Speaker 1: Sixty one percent of people feel expected to just get
Speaker 1: over stress.
Speaker 2: It's like just power through the moment.
Speaker 1: CEO of car author of Recharge, David Code.
Speaker 2: Good stress could lead to resilience. You're never really going
Speaker 2: to have a stress free work environment. Not everything has
Speaker 2: to be twenty four seven three sixty five. Because at
Speaker 2: some point you've caused a lot of bad stress. That's
Speaker 2: a real kind of indicator for you to say, I
Speaker 2: need to really kind of take a heart stop and
Speaker 2: figure out how I recharge.
Speaker 3: The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 1: Jay Setty, Jay Shetty sly Sheet. Hey everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to on Purpose, the number one place you come to
Speaker 1: become happier, healthier and more healed. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in today. Today, I'm so excited because I
Speaker 1: talk to a really good friend, someone that I respect
Speaker 1: so highly and admire so deeply, and I've had the
Speaker 1: fortune of knowing for the last couple of years. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about David co the CEO of Calm, the leading
Speaker 1: app for meditation and mindfulness, and a new author of
Speaker 1: his book Recharge that offers tips for the best mental
Speaker 1: wellness practices in today's digital world. The book has interviews
Speaker 1: with rappers, rebels, and innovators as he travels, talking about stress, burnout,
Speaker 1: and feeling drained. If any of you are feeling stressed
Speaker 1: right now, this episode's for you. If you're feeling drained
Speaker 1: from work right now, this episode's for you. And if
Speaker 1: you need to recharge, this book and episode is for you.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to On Purpose, the CEO of Calm, David Co. David,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you here. Thank you Jay for
Speaker 1: having me here today. I'm so excited. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: because I really feel like ever since we met, I
Speaker 1: felt like we hit it off right away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right away, right away.
Speaker 1: And I've been fortunate enough to have you interview me
Speaker 1: so many times, so I'm glad I get to repay
Speaker 1: the fava this time round. And I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you just to get out of blood bone and just
Speaker 1: to stop with some fun. I wanted to ask you, David,
Speaker 1: what's something that you're not calm about.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of things that I'm not
Speaker 2: calm about throughout my day. I will tell you right now,
Speaker 2: I am in the throes of my oldest daughter applying
Speaker 2: to colleges. Even though I try to peer very calm
Speaker 2: in front of her and cool and collective, you know,
Speaker 2: and you don't want to be like a helicopter type
Speaker 2: of parent. There are times where I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to get in there and say something, but
Speaker 2: I realize almost like the best thing for hers for
Speaker 2: her to go through it, and I have to kind
Speaker 2: of take a back seat. And so it's kind of
Speaker 2: going from where you take the wheel to like you're
Speaker 2: in the passenger seat, and then you're in the back
Speaker 2: seat kind of peering every once in a while. But
Speaker 2: I can't help myself from like I don't know when
Speaker 2: she first learned drive by like saying, oh, I'm stepping
Speaker 2: on the break here and there, right, But that's one
Speaker 2: thing right now that is probably a little stressful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I can imagine.
Speaker 1: I read a study that said we process around seventy
Speaker 1: two gigabytes of information per day, which the research likened
Speaker 1: to reading Tolkien's The Hobbit every single day. That's nearly
Speaker 1: ninety six thousand.
Speaker 3: Words, right right.
Speaker 1: And you think about that and you go, no wonder,
Speaker 1: we're overwhelmed. No wonder we're burnt out, No wonder, we're stressed,
Speaker 1: And you have this really brilliant analogy comparing the brain
Speaker 1: and our mind to a Battery's right, walk us through this,
Speaker 1: because I really like this in your book reach Outs,
Speaker 1: the way you break it down and explain it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The recharge came from a good friend of mine and
Speaker 2: we were talking about mental health and I just asked her,
Speaker 2: I said, you know, how's it going with your kids?
Speaker 2: And she goes, you know, I was talking to my
Speaker 2: kids and I just said, how's your battery? And I
Speaker 2: was like, wait what, and she goes, well, I said
Speaker 2: how's your battery? I said why? And she said, well,
Speaker 2: if I asked them how they're doing, I get the
Speaker 2: plane fine, And because they're kids, they're just like, I'm fine.
Speaker 2: But if I asked them, like, how's your battery, they're like, well,
Speaker 2: it's at like fifty percent, or it's or so you
Speaker 2: may need a snack because they're little, or it's at
Speaker 2: seventy five percent. She's like, oh, you're okay, or sometimes
Speaker 2: there are twenty five percent and they just need something,
Speaker 2: you know, to decompress. While we are talking about it,
Speaker 2: a light bulb just went out. And that light bulb
Speaker 2: that went on was about like she took something that
Speaker 2: at times can be charged, and she took something and
Speaker 2: really simplified in a way that I think we would
Speaker 2: all understand regardless of age.
Speaker 3: And I asked her.
Speaker 2: I was like, can I run with that? And she
Speaker 2: was like yeah, sure, whatever, right, And we still laugh
Speaker 2: about it, Brenda and I because she's like, wow, you
Speaker 2: actually took it, and I was like, yeah. I used
Speaker 2: it as a theme. I talk about it, I go
Speaker 2: to clients, I'll go out and it just kind of
Speaker 2: resonates with people because it's simple and it doesn't kind
Speaker 2: of draw out any emotions. It just says like, hey,
Speaker 2: how's your battery? How are you feeling? And I think
Speaker 2: that's sometimes that gets lost because we are we try
Speaker 2: to make it bigger sometimes than it is, and it's
Speaker 2: really nice when you can kind of just simplify it
Speaker 2: and just ask you how's your battery? How you doing?
Speaker 1: I love the question how's your battery? Even more than
Speaker 1: how you're doing, like you said, because I think sometimes
Speaker 1: I think you also mentioned that we can scale everything
Speaker 1: up to a ten. That's right, So everything can feel
Speaker 1: like it's a ten it's the worst, or everything can
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, it's just plain old fine, right, and
Speaker 1: then you don't have much to play with, whereas when
Speaker 1: you get a number, walk us through the different breakdowns
Speaker 1: as you do in the book, because I think when
Speaker 1: you look at zero to one hundred, we're very good
Speaker 1: at feeling zero and maybe a hundred, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: it's your kid's wedding, chances are you'll be at a hundred.
Speaker 1: If it's like your kid's birthday, like you're at a hundred.
Speaker 1: Like there's these joyful, listful moments in life that people
Speaker 1: experience and we go, yeah, that was a hundred moment,
Speaker 1: and then we all know what a zero moment feels.
Speaker 1: Like you lost a loved one who sadly paused away,
Speaker 1: you got you know, you lost your job, Like there's
Speaker 1: these very zero moments. Walk us through how you break
Speaker 1: down the zero to one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I tried to do it really simply. You know,
Speaker 2: I have found and I'll talk about my own kids
Speaker 2: at times when I ask them that question, how their
Speaker 2: battery is, I noticed that they check. Like most people,
Speaker 2: they check their phones quite often, and at some point
Speaker 2: it just becomes like a reflex and they don't even
Speaker 2: know they're checking it. But when they do look at
Speaker 2: it and the powers down, or it goes yellow, or
Speaker 2: it goes red. They get a little panicked, like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I got to charge it. Imagine my surprise
Speaker 2: when we're in like airports and they're like going out
Speaker 2: to people, can I use a little.
Speaker 3: Of your charge?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I think we've all been there where we don't have
Speaker 2: a charger and you are like, I need something, can
Speaker 2: somebody help me out? Most times people are really kind
Speaker 2: then they'll just you know, kind of help you, especially
Speaker 2: if you're a kid. I thought about then putting it
Speaker 2: into zones, and I put it into four zones, and
Speaker 2: I just said, you know, if you're at seventy five
Speaker 2: to one hundred, you're probably fine, and meaning that you
Speaker 2: know you're you're in a zone where you're just moving along.
Speaker 2: If you're at fifty to seventy five, you're probably in
Speaker 2: a place where you might need to start to think
Speaker 2: about how you may want to recharge. If you're in
Speaker 2: that twenty five to fifty, it's time to start figuring
Speaker 2: out take a break. You may need to take a walk,
Speaker 2: You may need to put down the phone. You may
Speaker 2: need to stop the litany of zoom calls that you're
Speaker 2: on right now, right, And if you find yourself zero
Speaker 2: to twenty five, that's a real kind of indicator for
Speaker 2: you to say, hey, something's probably not right and I
Speaker 2: need to really kind of take a hard stop and
Speaker 2: figure out how I recharge. And recharge can happen in
Speaker 2: a number of different ways, and so I've often talked
Speaker 2: about when I've gotten into that zone, I just kind
Speaker 2: of almost go for a walk. I sometimes go outside,
Speaker 2: I couple, I take some deep breaths, I do a
Speaker 2: number of things. Sometimes I may need a work out.
Speaker 2: A workout really helps me to recharge on a personal front.
Speaker 2: And everyone's a little bit different and they'll go to
Speaker 2: different techniques. And so in the book, I list a
Speaker 2: lot of things in the book that you may do.
Speaker 2: You may do one, two, three, four or all of them,
Speaker 2: and they're just really techniques for you to figure out
Speaker 2: what works for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, And I really like that breakdown because I think
Speaker 1: we're all better when we're measuring things with numbers right
Speaker 1: as a specificity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: I think the way your phone is charged says so
Speaker 1: much about you as a person.
Speaker 3: So my phone is always charged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very rarely below thirty percent or forty percent
Speaker 1: on my phone, and I think I try and monitor
Speaker 1: my personal health in a similar way. As soon as
Speaker 1: I feel myself going below fifty percent, I know it's
Speaker 1: time for an early night. I know it's time to
Speaker 1: cancel weekend plans. I canceled at dinner this evening for
Speaker 1: that exact reason. I got back from work yesterday.
Speaker 3: I left.
Speaker 1: I started work yesterday at like eight thirty am, and
Speaker 1: I got back from a shoot at nine thirty pm,
Speaker 1: and I knew I had a dinner tonight, and I
Speaker 1: just said, I'm so sorry I can't make it because
Speaker 1: I knew I had a busy day today. I was
Speaker 1: interviewing you, I was interviewing another guest, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to be really present for that. It's really
Speaker 1: critical stuff. And then I need to recharge, using your word,
Speaker 1: I need to recharge this evening. And I'm always shifting
Speaker 1: things to recharge. And I love that idea because I
Speaker 1: think we hear the word rest and then sometimes we
Speaker 1: feel guilty. We shouldn't, but we feel guilty like I
Speaker 1: don't have time to rest. But when you think of
Speaker 1: about recharging, you're reframing it and going, oh, I do
Speaker 1: need to recharge because otherwise how am I going to
Speaker 1: give my best tomorrow percent percent?
