Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be
Speaker 1: new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Emma Sepola.
Speaker 2: Our stress response is only meant to be for fight
Speaker 2: or flight, not all day constantly. Wow.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Emma Seppola,
Speaker 1: Science director at Stanford University's Center for Compassion in Altruism,
Speaker 1: Research and Education. She is also the author of The
Speaker 1: Happiness Track. Emma is co director of the Yale College
Speaker 1: Emotional Intelligence Project. She consults with Fortune five hundred leaders
Speaker 1: and employees on building a positive organization and teaches at
Speaker 1: the Yale School of Management's Executive Education Program. She graduated
Speaker 1: from Yale, Columbia and Stanford.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to have you on.
Speaker 3: You've written a new book called The Happiness Track, and
Speaker 3: we'll talk about that shortly, but I'd like to start
Speaker 3: like we usually do, with the parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 3: who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 3: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 3: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and he looks up at his grandfather, and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 3: which one wins, and the grandfather says the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 2: I definitely agree that the one you feed is stronger
Speaker 2: in the sense that the people you surround yourself with,
Speaker 2: the values of the people around you, the values you've learned,
Speaker 2: and also the attention you put towards fostering traits like
Speaker 2: compassion ess in yourself. At the same time, I also
Speaker 2: think that we're naturally kind and compassionate. That's our natural instinct.
Speaker 2: It's just that it gets overshadowed sometimes. It's not just
Speaker 2: about cultivating those qualities because you see them naturally in children,
Speaker 2: and we know that from research. We see that children
Speaker 2: naturally act altruistically and that adults do too. Actually, when
Speaker 2: you don't give them a lot of time to think,
Speaker 2: they are more likely to do the kind act, the
Speaker 2: fair act. So I just think certain things do push
Speaker 2: us towards acting according to the more negative wolf, and
Speaker 2: that those things are things like stress. I think when
Speaker 2: we're under a lot of stress, we don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: the bandwidth within ourselves or to act according to our
Speaker 2: best self. Sometimes people act in a way that's quote
Speaker 2: evil because they're a little ignorant of all of the
Speaker 2: facts of they have a skewed vision perhaps, But I
Speaker 2: think that at our core we are good, and I
Speaker 2: think the research also points to that when we look
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing like stress to bring out those more challenging behaviors.
Speaker 3: I think it's easy to be good when things are
Speaker 3: going good. It's when things get challenging that it becomes harder.
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's where activities like meditation or activities that
Speaker 2: really foster calmness and contemplation, and while being within you
Speaker 2: like even taking walks in nature and taking time to
Speaker 2: unplug and slow down, they can really help to reset
Speaker 2: your nervous systems so that you act according to your
Speaker 2: best self, that natural tendency we all have.
Speaker 3: Your book is called The Happiness Track, and the subtitle
Speaker 3: is how to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate
Speaker 3: Your Success. So you're not writing this just from here's
Speaker 3: how to be happy perspective, but also from a perspective
Speaker 3: of in order to be successful, it sure helps to
Speaker 3: be happy. Can you talk about that connection for a minute.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll start with a story of one of the
Speaker 2: Stanford undergraduates that participated in a class on the science
Speaker 2: of happiness that my colleague and I founded a number
Speaker 2: of years ago, and the student said she had to
Speaker 2: drop out of the class. And when my fellow colleague
Speaker 2: instructor asked well, why, the student said, because it goes
Speaker 2: against everything I've ever learned. My parents told me I
Speaker 2: have to be very successful, and when I asked them
Speaker 2: how to be very successful, they said, you have to
Speaker 2: work very, very hard. And when I asked them, how
Speaker 2: do I know when I'm working hard enough? They said
Speaker 2: when you're suffering. And can seem like a shocking story,
Speaker 2: but really it's something that is all around us. That
Speaker 2: theory is there. We have a sense that no pain,
Speaker 2: no gain. If you don't work yourself into the ground,
Speaker 2: you're just not going to compete as well, you're not
Speaker 2: going to come out first, you're not going to do
Speaker 2: better than others, etc. But if you look at the data,
Speaker 2: if you look at the research, we have it all wrong.
Speaker 2: This is a false theory, and that's why we're seeing
Speaker 2: fifty percent burnout across industries. We're seeing that seventy five
Speaker 2: percent of the American workforce is disengaged at work. We're
Speaker 2: seeing that eighty percent of doctors visits are attributed to stress.
