Ed Harrold and Michael Susi explore the place of breath in a conversation about work, performance, and showing up with greater capacity.
Ed Harrold with Michael Susi. Originally published on YouTube February 4, 2021. Watch the original conversation on YouTube.
Ed Harrold and Michael Susi explore the place of breath in a conversation about work, performance, and showing up with greater capacity.
00:02.7 Hi, everyone. I'm Ed Harold. Welcome to our Life with Breath expert series. And today, we have the great Michael Suzie with us. Really excited to be with you. Welcome, everyone. Today, we have a, a real treasure for us to share his wisdom and awarenesses about the global health and wellness program. We have the director of the LinkedIn Health and Wellness Program, the great Michael Suzie with us, an American treasure. How are you, Michael? Ed, I, I... You know, I'm gonna try not to blush too much with that introduction, but, uh, thank you very much for it. Uh, it's great to be here with you. I'm really excited always to catch up with you, and thanks for having me on the show.
01:02.0 Hey, let's just start with the simple stuff. Let's just start with some math. Uh, you know, you work for an amazing organization. I don't know how many, uh, workers you have, you know, under your realm, but I know it's quite a big number. And, uh, you've been at this quite a while. So maybe give us a little backdrop of, of how you got here and what you're doing right now. Sure. So we are about 15,000 people at LinkedIn globally. Wow. We have offices in, I believe 19 countries, 32 offices over 19 countries. I've been at LinkedIn for 10 years. So when I started, we were about 900 people in our Mountain View office and a scattering- Wow ...
01:42.5 of people in some other offices that we were just really starting to hit that hyper growth mode. Uh, you know, prior to... Immediately prior to joining LinkedIn, I had begun my own wellness company that was really me to individuals. I would write exercise and nutrition programs for people remotely. So I was trying to... And this was 2008-ish. I was trying to kind of turn that whole personal training, coaching, uh, paradigm on its head and remove that geographical need to be next to someone to be their coach or, or their guide through increasing whatever betterment they wanted to make within themselves. So that, what I had started as an online company really became the wellness program at LinkedIn just through connections.
02:24.1 Need to say more about LinkedIn, just having connections allowed me an opportunity to present what I was able to do and, and thought of as a corporate wellness program, and it's been a tremendous success. You know, but more than anything, I really attribute that to where I get to do this, uh, which is at LinkedIn. It's just a, a tremendous company, uh, that really truly does care for its employees, and its mission as an organization to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. It is all about helping people enrich and better their own lives, and I mean, heck, that's what wellness is, just on an individual basis.
02:59.5 Yeah, I mean, you're so good at what you do, it's, you know, it's really hard to put words to it. You know, you appear to be someone who can see the really big picture about what we're trying to achieve in global wellness, while at the same time, not getting bogged down in the details and kind of the minutiae of it all. And I, I know you have some roots, uh, back in the East Coast. Is that where you learned these skills? Uh, you know, I, I was living back East when I developed the skills. But I would tell you that the skills I developed that really drove all this home was through an organization called the CHEK Institute- Mm-hmm ...
03:31.2 uh, founded by a gentleman named Paul Chek. And getting cert... So I've, I've had a number of other certifications, you know, from personal training, strength and conditioning, a nutritional certification of metabolic typing. But it was really the education through the CHEK Institute that I brought my vision or helped me create the vision that really allowed this to be, how do we help people holistically achieve what it is that they want to achieve? And when you get in the corporate space, you know, I grew up playing sports and being an athlete and a collegiate football coach for a, a cup of coffee, as they say, at a couple different universities.
04:06.1 And when you get into the corporate space, you know, not everyone's looking to run faster, jump higher, and get bigger and stronger, right? Those are the more ubiquitous goals of maybe it's losing weight, but even more commonly, it's how do I just get more energy? Because life, work, relationships are stressful. Um, and so I, again, I... That really brought it into, to focus for me to create a program that helps people unleash their greatness. You know, you have a pretty big stage that, uh, to work with, and I notice you have a, a kind of a simplistic approach where you have six various platforms that allow us to homogenously build this stage a little wider, a little higher every day.
04:48.4 Could you just take a minute and, and go over, you know, the, the six platforms that do make what you do extremely unique in the corporate workspace? Absolutely. Um, so, well, we call them the six tenets of wellness, and those six tenets are thoughts, breathing, hydration, nutrition, movement, and rest. And the analogy we make to help people get that, and it seems simple, but I th- we have so much information thrown at us from a variety of sources, some accurate, some not, around how we should care for ourselves, that many times it needs to be made very simple for people to get. And so the analogy we make is almost everyone has grown or killed a plant in their life.
05:32.5 It's sunlight, soil, water, and everyone knows that if you give a plant those things, the plant does very well. Now, of course, not every plant requires the same of all of those three, uh, ingredients, and we as humans are a bit more dynamic, but we're, you know, we're common enough that we can have these six overarching principles, but we're also obviously unique enough that we need to understand how those individually work for us. What am I trying to accomplish in my life at this point in time, and how do I use those six tenets as a way to benefit me? I always tell people, "You're doing all six of the tenets." How well you're doing them to support what you're trying to get done, well, that's really the million-dollar question that we've challenged people to
06:14.0 discover for themselves. You know, I noticed you were way out in the foreground before it became, you know, popular to really focus on things that might not be take- be taking place at the workplace, like the power of sleep and a good night's sleep. You know, the power of what we're putting in our body. Uh, little things like that and how that creates the whole a little bit stronger from the bottom up. Yeah. Well, you know what? I like to use this analogy around organizational health. And so the, you know, the comparison is if you think of an organization to the human body, where then the organization's cells are the employees, and then we as people have our own
06:54.5 cells, right? That organism, the human or the or- or the organization, the health of its cells dictate the health of the overall organization. So if a human body has some portion of it that is not healthy or well, the whole organism, the whole body is considered not well. And I think if you take that into an organization and you care for each person within the organization the way you should care for the cells within your body, uh, that level of micro focus leads to great macro results, I think, personally as our entire organism, but also organizationally. So as you know that, uh, myself, you know, everything that I do, whether it's in the corporate space, the athletic space, or the healthcare space, has something
07:40.6 to do somewhere with breathing. And, you know, I look at breathing as the be all, end all, the beginning, the middle, the end. I look at it as supporting us from a physical standpoint, a mental standpoint, an emotional standpoint, a spiritual standpoint. Can you explain a little bit about what the breath has, you know, if you care to, a little bit personally about how the breath has helped you, and then also how you feel, you know, the need to spread this breath professionally is such a landmark, uh, tenet for you? Well, you know, I think one of the downfalls of breath is that we've done it since we were born, and we can very easily take it for granted because, one, we don't have to think about it, right?