Speaker 2: And you know it's funny, you and me are the
Speaker 2: same on batteries. I keep my battery pretty charged as well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I have an electric car too. I marvel at people
Speaker 2: who can take that electric car battery down to five percent.
Speaker 3: I can't do it.
Speaker 2: That head stresses me out. I'm stressed out when they
Speaker 2: tell me these stories, Oh, I took the battery down
Speaker 2: to five percent. I'm like, seriously, how I mean? And
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, it's fine, you know, and for some
Speaker 2: people it works. Right For me, that doesn't work. I'm
Speaker 2: plugging in that battery every night, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: make sure I charge that battery up. Others will let
Speaker 2: it go pretty low. Everyone's a little bit different. That
Speaker 2: works for them. I've asked some of my friends who
Speaker 2: charge it go really low, and they're like, well, if
Speaker 2: I charge it too much, I get stressed. Yeah, like,
Speaker 2: oh okay, it can work the other way.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: So it's got to kind of work for you and
Speaker 2: how you want to recharge and different techniques that you
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I had an experienced last week where I went out
Speaker 1: to dinner, my call was plugged in, so I thought
Speaker 1: it was charged. And then I was driving the Calabasis,
Speaker 1: which is somewhat of a drive from here, and I
Speaker 1: realized I was running on like the reserve, so I
Speaker 1: was left an electrical too, and so I was like
Speaker 1: thirty miles left and I got to dinner and I
Speaker 1: think you had ten miles left, and the journey back
Speaker 1: was like forty fifty miles or something like that. And
Speaker 1: then I was thinking, Okay, after dinner, I've got to
Speaker 1: make it to one of those places. And I'm the same.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering if someone's at a zero when
Speaker 1: you ask them, how's your battery? And if someone says
Speaker 1: I'm at five and I'm talking about emotionally mentally, not
Speaker 1: not their car or their phone, what would you say
Speaker 1: to them? How would you communicate with them some of
Speaker 1: these tools when you're at zero.
Speaker 2: I've learned to take the space to give them space
Speaker 2: so we can actually have a proper conversation. If you
Speaker 2: find someone at a really low percentage, and I may
Speaker 2: ask that person like, how are you doing, how are
Speaker 2: you feeling? They and most of the time you just
Speaker 2: want a I'm good, because then you just want to
Speaker 2: keep going. And I find that often in the business
Speaker 2: world as well, not just in the personal world, but
Speaker 2: in the business world, we don't want a response, or
Speaker 2: sometimes we don't have the time to be like, if
Speaker 2: that person who you're asking the question to says I'm
Speaker 2: not doing so hot and I'm not doing so well,
Speaker 2: then what do you do? So I'm very intentional when
Speaker 2: I asked some of these questions to individuals so that
Speaker 2: I give. I'm ready for that response if it's I'm
Speaker 2: not doing well, like a five percent, so I kind
Speaker 2: of want to frame it there.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes you rush through these conversations and then
Speaker 2: when they do tell you they're a five or a ten,
Speaker 2: I think the best things that I have found is
Speaker 2: you have to be present for them. You have to listen.
Speaker 2: You do such a brilliant job at that Jay because
Speaker 2: even in this type of environment, we know, as we
Speaker 2: have this one to one conversation, if I was telling
Speaker 2: you I was a five or a zero, you'd be
Speaker 2: all in on this and you'd hear me out and
Speaker 2: then you would start to tell me, Okay, let's let's
Speaker 2: talk about what's causing that. And I've had at times
Speaker 2: where family members have come to me and said, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm at a five, and we start to
Speaker 2: break it down and I said, let me, let me
Speaker 2: put it in another way. For you think about your
Speaker 2: phone and we do X on our phone and there's
Speaker 2: things on your phone that drain your battery more than
Speaker 2: other applications. And they're like, yeah, it's like when you
Speaker 2: go and Apple shows you what's draining or taking up
Speaker 2: all your memory, and what happens when you start to
Speaker 2: delete some of those things, or what happens when you
Speaker 2: start to recognize what's causing it. They're like, oh, my
Speaker 2: battery is much more efficient. And I'm like yeah, So
Speaker 2: let's have what's causing that in your in your personal
Speaker 2: life right now. And we try to create, like you know,
Speaker 2: analogies of different things and so it doesn't become a
Speaker 2: space where all we're doing is talking about all the negativity.
Speaker 2: We're trying to draw parallels to different things in everyday
Speaker 2: life and so that it doesn't become such a charge conversation, right.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of the recharge concept as well, where
Speaker 2: we're like, let's talk let's talk about your mental health,
Speaker 2: because sometimes some people don't want to talk about their
Speaker 2: mental health. When we bring up the battery conversation or
Speaker 2: how to recharge, it's just a different framing. And again,
Speaker 2: this is something I think you just do brilliantly to
Speaker 2: bring everyone in and I try to do the same
Speaker 2: thing there as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you that, actually, because
Speaker 1: I've always felt that with you, You've always been present different
Speaker 1: touch points, whether we're at dinners, events where even when
Speaker 1: we've traveled and seen each other, when we're in New
Speaker 1: York for a dinner for time earlier this year, you're
Speaker 1: always present too. And I wonder how do you do
Speaker 1: that as a busy CEO, because I think you're so
Speaker 1: right that when we answer ask the question how are
Speaker 1: you doing, we are subconsciously hoping someone just says I'm good.
Speaker 1: We are all We almost ask the question and expect
Speaker 1: the response even before we have a response. You're so right,
Speaker 1: Like that really resonated with me. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: sometimes life is fast for most of us. Right. Our
Speaker 1: schedules are back to back to back. We are running
Speaker 1: from dropping your kid to school, running from running to work,
Speaker 1: picking up the laundry, doing the laundry, whatever. Right, there's
Speaker 1: so much going on, how do you actually create space
Speaker 1: for these convers sas.
Speaker 2: And that's part of being a lot more present and
Speaker 2: intentional as leaders. And I'd be curious now for you
Speaker 2: as CEO as well. We're expected to have all the answers.
Speaker 2: We're expected to make many different types of decisions. We're
Speaker 2: expected to play roles in HR but also company strategy.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you take a step back, you
Speaker 2: can't make every decision, and then there's always things that
Speaker 2: don't that are the unexpected. Take your car analogy, so
Speaker 2: when you add your car and you were at thirty percent,
Speaker 2: you were probably with someone, but in the back of
Speaker 2: your mind, you're going, how am I going to get home?
Speaker 2: Where am I going to charge? And you could do
Speaker 2: this probably better than most, but you still want to
Speaker 2: be present for that individual that you're with or your
Speaker 2: friends that you're with in those conversations. And what I
Speaker 2: find is like, sometimes we as leaders have to make
Speaker 2: the space. Sometimes we as leaders have to show something
Speaker 2: that you do absolutely brilliantly is to show a vulnerable
Speaker 2: side to them and talk about our own stories. I
Speaker 2: find that many CEOs today aren't vulnerable. I, for one,
Speaker 2: was not very good at being vulnerable. When I wrote
Speaker 2: the book, though, I was just taken back at how
Speaker 2: many people who I met for the first time were
Speaker 2: so open and honest and vulnerable with myself, and it
Speaker 2: got me thinking, well, they can do it, why can't
Speaker 2: I do it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And if I started to show some of that vulnerability
Speaker 2: at work, if I started to give a little bit
Speaker 2: of space and more time for that conversation, would that
Speaker 2: then make it just more open for others and more
Speaker 2: safe for others to have the conversation. Because if I'm
Speaker 2: not having that conversation and saying, here's my own journey,
Speaker 2: then they may feel that it's not okay for them
Speaker 2: to open up as well. Right, I just be curious,
Speaker 2: like you a CEO, right your I mean, you've got
Speaker 2: all these different businesses. How do you do that with
Speaker 2: your own employees?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a For me, it comes to
Speaker 1: the balance. So vulnerability is a great point, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that because I do agree that if you
Speaker 1: create space to share what you're going through with your teams,
Speaker 1: they then have the permission to do the same. And
Speaker 1: I think I was mentioning when We did a panel
Speaker 1: at Calm Coast a month ago or so. I was
Speaker 1: talking about a client of mine that I was coaching,
Speaker 1: who's the seer of a very large corporation and we'd
Speaker 1: gone through a transformation. They were saying to me, Jay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm feeling good and I was like, great,
Speaker 1: well you should tell your team about your journey. And
Speaker 1: they were like, how can I tell them right? And
Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean? And they said, well,
Speaker 1: if I tell them, they're going to think I'm weak.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I promise you they're going
Speaker 1: to think you're strong. And I think we're still redefining
Speaker 1: and reframing strength in the world today. I think there
Speaker 1: are some of us who still see bravado and arrogance
Speaker 1: and chauvinism as being strong, and I think that's shifting,
Speaker 1: but it's shifting very slowly. That's and so it is
Speaker 1: a cultural expectation as well, societal expectation of strength being
Speaker 1: this kind of facade. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us are now realizing, well, no strength is being able
Speaker 1: to show both sides and open up and be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that really comes to mind
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about being CEO. Is I think stress
Speaker 1: can make people work harder, but it's the right amount
Speaker 1: of stress that makes someone work so true, Right, there's.
Speaker 3: A spectrum of stress.
Speaker 1: So if I just keep checking in with someone and
Speaker 1: going have you done it yet? Are you done yet?
Speaker 1: Why are we not there yet? Why did the numbers
Speaker 1: not triple? This? If I do that, they're going to
Speaker 1: feel stress and they may work harder, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they work better. And so, to me, the right
Speaker 1: amount of stress And I want to ask you this
Speaker 1: as well. Talk to me about the difference between good
Speaker 1: stress and bad stress and how you've been able to
Speaker 1: harness the right amount when you've got it right.