Speaker 2: There's something going on. There's a pain point that we
Speaker 2: all feel that we've all seen, if not in ourselves,
Speaker 2: then in people around us, that this theory of success,
Speaker 2: the idea that in order to be successful you have
Speaker 2: to postpone or sacrifice your happiness, is simply false. It's
Speaker 2: not working. At least you can see it's not working.
Speaker 2: And so when I looked at the data, I saw
Speaker 2: again and again that if you actually do things to
Speaker 2: take care of yourself and the people around you, you
Speaker 2: actually are more creative, more productive, You're more focused, more charismatic,
Speaker 2: and more successful in the long run, more innovative in
Speaker 2: your thinking, more influential. The list goes on. So it
Speaker 2: was from seeing this pain point and the people around me,
Speaker 2: very successful environments like Silicon Valley, Yale University, Manhattan, different
Speaker 2: places where I worked. And so I wrote this book
Speaker 2: because I saw this pain point and I wanted to
Speaker 2: show people the data that there's another way, and it's
Speaker 2: a better way, and you're not going to burn out
Speaker 2: and you're going to do better Yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Talk about six major false theories that are behind our
Speaker 3: current notions of success. So the things that we think
Speaker 3: are important to be successful. You're saying that a lot
Speaker 3: of these things aren't true. Maybe we could talk about
Speaker 3: what a couple of those are.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, one of them, I think an obvious one
Speaker 2: is the idea that you can't have success without stress.
Speaker 2: People just buy into that. And it's so interesting because
Speaker 2: you see fuel ourselves with stress. We overschedule ourselves, we
Speaker 2: wait till the last minute to get things done, We
Speaker 2: fuel up with caffeine, our energy drinks. We have bought
Speaker 2: into this idea that the only way we can be
Speaker 2: productive is thanks to adrenaline coursing through our veins. And
Speaker 2: then we wonder why we're so exhausted by two pm,
Speaker 2: why we fall on the couch when we get home
Speaker 2: after work while we don't have energy, why we have
Speaker 2: sleep problems, And it's because we're constantly tapping into the
Speaker 2: fight or flight system. And you know, it's nothing new,
Speaker 2: this idea that stress is bad for you, but we
Speaker 2: have still bought into the fact that we need it.
Speaker 2: Somehow we've become kind of addicted to adrenaline. But the
Speaker 2: problem is that's why we're burning out. That's why we're
Speaker 2: seeing such hype burnout levels. If you look in the
Speaker 2: animal world, we're only supposed to feel stressed a few
Speaker 2: minutes our life. Those are the words of a psychologists
Speaker 2: at Stanford wrote a book called the y Zebras Don't
Speaker 2: get Ulcers. But the idea is that our stress response
Speaker 2: is only meant to be for fight or flight, not
Speaker 2: all day constantly, and so when we constantly fuel ourselves
Speaker 2: up like that, we are burning through all of our systems.
Speaker 2: We're burning through our immune system, We're burning through so
Speaker 2: many things in our body. We're using up so much energy,
Speaker 2: and then we wonder why we don't have energy, and
Speaker 2: then we just keep fueling up. The problem comes is
Speaker 2: that when we're constantly in this hydrenaline mode, we're also
Speaker 2: not able to focus. We lose our ability to make
Speaker 2: good decisions, our emotional intelligence drops, we're not able to
Speaker 2: communicate as easily with other people, we're not able to
Speaker 2: take a broader perspective when it's needed, and our immune
Speaker 2: system is compromised. We've all experienced this, and there's plenty
Speaker 2: of data on that too, So we really need to
Speaker 2: rethink this idea. But if you actually take time to
Speaker 2: do things like meditation or whatever it is that calms
Speaker 2: you down, and if you actually make time for that
Speaker 2: in your life, you'll see that your attention is broader,
Speaker 2: your memory improves, you're able to connect better with other people.