08:24.8 Our bodies just automatically do it, and it usually isn't until we suffer from some sort of breathing impediment, right? Whether it be that we get sick and don't feel well in that regard or, you know, something worse. But that level, until it's brought into our forefront, I think we just dismiss it as or forget how influential it is. You know, my first, I would say, uh, foray into understanding the power of breath was really around athletics. And so it's how do you perform athletically based upon just breathing better? So that ultimately, though, had to expand. And when you really think about how often we breathe, and I know you know the exact number, I don't off the top of my head.
09:08.1 But when we... You know, this is something that happens so often. And so while our bodies are so amazingly resilient that you can breathe improperly, and it's not just gonna make you fall over, right? You're not gonna just perish because you take a couple improper breaths, but every time we breathe improperly, as you know, it's a missed opportunity to actually create a restful moment in our day, as opposed to adding more stress, uh, through improper breathing. And what I most importantly learned, I would say my- the, uh, the pathway into more fullness of wellness within breath, it went from athl- initially athletics, and then into meditation.
09:45.9 So as I began to... And I've been practicing meditation for well over 20 years, not always very well. You know, it's something I kind of would go in and out of. I would say the last 5 years of those 20 have been the time that I've been the most- Right ... consistent with the practice. But w- that was the first way outside of athletics that I thought about breath, and you realize how powerful it is. And then you take it the next step and you realize how many signals it's giving you. And not only is it the signifier to you that, hey, something's wrong. You're not feeling your best, whether it be that you, you feel anger uprising because of an email you got, or the way someone spoke to you.
10:20.8 Um, and how you then, not only is it a great signifier for you, it's the actual mechanism you can use to help calm yourself down or to energize yourself if you feel- Right ... you know, a, a dullness in your, um, activity level. So, you know, I- it, it, that was the journey for me over time. And then going back to the education I got through the Czech Institute, they so much emphasize it, and you put it into practice. And then you actually do it for yourself. You know, I would say growing up being a competitive person, sometimes my competitiveness would get the better of me, which would lead to maybe saying or doing things that in hindsight, I'm not
10:58.7 that proud of. And maybe anger would even feel like rise up in myself. And it was through breathing practices of recognizing that you're feeling that level of stress, and before you take that action that you may regret, it's pausing and using your breath as a tool to check in with yourself, uh, to calm down a bit. Uh, there's that saying, uh, um, of, I'm gonna probably misquote it, but it has to do with, you know, the, the space between the stimulus you receive and the response, uh, is a moment for breath in there, right? And we don't have to react in a fight or flight manner when we receive that stimuli.
11:36.4 And what can you do with that space between the stimulus and action? Breathe. Just focus on your breath, and it does an amazing job, obviously, to help calm down or even get excited when you, uh, maybe need to get pumped up. Well, that's a great analogy. You know, when you think about stress, you think about kind of the absence of space. It kinda, you feel like you're closed into your mind, or physically you feel like you can't perform any longer. Your mood is disrupted. And that breath just has the ability to create a little bit of space around the intruder or the stressor. Then you can organically kind of figure out a new path and create some space around things that normally take our breath away.
12:23.0 So space might be the absence of uncomfortable stress. Absolutely. You know, you guys do a lot of great mental health work too, and I, I know, like, the breathwork is a big piece o- of, you know, catapulting the other five tenets that you have. Do, do you feel that breathwork plays a role in what you guys are doing with mental health? Absolutely. You know, I think that obviously mental health has basis in wellness, but it obviously goes over into medical things as well. And just to sort of differentiate, you know, w- wellness, the way we look at wellness, the way we practice it, it's all those things you can do preventatively that you don't need a doctor to
13:04.2 go engage with to be able to do those things. Um, and so in that regard, you know, from teaching mindfulness, and we have a tremendous mindfulness and compassion team at LinkedIn. And, and compassion and mindfulness practice has been part of what we've done from a wellness perspective, uh, since day one. So that is something that we do a lot of, is helping people appreciate that level of compassion, practice compassion through mindfulness. And then it goes all the way to the other side, though, too, to actually supporting people's mental health through, you know, counseling. So our EAP is offering people, uh, we offer 25 free counseling sessions, for example, to our US employees a year.
13:43.1 Great. And our international employees have access to an EAP as well similarly. Uh, and then even speaks... You know, I'll give you a specific example too around supporting people's mental health, and knowing that everyone's on a different journey. You don't really know where people are exactly, and some people are, we range on that spectrum. But obviously when COVID hit, you know, whatever stress we were already under just became heightened for almost everyone. And we actually created through, um, our, our entire organization, but really coming out of our benefits team, was something called Lift Up. And so Lift Up are different opportunities that we create as an organization for people to take those mental breaks.
