480 minutes and we really need to strengthen it. So mental fitness is my jam.
That's my best form of exercise that I love to talk about all day long. So thank you again for having me. Oh my gosh, I love it. So yeah, HR was our connector, but it's so interesting because we came at it in basically opposite ways because I was a social work major and I was doing social work, and then I decided I wanted to, one, I didn't wanna write policy, but two, I wanted to help people that.
Were sort of seeking support, which is the same as coaching, right? Versus somebody who was like mandatory or I was, I wasn't invited, but was there anyways. And so that's what took me from social work to hr. And it's so interesting that you went from accounting, cost accounting to hr, um, sort of like we were just talking about our, our daughters off at college, like opposite starts for us Yeah.
To land in the same place with human resources. But it's all of those things and it's everything. And I think the reason why we are connected. Even more than that is because of the mental health and mental wellness and a desire to talk about that in the workplace. And for me, obviously specific to addiction and recovery, I don't think you can have a conversation about mental health without, without adding that in at times.
Um, that's kind of a taboo topic and companies are afraid of it, I think, to approach it. So I think. Having, um, a light on mental health and mental fitness is a perfect avenue into that. Um, is mental fitness different than mental health? What is your definition of that? I. Yeah. I love that. And I, and I hope that next time we talk, you know, the word taboo doesn't come up in this discussion.
Mental health or mental wellbeing. Mm-hmm. Um, I think the work you are doing, like you said, and advocating and speaking out based on just examples and human experience and what I'm doing. Um, what I've learned is it resonates and people like me, like you start to talk and the word gets out there. Yeah. So one of the things in the starting places to your point, is.
I feel my job is to help employers note the difference between mental health and mental wellbeing, and that's strictly because of how they purchase solutions to help their employees. It's not all encompassing, and you have to have a strategy for both. So I always say mental health is around clinical care, access to that care, affordability to that high quality care.
Um, in a clinical setting where you have a diagnosis or you need that extra support due to a life event, whatever it is, right. That is a trained professional that can help you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, that's part one. And then, and then my story is, that is not enough. And you need the conjunction and, um, mental wellbeing, which I define as nonclinical 'cause I'm not cl and it's just the ability to be self-aware about how you are feeling, what your storyline, your thinking, your thoughts are.
Mm-hmm. And ensuring that you. Strengthen those in a positive way so that you can become resilient, you can have a growth mindset. It's all of those soft skills that will allow us to lead our lives in a healthier way on a daily basis at work. Yeah. Yeah. It does everything. When a leader like you talks about this Mm.
Um, even uses those words, it, it does take away the stigma and the taboo taboos of it to just have a leader, like you say, let's talk about it. And I have my own experience, right, with mental health and mental wellbeing. Yeah. And I say mental health is health. It's directly connected to physical health in every which way too.
And you know, that versus stress, burnout, you know, all these things that exasperate. Any kind of physical symptoms. Your mental health is your health, and we all have mental wellbeing and it changes over time due to circumstance and situation and behaviors and habits and patterns and all those things. So it's for everyone.
Mental health and mental fitness is, is for everyone. So I'm glad you're shining a light on that in the workplace. Have you run up against, um, resistance in the workplace to talking about these types of topics? So I wouldn't say resistance. It's a lack of awareness, knowing the difference that when I put in a mental health solution at work as an employer, um, or as a leader, I'm talking about mental health.
They, it's, it's. It's this, like I have three sessions. I go to my EAP. It's for crisis. I think we're still at the early stages of understanding. It's a little bit of stigma reduction. I don't know if stigma, I think it's more just commonality and experience. So what I say is, before COVID, this would not even be a topic I could discuss.
I wanted to mental health and mental wellbeing. Nobody would listen, but everyone around the world. Experienced a mental health crisis in some sort of way and could at least adjust so that that clinical conversation, I think, has moved slowly forward. But the ability to understand that that's not enough and a one hour lunch and learn on stress management, which we've been talking about for years, like stress, stress.
Is definitely not enough and the solutions are very premature at this point. So I think it's not resistance, but it's just, um, a, a new lane that needs to be forged and doubled down on once we get mental health access to all with high quality and cost, you know, affordability. Yeah, that makes sense. I always say that is the silver lining of COVID is that, um, it escalated the need for people to get help and so people were getting help and reaching out.
Yes. And that became an urgent priority, which it maybe wasn't before. Now it is, and it's open the conversation. There's a lot of, um, tragedy that happened with COVID as well, but if there's a silver lining, it's that we are talking about it. We can't ignore it anymore. It definitely came to the forefront.
So, uh, for companies and Right. And organizations as well as families and individuals. So how long has this book been on your mind? Um, so that's a great question. I think. If I look back, the number one question employers would always ask me over these 30 years is, why are my employees so stressed out? What do I do about it?
And then the word burnout came. Um, and, and now. Based on our environment. It's like everybody's going through something. We said that very loosely, but everybody's going through something that's pretty significant now. Like these are just crazy times. Mm-hmm. So I think my book came out right at the right moment.
Um, I would say I doubled down right around COID because I was writing all about handling daily stress. I knew you couldn't just go to therapy and get this fixed, like had to figure things out. Not a one and done, not three a a p therapy sessions. That's what I did for my alcohol problem, and it unfortunately didn't cure it immediately either.