Speaker 2: You're actually more powerful. If you think about who's more
Speaker 2: powerful when they arrive at a negotiation table, for example,
Speaker 2: the person who's super anxious a negotiation table or job
Speaker 2: interview or first date, you name it, the person who's
Speaker 2: really anxious and really wants the job or the negotiation outcome,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. Or the other person who's really calm,
Speaker 2: who's really centered, who could just walk away and be
Speaker 2: just fine. Clearly it's the calm one. And yet calmness
Speaker 2: has somehow is not a quote sexy feeling. We're always
Speaker 2: talking about I'm so excited to see you. We don't
Speaker 2: say I'm so calm to see you. So in the
Speaker 2: United States in particular, we value high intensity, high intensity stress,
Speaker 2: high intensity excitement. So we know that also from data.
Speaker 2: When we think of happiness, we think of high intensity
Speaker 2: emotions like excitement and thrill, And that's all fine and good,
Speaker 2: but what we're buying into is a life of high
Speaker 2: intensity all the time, and then we're wondering why we're exhausted.
Speaker 2: We also wondering why there's such high anxiety levels when
Speaker 2: we're constantly doing it to ourselves. In some ways, that's
Speaker 2: why things like meditation, yoga, spending more time in nature,
Speaker 2: unplugging in the evenings, unplugging on the weekends, allowing yourself
Speaker 2: to have a little technology detox when you don't absolutely
Speaker 2: need to be on your various instruments of communication. So
Speaker 2: that's just one of the theories. Another theory is this
Speaker 2: idea that we have to be so focused on our
Speaker 2: niche all the time, so focused on our field. I
Speaker 2: need to be number one in my field. I need
Speaker 2: to know everything in order to be innovative, in order
Speaker 2: to be creative. So the number one attribute that CEOs
Speaker 2: look for in the incoming workforce is creativity above everything else,
Speaker 2: above integrity, above work ethic everything. And it makes sense
Speaker 2: if you think about it, because creativity and innovative thinking
Speaker 2: is so needed in any field that you're in to
Speaker 2: excel and to get ahead. And so the mistake that
Speaker 2: we make is that we are constantly so focused on
Speaker 2: our field, so focused on learning and we are always
Speaker 2: thinking about the next thing on our to do list.
Speaker 2: But as a consequence, we actually prevent ourselves from getting
Speaker 2: into a creative mindset. So if you look at the data,
Speaker 2: our brain is most likely to come up with a
Speaker 2: breakthrough solution when we're idle, when we're in the shower
Speaker 2: or in that moment right before sleep, or when we're
Speaker 2: maybe in the car just zoning out listening music. And
Speaker 2: there's a reason for that. When we're in an idle situation,
Speaker 2: our brain is actually an active problem solving mode. So
Speaker 2: you'll probably notice that you'll find a solution to something
Speaker 2: you've been pondering on forever in a moment you least
Speaker 2: expect it. The idea is that you need to take
Speaker 2: time off, you need to take time to be idle,
Speaker 2: and if you think about it, you could go all
Speaker 2: day long. Never were accessing that creative mindset because people
Speaker 2: roll over in bed and check their email, and then
Speaker 2: if you wait in line, people are checking their emails.
Speaker 2: All those moments when you used to wait for the
Speaker 2: bus and just space out our daydream are spent on
Speaker 2: our devices. And then when we're at work, we're constantly
Speaker 2: focused and learning and so forth. Which is great, but
Speaker 2: creativity actually needs you to take that time off. So
Speaker 2: you know, even if it's in the name of productivity,
Speaker 2: take some time off, which we also know is so
Speaker 2: good for your engagement when you get back to work.
Speaker 2: We know from research that when you take time off
Speaker 2: of work, when you're in the evenings, on the weekends
Speaker 2: and so forth, you come back much more engaged. You
Speaker 2: come back much more energized. So it's a great way
Speaker 2: to manage your energy too. And something again that we've forgotten.