Speaker 2: In the book, actually, I interviewed doctor add Or car
Speaker 2: and you met her. Yeah, she's wonderful, fantastic, right, And
Speaker 2: we got into this whole conversation of good stress, bad stress,
Speaker 2: you stress, good stress versus bad stress distress. And you know,
Speaker 2: we talked about how good stress could lead to resilience,
Speaker 2: it could lead to growth, It actually could lead to
Speaker 2: a stronger culture. You're never really going to have a
Speaker 2: stress free work environment, agree, you know, we're always going
Speaker 2: to have stress at work. We're all going to have deadlines.
Speaker 2: We're all going to have things we're going to want
Speaker 2: to hit, but but not everything has to be just
Speaker 2: like you said twenty four seven, three sixty five, because
Speaker 2: at some point it's going to stack so much that you,
Speaker 2: as a leader, are realizing you're probably not being very efficient.
Speaker 2: Your employees are probably not working super efficiently, not working
Speaker 2: well together, and they're probably you've caused a lot of
Speaker 2: bad stress, distress in their life that's leading to things
Speaker 2: like anxiety, depression, and then sorts of leads to physical
Speaker 2: ailments because we know there's a linkage between your mental
Speaker 2: health and your physical health, and so that becomes a
Speaker 2: very vicious cycle, especially in the workplace, and that leads
Speaker 2: to a lot of unproductivity. What I found with the
Speaker 2: two is you really have to find that right balance
Speaker 2: and understand there will be and just talk about it.
Speaker 2: There's a push. We're all going to make a push.
Speaker 2: We did it recently as a company at Calm, where
Speaker 2: we around the elections and we treated the elections like
Speaker 2: our super Bowl moment because we knew and we saw
Speaker 2: the data that people's stress was rising every day. As
Speaker 2: that day, November fifth got closer and closer, we saw
Speaker 2: it in the app store, we saw it in comments,
Speaker 2: we saw it on social So we really came together
Speaker 2: as a company to do different types of things around
Speaker 2: that take a breath, thirty seconds or fifteen seconds of silence.
Speaker 2: We showed animals from the San Diego Zoo on Instagram
Speaker 2: and we got so many people commenting that day that said, Hey,
Speaker 2: thank you for the silence, thank you for my fifteen seconds.
Speaker 2: In this world where so many things are happening now,
Speaker 2: people were dialing in from work because they were stressed
Speaker 2: at work. Stress doesn't just mean it's at home. It
Speaker 2: was like people were like during the elections, coming in
Speaker 2: from work, and so we wanted to give them a
Speaker 2: little bit so they had to release so they could
Speaker 2: be more productive. So there's a lot of things around
Speaker 2: stuff that I look at for good stress and bad
Speaker 2: stress and recognize there's always going to be.
Speaker 3: A push pull.
Speaker 2: But that's the part where you can't do it alone.
Speaker 2: You got to have a good team. You got to
Speaker 2: talk about it. You do this so well and make
Speaker 2: sure that becomes part of your fabric, your culture, your DNA.
Speaker 2: And I think it's shifting, but it's slow. I think
Speaker 2: the conversation around mental health in everyday life. It's the
Speaker 2: most approachable it's ever been. Right, I talk about things
Speaker 2: with my own kids today around mental health. When I
Speaker 2: was a child, coming, you know, i'd be curious, like
Speaker 2: for you, like immigrant family, we didn't talk about our
Speaker 2: mental health in my household, right. We talked more about
Speaker 2: powering through things. And I can talk about that later,
Speaker 2: but we didn't really talk about it. My kids talk
Speaker 2: about it. They may overuse it at times, not use
Speaker 2: it the right way. It's okay. They're having the conversation,
Speaker 2: their friends are having the conversation. I think that's great.
Speaker 2: But when you go to the workplace, it kind of stops,
Speaker 2: you know. And I go to so many places and
Speaker 2: I'm like, do you talk about your mental health at work?
Speaker 2: And they're like no, And I'm like, well, let's change
Speaker 2: that dialogue. Let's make it as approachable as it is
Speaker 2: in everyday life. And how do we start to do that.
Speaker 2: Let's give you the tools and we'll start at the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're so right, You're sor right.
Speaker 1: What you're painting a picture of For me is that
Speaker 1: I look at the good stress being when we all
Speaker 1: know what challenge we're up against, we know what the
Speaker 1: goal is and everyone feels supported. And I think what
Speaker 1: often happens is people don't know what the goal is
Speaker 1: because you're not helping them do that. They only see
Speaker 1: the challenge and they don't feel support to us. Right,
Speaker 1: So now they don't know where they're going and they
Speaker 1: feel if they fall flat on their face, they have
Speaker 1: nothing to catch them. As a leader, the goal is
Speaker 1: to provide the goal and the support and then the
Speaker 1: person can focus on the challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and be transparent in that journey. You know, I
Speaker 2: speak to many CEOs in the valley and over the world,
Speaker 2: and you know, a lot of times I'll ask them,
Speaker 2: how do you prioritize things with your employees? How transparent
Speaker 2: are you? And I'll tell you many of them are
Speaker 2: not that transparent. Or they'll be like, these are the
Speaker 2: most important things, and then they'll add five more and
Speaker 2: then five more right, and I'll be like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: what did you take away and they're like, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about? I mean, what did you take away?
Speaker 2: And they're like nothing. And I'm like, well, how do
Speaker 2: you think that's affecting your employees? And they're like, I
Speaker 2: never really thought about that. So I've just compounded and
Speaker 2: stacked the problem as a leader, and you didn't take
Speaker 2: anything away, and it cascades down like a megaphone. Think
Speaker 2: about what that employee is going through and walk in
Speaker 2: their shoes for a minute. You know, we at the
Speaker 2: top have the luxury of having more control over our schedules,
Speaker 2: but that person may not have as much control over
Speaker 2: those schedule. They're just ticking through things. And if you
Speaker 2: just keep adding and not taking certain things away and
Speaker 2: saying this is important, this isn't important. Here's how I
Speaker 2: think about it, Here's how I'm being transparent, you're adding
Speaker 2: more stress to your company.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, could you walk me through at Calm? I love this.
Speaker 1: When I first got introduced to Calm and started taking
Speaker 1: calls with the teams and I took my role of
Speaker 1: chief Purpose Officer, I got integrated into the culture. I
Speaker 1: loved the little things and the focus on the little
Speaker 1: things at meetings at Calm, whether they're on zoom in person,
Speaker 1: I want to hear about these smaller things that are
Speaker 1: happening on a daily basis, because I think often companies
Speaker 1: think they need to put out a thing that says
Speaker 1: we're focusing on company mental health, and they're doing these
Speaker 1: big things, but Calm internally let alone the work they
Speaker 1: do with other companies and workplaces. But Calm internally had
Speaker 1: some really nice cultural things that I noticed from the
Speaker 1: outside in as I was being integrated. Walk us through
Speaker 1: some of those daily things that you think create the
Speaker 1: rituals and practices that help people.
Speaker 2: It was interesting for me my first day ACCOM. I
Speaker 2: walk in and they're Michael and Alex who you know well,
Speaker 2: the founders. I love them and they love you and
Speaker 2: they talk about you all the time and how you
Speaker 2: all first met. And they introduced me to the company
Speaker 2: warm welcome, so inviting, and they started to meet the
Speaker 2: whole all hands off with a meditation, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: really used to that, and I was kind of sitting
Speaker 2: there and I kind of noticed everyone. And normally we
Speaker 2: listen to someone like your we'll turn you on, or'll
Speaker 2: turn one of our other kind of narrators on. They
Speaker 2: do great, and everyone just kind of sat there in
Speaker 2: the moment and whether it was sometimes it's you know,
Speaker 2: really quick, thirty seconds, sometimes it's five, six minutes, three minutes,
Speaker 2: and they listened and it was and I kind of
Speaker 2: was peaking at times, looking I'm like, is everyone kind
Speaker 2: of closing their eyes you know around here, you know,
Speaker 2: looking there, and they were just in the moment. It
Speaker 2: was a moment for me that showed me how much
Speaker 2: they cared. And I was like, Wow, this company cares.
Speaker 2: This isn't forced. You don't have to be here, you
Speaker 2: don't have to do this. And they were there and
Speaker 2: they were present and they were in the moment. So
Speaker 2: that's like some of this. That was one of the
Speaker 2: ways I knew this company was going to be different.
Speaker 2: And then I watched as the company did things around
Speaker 2: gratitude where we end every all hands with gratitude. We
Speaker 2: read things that have come into us and it's a
Speaker 2: reminder of the impact we're having. And I think that's
Speaker 2: why sometimes I'm so stressed, because is that I feel
Speaker 2: this weight of responsibility where every second of every day,
Speaker 2: someone is using the product and I just feel like
Speaker 2: if we're not answering them, we're not helping them in
Speaker 2: the moment, someone's not getting something that they need. And
Speaker 2: I feel that stress and I feel the response. It's
Speaker 2: really responsibility. Yeah, And I talk about that with the employees,
Speaker 2: and I think it's really important to talk about that.
Speaker 2: So we do the gratitude piece at the end. We
Speaker 2: have zoom free days, you know, where I talk to
Speaker 2: employees about, Hey, if you're in a moment where you
Speaker 2: find yourself in five zooms, take a beat. You don't
Speaker 2: need to do that. And if there's meetings that don't
Speaker 2: make sense, just like you did tonight, which was great,
Speaker 2: just say no, it's okay. You know, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: And I do that too, and I try to be
Speaker 2: a lot more purposeful now because it helps me then
Speaker 2: be more present in the meetings that I need to
Speaker 2: be in. Yeah, right, And rather than saying, it's not
Speaker 2: the quantity of meetings that I'm in, it's those quality
Speaker 2: of meeting moments that I'm in. And I think people
Speaker 2: sometimes like misinterpret like quantity for productivity versus like value.
Speaker 2: And I'm much more like, Okay, I'm going to do
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus on quality and it may mean
Speaker 2: less and that doesn't have to sacrifice my impact.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, how does it impact productivity?
Speaker 1: And I do think that we've convinced ourselves that if
Speaker 1: I'm doing more, if there's more on my schedule, if
Speaker 1: I'm jumping around, We've created our definition of value to
Speaker 1: be around busyness, right, and we all feel we're more important, valuable,
Speaker 1: And it's subconscious again, you just think, oh, yeah, if
Speaker 1: I've got a lot to do, then I must be
Speaker 1: doing something. Yea.
Speaker 3: How do we start to.