14:23.0 Uh, we have two days a month that are no meeting days. We have, uh, a day back in, um, November that we gave all employees off. And so those are foundations that then allow people to, uh, tap into other resources that we as a company provide, but also they may have access to just through their own happen, uh, their own occurrences that allow them to work on their mental health and really care for it You know, in, in my mind, you know, there really is no other health besides mental health. You know, it really doesn't matter what you see in the mirror, you know, if you can't feel comfortable about yourself when you close your eyes.
15:01.8 And I, you know, I think mental health is something that we kind of push to the side, uh, and, and really kind of get short shift un- until maybe it's, you know, a little bit past where we should have taken action. You know, the... One of the great things about the brain is that it really can focus and, and, and reduce information to give us the most optimal answer for whatever is, is, is on our plate. A- and the brain loves to complete what its objective is. But i- in today's world, uh, the COVID, the, the computer, everything's on Zoom now, we're not getting that human connection, you
15:42.5 know, the brain seems to have difficulty in changing gears when we don't complete something to the best of our ability because an email came in, or there's another Zoom conference, or there's a call over here. You know, one of the things that I've noticed is that the breath control is a really important tool at the workstation to help the brain change gears on the fly because we're all wearing so many hats today. Do you find that to be true? Oh, absolutely. You know, uh, two thoughts come to mind. One is around multitasking, which people think they multitask, but we don't. All we do is waste time.
16:20.0 Really, when we're called upon is to be able to- Right ... re- re- recenter our focus, right? That's really ultimately what we have to be able to do, 'cause we cannot do anything to the best of our ability if we're trying to do more than one thing at a time. Things require our attention, and when you divert that attention by trying to do two things at once, you're not really getting much done. So it really is the ability to not allow distraction to come in, but obviously that's not possible all the time. Some things are... require us to take our attention from, away from the task that we may be on, but it's the ability to, to refocus, you know, multiple times over the course of a day or an hour.
16:57.9 And so mindfulness, breathwork, there's a tremendous benefit to a person to be able to develop the skills to, one, notice when you are distracted, and two, allow yourself to bring yourself into focus in that regard. So to me, it is without a doubt. And then, and also to, to touch on what you said about, um, it all starts with mental health, I couldn't agree more. You know, you can have the nar- To boil it down to an even more simple equation, you know, you can be the most powerful athlete in the world But if you have, you know, things aren't right in your head and you don't feel good, you, you're not allow- your body doesn't allow itself to show all that great athleticism.
17:39.6 That sometimes gets hindered by, you know, a problem that the person may be experiencing, uh, in their head. And so I definitely totally agree that how much everything really does start with... That's why we start with the thoughts tenet as our very first tenet, 'cause everything begins with that thought. And when we can, uh, mitigate negative thought patterns, right, which obviously the act of breathing can do a great job of that. When we can stop those things from running amok, you know, that's how we create better focus in our lives, that's how we stay on task, that's how we get things done. And then that, that just snowballs in a positive way, or that sense of accomplishment, of checking those things off.
18:15.5 The absence of that feeling, like, "I'm forgetting something," or, "I forgot to get something done." Those little bit of anxieties, when we remove them, right, that just gives us more power to be move forward in a, or m- m- be moving forward in a really positive direction. You know, and something else I- I'm sorry, I wanted to say too earlier about the breathing tenet, and I think it's related to the question you just asked now, is we look at our program as, you know, we look at each of our six wellness tenets as an opportunity for someone to engage in the wellness program. So we can talk about the movement tenet, you know, we can talk...
18:50.0 And you're gonna have some gym junkies, and they're gonna wanna come to every exercise class you have, no problem. Not everyone is into exercise or going to the gym. Same with mindfulness. You know, some people love meditation and mindfulness, and other people, either ne- didn't have a good experience or don't think it's for them. I believe that with something like breathing, I can reach every member of our workforce with the skill set and a tool that they can utilize without having to engage with someone else, that they can be equipped with at their desk, that they can learn about via online, that we don't have to be in person.
19:22.8 And again, it's, it's just being able to recognize the signals our breath is giving us, and then to know what to do with that. And how to, you know, use techniques that, as you did last year with our workforce, provide us great content on breathing techniques that our employees are able to tap into, uh, to use their breath as a tool to, to heal. Well, you know, life has evolved since we were kids, uh, to where we are today, that everything, or 90% of the things we're learning is all through our eyes. And the four other senses aren't really being as stimulated as much at home and, uh, at, at work.
19:58.0 And when you think about this visualization, you know, everybody wants to feel good, you know? And, you know, if you are going to the gym, you get the ability to take a look at yourself in, in, in the mirror, and there's a story there in regard to the investment, you know, you've made in yourself. You know, when it comes to the brain, you can't see the brain. You could be the smartest person in the room, and you can have huge cognitive skills, and the ability to handle many, many questions at one time and come out with a great answer, but you can't see the brain.
20:26.9 A- and the brain is a totally different animal than, than everything else in the body. So if I fall off my bike today, you know, there's gonna be a, I'm gonna skin my, uh, I'm gonna t- tear up my knee, and I can see that, and the body'll start to repair it. Well, the brain's a little different. You know, the brain, kind of, you kind of check in with your brain every four or five years. It doesn't really show you an injury right away. It doesn't show you a pattern of movement right away that maybe you can't identify as a behavior or a perception or an action that, that probably is not
21:00.9 your best. So when you're working with the brain, and you have 15,000 people, but, you know, and they're all different. They're, all the perceptions are different, but they're all kind of the same, and we all kinda have the same places where we stub our toe mentally. But when you think about what that inhale and exhale with conscious control can bring to the various centers of the brain, you've really got a, a, a, a good argument, like that's where we go to organize ourself between our ears first. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the brain is challenging in that regard, 'cause like you said, you can't see it. You know, fortunately, there has been some studies that can give people some tangible proof.