Speaker 4: Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list
Speaker 4: item to check off, or perhaps it's even fallen off
Speaker 4: the list entirely. If you sense that meditating regularly would
Speaker 4: benefit you, but you struggle to find a sustainable place
Speaker 4: for it in your schedule, I can help. There are
Speaker 4: reasons people struggle with creating and maintaining a meditation practice,
Speaker 4: and it isn't because meditation isn't right for them. In
Speaker 4: my free guide the top five reasons you can't seem
Speaker 4: to stick with a meditation practice and how to build
Speaker 4: one that lasts, I teach you why it can be
Speaker 4: a struggle to build a meditation practice that lasts, and
Speaker 4: the small fixes that can have a big impact when
Speaker 4: it comes to getting you where you want to be
Speaker 4: with meditating regularly. Go to oneufeed dot net and sign
Speaker 4: up for this free guide right on our homepage. You
Speaker 4: talk in the book a lot about managing your energy,
Speaker 4: so not managing your time, but managing your energy. Share
Speaker 4: a little bit more about what that means, and then
Speaker 4: maybe talk some about how we can manage our energy better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the ways is, you know what
Speaker 2: I just discussed, is that slowing down that adrenaline rush
Speaker 2: or curving it in some way. You know, it's fine
Speaker 2: to have a coffee, or if you're the kind of
Speaker 2: person who likes to be last minute to get things
Speaker 2: done because that motivates you, that's fine. But just watch
Speaker 2: how much are you fueling your life with adrenaline, because
Speaker 2: that's burning through your battery at high speed. One thing
Speaker 2: that you might want to do, and that also brings
Speaker 2: out the greatest creativity, is to alternate high and low
Speaker 2: intensity tasks in your day. For example, if you have
Speaker 2: a presentage to prepare that's high intensity, focused, concentrated work,
Speaker 2: do that for the first hour at work, but the
Speaker 2: second hour, do the things that allow you to mind
Speaker 2: wanderer to be less focused and less intensely focused, clean
Speaker 2: out your desk, enter data, something less intense, and then
Speaker 2: you can go back to an intense activity. So kind
Speaker 2: of sandwiching high and low intensity activities like that can
Speaker 2: not only help you restore your energy, manage your energy,
Speaker 2: but also will help you be more creative because in
Speaker 2: those tasks that demand less focus, you're able to mind wander,
Speaker 2: which actually leads to those creative moments. And research shows
Speaker 2: that when you go back to your high intensity activity,
Speaker 2: let's say you go back to that presentation and keep
Speaker 2: refining it, you're going to be more focused. So that's
Speaker 2: one way. The other way, obviously, like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: is managing that how much adrenaline, how much caffeine, how
Speaker 2: much speed you live with in your life. And finally,
Speaker 2: meditation is huge. I mean, at this point, everybody meditates.
Speaker 2: At this point, everybody has heard of it. At least.
Speaker 2: It's so simple and yet it's so powerful. We live
Speaker 2: at a time and age when we're taking in more
Speaker 2: information than ever before. So a two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: studies show that we take in thirty five thousand gigabytes
Speaker 2: of information every week, which is enough to crash a
Speaker 2: computer in a couple of weeks. That was thirty five
Speaker 2: thousand gigbyes information a day. But that was in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine. The iPhone had barely come out. I
Speaker 2: don't even want to know what it is at this point,
Speaker 2: but we are in a deluge of information, and then
Speaker 2: we're wondering why our thoughts are racing, Wow, we're feeling stressed,
Speaker 2: why we're feeling overwhelmed. We've come to a point where
Speaker 2: we absolutely have to unplug in order to create some balance.
Speaker 2: Our ancestors, even our grandparents, even our parents, did not
Speaker 2: consume this much information, and we haven't yet found a balance.
Speaker 2: It's happened so fast, So I think that's why a
Speaker 2: lot of people are finding this kind of revolutionary act
Speaker 2: of sitting and doing nothing, which is so revolutionary in
Speaker 2: our culture where we are such doers. Just for a
Speaker 2: few minutes, it's actually balancing us out. And there's so
Speaker 2: much research at this point showing the very, very many,
Speaker 2: many benefits.
Speaker 3: You also talk about resilience, and you talk about how
Speaker 3: animals and children have a lot of natural resilience, and
Speaker 3: yet as adults we don't show that in the same way.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2: Well, we can see in children and in animals when
Speaker 2: they get upset or when they get stressed, they're over
Speaker 2: it in a couple of minutes. As soon as the
Speaker 2: stressors gone, they've moved on and they're doing just fine.