Speaker 1: Shift that conversation? What have you learned about that? I
Speaker 1: know you interviewed some amazing people as well as you
Speaker 1: were saying inside the book, what did you learn about
Speaker 1: how we can reframe what we believe makes us value? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I had so two people in particular, so
Speaker 2: John Scully, for example, the former CEO of Apple. He
Speaker 2: talked about how in the book he was chief Listening
Speaker 2: Officer and I was like really, and he's like yeah,
Speaker 2: Like Steve asked that we make our own business cards,
Speaker 2: and I wrote chief Listening Officer. And I sat there
Speaker 2: and I was like, wow, that's that was great. You
Speaker 2: listen and so because so often, you know, you just
Speaker 2: start talking and he's like, no, I became a lot
Speaker 2: more purposeful if I just listened. First said probably less,
Speaker 2: but that impact was greater because I heard what was happening,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had Jack Rowe, who's a former CEO Vetna in
Speaker 2: the book, he came over and he said, sometimes you
Speaker 2: have to put yourself into neutral. And he's like, and
Speaker 2: you have to give yourself space because you can't run
Speaker 2: it one hundred miles an hour. And if you don't
Speaker 2: give yourself a little bit of a break, no matter
Speaker 2: what position you're in, you're going to find yourself upside
Speaker 2: down and you're not going to figure out how to
Speaker 2: turn back up. And I appreciated those conversations with them
Speaker 2: because they're a little bit more old school and their approach.
Speaker 2: They think we're a little bit more in the middle now,
Speaker 2: and then there's a younger generation right that's coming up
Speaker 2: with thinks about things completely different. It's been such a
Speaker 2: privilege to be able to kind of talk to so
Speaker 2: many different people who are in that continuum to kind
Speaker 2: of hear how they're managing it right, even like how
Speaker 2: you think about things and how you manage all that right.
Speaker 2: It just must be a lot coming at you today
Speaker 2: from many different angles when they're like, hey, what do
Speaker 2: you do right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think for me it is the old cliche,
Speaker 1: but it's so true, like you are only as good
Speaker 1: as your team. And I do think being a leader
Speaker 1: means taking care of your team. In one sense, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's all a leader actually has to do
Speaker 1: is be the coach, therapist, support system, or provide and
Speaker 1: bring those things in for the team, and you almost
Speaker 1: become a coach. And yes you'll be strategic, yes you're
Speaker 1: being a visionary, but a lot of it is just
Speaker 1: loving people and supporting people. I find, at least I
Speaker 1: find like that's what most of my time is taken
Speaker 1: up one hundred p suing because everyone has their emotions
Speaker 1: and as long as you have smart people that you're
Speaker 1: working with, then those people are the people that investing
Speaker 1: in them as humans is allowing them to do what
Speaker 1: you trust them to do. But the thing that's holding
Speaker 1: them back is usually something emotional or mental. It's rarely
Speaker 1: professional that people have challenges, and I find it's something
Speaker 1: they're going through in their personal life. It's a mental
Speaker 1: block that they have and if that doesn't get healed
Speaker 1: and access in the workplace, that's going to be the
Speaker 1: spanner in the works, Like that's going to be the
Speaker 1: thing that bottlenecks the process. Creates inefficiency, creates a lack
Speaker 1: of trust. That's the kind of stuff that gets in.
Speaker 2: The way and a lot of times too, when you
Speaker 2: talk to people, they have no idea what's happening outside
Speaker 2: the workplace, you know, but so much that happens outside
Speaker 2: the workplace affects the workplace. It's really important for companies
Speaker 2: too to have mental health support tools for employees so
Speaker 2: when they need things, people to talk to, you know,
Speaker 2: applications whether they're calm or others, therapy if they need it,
Speaker 2: if they just make those available and known, that's another
Speaker 2: step in the process. So that's why I always tell
Speaker 2: people it's not just one thing. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: a number of things you have to put together because
Speaker 2: people may take bits and pieces of each to make
Speaker 2: it their own, but it kind of shows them when
Speaker 2: they need it, it's there. And a lot of times
Speaker 2: people will go look for things on their own, you know,
Speaker 2: they'll search and they'll see if you've got tools and
Speaker 2: what companies and I do find that you sometimes will
Speaker 2: lose good people because you're not supporting them in their journey.
Speaker 2: And so the more you could be there for them
Speaker 2: and they know that, they become some of your most loyal,
Speaker 2: most productive culture bearing, you know, carrying the flag employees.
Speaker 2: And you didn't have to tell them to do it.
Speaker 2: They just kind of did it on their own. And
Speaker 2: I feel like those often are the best ones and
Speaker 2: I and we have a lot of those, and I
Speaker 2: just feel very privileged that we have so many folks
Speaker 2: like that that that they just care deeply and it's
Speaker 2: personal for them. My previous company I had started was
Speaker 2: a caregiving company, and one thing I had noticed in
Speaker 2: that company was that so many people that were caring
Speaker 2: for others were suffering right they and then they had
Speaker 2: to go to work, and people had no idea that
Speaker 2: they were doing like five jobs caregiver. They were worrying
Speaker 2: about their finances, they were trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: they help people, and then they had to go to
Speaker 2: work and they had a litany of things they had
Speaker 2: to go do. And most people have no idea how
Speaker 2: these things are going on, and they're people's lives, right
Speaker 2: because sometimes we just don't ask the question, and because
Speaker 2: we're so busy ourselves, where sometimes we don't want to
Speaker 2: ask the question because we're so busy ourselves we can't
Speaker 2: take anything else on. But I just feel that if
Speaker 2: we are just more aware and we create space for
Speaker 2: employees and we listen to what they have to say,
Speaker 2: flexible work schedules. What are they asking for? That's why
Speaker 2: I constantly pull our employees as well, what do you value?
Speaker 2: And they'll tell us and then if we have stuff
Speaker 2: that they don't want, put it away. I sometimes like, oh,
Speaker 2: all my employees want this gym membership and then nobody
Speaker 2: uses it and they're like yeah, and I'm like, now
Speaker 2: I just ask let's have our team go out and
Speaker 2: say here are the top ten things. What do you want? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then we'll take away a couple of things that
Speaker 2: they don't use, you know, and we'll try to ask
Speaker 2: that almost every year.
Speaker 1: Totally. I couldn't agree more. I love gift giving. It's
Speaker 1: one of my love languages. And you are so kind
Speaker 1: to bring me a gift today which is very thoughtful
Speaker 1: and very useful.
Speaker 3: And both of which I will use.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm saying that is I love giving
Speaker 1: gifts too, And so you know, over the years, when
Speaker 1: it comes around the holidays, I love getting gifts for
Speaker 1: my team, and for a long term, I'd always be guessing,
Speaker 1: like what everyone wanted, and you assume that something's cool
Speaker 1: or trending or whatever it may be, and then you
Speaker 1: start to realize what you just said. People didn't really
Speaker 1: want that, and then at one point we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: well then we won't give gifts. We'll just you know,
Speaker 1: thank people and whatever else it was. But then we're like, no,
Speaker 1: but people like people like it, everyone enjoys it. And
Speaker 1: so it's so funny. We've started polling over the last
Speaker 1: few years, like what kind of gift would everyone like?
Speaker 1: And the number one answer this year was infrared.
Speaker 3: Mask, Like, so what you call the red light? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that was the number one requests.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, easy, now we know what everyone wants,
Speaker 1: so we're going to get that because it's easier rather
Speaker 1: than us guessing. And I agreed that. I do think
Speaker 1: people inside of organizations today want mental health tools. They
Speaker 1: want meditation practices, they want mindfulness opportunities and tools and
Speaker 1: apps and everything else. I believe there is a big
Speaker 1: demand for that, and I think it's only growing because
Speaker 1: people are feeling that if you don't have that, you
Speaker 1: can't have that conversation in the workplace.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: I think this is the part that I want companies
Speaker 1: and leaders to understand. If you're not providing tools to
Speaker 1: support people with their mental health they don't have a
Speaker 1: vehicle to talk about it at work. If it's available
Speaker 1: to everyone and they see it come out in the
Speaker 1: newsletter and the team's available and everyone knows about it,
Speaker 1: they can say, oh, yeah, did you see we're using
Speaker 1: calm now, and you know I've been doing this one
Speaker 1: and which one of you been doing it now? It
Speaker 1: allows for connection and conversation and community as opposed to
Speaker 1: be Without it, someone may just never talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that they've been struggling to sleep for seven days.
Speaker 2: And I find that too amongst the younger generation. They
Speaker 2: just expect these things, yeah, you know, and they're asking
Speaker 2: for them, and they'll give up other things along the
Speaker 2: way and so and they're very vocal around it. And
Speaker 2: we've seen it now in all industries, you know, we've
Speaker 2: seen it happen in banking where people feel like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're not listening, and it takes a moment where they
Speaker 2: have to go to the press. Almost right, it shouldn't
Speaker 2: have to ever get there. Yeah, if they were listening
Speaker 2: to those kids and listening to your employees, then you've
Speaker 2: got a continuous feedback loop. More companies, the baseline will
Speaker 2: be you have to have these services going forward, and
Speaker 2: I think over time, then that will open up a dialogue.
Speaker 2: And I also think with CEOs today, I'll tell you,
Speaker 2: because it starts so much at the top, if you
Speaker 2: start to have some of these conversations and say here's
Speaker 2: how I think about it, here's how you're being vulnerable,
Speaker 2: that too, opens up a different conversation, and then that
Speaker 2: can just kind of percolate within the company, and then
Speaker 2: I think the whole thing starts to move faster, right,
Speaker 2: and then we can start to get more into a
Speaker 2: conversation of like, Okay, now, how do we get you
Speaker 2: the right care at the right time when you need
Speaker 2: it however you need it, Because so much of the
Speaker 2: conversation we're having right now is pretty basic in my mind,
Speaker 2: and we just need to get farther along in the conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people will question listening
Speaker 1: to us, going, well, how does mindfulness or meditation actually
Speaker 1: help burn out or how does it help stress? So
Speaker 1: that's one thing, and I mean there's tons of science
Speaker 1: on that, but I think there's still so I want
Speaker 1: you to answer that. And the second thing is, well,
Speaker 1: how does this affect my productivity?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Like, how does it actually get people to do the
Speaker 1: work that I need them to do. Sure, And isn't
Speaker 1: this just a distraction or slows them down? Because I
Speaker 1: know a lot of organizations just feel like this sounds
Speaker 1: good in theory, but how does it help. So if
Speaker 1: we can talk about how mindfulness and meditation specifically the
Speaker 1: programs that exist on comm how do they make sense
Speaker 1: for stress and burnout, then how do they make strens
Speaker 1: for productivity and performance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think I had both of those.