21:43.5 You know, studies around how, uh, gray matter, uh, changes in the prefrontal cortex with a, a mindfulness practice. And so some of that can be supportive. You know, but what we try to really do with people is encourage them to check in with themselves, right? That's where that ability not to let it go four or five years before you really check in, but to do it as a daily practice. And then when people can see it for themselves or feel it for themselves, right, that is what actually manifests itself into them getting it, and realizing that, uh, by doing this, they are receiving that benefit.
22:16.4 Because you're right, that tangible, let me see this change. You know, but to that, I'll also give you another example. When we work with people that say they wanna lose weight or they wanna talk about their nutrition, a lot of times, you know, weight gain or weight loss is the indicator people utilize to show whether or not they're eating well for themselves. And we look to try to give them something a little bit more immediate, which is, "You've eaten something. How do you feel now?" Not waiting six weeks to see what a scale is like, because it's too long. One, people need more immediate feedback to understand the benefit, and if they don't get it, they become disenchanted with it, and our human nature is to kind of throw our hands up and walk away from it.
22:54.2 Um, or if it's the wrong thing, it takes us six weeks to figure it out. But when we can tap in in the moment, and that comes with using our breath, but we can tap in in the moment and say, "You know, I ate this mo- I ate this food, and now I feel anxious," or, "I feel really groggy." Well, okay, let's look back and say that's that immediate feedback that our bodies give us that allow us to, you know, correct in the immediate, as opposed to waiting weeks or months to, to make those changes. That's a super cool awareness for everyone out there. You know, notice how you feel after you eat, and this will give you a clue about
23:32.9 what you've eaten, and is your body allergic to it? And if there's issues in your body- In other words, there's a mucusy, uh, phlegmy-type substance in the throat. Your body's actually resisting on some level to integrate what you put in it, and there'll be, in the body there'll be inflammation. But that inflammation also comes up around the neurons in our brain, and it makes it difficult for us to think clearly, and sometimes there's like a foggy mind. So that's a great tip for people, Michael, is simply to notice how you feel after you've given the ego what it's asked for. Because I think a lot of what, you know, we think like, "Okay, you know, one piece of pizza i- is, uh, if it's okay to have one, then I should have two." I mean, sometimes
24:18.2 your body i- you know, is craving a piece of pizza, but it's, it's the quantity of it that sometimes jams us up. Absolutely. And I'll share with you that we give people what we call, uh, bodily, four bodily navigation stars to tap into as a checklist. So when... And, and it can be used for anything, but to apply it to, you know, when we eat, we encourage people an hour or two after you eat, you check in on these four bodily navigation stars of mental acuity, mood, energy, hunger or cravings. And if you can't check all those off, like, if you eat food and then an hour or two later you're hungry or you're craving things, that's a sign that you're not giving your body what it needs.
24:59.5 And at the same time, if you eat something and you don't feel your mood uplift, I mean, food is our life force, right? And so when we feel an uplift, you know, of mood, not just of energy, right? 'Cause you can eat a bunch of Skittles and feel an uplift of energy. When you feel your mood enhanced, that's a sign that what you ate was good for you. If you feel your mood deteriorates or your brain is foggy or it's anxious, again, those are all signs that the body is not getting what it needs nutritionally, and you have to stop. You have to pause. You have to pay attention.
25:27.0 You have to breathe and really understand what's going on with your body. 'Cause these signals aren't glaring, and they're not coming to us in our, you know, our native language, right? They're coming to us through these signals, and it takes time to pay attention and, and listen to them. You know, I don't think a lot of people know that when you think, when you talk about weight loss or in- weight loss is basically inflammation reduction. You're reducing inflammation in your body, and you're circulating more alkalinity and oxygen so your blood is cleaner, it's easier on your heart, you have more energy, and there's more quality thinking, less quantity thinking.
26:03.9 But I think a lot of people don't realize that to reduce inflammation or weight loss, that 80% of weight loss comes from the lungs. And- And 20% comes from exercise, sweat, urination, and evacuation of our bowels. So just getting people to stay on that exhale, even though you're at your workstation, you're actually in the gym inside your body doing what most exercise programs should be about, which is reducing inflammatory markers without causing any additional wear and tear to your muscles, bones, and joints. Yep. So, you know, when we talk about, you know, losing maybe a pound or two in the body, you know, there- you're also gonna lose a pound or two maybe of excessive
26:54.6 overthinking in the head. Yeah. Well, some of the things that come to mind around, you know, weight loss and breathing, one of them, as you touched on, it was stress reduction, right? And we- when we can reduce stress responses in our bodies, uh, we are putting our bodies in the position to lose weight. Uh, obviously techniques like checking in on your bodily navigation stars requires some breathing. And a saying I remember, and I can't remember where I got it from, was, "Fat burns in an oxygen flame." And so if you wanna be burning fat, like you need to have that right ratio of o- you know, oxygen needs to be...
27:29.6 And that comes from proper breathing. So yeah, I- that's another, you know, breathing is inc- instrumental in helping people, uh, lose weight to fetch their goal. So as you know, I'm all about greatness, and, you know, good's not good enough for me. I want... You know, greatness is where we should be shooting and raising that bar every day because all of us, on some level, are getting into our own way. You know, no one c- can see how great you actually are all the time just showing up, doing the best you can. Do you have any examples about maybe how the, how the breath tenet has actually helped folks get out of their own way and achieve greatness at LinkedIn?