Speaker 2: And you'll notice that kids had a lot of energy,
Speaker 2: and the animals go right back to being very peaceful
Speaker 2: after they've been in the vet or they've been chased
Speaker 2: in the wild. And the reason for that is that
Speaker 2: after being in fight or flight mode, our body immediately
Speaker 2: goes back to a parasympathetic mode, from sympathetic to parasympathetic,
Speaker 2: which means from fight or flight to rest and digest,
Speaker 2: to that mode in which the body can repair itself,
Speaker 2: restore all of the resources it's lost during the fight
Speaker 2: or flight moment so that it can be strong and
Speaker 2: resilient in the face of another stressor. And that's why
Speaker 2: it's so important for us to make that time in
Speaker 2: our life when we can go into that parasympathetic calming state,
Speaker 2: which again in our culture we don't value, but it's
Speaker 2: so essential to manage our energy that way. And so
Speaker 2: that's really critical and a very important way that you
Speaker 2: can do that is actually through your breath, and that
Speaker 2: sounds so simplistic, but it's not at all. It is
Speaker 2: so powerful. I've done research with some of the most
Speaker 2: stressed individuals in our society, which your veterans returning from
Speaker 2: combat with trauma. They're nervous system has sometimes been turned
Speaker 2: into fight or flight mode and somehow hasn't been able
Speaker 2: to shut off again. It seems like that's what trauma
Speaker 2: can sometimes do to someone. They have trouble sleeping, They're
Speaker 2: always anxious, They're extremely jumpy in very normal, non dangerous situations.
Speaker 2: They can't function normally. Their cognitive skills declined because their
Speaker 2: body is so toxed, their mind is so taxed from
Speaker 2: whatever experience it was that led to the trauma, and
Speaker 2: that doesn't allow them to live in the present moment
Speaker 2: and to move on with their lives. In one week
Speaker 2: of doing some breathing exercises with them through a nonprofit
Speaker 2: called Project Welcome Home Troops and learning a yoga based
Speaker 2: breathing exercise called Pseudarshan Krea Yoga sky Breathing, they were
Speaker 2: able to come back to themselves. They were able to
Speaker 2: sleep again. They're anxiety normalized, and They've moved on with
Speaker 2: their lives. I've been invited to officiate their weddings, they
Speaker 2: have relationships, jobs, they've finished school. It's amazing they've just
Speaker 2: moved on. And how is it that something so simple
Speaker 2: as the breath can reset our nervous system. If it
Speaker 2: can do it for them, it can do it for
Speaker 2: any of us. It is so powerful. So we know
Speaker 2: that from experience, but also we know that from research
Speaker 2: that when we have different emotions, are breathing changes. For example,
Speaker 2: anxiety is short and shallow, anger is short and shallow, sobbing, laughing.
Speaker 2: Those are all examples of how emotions are tied to breathing.
Speaker 2: You come home, your exhaust it's been a long day.
Speaker 2: You slop down on the sofa and you sigh. Our
Speaker 2: breath changes with our feelings. But the most interesting part
Speaker 2: is that when you change your breath, you can change
Speaker 2: your feelings. And there's a really interesting research study that
Speaker 2: shows that too, So just with your breath, you can
Speaker 2: change the state of your mind. And this is very
Speaker 2: powerful because think about it, when we're having a strong emotion,
Speaker 2: it's really really hard to control our emotions with our thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yet that's what people are always telling us. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: calm down, when you're feeling not calm. I mean, is
Speaker 2: that helpful when people say that, or when we try
Speaker 2: to say that to ourselves, like oh, don't freak out,
Speaker 2: or when we're trying to go to sleep and we're
Speaker 2: saying go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.
Speaker 2: It doesn't work. And we know from research too that
Speaker 2: what you resist persists in the mind. But with breathing,
Speaker 2: you can change how you feel. And that's to me
Speaker 2: revolutionary because when you have peace of mind, when you
Speaker 2: have presence of mind, you have everything. So do you
Speaker 2: want me to share a story with you about how
Speaker 2: powerful breathing is?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: And then maybe you could share a little bit about
Speaker 3: how to do some of this breathing, like what people
Speaker 3: could do now an exercise they can use, and I'm
Speaker 3: always interested in, like how long do you need to
Speaker 3: do the breathing exercise for? And so maybe you can
Speaker 3: just share some of that also.
Speaker 2: Sure, so I'll share the story of a friend of
Speaker 2: ours who was an officer in the Marine Corps and
Speaker 2: he was in charge of the last vehicle on a
Speaker 2: convoy going across Afghanistan, and every other vehicle passed safely,
Speaker 2: but his unfortunately hit an id and improvised explosive device.