Speaker 2: I'll start with the second one first because it comes
Speaker 2: up a lot. And what I often tell people is
Speaker 2: when I'll just use Colm as an example, more than
Speaker 2: half the people that use Calm today come to us
Speaker 2: for sleep and they're having moments where they just can't
Speaker 2: fall asleep. Most of that comes, as we know, because
Speaker 2: they're sleeping next to their devices. The devices are constantly beeping.
Speaker 2: They don't shut them off. I talk about like it's hard,
Speaker 2: but you know, I keep my phone outside my bedroom.
Speaker 2: Not everyone does that. When I travel, I don't do that,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it leads to, you know, not a good sleep.
Speaker 2: And we know when you have a number of those
Speaker 2: days that start to compound, it could lead to irritability.
Speaker 2: It could lead to not being as productive the next
Speaker 2: day when you go to work because you're just tired. Right.
Speaker 2: You couple that at times with potentially bad eating habits
Speaker 2: or some people drinking habits or other types of habits
Speaker 2: that aren't and that doesn't create and it creates kind
Speaker 2: of like what I call negative behavior. I had that
Speaker 2: when I was younger because I didn't understand some of
Speaker 2: these tools. And I just wish I had some of
Speaker 2: these tools when I was younger, because I didn't do
Speaker 2: those things that created positive behavior change. When I was
Speaker 2: in banking, for example, and when I got stressed, I
Speaker 2: turned to smoking and I was just a kid, and
Speaker 2: I was like smoking in the stairwell of Solomon Brothers.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have been smoking in the stairwell. That's number one.
Speaker 2: I talked about this with our employees, saying, hey, I
Speaker 2: didn't have apps like calm or tools to help me
Speaker 2: in the moment I wish I did. I probably would
Speaker 2: have turned to other things and understood that's positive behavior
Speaker 2: that I could turn to, not negative behavior. And if
Speaker 2: I have enough of that, then it starts to kind
Speaker 2: of change the pendulum. Because I then ended up on
Speaker 2: a very slippery slope. You know, you're smoking, you start
Speaker 2: to drink a little bit more that I'm eating more
Speaker 2: at odd hours, and then I try to go to sleep,
Speaker 2: and you just know, if you're trying to eat Chinese
Speaker 2: food at eleven thirty and you want to go to
Speaker 2: bed at twelve or twelve thirty, you're not going to
Speaker 2: sleep well because there's just a lot of stuff just
Speaker 2: sitting there right keeping you awake. And so for me,
Speaker 2: it's been this continuous kind of learning, and we talk
Speaker 2: about some of these things, and you know, I think
Speaker 2: in the workforce it's a little it's no different because
Speaker 2: people got to shut all the kids off to school
Speaker 2: in the morning, and you've got to make breakfast, You've
Speaker 2: got to do all these things. So you kind of
Speaker 2: need good sleep at night. And it starts I think
Speaker 2: a lot there, and then during the day we need breaks.
Speaker 2: People think and it's in the book that you that
Speaker 2: our brain has endless capacity. It's just not true. We
Speaker 2: don't have endless capacity. You know, our brain, like everything else,
Speaker 2: needs to recharge, and if you can find ways to recharge,
Speaker 2: whether it's listening to you every day. Congratulations on over
Speaker 2: six hundred episodes, we were talking about fifty million streams
Speaker 2: as a chief Purpose officer, which I am so grateful
Speaker 2: for because there are times where those seven minutes for
Speaker 2: me where I listen to you, whether it's in the
Speaker 2: car driving my kids to school takes ten minutes, some
Speaker 2: days it takes thirty with traffic. There are moments that
Speaker 2: I just cherish, or when I'm driving back alone, and
Speaker 2: it just helps me. Then as I start to recenter
Speaker 2: myself to be more productive during the day or during
Speaker 2: the day, I take a short break and I know
Speaker 2: how to recharge now, whether it's going outside, walking or others,
Speaker 2: and it makes me so much more productive because what
Speaker 2: I find is if I work in a manner and
Speaker 2: I find myself falling below fifty twenty five percent of
Speaker 2: my battery and I just keep trying to power through
Speaker 2: my work gets it's not very good. It's embarrassingly bad,
Speaker 2: I would say at times. And no amount of AI
Speaker 2: is going to make it better. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: not And so I then have to kind of take
Speaker 2: a step back and be like, Okay, you're trending in
Speaker 2: the wrong direction. Take a big and I talk about
Speaker 2: this at a company and with many other companies that
Speaker 2: are out there today, and I know so many employees
Speaker 2: I talk to resonate around this. Yeah, right, because I
Speaker 2: just feel it's an endless hamster wheel for sure, right.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, I was as you were speaking, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about how if you have a still mind, you
Speaker 1: actually make quicker, better decisions, and if you have a
Speaker 1: stressed mind, you actually make slower, worse decisions. And we think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if I take time out to be still, I'll lose time,
Speaker 1: But actually, if you take time out to be still,
Speaker 1: you'll gain time because you'll make better decisions, There'll be
Speaker 1: more long term they won't be rushed and haphazard, and
Speaker 1: they'll actually be you'll be a better communicator. I know
Speaker 1: for a fact that if I'm stressed, I don't communicate
Speaker 1: as clearly I can.
Speaker 3: I can be a.
Speaker 1: Bit more like rushed and you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: let's hurry this up and with people, right, Whereas if
Speaker 1: I'm rested and i'm still, then actually I'm able to
Speaker 1: formulate ideas. I can be more tolerant, i can be
Speaker 1: more patient, which are all the skills you need. And
Speaker 1: so taking out seven minutes a day doesn't make you slower.
Speaker 1: It actually makes you faster and better and something I
Speaker 1: pulled from your book. These stats were really fascinating for
Speaker 1: me to read. So sixty one percent of people feel
Speaker 1: expected to just get over stressed. Yeah, that's unbelievable that
Speaker 1: sixty one percent of people feel like they'd expected to
Speaker 1: just get over stressed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why is that?
Speaker 2: When I was younger? And I didn't understand this when
Speaker 2: I was fourteen years old, and I think it was
Speaker 2: much younger. I wrote about in the book that it
Speaker 2: was fourteen. I actually think it happened when I was younger.
Speaker 2: I just didn't. I just don't recollect those times when
Speaker 2: I got really stressed or nervous, and most of the
Speaker 2: time they're around like tests or speaking stuff front class.
Speaker 2: I just started to get a tightness in my chest.
Speaker 2: I would I would get shortness of breath at times,
Speaker 2: I would sweat in my hands, and I didn't really
Speaker 2: understand what was happening. And I talked to my mom,
Speaker 2: you know, and like a very traditional Creed mother, she'd
Speaker 2: be like, just power through it, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna power through it, right, But she didn't
Speaker 2: know either what was happening. And I don't blame her
Speaker 2: around that she's just didn't understand in the moment.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The reality is when you think about your mental health,
Speaker 2: it's not about to do you know, And it's not
Speaker 2: about powering through the moment. It's for me, it's about
Speaker 2: powering up, you know. And it's and that's where the
Speaker 2: battery analogy keeps coming back in. Yeah, and I didn't
Speaker 2: understand some of that, and then you cup and then
Speaker 2: I don't have the vocabulary. It wasn't really until I
Speaker 2: started getting into healthcare that I started to understand, Oh wow,
Speaker 2: this is what you were going through. You've been able
Speaker 2: to kind of manage it and through some unhealthy behaviors
Speaker 2: at times, and now you are doing through healthy behaviors.
Speaker 2: But the vocabulary has changed, right, and you have a
Speaker 2: better command of that vocabulary, so you know how to
Speaker 2: talk about it now, where I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: talk about it then. And so I do think so
Speaker 2: much of the population today is about powering through it.
Speaker 2: And I do think a lot of the population, and
Speaker 2: I would say more in countries like Korea or Asia,
Speaker 2: even though mental health is the most approachable it's ever been,
Speaker 2: Like in the States, it's not really approachable there you know,
Speaker 2: and that does make me sad at times. When I
Speaker 2: go back home my parents move back to Korea, they
Speaker 2: live there, I want to talk about these things with them,
Speaker 2: and it's not easy for them to talk about right.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it was for you. And did
Speaker 2: you talk about this when you were kid with you.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting what you were saying about your experiences
Speaker 1: of stress growing up. Mine was the same and they
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was either, So I would it's
Speaker 1: the same things, exams, anything high performance related. I'd feel
Speaker 1: like my chest got tied to my heart, felt like
Speaker 1: it wasn't being the same. I'd get, you know, sweaty palms,
Speaker 1: and I remember going to the doctors and they'd wire
Speaker 1: me up with these monitors, like old school monitors, with
Speaker 1: all these big things. I'd have to wear it for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and i'd go back and they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's fine, and I'd be like, but Mom, I'm not fine,
Speaker 1: Like there's something I'm feeling and there was no word
Speaker 1: for it, and so I can very much relate. And
Speaker 1: again my mom didn't know what it was. He then
Speaker 1: she was trying her best to help, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: figure it out, and so I got on with it
Speaker 1: and I always have, and then I was thankful enough
Speaker 1: to learn mindfulness of meditation. Many years later, that have
Speaker 1: been my core practices. And now it's not that I
Speaker 1: don't get nervous before I'm going on stage or a podcast.
Speaker 1: I still do, but I know what to do and
Speaker 1: I have my breath work. Yeah, I know what I
Speaker 1: have to lock into. It's not that I don't experience
Speaker 1: those emotions anymore, but I agree. Even in a South
Speaker 1: Asian family like I don't think that vulnerability was normal
Speaker 1: from parents. It wasn't common for uncles and aunts to
Speaker 1: be that way, and so it created a culture of
Speaker 1: always putting your best foot forward, always somewhat being performative, right,
Speaker 1: And I think I never subscribed to that. So I
Speaker 1: started very early on rebelling and just good for you
Speaker 1: being myself and I wish I had done that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just. I'm just I started breaking the rules
Speaker 1: earlier on that, and I'm grateful that I did. But
Speaker 1: now I realize it wasn't that I was breaking the rules.