28:10.0 Well, you know, we look at greatness to be something that is obviously individual, what you're trying to accomplish, and you can accomplish that greatness across different things, right? We wanna be great at our jobs, we wanna be great, you know, partners, parents. Mm-hmm. We wanna be great maybe athletically, for those that are still, you know, doing things of that nature. So one is allowing people to bring their best selves forward every day, and that comes through, obviously, the opportunity to be able to focus o- on breath. Um, you know, I have heard stories that people have shared with us over the years of engaging in the program, from learning about mindfulness, uh, to
28:48.8 exercising more regularly, to the breathing information that you and I brought to them last year, was the culmination of all these things allow people to see for themselves what's in the way for them, and to remove those obstacles and allow themselves to achieve that greatness. Um, over the course of last year, you know, we did have a lot of people share, uh, their own stories about being able to calm down from anxiety or being able to prepare for public speaking through the breathing techniques that you were able to share with them. So, uh, those are the stories that I've really heard from people, uh, that allow them to let their greatness shine.
29:27.5 We say everyone has greatness, right? It's inherent, it is inherent in us. We just need to wash away stuff. We don't need to instill greatness. We need to get those things out of the way so that our internal and inherent greatness shines through. You know, I, I know that you have, uh, a lot of information, uh, at LinkedIn, you know, that you get through research and questionnaires and things like that. And, you know, some of the major stuffs are sleep and stress and productivity, you know, et cetera. Do, do you do anything in regard to, to looking at moods? You know, we don't talk a lot about moods or attitude, and how that plays just such a huge role in greatness.
30:12.2 Yeah. Well, to me, that comes back to compassion, and we have had... You know, compassion has been part of our vernacular at LinkedIn from the day that I joined. You know, our former CEO and now executive chairman, Jeff Weiner, has done a lot around, uh, compassionate management. You know, how do we as managers or, uh, people leaders, how do you do that compassionately? And how do you not confuse compassion for coddling? You know, letting people get away with things because, "Oh, I'm trying to show them compassion." You know, sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do for someone in a workforce is even maybe let them go or open their eyes if there's somewhere else to go be
30:45.6 if they're not doing well. So I think any time, you know, it's hard to be compassionate towards others when our moods aren't in a good place, whether that mood deterioration is because we're not getting good sleep or we're hungry, uh, or some other thing going on in our, in our lives. So mood is instrumental, and to me, the way LinkedIn has really exemplified and helped people bring their focus to their mood is through the teaching of compassion and how you can apply that both as a colleague, a manager, a parent, a coach. You know, how do you coach people up and do that in a way that helps drive them and be compassionate?
31:21.1 You know, when I think about, you know, the kind of the, the scope of all the work and all the employees that, that you have, uh, you know, I- there's gotta be a way that you must do it in a very kinda seamless way. But, you know, feeling connected, especially during this time of disconnect where we're not connecting, uh, live, 'cause I'm a human being junkie, I gotta be around people. I love being with folks and seeing the smiles and the hugs and the pats on the back and all of that. You know, is, is there things that you're doing to help folks feel connected during this time of feeling unconnected or unplugged?
32:03.8 Yeah, you know, it's interesting because there's obviously that disconnect that we have ha- has happened to us that you mentioned. We don't get that physical interaction, just the opportunity to shake someone's hand or be in the same room with them. At the other time, sometimes people feel too connected because suddenly, you know, travel isn't necessary, so you don't have to spend hours on an airplane to get somewhere, and suddenly it feels like, "Well, I can spend every waking hour connecting with someone," but it's always through this mean, um, medium that we're using now. So there's a bit of a dichotomy there. You know, so part of that connection sometimes is actually helping people disconnect from the technology, 'cause that can actually be a, a barrier.
32:43.0 But one thing that we've done is, you know, we've held on-site fitness classes, uh, since I started the program, you know, over 10 years ago. We were able to transition rather quickly to have those classes be live virtually, as, um, as well as on-demand. But people really appreciated being able to connect with those folks they would see in the yoga class they were taking or to see the instructor. And the connectivity that is allowed now is, you know, we may be streaming a class out of our Dublin, Ireland office. Uh, well, that's a class any- anyone in the world can participate in. And so suddenly we're actually getting people that maybe sit in San Francisco or New York or Dublin getting a chance to connect with each other.
33:21.5 So there's been opportunities to create more connection moments, but at the same time, I think it's important that we've also shared with people ways to, uh, connect with themselves, therefore disconnecting with the technology, because it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Mm-hmm. So if I hear you correctly, folks who would normally, just employees who would have access to your amazing programming, your fitness program, et cetera, now their family members can also be on the same Zoom class, and not only are you helping your employee, but there's, there's more health at home during these times of struggle. That's great, Michael. Yeah, absolutely. You know, something else we did, too, you know, obviously people, a lot of people have children, and we really couldn't offer, like, fitness classes to children 'cause people weren't gonna be bringing their children
34:14.3 into the office and, again, you, n- even, not even touching issues like liability or whatnot. But we designed with our vendor partners around the globe, they started to design classes that children could be involved with. And so suddenly we could allow... Maybe it wasn't the connection of colleague to colleague, but many times, you know, I've heard people share with me, too, just the opportunity to connect with their family more. 'Cause, you know, that's a great thing to do with someone, is a little bit of exercise. You know, you want to just go for a walk or to take a class of some sort. So sometimes that familial connection has increased through, uh, different opportunities that we've been able to create for people.
34:50.6 Well, I think it's great that both family members have the opportunity to grow together, whether it's, you know, it's not like, you know- The, the mom or the dad is getting these amazing classes, and they're off in another work environment, and sometimes, you know, that can grow apart. And, you know, it's... The health of the living room at home plays a huge role in regard to how we interact with everyone at the workplace. We bring our feelings to work every day, and I just think it's amazing that you can share, you know, the great services that you offer, you know, to a whole family, especially during these times of, uh, let's just call it uncertainty.