Yeah. I mean, I'm like, okay. I'm writing about listening to music and walking out in nature, and I'm like, this is mental fitness. This is something new. So, you know, 20, it was, it wasn't in my mind until COVID. Um, and then two years birthing the book. Yeah, it came out in 23. So. Yeah. Um, but looking back, it's the number one question I've always gotten and I think my life experience led me to that along with my work experience.
So yeah, so that's interesting. Also, I think we became aware, I'm so grateful that I ditch drink before COVID because I. I can't imagine what that would've looked like, but people didn't have the right coping skills in place pre COVID, and that became pretty evident. Tell us about your life experience, what you're willing to share about some of the inspiration from your own life and your own personal lessons that led to writing a book like this for employers.
Yeah, I think you have such an interesting podcast take on things in those pivotal moments. Um, and looking back, mine revolved around my brain health and mental wellbeing. Um, I, I was a very anxious kid growing up and I talk a little bit about that. Um, and to the point where I hated school performances and choir, like school performance.
Like, just put me over the edge. Um, and one of my drama teachers in fifth grade taught me how to do mental mindful relaxation, where you tense up and relax. So I started doing that and I noticed just from that mental fitness exercise of body relaxation, I could sleep better. I could get through my spelling bee a little better.
You would see me up there practicing. Um, but I, I'm like, okay, one and done whatever. And then. Um, in college and my first year of marriage, I started to get really anxious and I had, um, a panic attack on vacation and I didn't know what it was. I thought I was having a heart attack, like many explain. Um, and so that led me to see several doctors.
I'm thinking, I'm dying here. And it turned out from a neurologist like, Deb, you just have panic anxiety. He's like, it's probably your first year in the workforce. And it was, I'm like. He's like, we don't know how much stress we hold and you just happen to be wound up really, you know, tight. So, um, it was a very trying part in time in my life trying to learn like how stress can really manifest that way and create those physiological symptoms.
Um, but that was a turning point for me. My therapist actually recommended. This great mindfulness center down the street, which I'm, I've been on the board of, you know, for 20 years. Um, and so every situation like that where I learned a mental fitness. Training that really changed my life in so many positive ways, became kind of my mantra and my anthem and my, what I would seek out.
And so it's a subspecialty of mine is just understanding the brain, but I stand on the shoulders of so many clinicians and academia that I just can't get enough. So, um. What I am really good at is, uh, putting together scalable models. And as a futurist in my Gallup strengths, I can also distill things in a way that are what I call the Cliff Notes queen version.
Mm-hmm. And so that's what I did with this book, is I took my experiences every time I learned a new mental fitness skill, um, put it all together and applied it to work because. I think, you know, I've been working 30 years and I noticed the stress level every day, and now I can really hone in on it and I watch people go through the workday completely unaware of how stressed they are and what that's doing to their health.
So I think it all led up to that point. And, and the work I do is, is putting that into a book based on my, my life experiences with it. Yeah, it's, there's more than one way to do things, so that's just beautiful that you found another way. I am. It's interesting that you had had, you were anxious, even as a child.
You felt that anxiety, and especially for performance. I wonder if that was like fear, perfectionism, like achievement. I'm saying that because I'm projecting, because that's what it is for me. Yeah. Pleasing perfectionism achievement. Be the best. I have to Good enough. Like perform, you know? Yeah. And in, in my life.
My story is too that sometimes performing, doing a good job for the outside world was more important than what was even happening in my inside world. Right. And that kind of had to shift in, in my healing journey. The other thing I've heard with you is, um, this panic attack and, um, a meeting with the doctor and a neurologist is like.
This is how you are. Maybe you're the kind of person who's wound kind of tight, and I would say I'm the kind of person who's also wound tight. I, I say that and I also say sometimes I'm always revving. Yeah. My natural state of being is sort of like go all the fricking time. Yeah. So. Um, accepting that, letting myself be that, not trying to change that like that I am who I am.
This is how I am, here's how I can manage myself. Here's some tools for how to manage that. I, I don't have to change who I am or deny who I am. Or have shame about who I am, I can just have compassionate acceptance of this is the kind of person I am. And there's a lot of really wonderful things to those qualities too, right?
We all have a dark, a dark and a light and a pro and a con for each kind of trait that we might have. Um, and that you found there's different ways to do things. So it sounds like pretty early, like first. On the job, you're already so stressed out, you very quickly addressed it. I mean, the panic attack forced you to address it, right?
Whatever you were ignoring really came to the surface, and you went back to even some of those childhood tools of, um, tensing and relaxing, right? Different kind of different techniques to to calm yourself. I, I will say when I wrote my book, um, because I had this collaborative writer, writing is not my thing.
My thoughts were my thing and I had like a power PowerPoint and I could have stopped with like one chapter, which is just self-awareness is the key to your point. Mm. Like, that's all we need to practice. I practiced it for two years, just recently. I feel like the book has even helped me groan. Um, because early, back to your point, when I had those panic attacks, it was rare after that that I would get that shaking sensation, but I would still be at a low level.
Stress. So I really did, it took me years and years and years to practice and learn and ultimately become self-aware. Yeah. How I'm wired, which is what you alluded to. Yeah. I think everyone starts with what you just said and is aware and accepting and know when you tilt, you know, to the extreme or not. Um, that self-awareness is a practice and the biggest mental fitness exercise we can do every day for our health.