Speaker 2: In that moment, there's a huge explosion, and when he
Speaker 2: looked down, his legs were mostly severed below the knee.
Speaker 2: And that moment of shock, he remembered a breathing exercise
Speaker 2: and it was a breathing exercise he had learned about
Speaker 2: in a book for officers for very difficult moments. And
Speaker 2: that breathing exercise involved breathing in for account of four,
Speaker 2: holding for account of four, breathing out for account of four,
Speaker 2: and then holding for account of four. And thanks to
Speaker 2: the presence of mind that he had from that breathing,
Speaker 2: he was able to do his duty, which was first
Speaker 2: to check on his men, second to give orders to
Speaker 2: call for help. And third he looked down on his legs,
Speaker 2: he tourniquated them himself. He propped them up. And only then,
Speaker 2: when everything was said and done with, everything was taken
Speaker 2: care of and did he fall unconscious. And later he
Speaker 2: was told had he not done that, he would have
Speaker 2: either bled to death or fallen into a coma. That story,
Speaker 2: I think is such a powerful reminder to all of
Speaker 2: us that the breath is so incredibly important when it
Speaker 2: comes to presence of mind. It could even save a life.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to share that with you. Why is
Speaker 2: it that breathing is so powerful. Well, we know that
Speaker 2: when we inhale, our heart rate increases and when we expel,
Speaker 2: our heart rate decreases. We know that our breath and
Speaker 2: our motions are tightly link. So just lengthening your exhales
Speaker 2: can also really start to slow things down for you.
Speaker 2: So you're in a meeting, you're driving, you're feeling anxious,
Speaker 2: you're feeling angry, you're tired, whatever it is, you can
Speaker 2: actually change how you feel through your breath. Lengthening your
Speaker 2: exhales is going to calm down your heart rate. The
Speaker 2: sky breathing that veterans learned that really helped them get
Speaker 2: over the trauma is it takes a few days to learn.
Speaker 2: Takes about three or four days to learn. So that
Speaker 2: is it's a twenty minutes practice itselfs very very powerful,
Speaker 2: and that's something that people can learn. If they're veterans,
Speaker 2: they can learn it through Project Welcome Home Troops, and
Speaker 2: if they're just regular community members, they can learn it
Speaker 2: through an organization called Art of Living.
Speaker 3: You described the four seconds in hold four seconds, four seconds,
Speaker 3: I hold four seconds. I've heard all kinds of variations
Speaker 3: on that seven seconds in. Obviously, you can just do
Speaker 3: it any moment, but do you find that doing it
Speaker 3: for a set amount of time leads to benefits? Do
Speaker 3: you have any sort of like regular practice of it
Speaker 3: in the same way that people have like a meditation practice.
Speaker 2: Yes, I personally do this guy breathing every single day.
Speaker 2: It's a twenty minute practice if you want to learn
Speaker 2: like a shorter one. This is funny because it's one
Speaker 2: I describe in my book, and I never realized that
Speaker 2: my book agent really took that chapter to heart and
Speaker 2: he started practicing this breathing that I'm about to describe.
Speaker 2: And he's kind of a type a New Yorker, and
Speaker 2: he was saying, oh, I've been doing that breathing from
Speaker 2: chapter two, and I'm feeling really good and I'm breathing
Speaker 2: at first. Sorry with five minutes. Now I'm being ten,
Speaker 2: I'm being fifteen, and he's really feeling a different So
Speaker 2: that was really funny and great news too. So you know,
Speaker 2: that was a very simple breathing technique where I just
Speaker 2: set breathe in for account of four breathe out for
Speaker 2: account of eight, so you're basically breathing out for twice
Speaker 2: as long as you're breathing in, and just doing that
Speaker 2: for a couple of minutes to start your day would
Speaker 2: be terrific. But really it's something you can do at
Speaker 2: any point. I mean, I like to meditate or do
Speaker 2: breathing exercise anytime during the day when I'm feeling my
Speaker 2: energy dip a little bit, and I find it's such
Speaker 2: a healthier way to restore my energy and my peace
Speaker 2: of mind and my concentration and focus than any other substitute,
Speaker 2: such as a substance of sorts, which again leads to crashes.
Speaker 2: I really think of the analogy of plugging in my
Speaker 2: phone to fill up my battery. There's no side effects,
Speaker 2: but you do feel much better. You're more focused, You're
Speaker 2: just more on top of your game.