Speaker 1: I was just expressing my discomfort with having to put
Speaker 1: up a face or a mask on when everything wasn't okay,
Speaker 1: And I think that's hard for people to do today
Speaker 1: where I read another stat that said thirty three percent
Speaker 1: of people feel too overwhelmed by daily stress to think ahead.
Speaker 1: Like when you think about that, it's like, gosh, like
Speaker 1: you know that's what people are under.
Speaker 3: What is someone that you forget that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: You forget that?
Speaker 2: Just forget it. I mean you think about those numbers,
Speaker 2: that's whether it's two thirds or one third of all
Speaker 2: people feeling this way, and you start to realize, well,
Speaker 2: that's heavy, you know. And if you were in a
Speaker 2: room in three out of ten or six out of ten,
Speaker 2: or feeling a certain way, you start to realize there's more.
Speaker 2: That's just why with corporations, I think it's so important
Speaker 2: that they can take leadership positions. Again, I always go
Speaker 2: back to the top on some of these things, because
Speaker 2: if we're not comfortable being vulnerable, and if we're not
Speaker 2: comfortable making sure there are HR teams have the tools
Speaker 2: to talk about this with employees that we don't support
Speaker 2: some of these initiatives. We're kind of in a place
Speaker 2: where we're saying, oh, we don't believe some of those stats,
Speaker 2: but the stats are there and growing right, and yes,
Speaker 2: there's you know, there's life things that are happening, but
Speaker 2: technology is moving so fast on the other side, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, we are definitely in an era right now
Speaker 2: where kids have grown up with their smartphones. They act
Speaker 2: differently then you know when I grew up or when
Speaker 2: you grow up. It's just different. We end they grew
Speaker 2: up with this technology, they're very comfortable with it. The
Speaker 2: speed of it, which is is coming so and then
Speaker 2: there's the weight of what's happening just in life around them.
Speaker 2: And so some of these things even at the company level,
Speaker 2: which are interesting and you don't do this is like
Speaker 2: and I found this a little bit with myself. I'll
Speaker 2: just tell you on a personal front, we're taught to
Speaker 2: play it very safe, and I think that's an important
Speaker 2: thing too. I'll tell you a lot of people miss
Speaker 2: is that you know, you don't want to say the
Speaker 2: wrong thing, So you're not going to talk about your
Speaker 2: own vulnerability because that's not playing it down the fairway.
Speaker 2: You kind of want to be boring, I'll be frank
Speaker 2: with you. For a lot of leaders, not all leaders,
Speaker 2: which we know there's a couple of them that are
Speaker 2: quite but for most leaders, when you go out there.
Speaker 2: They're media trained to be right down the fairway. And
Speaker 2: what I love when I listen and watch your podcast,
Speaker 2: it's so authentic, it's so real, it's so safe for
Speaker 2: all the people that listen and then and it just
Speaker 2: shows right with how many people are tuning in every
Speaker 2: day right and listening to you and doing what I did.
Speaker 2: It's like I'll listen to somebody and then I'll go
Speaker 2: back to that. I'll be like, oh, I remembered that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to that. And it's just
Speaker 2: because we just play it safe in a lot of
Speaker 2: places today and you don't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think it's okay, you know, like even if
Speaker 2: I was here with you today and maybe something and
Speaker 2: I didn't say the right thing today, I'm in a
Speaker 2: space where I feel so safe with you right now.
Speaker 2: I just want to be myself and not everything's going
Speaker 2: to be perfect, absolutely right, And that's kind of part
Speaker 2: of life. And I've started to accept that, and I've
Speaker 2: become much more vulnerable with my own employees to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is okay. And because of that, in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years, we're stronger, we're stronger as a company.
Speaker 2: We just had a board meeting and they're like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is great. Everyone's like, yes, we're doing much better.
Speaker 2: But I think because we're developing and really building on
Speaker 2: the right culture, we're asking the right questions and we
Speaker 2: want to lead by example.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What was something you shared with them that you feel
Speaker 1: was challenging, uncomfortable that that led to that breakthrough.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I in the last one that you were at,
Speaker 2: I did talk about my smoking as a kid. I
Speaker 2: talked about me being overweight as a child, dealing with
Speaker 2: that that insecurity. I've always had a struggle with food.
Speaker 2: I love French fries. I'm just gonna yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: I'm telling all I love ice cream, and I think
Speaker 2: sometimes and I have a really no matter what I
Speaker 2: try to do diet wise, if you put some fries
Speaker 2: in front of me, I'm gonna eat them. If you
Speaker 2: put some ice cream in front of me and someone
Speaker 2: my kids are having, I'm gonna eat some of that too.
Speaker 2: And my kids are like, Dad, I thought you were
Speaker 2: like full. I was like, I was all right. So
Speaker 2: I struggle with that. I know when I'm a little
Speaker 2: bit stressed, I'm a little bit of a binge eater
Speaker 2: as well. I try to obviously develop a lot of
Speaker 2: healthy habits also around how do you be healthier? And
Speaker 2: so I do. I do exercise a lot more. But
Speaker 2: some of those things are hard just to get rid of,
Speaker 2: you know. It's more like you're going to have to
Speaker 2: live with it, and it's how you live with it.
Speaker 2: That's like that comment about stress. You're never going to
Speaker 2: have a stress free workplace. Yeah, but you've got to
Speaker 2: figure out how you just have more healthy stress, right,
Speaker 2: how you stress rather than distress.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's the most common thing you hear from leaders that
Speaker 1: they're struggling within their organizations when it comes to stress
Speaker 1: and team's mental health.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of leaders today struggle with As
Speaker 2: I spoke to you about vulnerability and how you gave
Speaker 2: the story about vulnerability, that story plays over over and
Speaker 2: over again. Well, you know, leaders struggle with how to
Speaker 2: be vulnerable. And I think it's I think it's generational
Speaker 2: on a personal I think the new leaders that are
Speaker 2: going to arise, the ones in their twenties, are going
Speaker 2: to have no problem all right, because when you look
Speaker 2: at social media today and a lot of the younger generation,
Speaker 2: they talk about their mental stress, and they talk about
Speaker 2: their mental health and they're very open about it. Now again,
Speaker 2: they may overuse it or you know, but at least
Speaker 2: they're having a conversation around it. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: with other leaders today, when I talk to them, they're
Speaker 2: just like, hey, is it a sign of weakness like
Speaker 2: you brought up? Is it going to be used against me?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is someone going to write about it and say I'm
Speaker 2: too weak? Is the board going to think I'm weak
Speaker 2: as a leader? And I think that is the that's
Speaker 2: ultimately also a fail of corporate stewardship because they have
Speaker 2: to also look after your mental health, you know. And
Speaker 2: so when i'm you know, I'm fortunate to be on
Speaker 2: the board to come today, but if I wasn't CEO,
Speaker 2: I would be asking that CEO, hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: How are you holding up? Let's not talk about the
Speaker 2: numbers today, you know. I find it really effective when
Speaker 2: I meet with CEOs and they ask for some coaching.
Speaker 2: We don't talk about any numbers, we don't talking about
Speaker 2: the metrics. We just talk about life and we'll eventually
Speaker 2: go to that later. But I think when we start
Speaker 2: with more of a trusting place where we can understand
Speaker 2: what's happening around you, then I can be much more
Speaker 2: thoughtful in the type of advice I give. But this
Speaker 2: also means I have to create the space and the
Speaker 2: time to do it, so not everyone has that, right,
Speaker 2: And that's where I think it's just really important to
Speaker 2: be really intentional, right, be really purposeful in these conversations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the reasons why we struggle
Speaker 1: to recharge is because when your phone's running out a battery,
Speaker 1: there's only one Well, we're also bad at this. There's
Speaker 1: only meant to be one type of charge. And now
Speaker 1: I've seen people charge their phone with their map charger,
Speaker 1: destroying your phone, right you see being charged with the
Speaker 1: iPad charger. Like, but the point is there's one charger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think when it comes to life, sleep is
Speaker 1: a charger, meditation and mindful now food is a charger,
Speaker 1: working out is a charger, and people you love being
Speaker 1: around good relationships are a charger. And if everyone, while
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, if you could figure out the
Speaker 1: most common times you feel at one percent and figure
Speaker 1: out what's the charge you need for that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's what I think we need to do.
Speaker 3: Like I'll give an example.
Speaker 1: I went to an event the other day and I
Speaker 1: had to fly out of town and come back into town.
Speaker 3: I got back at like four am.
Speaker 1: And I worked out the next day, and I felt
Speaker 1: so weak because I hadn't slept well of course and
Speaker 1: eating well, and so at that point I'm glad I
Speaker 1: still worked out because I needed it. But I taught
Speaker 1: told my trainer I had to get a bit of
Speaker 1: an easier workout because I didn't want to push myself
Speaker 1: when I felt weak. But it's like it takes little
Speaker 1: adjustments of figuring out what charge you need right now,
Speaker 1: Like now, I've had a busy week at a busy weekend.
Speaker 1: This weekend, I know, and recharge means I need no
Speaker 1: social plans, Like that's what's going to recharge me. And
Speaker 1: so I wish everyone could just write down while you're
Speaker 1: listening to this and while you're reading David's book Recharge,
Speaker 1: you write down one of the most common experiences you
Speaker 1: feel when you feel drained, when you feel overwhelmed, when
Speaker 1: you feel burnt out, and what is your charger, so
Speaker 1: that you don't have to think about in the moment,
Speaker 1: because when you're trying to figure it out in the moment.
Speaker 1: That's when you get more overwhelmed. Like I know, before
Speaker 1: I go on stage, I always practice breath work. If
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of late nights, I know sleep
Speaker 1: is the only charge.
Speaker 3: That's going to solve it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, speaking of that, because you've talked about you know,
Speaker 2: certain rituals. Are there certain things that you do every day,
Speaker 2: like religion every day that you just do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of do what I call like what
Speaker 1: I feel is like a good eighty twenty. So, like
Speaker 1: I know, five days out of the seven days a week,
Speaker 1: I'm working out. Five days out of seven, I'm meditating
Speaker 1: before nine am, and then the other two will be
Speaker 1: meditating after nine am. And I like that balance that
Speaker 1: I have gratitude something I'm practicing every single day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such an important one. I think we do something
Speaker 1: with my team that I love. Every Friday will do
Speaker 1: a weekly win and everyone's encouraged to share what they
Speaker 1: believe is their win. And sometimes what's amazing about this
Speaker 1: activity is you feel it will always be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we had so and so on the podcast, or we
Speaker 1: won so and so award, and it isn't. It's actually
Speaker 1: these little things that people are doing behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that are not like these grand wins externally and they
Speaker 1: believe that that's been their success. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a really great way to actually get to know each
Speaker 1: other because you get to see what people value as
Speaker 1: success and you get to understand what people see as
Speaker 1: value in the work they do, Whereas we just assume
Speaker 1: that of course, if there's a big quarter, then everyone
Speaker 1: should be excited, and it's like, well, maybe not, because
Speaker 1: that's not what they equate as their personal success and contribution.