Yeah, I love it. Step one, I say the same thing. And my coach, I pay attention. Yeah. Step one, pay attention. Yeah, we do a lot to ignore, right? Ignore what's happening. Covering it up, denying it, distracting ourselves. Um, you know, for me that was alcohol, but it could be basically anything. It could be busyness, it could be scrolling, it could be, you know, shopping.
Now I found a lot of other ways to not pay attention, right? So step one, pay attention to what's happening. Inside of you, like the storm building inside and what your symptoms are and what's happening. Pay attention to that. Um, I love that. Tell us more. Where do we go from there? Once we recognize Okay, there's things happening.
Yeah, I, I mean that's the title of my book. So Brain On is when you are conscious, you're actually aware and you're not just running through and just, you know, and being subconscious and distracting. So step one is always asking, am my brain on or brain off? Off. Um, and brain off is like when you snap at someone or you say like, you're in fear mode, right?
Or you're fight flight or fear. So you're angry. Mm-hmm. You're scared or you disassociate like, I'm out. So, um, if you just practice brain on or brain off for a full day every day while at work, you'll be amazed. Um, for example, like. We might say, I don't know if you've said this, but I'm like, oh, I can't, I can't even read this email right now.
Well, that's brain off. I can't like, I can't, right. But then what we do is we move through that being brain off and we just keep going and going until we're burned out, right? Yes. So, yes, exactly. That is exactly right. We just don't listen to, we're telling ourselves we're brain off all day long, like, or we maybe even respond to that email, right.
That we couldn't even read with a very emotional spon response in the thinking part of our brain. Right. The f you or hope this email finds you through off. Right. That's so true. Just a reaction, right? I say we are brain off most of the day, so what's next is just saying, oh, I'm, I'm brain off. And then doing a mental fitness exercise that brings us brain on conscious again.
And so you want, when you think of conscious, you're like, oh, I'm gonna look out the window and consciously look at what I'm seeing. Seeing, oh, I'm not just gonna look out the window and still think, right, right. That brings your brain back on, I see green leaves right now. It looks like the wind's blowing.
I'm thinking I'm active now. I can respond from a better place, my best self place to that email. Mm-hmm. Oh, wait, I can't believe this. I gotta ding while I'm doing this other email. Right. Or somebody's knocking on my office door. Well, I just went brain off. Our default is to go brain off. We're, we're looking for threats.
We're scanning all day long, so. Knowing that, oh, I should just pause or maybe take a deep breath, or if I'm speaking too fast and I, I feel like I'm not, I'm distracted. Maybe I stand up. Like you're just trying to interrupt and consciously think about something to become brain on, which is when you're in your thinking brain, your best self brain coming back online.
Yeah. Not the robot response. Um, not the, just moving through the motions, not the emotional. Response. A reaction, like deciding how you wanna react. And that is meditation. Yeah. You mentioned meditation as a huge tool for you. Um, staying in the present and so often we're not in the present and especially with our stressful work environments, we're two steps ahead or we're still mad about yesterday.
Right? Yeah. That we're not really in this moment with this person most of the time, like you said. So. Becoming more aware, focusing on looking out the window, taking a breath, what's happening outside, feet on the ground. Getting into the present moment is one huge tool to bring your brain back online. Yes.
Um, and it's a pull, a natural pull to be offline. Yes. Is that sort of protection for us. Perhaps all news cavemen like Exactly. Yeah. And I know ev, I'm highly critical. I have a loud inner critic 'cause I'm the scanning the room for what's wrong all the time. The dishes aren't done. That's normal though.
Think it needs to be fluffed, you know, whatever. So who got their shoes there, right? Yeah. Right. That. So one that is so normal, and that was really why I wrote the book, is somebody said that to me once, like, it's normal for our brains to be off. We are on mm-hmm. Default mode, negative bias, looking for the next thing that's gonna kill us.
Right? But our brain doesn't know that dirty laundry's not gonna kill us. We have modern dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers running around and hyper alert that everything, our brains are on fire all day long. So again, having compassion for that, that's how we, we are wired. And then knowing that we have to build our strength up by creating these new neural pathways over and over, like rehiring, retraining, rewiring, mm-hmm.
Gave me hope. I'm like, wait, I don't have to be like this. Mm-hmm. And so, um, I just, it's just a daily commitment to be gentle with myself. Like yesterday, even. Huh? I found the lettuce in my chip cabinet because I wasn't paying attention when I was making my lunch. And I used a chip clip to roll the lettuce bag down.
And so I associated the chip clip with the chip cabinet instead of the refrigerator. 'cause I wasn't paying attention. So when I opened it up, I'm like, oh my, and that's normal fight fighter. Oh my God, how could I be so dumb? But then I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah. That's how I'm wired. Yeah. Yeah. So many brain off examples I'm thinking of when I get in the car.
Yeah. And I turn right and then I turn right again, and then I ask myself where I'm going. Right. I'm going the wrong direction because I'm just doing right. Whatever I normally do. My normal route is I'm trying to go to the gym, even though I'm supposed to be at the, going to the grocery store. Right.