Speaker 3: You talk about another false theory of success, and you
Speaker 3: say that it's you know, look out for number one.
Speaker 3: You know that we should look out primarily for ourselves.
Speaker 3: And then you go on to talk about a skill
Speaker 3: that you can can develop that helps you to be
Speaker 3: happier and more successful is show compassion to others. What
Speaker 3: is the value of compassion? In becoming more successful. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people listening to show go. Well,
Speaker 3: it's obvious with the value of compassion is but outside
Speaker 3: of that, in more of a driving a successful career
Speaker 3: type way, where does that play in.
Speaker 2: Well, we have this false view that in order to
Speaker 2: be successful you have to look out for number one
Speaker 2: and elbow people out of the way. But if you
Speaker 2: look at the data again and again, it's those people
Speaker 2: who are kind, those people who support others, those people
Speaker 2: who have good positive relationships with other, people who uplift others.
Speaker 2: Those are the people that get promoted. Those are the
Speaker 2: people that you want as colleagues. Those are the people
Speaker 2: you offer a job to. And so I'm not saying
Speaker 2: to be a doormat, no way, You've got to have skill.
Speaker 2: But the idea is that if you are a kinder,
Speaker 2: more supportive, more giving person, you are the kind of
Speaker 2: person that everyone else wants to support as well, that
Speaker 2: everyone else wants on their team, that everyone else wants
Speaker 2: as a manager, as an employee, and so forth. It
Speaker 2: makes sense when you think about it, but the data
Speaker 2: is showing that too, And so this is a really
Speaker 2: old paradigm. The lookout for number one and it really
Speaker 2: needs to move on, because when you are a kinder,
Speaker 2: more compassionate person, you actually benefit tremendously. Your happiness increases,
Speaker 2: your physical health increases, and you even live longer. There's
Speaker 2: so much data to show that people who are kinder,
Speaker 2: who have very altruistic traits actually are healthier and live longer,
Speaker 2: are happier, and live lives filled with meaning and purpose,
Speaker 2: which is so fulfilling in a very deep way that
Speaker 2: other forms of happiness or joy may not bring.
Speaker 3: Do you think that as our culture is changing, that
Speaker 3: this idea of being more compassionate and kind at work
Speaker 3: is more effective than maybe it would have been thirty
Speaker 3: or fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's a trend towards this. So workplaces are bringing
Speaker 2: mindfulness in, but the next trend is compassionate, and we're
Speaker 2: seeing that there's a lot of interest in compassion trainings,
Speaker 2: and managers are starting to understand that their employees are
Speaker 2: going to be more loyal to them. Research on that
Speaker 2: employees prefer to work for a boss where they're happy
Speaker 2: and where they have good positive relationships, then another workplace
Speaker 2: where they get paid more. So we're always thinking, let's
Speaker 2: entice our employees with more material groups. But more than anything,
Speaker 2: people want to be happy at their workplace. And that
Speaker 2: makes sense if you think of the number of hours
Speaker 2: they spend there. They spend most of their week there.
Speaker 3: What are some compassion practices that people are being trained in.
Speaker 2: I recommend loving Kindness Meditation as a place to start.
Speaker 2: I have a YouTube Loving Kindness Meditation up from the
Speaker 2: research study that we did. I just put it up
Speaker 2: because people kept asking about the practice that we researched,
Speaker 2: and now seems to be quite popular. I also have
Speaker 2: a downloadable one off my website if people prefer to
Speaker 2: have it on their iPhone, and that's at no charge.
Speaker 3: And we'll have a link to both those things in
Speaker 3: the show notes at one you feed dot net slash Emma,
Speaker 3: so people can link right to those things, as well
Speaker 3: as your Twitter and other accounts. Sure well, I think
Speaker 3: compassion and is a great place to wrap up the conversation.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Emma for taking the time to come on.
Speaker 3: Thank you for the work that you do, and it's
Speaker 3: been nice talking with you.
Speaker 1: Eric.
Speaker 2: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for focusing on
Speaker 2: these positive aspects of human behavior and the human heart.
Speaker 2: And it's just so important for us to remember that
Speaker 2: and to focus on that excellent.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, take care.
Speaker 5: You too, Bye bye.
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