35:27.8 No, I agree, and we're very proud of that, being able to do that for our folks. You know, if you had to talk a little bit about anxiety. You know, when I talk about anxiety, I mean, I get nervous all the time because to me, I, uh, when I get nervous, I feel like I should pay attention 'cause I'm gonna learn something. It's not like I'm not g- I'm not gonna measure up, or I'm gonna say the wrong thing, or I'm not equipped for this. Like, when I start to feel that little thing in my belly, I'm like, "Oh, man, I'm gonna learn something new." Like, this is great.
35:58.3 Yeah. 'Cause, you know, sometimes beautiful things come in ugly packages, and it might come initially with a little anxiety. And trying to harness that energy i- in a mental way that produces expansion or neuroplasticity, I think that's, uh, right up your alley. No, I, I, it is. You know, I think that, you know, anxiety is a very interesting, um, phenomenon that every- that people experience, right? Whether it be, uh, that people have a medical issue that causes anxiety, or we just have anxiousness, you know, of what's coming in the future for us. And part of that, to us, really begins with, first of all, is awareness.
36:39.2 You know, are you aware that you are feeling anxious? Right. And, and what do you do with that? You know, when I felt anxious at times, until I learned different skillsets, you just do other things 'cause you feel like you don't know why you're anxious. You know, what's causing that? What is that? And then being able to sit with that and spend some time. Um, but anxiety's very interesting. You know, in its most basic sense, I think that the most common anxiety people have is an upcoming event that they are aware of. Right. And then how do you turn that anxiety, which could be nervousness, into excitement?
37:09.1 So are you... Can you rephrase that in your mind so you're not anxious but you're excited? And that can go a long way to helping people, uh, you know, change that paradigm in their head, um, around th- that, that feeling. Yeah. You know, a- you know, everybody's on a little, little live wire here. And, you know, I think anxiety complicates the simplicity of the stressor. And, you know, a couple ways I like to work with anxiety is just that simple breath that we do, which is in and out through the nose, and we simply inhale as slowly as we can to stabilize the mind. And then we hold the breath in for a two-count.
37:52.2 I'm not recommending depriving the brain of oxygen, but I wanna stop that ticker tape flow across your brow that might not be the best languaging to apply to what is upcoming or ongoing in this moment. And then exhale slowly through your nose and get that parasympathetic response, the heart rate down, the blood pressure down. And then, again, create a gap, just a nice mental opening. Hold out for a two-count so you have that ability to see that I can stop and start my mind on cue anytime I want to. I'm in charge of my mind. My mind is not in charge of me. And when we use a little bit of breath control with brief retentions, we can really assert ourselves as the mind is simply an informative opportunity.
38:39.9 Yeah. And where we place our attention plays a huge role in how we feel about ourselves, where we've been, where we are, and where we might wanna go. Ed, you taught me something. So I'm gonna refer- I'm gonna say it, and you can correct me if I misspeak. When we're not conscious, right, when we are just not present, our minds will dictate or can dictate the pace of our breath. But when we are conscious and we are in the present, it allows us to have our breath dictate the pace of our mind. And so when an anxious mind is one that's like, it's just flurry, right?
39:17.0 It's, "I don't know what's happening next. Where am I coming from?" Calm that down, and using the breath in that regard. So that's something I believe you taught me that, that the pace of your breath will dictate the pace of your mind, and I think that's a really powerful mantra. It has been for me to really enhance that. 'Cause when I feel this a- anxious mind, that monkey mind, as I've heard it... We have a- we got a puppy. I'll talk about... You see a puppy, you're like, "Man, I feel like that puppy sometimes." Like, why is that puppy fixated on this golf ball and then something else?
39:42.7 It's like all the time. I'll be like, "Man, I can learn a lot from this puppy," because that's how my mind feels like sometimes. But that mantra of the pace of your breath will dictate the pace of your mind does a lot for me to say, "Hey, let's just go to my bre- let's go to my breath right now," and use the technique that you just shared, too, to help calm that anxious mind. Yeah, that's a great awareness. I really appreciate that plug. You know, when we lose control of our breath, you've lost control of the moment. And you think you're completely present, but since you're hyperventilating and your heart rate's up and the brain senses danger, it goes back into our cerebellum.
40:16.2 It pulls up an old file of something that has previously happened in our life, and it plays it as if it's actually happening in real life. So keeping control of the length, depth, pace of your respiration or breathing will be an exact rec- replica of the length, depth, and pace of how your mind is working. In other words- LBD. Yeah. So if you- LBD. When you think about how long it takes you to inhale and how long it takes you to exhale, when you think about how much can you inhale, the depth of it, and how much toxicity can you exhale out, and what is the pace of your breathing, is it slow, is it fast, all of those will be a reflection of how you're working with the pictures
41:03.0 and the words inside your mind. And no one ever wants to lose control of the mind, and noticing the triggers early on in the process. In other words, if you're sitting at your workplace And all of a sudden you begin to notice, "I'm breathing rapidly. Why am I breathing rapidly? There's no physical risks of danger. I'm not in the gym. There's no lion in here with me." Pause and take a moment to take a look at what's in your mind. Your autonomic nervous system picks up that thought. The body doesn't know that it's just a thought. It thinks it's happening in real time. The body's energy is ignorant to whether something is real or an illusion.
41:47.9 It's one of the kind of faults that we have in this amazing human thing. The body doesn't know the difference. So in other words, if you're thinking stress, anxiety, it's not gonna work out, there's not enough for me, your heart rate and blood pressure are gonna be up. You're gonna start incinerating sugar stores, not fat stores. You're gonna start to digest yourself. It's not good. When you begin to control the breath, you got the ability to control the mind. That's it. So it, it really is that simple, ladies and gentlemen. When I, when I look at, you know, the various tenets that you have and how the breath interacts with...