The body wants what it wants, you know, like, right. Yeah. I, I mean this is all about building strength. Like our attention span right now is measured, uh, like eight seconds according to some of the studies. Eight seconds and then we're onto something else. 'cause we're always looking for, it's just. If I can focus for nine seconds every day, right?
Mm-hmm. 10 seconds. Like we have to rewire our patterns. Um, 'cause otherwise it's just gonna get worse and worse based on the speed of everything happening right now. Yeah. And I can't help but think in today's world how we're writing an email as our emails are dinging, as our slack is coming in and our teams is coming on and we're already late for this and somebody's at our door.
Yeah. And our messages on our phone are growing. Um, and then not to mention social media and the amount of information that's coming in at us constantly. Help with that. Like, how do we pay attention for 10, even 10 seconds at a time? What do, what do you recommend for folks in the workplace? Because this is like so much for a brain to categorize and file when things are coming in so fast, right?
Right. So there's a couple things. Um, in, in the book, I, I call this whole concept, um, being a corporate athlete because. If you think about it, our work. Is no longer physical. We don't have to exercise and lift weights to lift pounds of bags in the factory or heavy machinery. We use our brain to create work, so we have to have it in tip top shape.
And so in order to do that, we need to realize every day. Is gonna be an obstacle course for our brain to go through and we need to realize a couple things. One is the obstacle course is actually in front of us by the, the use of our calendars. If we look at our calendar, that tells us how much our brain is.
That's the map. Yeah. And, and how, and if we're already brain off all the time, how are we gonna get brain on and between those meetings when there's no whites? Space. So as a corporate athlete, they train based on the course. So we know what our course is. We know those things that are definitely gonna trigger our brain off.
So I recommend flagging in your calendar that day, those meetings, or that person that you're gonna, that turns your brain off right away. 'cause you're not gonna be your best self. Mm-hmm. So as a corporate athlete, you're preparing for your obstacle course and you're changing it. So every day I am like.
There's too much back to back. I need to reschedule a meeting and put in our active recovery, like a half an hour lunch, a half an hour walk. So change your course, change your day, change your life. Um, and then realizing that the workplace is our gym for our mental health and mental fitness. Mm-hmm.
Knowing that what we call the mind platter by Dr. Siegel, there's like 10 things you can do, which I've mentioned in the moment to bring your brain back online. One is look at nature, one might be listen to music. So what I recommend everyone do is have a one, a five and a 10 minute. Break list, active recovery break, so your brain doesn't have to think about what to do when you have a minute free.
Because if you have a minute free right now without something written out to do, you're gonna scroll. That's not active recovery. You're gonna pick up your phone when you're bored. We've been, that's more brain dead, right? Yeah. So I have a 1 5, 10 minute list I go to, depending on how much time I have, I suggest everybody write that out.
And then just to start with just three times a day asking yourself, oh, am my brain on right now? Or my brain off? Like right now I'm brain on 'cause I'm very engaged in listening to the question. But if, um, afterwards, right, I have a 1130 or 1230 when this ends, I might go right into that next meeting and not give myself a break.
And then I'm not showing up as my best self. So three times a day I ask, am my brain on or am my brain off? And you're gonna be brain off, but you have to ask yourself to get conscious again. Just to think about, yeah, just bring it, brings your awareness. Asking the question, brings awareness. Yes. Puts you back on line.
It's like the meditation where you're gonna have thoughts. It's not that. It's not that to be a perfect meditator, you're not gonna have any thoughts. Of course you're gonna have thoughts. Right. It's just how quickly you can let them go and bring yourself back. Right, exactly. And your brain on brain off how quickly you can recognize you're off and come back on because of course you're gonna be off.
Right. Exactly. That's, I love that thousand percent. Yes. You've nailed it. So yeah, you start your day knowing your obstacle course. You re, you kind of move things when you can. You know when your brain off or brain on. And then you ask yourself during the day when we're not paying attention and we're just in brain off mode to bring yourself back.
And then at the end of the day, you wrap up by some form of gratitude. Mm-hmm. No matter how bad your day was, gratitude's a superpower for bringing you back online because your fear brain and your thinking brain can't be on at the same time. So if you're still angry from work, you're not gonna greet your spouse, your kids happily, because you're still in fear brain or your brain off.
So gratitude immediately hijacks it and you, you can't be thinking some positive thought and still be angry one brain at a time. You've just engaged your thinking brain by saying, oh, I had such a great interview and time with my friend Heather. That immediately takes you out of your fear Brainin mode.
So gratitude is your super hack. So interesting. One brain at a time. Tell Yeah. You can't tell us more about that. You can't have be feeling fear or anger at the same time. At the same time. You're so happy. Oh yeah. Now you can go back and forth really, really fast and sometimes we do even on vacation.
Right? I'm having a great time and then iub my toe. Ouch. I'm in fear brain now that next thing, if somebody asks me something, I'm gonna, even though right. But then I'm gonna pause and I'm like, oh, look at that beautiful thing. I've never seen it wait, but back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, all the time.
And if we're always on fear brain, you can't be your best self. You have to switch to brain on, you have to switch, switch to your thinking. I love that. So the calendar is huge. And you know, one thing I do with my clients is calendaring. Often that is we need help with organization and we're, we expect ourselves to be in two places at once.