Speaker 1: And so doing the week key wins on Friday is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to do with my team.
Speaker 1: I love that takes like thirty minutes to do, and
Speaker 1: everyone just goes around my cool team and just shares
Speaker 1: what was their weekly with huge.
Speaker 2: I love that I sometimes start my beginning of the
Speaker 2: week staff meetings with like, how was your weekend? Just
Speaker 2: tell us something that happened personal, you know. I also
Speaker 2: find sometimes we get into all the details without getting
Speaker 2: to know one another, yeah, you know. And I find
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of times teams don't work well.
Speaker 2: They can work better together when they're a little bit
Speaker 2: more personal with one another. And it may it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be deep. It could just be like, hey,
Speaker 2: what did you do? Some people will say I went
Speaker 2: on a hike, I you know, went to my kid's game,
Speaker 2: or you know, I went I traveled somewhere, or binge
Speaker 2: watched the show and we're all like, what show? What's
Speaker 2: your favorite show or something, and we just get to
Speaker 2: learn something a little bit more personal about the individual,
Speaker 2: and then it's less about oh, did you hand in
Speaker 2: that PRD? Yeah it's that thing, right, It's just it's
Speaker 2: more personal, and I think and by you just doing
Speaker 2: your wins every week, you know how, I just I
Speaker 2: love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think about it as very simple. I think
Speaker 1: about it like this. You're going to spend a third
Speaker 1: of your life at work. Yeah, learn to get along
Speaker 1: with your colleagues. Yeah, learn to build relationships with the
Speaker 1: people you spend nine hours a day with. You're going
Speaker 1: to spend a third of your life with these people.
Speaker 1: You should actually really get to know them. You should
Speaker 1: be able to laugh with them. It would be wonderful
Speaker 1: if you could open your heart with them. When we
Speaker 1: kind of go, well, works this thing over here and
Speaker 1: I save all of that for home. You're basically saying
Speaker 1: that thirty percent of your life, you'll never experience joy,
Speaker 1: you'll never experience connection. And I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: world we want anymore. I think we need a world
Speaker 1: where work can be meaningful and thoughtful and purposeful. And again,
Speaker 1: going back to what you said, it's not that it
Speaker 1: will ever be stress free, that's right. It's not that
Speaker 1: it's ever going to be perfect or this utopia or
Speaker 1: this beautiful place where everything's amazing. But I think one
Speaker 1: of the things we don't realize is that a lack
Speaker 1: of productivity stems from lack of trust. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: have trust and you have interpersonal connection, things move fast
Speaker 1: and people are not gatekeeping. No one's trying to be
Speaker 1: a bottleneck. No one's looking out for how they can
Speaker 1: be top dog. There's this feeling of we're all going
Speaker 1: to win together. And I think if leaders can start
Speaker 1: to figure out what that culture is, then people will
Speaker 1: achieve so much more and they'll be happier. I think,
Speaker 1: you know one of my I would hate to be
Speaker 1: at the top of a hill with the team and
Speaker 1: three people like gave up along the way.
Speaker 3: Two people told me they never want to come back.
Speaker 1: Right. I was going to ask you, you've had so
Speaker 1: much business success before Calm. You know at Calm, like
Speaker 1: walk us through how your views have changed of recharging
Speaker 1: and recharging your team.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's actually really interesting. I used to be
Speaker 2: one of the youngest secs in the room, and now
Speaker 2: I'm the oldest person in the room. I think when
Speaker 2: I was younger, I felt that I had to be
Speaker 2: in every decision process. And that's a little bit of like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm productive because I got my hands in everything, and
Speaker 2: it was probably the opposite. I was probably causing more
Speaker 2: stress and less productivity on approach. And I realized that
Speaker 2: later that it's it's not the number of meetings or
Speaker 2: decisions you're making. It's not the quantity. It's the quality
Speaker 2: of those decisions. And I keep going back always the
Speaker 2: quality of decision making.
Speaker 3: What is a quality decision. Let's let's define that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's great. Yeah, So like it's things that you
Speaker 2: feel that where you sit could move the for me,
Speaker 2: can move the business forward in the most meaningful manner.
Speaker 2: So sometimes it could be helping teams unlock a product decision.
Speaker 2: Sometimes could be helping teams with things that partnerships that
Speaker 2: may move it forward. Other times it may mean things
Speaker 2: around culture or HR, but it's really being intentional in
Speaker 2: terms of the types of decisions you're making and where
Speaker 2: you're spending your time. It's not being in every decision
Speaker 2: with everybody because ultimately they have to make decisions too.
Speaker 2: One thing we've been doing now that I feel that
Speaker 2: is really brought the company closer together is we did
Speaker 2: this retreat where it wasn't just a leadership team. We
Speaker 2: brought many different people together and I said, you guys,
Speaker 2: come up with the company strategy.
Speaker 3: And they were like and this woman.
Speaker 2: They were like what. And I'm like, They're like, don't
Speaker 2: you have it. My younger self would have been like,
Speaker 2: here it is. I was like, no, you do it.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you it was so much better than
Speaker 2: what I was thinking. And it just reminded me again,
Speaker 2: you hire all these smart people, you take all these
Speaker 2: time vetting them, doing reference checks. Let them do their job.
Speaker 2: Give them a chance. If it was a sports analogy
Speaker 2: to shoot the ball, give them a chance to play,
Speaker 2: you know, don't feel like you're keeping them on the
Speaker 2: bench the whole time and you have to do everything
Speaker 2: and give them a shot. And I do that a
Speaker 2: lot more now. I'm much more intentional with it now.
Speaker 2: It was great. We rolled it out to the company
Speaker 2: at that offsite you were at. People came away and
Speaker 2: said it was the most inspiring offsite and they were like,
Speaker 2: that was great. I said, I didn't do it. They
Speaker 2: did it and came from the team, and I think
Speaker 2: it felt so much more meaningful to them because it
Speaker 2: came from them, and it was so much more spot
Speaker 2: on and we And really what it was around was
Speaker 2: we've talked about trying to make the world healthier and happier.
Speaker 2: We've tried We've talked about as a company trying to
Speaker 2: be with you every step of the way and your
Speaker 2: mental health journey. And this was really around how to
Speaker 2: become how do we become the most impactful consumer mental
Speaker 2: health company in the world. And when I sat back
Speaker 2: and said that's what we want to become and the
Speaker 2: team had kind of been the one synthesizing it, then
Speaker 2: everyone started mobilizing against it on their own and they
Speaker 2: had thought about things that I never even thought about
Speaker 2: because I'm just too far sometimes away from the details.
Speaker 2: And then now I've seen us accelerate and I know
Speaker 2: that motion and muscle can be repeated right, and you
Speaker 2: can bring it to other companies regardless of size. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes as companies get larger, and I've had
Speaker 2: the fortune of starting my own company where it's like
Speaker 2: three of us, and then it grows to thirty whatever,
Speaker 2: three hundred, and then the thousands, and then the fortune
Speaker 2: of joining companies later where it's thousands and it becomes
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands. Ultimately, that culture is your bedrock. You know,
Speaker 2: whether or not how many people you stack on top
Speaker 2: of it, what you start to set as your foundation
Speaker 2: will percolate amongst the entire company. And if you don't
Speaker 2: do that the right way, and if you're not thought
Speaker 2: then you may not get the results that you're happy with, right,
Speaker 2: and you may create more stressful environments that you just
Speaker 2: unintentionally didn't think about. And that's where I really appreciate
Speaker 2: about when leaders come around, they talk about being more
Speaker 2: thoughtful and their decision making process, being more vulnerable, being
Speaker 2: more open, really thinking about employees' mental health, but then
Speaker 2: not just talking about it, but then really acting upon
Speaker 2: it totally. And if you can do that a little
Speaker 2: bit year after year, right, you can really create a
Speaker 2: special culture. And I think they'll do special things.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, David, It's been such a joy talking to you today.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed our dialogue around recharging. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for the work you're doing at Calm
Speaker 1: because I remember being a analyst at Eccentia and I.
Speaker 2: Was taking you were really good.
Speaker 3: I was, I was okay.
Speaker 1: I was tasked with teaching meditation in my spare time
Speaker 1: and mindfulness in my spare time at the company, and
Speaker 1: I would travel around and I would do lunchtime sessions
Speaker 1: and after work sessions, and I couldn't scale myself. But
Speaker 1: now thanks to Calm, not only am I able to
Speaker 1: scale myself to more people, but we're able to introduce
Speaker 1: people to so many amazing hosts and narrators that we
Speaker 1: have on Calm. And I think inside an organization, you
Speaker 1: no longer need someone running around the organization and physically
Speaker 1: trying to serve lots of people. You actually have the
Speaker 1: ability for everyone to tune in. And we end every
Speaker 1: on Purpose episode with a final five. These questions have
Speaker 1: to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum,
Speaker 1: So David Cod, these are your final five. The first
Speaker 1: question is what is the best recharge advice you've ever
Speaker 1: heard in your life to.
Speaker 2: Be more present. I recognize at times that I've been there,
Speaker 2: but not really, and so you are. You do so
Speaker 2: good at this where you're just so present, whether it's
Speaker 2: one person or hundreds or thousands, I've seen it. I've
Speaker 2: been in your auditoriums where you've tried and everyone feels
Speaker 2: your presence and so presence.
Speaker 1: I like that answer, not in the part about me,
Speaker 1: you're very kind, but the because I don't think we've
Speaker 1: realized how draining it is when you're not present. And
Speaker 1: you gave that great analogy earlier. When you have lots
Speaker 1: of tabs and apps open, Yeah, that's when we drain
Speaker 1: our battery. That's right, and so so many of us
Speaker 1: are draining our back by thinking, oh, I'm here right
Speaker 1: now with David, But actually, if my mind's over there,
Speaker 1: I'll get more done. And you're actually depleting your battery.