42:32.7 Let's talk about sleep for a minute. And I know you have the great Nancy Rothstein on your, uh, sleep, uh, platform, but, you know, we can't seem to shut down. Every animal on earth is sleeping great, but humans. What's up with that? We can't get out of our own way. You know, uh, a saying that Nancy taught me was, most people don't have sleep disorders, most people have disordered sleep, and it has to do with our habits and routines that either support or detract us from getting good sleep. And something else we like to share with people is that, you know, good sleep starts in the morning, 'cause it has to do with how we allow our natural energy systems with their,
43:22.1 uh, rhythms that occur much more frequently, like 90 to 120 minutes. When we allow restful moments on a normal, natural, more natural cycle, we get better sleep. You know, and, and I look at our population at LinkedIn, whenever I speak on sleep, I'll say to the room or the Zoom, "How many people here have ever dropped their cell phone on their face?" And almost everyone does. and it goes up, 'cause everyone's just, we're too attached to our technology. You know, we're in bed falling asleep trying to answer an email or read an article, and boom, that phone drops out of your hand and smack on your nose.
43:54.4 So I think a lot of times it has to do with habits, and I think it also has to do with, uh, not being aware of what things we're doing or not doing that are having that influence. One of the biggest- journaling is one of the most powerful things we can do for ourselves. Right. It's also one of the most challenging things to do with consistency. One thing we try to teach people around sleep is pay attention. If it's journaling at the end of the day, what did you do today? And then we use those six tenets as a framework. So you know, what did you do from a, from a cross- did you have a mindfulness practice today?
44:26.8 Did you do some conscious length, depth, paced breathing today? Did you drink proper amount of water and eat good food? Did you get some movement in your day? If you did all those things, okay, mark that you did or didn't, go to bed. Wake up in the morning and say to yourself, "Self, how do I feel? Do I feel rested?" 'Cause when you feel rested, that's the sign that you got good quality sleep. And you look back and go like, "Oh, look at that. You know, I got a lot of steps in yesterday. I remember taking two of my meetings on walks as opposed to taking them sitting at my computer.
44:56.8 And I ate some really good food. You know what? I actually didn't have alcohol after a certain hour, or I didn't have caffeine after a certain hour." When we start to be able to connect these dots in understanding what we're doing that's influencing, um, our sleep positively or negatively, and then that brings change because people can, when they can see that for themselves, right, they realize, like, huh. And sometimes we don't realize it until we put it on paper, and we look and go like, "Every day that I either go to the gym or I get a right amount of movement, I sleep well. And on days that I don't, my sleep suffers." There's a eureka moment for a lot of people, just to make sure they instill some level of movement into their day to help them support in their sleep.
45:37.3 Yeah. You know, sleep, it, it's li- it's a lot like going to the gym for your brain. You know, we go to the gym during our conscious hours and we move our neuromusculoskeletal system, we detoxify ourselves. You know, sleep is for the brain. You know, the brain doesn't sleep at all, but we give it time to see what has happened during our waking hours, and while we sleep, all that information will go back into the hindbrain and it'll be filed away in all the different cabinets and file cabinets and emails and platforms for that. And then the next morning you wake up, you have access to all those additional files being added on the skills that you've
46:25.7 previously cultivated in your life. And when we get ourselves to the point where we can't fall asleep, there's something happening during the day that's disturbing the unconscious rhythm that every animal on the planet knows is so important to ourselves. So you know, there's certain little things, like for me, it's a slow... I'll sit on my bed or I'll lie down on my bed. It's a slow motion inhale. I don't wanna agitate my mind. I wanna get things calm. I'm not inhaling rapidly like I'm gonna go do a workout. Slow motion inhale. Slow motion exhale. And then pause before you inhale again. If you think about the exhale as a parasympathetic serotonin activity, and serotonin being a prerequisite for melatonin, which is the primary
47:17.4 driver of sleep, just that little pause at the end of the exhale, you're gonna amplify the serotonin. It's just a brief pause. And you also can place there in your mind maybe an intention, "I would prefer a good night's sleep. I would prefer..." I never wanna beg. I never wanna get aggressive with my mind, but, "I would prefer a good night's sleep." And then alternate nostril breathing is another great tool. And then talking about how the nasal channels affect the autonomic nervous system. We know we can inhale up the left and exhale out the right, and there'll be no sympathetic activity at all. There'll be no adrenaline and cortisol.
48:01.6 So it's just dopamine, serotonin, all those things that get us to the space where we can go from conscious to unconscious. Yeah. What's ... I, I, I need mantras in my life because just things to remember. And something that I learned is that, you know, we get stronger at rest, and I think that's such a powerful statement because I don't know if that is intuitive. Um, because it is if you think about exercise, right? No one is stronger on their third set than they are on their first set, right? You... And everyone gets that physically. Well, the same thing goes for our overall health and our overall bodies and minds when it comes to sleep.
48:41.3 And I think there's, you know, a unappreciation of sleep when we're younger, and it isn't till we get a little bit older. I remember being, when I was younger and I was a college football coach and had sales jobs, right, the hero was who could drink the most, stay up the latest, and be the first one in the office in the morning. Or who can close the bar and be the first one in the gym. And there's this hero complex around, "I didn't, I only need three hours of sleep. I don't need sleep. I can power through," or, "Sleep is for the dead," right? All this sort of macho, you know, really aggressive type of, "I can get sleep later." And I think that one is just an appreciation for how powerful it is.
49:15.9 That, you know, yes, our bodies are amazingly resilient, where you can suffer from a bad night of sleep and it's not gonna totally wreck you. It's the consistency and the repetition with which we get these. Right. And to me, it's just when we really sit with that saying that we get stronger at rest, and when we appreciate that, it elevates sleep as a priority, I think, for people to say, "I am gonna take the time to uncover for myself why am I not getting quality sleep." You know, once you appreciate it more and you start to do the things that are necessary to ensure that it meets the standard that you want in your life- Yeah, I think you have to be interested, number one, i- in improving your sleep.