A lot. A lot that overwhelm is just heart pounding fear. I hate that feeling right, where I'm supposed to be picking up the kids and on this work call, yes, I couldn't be in two places at once, but we sort of expect ourselves to be sometimes right? And I too, I, my calls are, my one-on-one calls are 50 minutes and not an hour because there's a little buffer if things run late.
And also lemme go into the bathroom and fill my water. Take a breath. Have some intention in coming into the next call, right? Yes. Like kinda shake off the last call and um Right. That person, you know, and send them on their way and then clean the slate for the next call. I think it's so important. But at, on a corporate job, it's often meeting after meeting, after meeting, and there's, there's not even time to go to the bathroom.
Right? Well, I mean, just to your credit, almost everybody. Not a lot of people know to take that 10 minutes, that five minutes. Not a lot of people realize they're taking their last meeting participants and issues and bringing it into the next meeting. Right, right. So really, I mean, your clients are very lucky that you know that and you focus on that.
Um, and so it's, it's in our workday, it's. Personal becomes our work. Work becomes our personal. So it's just am my brain on or my brain off at this moment knowing that we're probably brain off. Mm-hmm. Before we answer a question from somebody dear to us, or a client, like it just takes practice. Mm-hmm.
Because our brain is not wired like that right now. We've trained it to be on hyper alert. Yeah. And part of the training is scheduling that white space. I love that. Yeah. It's a habit. Like schedule it in, like block it off. Right? Or you need a half an hour between this big meeting and this presentation.
'cause you need to prepare yourself. Right? For sure. And what I tell some of my clients is just put a meeting in with Deb. So you're, if you need to have a full calendar, put in a meeting with Deb and that's your brain ombre. Like, I don't care what you do. Perfect. Block some time for yourself. Yes. Yeah. I love that.
So burnout can sneak up on us. Based on your research, what are some of the early warning signs that people should pay attention to? Well, I think. Just in general. It's very interesting, um, 'cause in the workday, burnout has become what people consider a mental health crisis. And it's not, it's burnout is caused and cured.
By your workday and your workplace. It's the obstacle course. Yeah. It's the freaking obstacle where where you're running is the environment where you're running the obstacle. It's the terrain. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So in this case, you might not. Take any breaks. You might look at your calendar and your obstacle course and like, oh, good, I know it.
And then the next, it's five o'clock and you didn't do anything. Mm-hmm. If you do that for several days and don't change your pattern, that daily exhaustion will lead to burnout. Burnout is you just have no more energy left to give. Mm. You just have no more energy and so. That midday break or that 10, that 10 o'clock break that employers are supposed to give you is really to prevent burnout and exhaustion by five o'clock.
Like that's your active recovery. So warning signs are different. I, I call, you know, in poker when people have their tells and you could tell like. Well, I, I tell everyone to notice their own tells on the road to burnout. Mine is I start to get really parched. And I don't get water after that, and I end up really, really thirsty.
I'm gonna burn out because that means I didn't get up from my desk and I just kept plowing through. Like that little sign tells me I'm on my road to exhaustion that day and burn out if I keep doing it that way. Mm-hmm. Um, if you tell yourself, oh, I need a break, and don't take one and go onto the next email, that's a burn early burnout sign.
You're not paying attention to the signals your body needs. Your brain needs a freaking break. Mm-hmm. So burnout, I, I first would practice like, am I gonna leave? The goal of the book is to leave more restored at five o'clock than you started at eight 30, believe it or not. And so if you're exhausted at five o'clock, I would start to manage that as a key to burnout, because burnout is just several days of exhaustion all at once, and you just can't take anymore.
By that point, you're done. You, you've. You've eliminated any extra energy. Does that resonate? Does that make sense? Yeah. It's like your gas tank is empty and you could, or your battery is empty and you could have been charging up throughout the day for sure. And now you have fried, and now it's gonna take 24 hours to restore.
Or 48 hours or two weeks or, or quitting your job. Yeah. Right. Right. Or it's, it's beyond repair, right? You got it. Yeah. So I would, I would start to nuance, am I exhausted? Because exhausted really is a healthier way to, to manage stress than burnout. You don't wanna like burnout. So was my energy, where's my energy level and energy management.
So it's not only am I am, I think am I consciously thinking brain on, but in the book, I dedicate a whole chapter to energy management. Yeah, and that's fueling up active recovery. Just like you don't want your phone to go down by one bar, you really don't want your brain power to go down by one bar and by plugging in, often adding space to your obstacle course, showing up with.
Water and stretching and like, this is all a practice that is Yeah. Every day. And just like your phone works better, faster, more efficiently. So do you. And so getting to that point of exhaustion and you're 1%, like things are taking forever to load. It's not really working. You're, it's crashing. You have to restart.
You know, it's taking more time to do the same amount. Yeah. I think that's a really great way to talk to like management and leadership about why, why this is important for employees, because efficiency is better, the return on investment is actually higher when you can sustain productivity over a period of time without exhaustion and quitting and you know all that.
Right. All that. Right. The consequences of, of being exhausted. I'm also thinking, oh, go ahead. Oh, go. You go. Well, I, I guess the other thing is I think we need to look at it on a daily basis, not as this, how was your year? Did you meet your goals? Yeah, like at this high level, fluffy, like we need to be measuring micro moments now so that we can start addressing them quicker and sooner To your point.