Speaker 1: So it's a great answer. Second question, what is the
Speaker 1: worst advice you've ever heard about recharging yourself?
Speaker 3: Sorry?
Speaker 2: Mom, because she's going to be listening and watching, and
Speaker 2: my mom. I love my mom, so I'm gonna start
Speaker 2: by that, and she's given me lots of great advice,
Speaker 2: But this probably was the worst advice she gave me
Speaker 2: as a child, which was to power through. And it's
Speaker 2: not about powering through. It's really about powering up. And
Speaker 2: she didn't know, you know, but you know, Mom, I
Speaker 2: think it was not about powering through.
Speaker 1: Question number three, what's your three favorite ways to power up?
Speaker 2: So I have rituals like you and my rituals. In
Speaker 2: the morning, when I wake up, I don't look at
Speaker 2: my phone right away. I actually go downstairs, I start
Speaker 2: the coffee, I open the window, and I walk outside
Speaker 2: and I take three breasts. And it's been something I've
Speaker 2: been very intentional about doing. If I'm traveling, I try
Speaker 2: to open the window, you know, wherever it may be,
Speaker 2: if you're an apartment or something. That process starts to
Speaker 2: center me. The second I do is I do a
Speaker 2: lot of walking meetings, and so I'm a big fan
Speaker 2: of like trying to break things up that help me
Speaker 2: reach or so people give me energy, I would say,
Speaker 2: going outside, breathing people give me energy. And then lastly,
Speaker 2: I think, similar to yourself, I love to exercise as well,
Speaker 2: and I've become a lot better at keeping a steady
Speaker 2: schedule around it. And even someone said this to me
Speaker 2: the other day. They said do something every day, right,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, great, I'm gonna do something every day,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna be really intentional about it and just
Speaker 2: keep at it. Some days I'll go to the gym.
Speaker 2: Some days I'll do something at home, but be really quick,
Speaker 2: but exercise as well.
Speaker 1: I love that question before what are your three favorite
Speaker 1: ways to power down?
Speaker 2: I turn everything off, meaning the following, so be just
Speaker 2: putting my phone and turning it over, because I don't
Speaker 2: think sometimes that's enough. I'll just be like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of done. I wanted to ask you earlier
Speaker 2: because I'm curious if you had a day and you
Speaker 2: didn't use your phone social media, what does that day
Speaker 2: look like for you?
Speaker 1: Those are the best days. It doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1: I've definitely tried really hard. One thing I've really focused
Speaker 1: on is when me and my wife were together in
Speaker 1: the evening for dinner, and then if we're watching a
Speaker 1: show or something. Is not bringing the phone to those
Speaker 1: two things because I found myself a lot of the
Speaker 1: time like finishing off last emails messaging while we're having dinner,
Speaker 1: and then when you're watching a show, you're distracted, and
Speaker 1: then you watch your partner get distracted, and then you're
Speaker 1: like mad at them for getting distracted. But then when
Speaker 1: they put their phone down, you've got yours up, and
Speaker 1: they're mad at you for getting distracted. I was like,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? And I was starting to
Speaker 1: notice just my attention span just dropping. I've noticed that
Speaker 1: a lot in the last twelve months, more than any
Speaker 1: time before, and I've realized so much of it is
Speaker 1: because of just the speed of consumption. So now it's
Speaker 1: not even that we're consuming a lot. We're consuming a
Speaker 1: lot at a really fast rate, and so you're just
Speaker 1: making it easier for your mind to get two seconds
Speaker 1: of everything. And so for me, I try and make
Speaker 1: my weekends very phone free, because weekdays I am on
Speaker 1: my phone. I've also found that even when I'm with
Speaker 1: my team, if I can have my laptop in the room,
Speaker 1: but my laptop's not connected to messaging apps and then
Speaker 1: my phone's not in the room, I actually find I'm
Speaker 1: better with my team. So I can still do email,
Speaker 1: I can still do work on my laptop, but it's
Speaker 1: not wired up to WhatsApp, it's not wired up to
Speaker 1: text message. I don't need it, and so I've been
Speaker 1: trying to leave my phone actually out of my hand
Speaker 1: when I'm not traveling. If I'm going out for work
Speaker 1: or driving, of course I need my phone, but if
Speaker 1: I'm in the office, I don't need my phone on
Speaker 1: me in meetings or in between meetings. Actually, and all
Speaker 1: of this is stuff I'm still working on too, because
Speaker 1: I find myself go through ups and down with it.
Speaker 1: There are times when I'm brilliant at it. I also
Speaker 1: follow you. I don't keep my friend in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: don't look at it first and in the morning. But
Speaker 1: I also have days where I break that completely when
Speaker 1: I'm traveling. And so I don't want to make anyone
Speaker 1: feel like I've got it down or perfect, because I haven't.
Speaker 1: And I think it's almost like peaks and troughs. There's
Speaker 1: always a good day and a bad week, and a
Speaker 1: good week and a bad day. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, that's brilliant, just being honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fifth and final question to David co If you
Speaker 1: could create one law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 1: to follow, what would it be.
Speaker 2: Kids have to go to gym five days, and they
Speaker 2: know there's physical exercise, and it's just kind of like
Speaker 2: it's just understood. Why can't we take some of that
Speaker 2: time for children to also better understand their own mental
Speaker 2: health and to teach them about their mental health because
Speaker 2: we know so much of this starts early, just like
Speaker 2: it started with myself at fourteen. If I had that
Speaker 2: vocabulary at fourteen, I probably would have developed better kind
Speaker 2: of healthy behaviors at fourteen and did that as I
Speaker 2: turned into a young and so I would love to
Speaker 2: take a little bit of time. It doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be all the time. It could be a carve outs
Speaker 2: maybe once twice, three times a week where we educate
Speaker 2: our children, check it on them on their mental health
Speaker 2: or their battery, and ask them the question.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: What a great lawyer that would have a big impact
Speaker 1: on the world. The book is called Recharge. We've got
Speaker 1: interviews with everyone from Rando Park to Maclamore. It's a
Speaker 1: brilliant book, so fascinating.
Speaker 3: You know them. You know, I love the format. I
Speaker 3: loved the format.
Speaker 1: The format is fantastic, Like you sat down with experts,
Speaker 1: with rappers, with rebels, innovators, thought leaders, and you put
Speaker 1: together this beautiful book called Recharge. David, I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: that you put it together. I'm so grateful we connected
Speaker 1: and I'm and thank you for taking the time having
Speaker 1: me here. Thank you for talking about the book. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's something I'm so proud of. I hope people
Speaker 1: people get some you know, really get something out of it.
Speaker 1: We talked to a lot of different folks, like you said,
Speaker 1: like Randall, who's you know? You know as well, and
Speaker 1: many other folks there, Isla, and they just talked about
Speaker 1: so many amazing things, and I was really touched by
Speaker 1: talking to each and every one of them. I was
Speaker 1: honored to hear their stories and it just made me
Speaker 1: a better person. It also has helped me in my
Speaker 1: mental health journey, and I hope it helps some other
Speaker 1: people as well. David, thank you so much. Is there
Speaker 1: anything I didn't ask you that you really want to
Speaker 1: touch on? Something that's on you? How o mine that's
Speaker 1: calling for you to share. I'd love for you to
Speaker 1: share it.
Speaker 2: You never asked me how my battery is, how's your?
Speaker 2: I would tell you my battery is at one hundred
Speaker 2: over one hundred percent because I got to spend time
Speaker 2: with you. Yeah, no, no, And I'll tell you conversations
Speaker 2: like this just recharge and energize me. I love the
Speaker 2: fact that we got to sit. I've loved the fact
Speaker 2: that I got to know you personally and professionally. I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful for our friendship, your mentorship, your words of wisdom.
Speaker 2: I know how many millions of people you affect every day.
Speaker 2: I mean over fifty million people on a comp the
Speaker 2: entire employee base of Calm. Just I can't tell you
Speaker 2: the impact you've made both on us on a personal
Speaker 2: and professional front. So thank you. I want to ask you,
Speaker 2: how's your a battery?
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 1: And I'm not just saying this because you're here and
Speaker 1: I really do mean it. You recharge my battery too,
Speaker 1: Like this conversation is, I'd say, before you came in today,
Speaker 1: I was probably at like a sixty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of social events in the past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. Just we had Devali, which is our
Speaker 1: yes beautiful festival every year we had. There was just
Speaker 1: so much going on and all good stuff, all stuff
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to. But I'm very disciplined about
Speaker 1: my sleep all year around, and at this time of year,
Speaker 1: I kind of let go a little bit because there
Speaker 1: are so many wonderful events that I get invited to,
Speaker 1: and so I've been feeling a bit and as soon
Speaker 1: as you came in, you took me from a sixty
Speaker 1: to and ninety five easily. And honestly, it's this conversation
Speaker 1: because it felt so real, so authentic, so genuine. I
Speaker 1: felt like, again, you were really present, And I think
Speaker 1: that's what we don't realize when you're present with and
Speaker 1: you're charging them up while you're being charged, and that's
Speaker 1: such a superpower that often we think, oh, if I'm
Speaker 1: charging someone else up, I'm losing energy, but that's not true.
Speaker 1: If you're charging someone else else up by being present,
Speaker 1: you're getting charged, so are they. And we've both felt
Speaker 1: that today and I genuinely felt that today, And honestly,
Speaker 1: Calm has just been such a brilliant partner. It's the
Speaker 1: team I love working with every day, whether it's the
Speaker 1: content team, the team that we work within the studio,
Speaker 1: the team that I get to see once a year,
Speaker 1: the leadership, everyone walks the talk there and it's it's
Speaker 1: so impressive to me. Thank you because I felt it
Speaker 1: from the moment I started doing zooms and meetings with
Speaker 1: everyone at CARM and It's remarkable what you're all doing
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to be a part of the future.
Speaker 1: So congratulations, and it's just the beginning. We're just getting started.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Thank you, David, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: If this year you're trying to live longer, live happy,
Speaker 1: live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the
Speaker 1: world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia on how to slow
Speaker 1: down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting
Speaker 1: your physical health.
Speaker 3: Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship
Speaker 3: between nutrition and health, and people are going to be
Speaker 3: shocked to hear that, because I think most people think
Speaker 3: the exact opposite