Mm. Yeah, tell me more about that. Is that a daily check-in with a manager to, to, for the manager to help monitor somebody's energy level or calendar load? Um, so I mean, you bring up a really good point. I think it's on us and our self-awareness to manage our daily micro moments and asking our ourself the mental fitness.
But in a chapter I do have. A leadership a circuit, which is like extra first, the leader needs to know their own brain, when they need to recover, when they need to change things, when they need to focus in their tells. But then they need to realize they are coaching another person's brain like they're coaching another person's brain, and the organization is the collective brain.
So, um, they need to make sure they're not scheduling meetings back to back or trying to come up with an agenda in advance so our brain can focus and prepare and not get scared the minute we get on with our boss. Like surprise text or text after hours. There's habits and things that, so it's not checking in, but it's actually being a leader from a brain on perspective and doing things that support other people's brains and keeping them brain on.
Yeah, I love them. Yeah. Yeah. I would say having no say over anything. Make all, uh, meetings 50 minutes and then at 60, so everybody has five minutes to get from point A to point B. Right. Or take a breath or check their email or whatever they need to do. That could just be company policy for, for everyone it seems.
The other thing is yeah, culture and and leadership that I don't, I'll schedule this email to send. At 9:00 AM tomorrow morning, but not at 9:00 PM tonight. Right. Wait. Right. I can draft it. I can schedule it Right Planet, and I can just wait because that's the kind of culture I wanna create. Is that brain on also like brain off of work sometimes.
Right? Right. No, right, right. I know it's a little confusing. Somebody asked me like, I want my brain to be off. And I'm like, uh, your brain is off all the time. You know, but Yes. Right, right. No, it's like the highly enlightened when it gets to be on. The other thing I'm thinking is so interesting is like, we used to have smoke breaks.
You used to get a cigarette break, and that makes so much sense because you need 10 minutes between this or that. And if you were the smoker, you got the break. And if you weren't the smoker, you didn't get the break, you just have to stay on the phones or whatever It. The idea of that is right now the, the what you're consuming the substance was, was very unhealthy.
But the idea of take a break is good. And it's often the same with alcohol. Like have a break at the end of the day, have a glass of wine at the end of the day. And for many, I work with highly professional, successful women. And it's, they do need the break. They do need the sit down. They do need the permission to step away.
Right. And turn their brain on. Yeah. But alcohol's just the wrong substance to do it. And that was the excuse. You can do it without alcohol. There's plenty of ways to do it. You can take a walk around the block, you can do some deep breathing. Right? Right. You can do your favorite song. But the idea of like, we do need those breaks.
We need the smoke break, we need the drink. At the end of the day, it's just not actually a cigarette or alcohol. It's time. Yeah. Time and awareness. Exactly. I mean, that's why I use the word, and I talk about this in my keynotes, is like, we're corporate athletes and you tell me one professional athlete that goes on the golf course and doesn't drink water or takes a break and talks to their caddy, right?
Or goes off the field or sits down. You tell me and time out, we get timeouts, right? Well, yeah. And tennis. They're sitting down between sets. You tell me, you show me one professional that goes the whole way. With just thinking, thinking, which is what we're all doing for 480 minutes. If we work eight hours, we're just thinking and not giving ourselves a break.
But we use our mind as our, you know, to do work. Yeah. We're a corporate athlete. Yeah. Yeah. That's the muscle you're flexing all day long and even when you, you, there's a rest period between lifting weights, right? You, yeah. You do it and then you rest and then you again. Exactly. Active recovery. It's everything for everything.
I always say too, with anything, it's almost like labor, like a contraction, like you push and then you rest and then you push and then you rest. Exactly. And that's how over, that's how you sustain great work over a long period of time. Yeah. I'm thinking about myself though, and somebody who can go, falls to the wall 1000% or nothing at all is very much my mo.
Yeah. And I get almost the zoomies, I get an adrenaline high from working and overworking and over functioning. Yes. And being in a zone, um, I can get almost high off of that. Yeah. To be honest. Right. Like I, or addicted to that feeling. We're a, I'm addicted to stress. I'm addicted to, I'm also addicted to all that.
Yes. So talk to me about unwinding. For somebody like me, how to unwind some of that, where it almost feels good. It's almost giving me a, a hit or a rush to be doing that. Yeah. Well, honestly, I, I was like that too. I still am like that. Um, I. And I don't have, so it's, it's, again, back, back to those micro monitoring, you need to know, we need to know at the point where our tells are telling us, Hey, too much.
So when you feel, or you start to feel that high and you're like, oh, I'm gonna keep, keep going, that's when you say, no, I'm actually gonna stop. And it's gonna feel like what? Mm-hmm. You need to rewire your brain. So I used to be I for the, I don't even know the longest time. Worry equaled action. I was a good mom.
The more I worried mm-hmm. We have these stories, we've trained ourselves wrong. Mm-hmm. So I had to say worry for no reason. It was exhausting me. Making me sick does not equal, I'm a good mom. It does not equal action. So now I'm a good mom when I don't worry, I, I think about things before I pause, before I get a good night's.
Sleep before I stop myself. 'cause I know it's bad for me to keep going and going and going and going. Yeah. That's, that's an addiction. Yeah. We need, so it's a retraining through a pause or a different way or self-awareness? Um, yeah. Like even right now, I'm having a great time, but I notice I'm giving all my energy.
So I'm down two bars through this and I, and I'm having a good time. But I'm gonna take a drink right now to just say, you can still have a good time and you don't need to be go, go, go while you're talking to Heather. So let me pause and take a drink. What a beautiful real time example. I relate so much.
When my firstborn daughter was gonna have surgery, she was getting, um, tubes in her ears and her adenoids out. I worried sick the night before the surgery. I didn't sleep after surgery. I thought she'll be groggy. She'll be 10. She was three years old. She'll come home and sleep the rest of the day. Well, she didn't.
She came home and had all the energy in the world, and I had nothing to give her because I sp I spent not my, I spent my time not sleeping to worry about her surgery versus fueling myself so that I could really be with her in recovery. Right. Yeah. Like I just wanted her to go to sleep because I was so tired not being there for her in the night.
Just worried about it. Right. When it came time that she needed me, I was too exhausted to really give my best. So, um, yeah, worry like the rocking chair, you know? Yeah. I think too much of a good thing is always a problem, but avoiding the good thing is not the answer too. So, back to your point, I mean, I've always, I've always.
Kind of shamed myself because I love working. I love creating new businesses. I love coaching. I love all of that. So I even work on the weekend, but I had to train myself to know like, oh, I'm being grumpy with my kid, or, oh, I missed a conversation. That's when it becomes too much. So I honor that. I love to work and I'm happy, and I'm my best self when I do until I'm not.
Yeah. And catching that point and stopping is the practice. Yeah. I love it. And you mentioned some of your values of creativity and inspiration in the beginning. I just finished a book called The World Needs Your Art about Creativity, and it gave me a very low bar writing goal. I also like love to write and I have these big writing sessions and then nothing at all these big swings.
Right. And it ha, I gave myself the lowest bar writing goal that I could. And then when I accomplish that, each day stop is the thing. And it's like it is so hard to stop when you're on a roll, right? You love to get in that, but the stopping of it means it's leaving stuff left over for tomorrow, and I already know where I'm getting started and through this consistency of doing a little bit each day.
Stopping before I'm ready has had me writing more and better than I ever have in my past. And I think that's just an exact example of what you're talking about. We don't have to keep going. We don't have to go overboard and maybe stop before you're ready. Right, right. Like start your warning light is going off.
Yes. It doesn't have to get to a red when it starts to be yellow. Or even before Right. Break active recovery. Yes. Mm-hmm. Uh, I don't know if you know Dan Goldman, like the grandfather of emotional intelligence. Right. I was able to hear him speak, um, once and he used the Vitor Frankl, um, famous quote about a purposeful pause, you know, be between a stimulus like the phone rings or the nurse calls or another email and your response.
Before the, between the stimulus and the response is that pause and is a choice. Mm-hmm. But what Daniel Goman said is, the longer you lengthen that pause is the definition of maturity. Mm-hmm. You don't just jump in. Mm-hmm. Like, can you hold it three seconds today before checking your phone. Can you hold it?
Five. Can you hold it a minute? That takes a lot of mental fitness, but then you're coming back more poised, more restored, more refreshed. I thought that was brilliant. I really did. Oh, I think it's everything. Um, it definitely comes up with a craving too, right? To lengthen the pause and our impulsivity to just reenact.
I think we all have that. I have that a lot. Yeah. So, yeah, the maturity to, to decide how to react instead of doing what comes natural, you know, and thinking through, thinking kind of all of that through. Um, and having that emotional intelligence is, is so valuable. So I get it. You get it. Tell me how you've gotten preparations to get it, um, leaders in the work environment.
Like it makes sense personally and individually and for therapists and social workers and people one-on-one for dealing with it. But how do you get. A company or a leader of a company to wanna invest in something like this or see the value in training something like this, does it feel a little. Fluffy, or there is, there's not an ROI, this isn't gonna show up on a revenue sheet or something like that, as I'm just playing devil's advocate.
Guessing, yeah. Right. We might run again up against, yeah, like what's her, what's the real point? How does this, how does this grow my business? All of the above, and honestly, I don't have the answer yet. That's why I wrote the book, is to start the conversations. We're barely at the place where employers are investing dollars into mental health clinical.
Mm-hmm. Support, which is so needed. So I want them to start there. Mm-hmm. We haven't necessarily cracked the nut on understanding that our brain is the business, and if we don't upgrade everyone's brains through mental fitness, the businesses won't survive. So they haven't made the tie. So we're just starting this journey, which is why I so appreciate being able to talk about it.
I found the best thing is if a leader understands it, that leader and supporting that leader will then through grassroots or through the natural evolution of them managing others kind of, um. Get that on board, get that mental fitness mindset, um, throughout the organization at a grassroots level. So LinkedIn, for example, is one that has mindfulness sessions all the time running for all their employees.
And it started with the CEO and one, um, special person named Scott Shoot to want to launch and be a mindfulness. Executive. Mm-hmm. And he held sessions and slowly 10 people became 30 people. 30 people became 50 people. Mm-hmm. Those 50 people went out and people would say, wow, you seem calm today. And they would say, this is why I've been practicing word of mouth spread and it became organic.
It's not something you can just say you need. You have to experience it and see the benefit in your life, or it takes a health crisis. Like a heart attack, like, um, Bert Toley or the CEO of Aetna when he had his accident and learned mindfulness for pain relief, had all 50,000 Aetna employees do mindfulness training.
Um, so it takes that experience. So I'm up against all of that every day, but I will. Spend hours talking to that one employee or that one leader that wants to figure it out. Mm-hmm. And we will slowly get it embedded in that organization and, and that's kind of where we're at right now. Yeah, it's so, um, some of it is prevention.
Yeah. It sounds like, and sometimes it takes a crisis to Yeah. To shine a light on it. Unfortunately, when all of that could be prevented. Right. Yeah. It's thing, um, the other thing that I'm hearing is, uh, well, from an HR perspective, in my mind, having been a director of recruitment in my past is like, it is so.
Less expensive to keep an employee than to recruit an employee, right? So if you can keep your people and you have a culture that people like and a culture of wellness and wellbeing that supports individuals and a and a healthy workplace, then you're not just the burn and churn, which is so expensive to always be hire, hiring and firing is, is, is an incredibly costly endeavor.
So, yeah. I imagine there is an ROI, even if it hasn't been, um, you know, measured exactly a thousand percent. Your company is only as healthy as, as your least healthy brain. Mm-hmm. Because emotions are contagious. You know when a baby cries and if you go, oh my gosh, they like, get worse. Or if you go, huh, they like, like a boss.
Co-regulation of our nervous systems. Right. Neurons. Yeah. Negative emotions run through your organization. So if you don't understand that the success of your organization is de is solely determinant on the success and the health of your brains at work. Mm-hmm. Which are your people, but the brains of your people, um, it you will eventually go out of business.
You'll eventually lose customers. It might not be tied back to that mental fitness and the strength and the resiliency, but it was caused by those conversations being brain off or that toxic culture being brain off, or those leaders not understanding their turning brains off. For sure. That makes so much sense.
Thank you. Yeah. So, um, before we get to how to get by your book and all that good stuff, what is something that I can do and the listeners can do to support your cause? Besides to, to continue the conversation, to bring awareness, to be an advocate for brain on, um, both individually, personally, and at a larger scale.
How can we sing your song and, um, your praises across the masses? I mean, that's so kind of you to, um, ask. Honestly, like I said, if you're in an organization and you practice mindfulness and wanna know how to, to move mindfulness through your organization or want to learn about mindfulness and brain on and mental fitness, just, you know, connect with me.
Those are the conversations that truly change the trajectory of your entire workplace and workforce for the better. So I will talk to champions every day. It's what I enjoy doing. Um, I love it. Okay. We'll, your contact information and, um, oh, perfect. Yeah. A lot of corporate leaders listening. A lot of Boss Babe, of course.
Um, so they can connect directly with you. Yeah. The call, have a conversation, see what can be done in their workplaces and also. Um, tell us about your book. Tell us anything that I have missed asking about your book and also where to purchase and, um, how to make it a corporate book club. I think that would be a really good idea for, for folks to start the conversation in their workplaces as well.
I love that. Um, so interestingly enough, I don't read a lot of books. I get very tired. So I think the biggest thing, or the most impressive thing in my mind that I wanted to accomplish is that this was a brain friendly book. Mm-hmm. So, um. It is geared towards reading 10 pages a day and no more like it uses the Pandora effect.
I specifically asked for four colors so our brain can get engaged and not just kind of read the black and white. I used a special font, so it's brain friendly, so. I don't want this book to be on anybody's to-do list. I think it's a playbook for living your best and healthiest life at work, um, and a resource that you pull out all the time.
So it to me, it's a 10 ba page, fun read every day, and becoming mentally stronger. Um, is, is the goal so that you can have a better workday, which ultimately is why I do what I do. I want everyone to end their day better than it started. And what I say in my subtitles, win their workday because right now work is kicking our butts and our brains.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's why I started my own business. 'cause I couldn't do that anymore. Right, right. It was, it was, it was leading me to drink. Right. And now. It's the autonomy of schedule. That's everything for me. And now I do big, beautiful work. Yeah, important work, needle moving work the same, you know, as in the corporate world.
But it looks different because my time is different and the way I schedule my time is different. I love your passion about this. I love that I asked that question about what I didn't ask because I just learned loved. What you said about how intentional you were in writing this book and the fonts and the colors and how many pages per day.
And, um, as somebody who doesn't wanna like sit and read for hours and hours yourself, that you are conscious of making a brain on brain friendly book for the rest, um, you're the perfect guest to talk about this. Thank you so much for your time to Evan, for all the beautiful work that you do in the workplace.
We need more people like you. I'll support you, cheer you on. Advocate for what you're doing. Um, hopefully we can present somewhere together sometime. Right. I would love that because I keep s singing our song. Yes. I would say the same about you. It's been a true pleasure. I think what I. I draw inspiration from is talking with you and all your insightful questions coming from a place of knowledge and expertise and understanding the human experience.
Your two work is like a shining light that I adore and um, really just are inspired by too. So this was a true pleasure and honor for me as well. Thank you so much, Deb. Take care.