49:57.7 If you're not interested, you know, you're just gonna continue to, you know, spin your wheels. Yeah. You know, when you think about sleep, it takes a, a tremendous amount of energy from the body to help the brain to feel safe enough to move from the beta waves, the gamma waves that we use at work where we make decisions, we use strategies, to move into these delta waves. And if we've exhausted ourselves during the day, we've taken too many breaths, the heart rate's been too high, we've had an inability to control the moment in a healthy way, when the body's exhausted, you're not gonna be able to sleep at night 'cause the brain still senses you're in danger, and it's gonna be on some high alert that someone's gonna break into
50:41.7 your house, and you've gotta be ready to, to hop into action quickly. So it, it's amazing the correlation between how it's all connected and how the six tenets tie it all together both internally in our interpersonal perceptions with our external professional production. You know, I saw the question pop up, um, on, on the screen. I wanna just, uh, answer it or at least give an answer to it. Someone asked around, um, I think food for the brain. Is that- Yeah ... what they wanted? So I learned something. I read an article or learned this through, I forget exactly who, but, uh, you know, nothing is more disruptive to the brain than sugar, and nothing is more stabilizing to the brain than fat.
51:25.7 And I love to use that because it's a great opportunity to talk about healthy fats for people. But as it comes to like, you know, brain food, foods that are higher in fat, now that doesn't mean, you know, obviously going out and getting a bunch of hydrogenated fats or only eating- ... fatty things, but right, sugar's very disruptive to the brain, and then fat is very stabilizing for the brain. Y- it's, it, it, you know, it gets tricky because we have the brain that wants to live on fat, and we got the body that wants to live on fiber, and we've got this breath trying to connect this whole thing together as one.
52:02.9 And it, it's... And everybody's a little bit different, but e- but everybody's pretty much the same. It, it's a balancing act. And I, and I think where you bring up, you know, journaling, it's, you know, "Okay, I didn't have a great night's sleep. Maybe I can take 30 seconds and jot down some things I did the day before. What I put in my body. What was my thought process? What was my, uh, schedule like? What was there things that I could do prior to my sleep?" Just journal down- And then maybe take something off the table and see if that was it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the biggest things I learned, you know, I, I love coffee.
52:37.9 I'm a coffee drinker, you know, but it wasn't until maybe, you know, 15 or so years ago that I learned about how long caffeine stays in your body and has an influence on, you know, uh, giving you a, a, a bit of a pickup. And knowing that that hour, that's about eight hours, you know, I then started to change my coffee routine because I would have coffee whenever. I would just really, you know, I'd have espresso- Mm-hmm ... after dinner or do whatever. When I started saying, "Okay, eight hours. You're gonna go to sleep at 10 o'clock, don't have coffee after 2:00," that was one of the things that I implemented in my life that had a great impact on my sleep, was just cutting caffeine
53:14.7 off at 2 o'clock for myself. Now, I always encourage people to don't just take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Everyone's different. Some people can have caffeine and it doesn't impact their sleep. But again, paying attention to what we do, what we put into our bodies, and seeing how it affects us is the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves. I think that noticing is, is huge. Like I notice if I drink this much caffeine, I'm sharp, and if I drink this much caffeine, I become dull. Yeah. And I think, you know, these little check-ins that you guys do at LinkedIn is so important because you have the, you have the ability just to ...
53:47.4 You know, who doesn't have two minutes to pause? Okay, and you just pause, you slide back from the workplace, and you, you just dial back into yourself. And it, it's, it's actually gonna increase your productivity. You know, as the left prefrontal cortex where you process information at work cognitively has a chance to cool down. It doesn't have to fix everything for two minutes. You know, that right brain where we're intuitive, where we're curious, where we learn new things, that's its chance to heat up a little bit, and you kind of reboot the brain. You get that heart rate back down, and, and then you reenga- ...
54:21.5 Like two minutes goes a long way in just allowing your body, your brain just to reboot itself. It doesn't have to be go, go, go, go. It's just like, you know, you were saying, "Guys, you know, I can do this on three hours sleep." Now that's, that's great, you know, but what, what is that? You know, pain just creates more pain. Yeah. Pain never creates pleasure. That, that for you athletes out there. The idea is to continue to explore pleasure and push into pain and pull back the pleasure. Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, my thing is noticing what's going on, making adjustments on the fly.
54:57.0 One of the great things about the tenets at LinkedIn, in my opinion, is it gives people the ability to self-correct on the fly, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually in those four platforms. Yeah. I agree. You know, it is the totality of us. I mean, we're doing these things all the time. You know, paying attention to them, how they're impacting us, um, just raising awareness to it and being able to do something about it, because everybody wants to be great at stuff. I mean, everybody wants to do that. It's just being able to believe you can and understanding that when you tap into yourself... And again, I also agree with you.
55:33.7 I think the six tenets are tremendous. We use them both as program managers, as a checklist to make sure we are rolling out a robust program, but it's also a daily checklist for people to, "What did I do today?" We need structure. I mean, humans, we need that structure. And if you say to someone, "Hey, go be well," they'll be like, "Well, where, where do I start? Where do I go?" And so- Right ... again, the tenets are, "Here, start with these," right? These are the essence of, of our, of our existence. You know, again, you're already doing these things. Pay attention to how well you're doing them and the impact that they're having on you.
56:05.3 Well, and, and every person who you bring in in regard to your six tenets is an expert at wha- Th- this is not pedestrian programming. You're bringing in people at the top of the bell curve of everyone in there. And you know, when you think about hydration, you know, again, water. How much do I need? How much don't I need? Should I drink Gatorade? You know, is wine okay? All those things. You know, when I start working with people, the first thing I make them aware of is, you know, when you're mouth breathing, you're dehydrating yourself. When you're nostril breathing, you are hydrating yourself. Like, "Whoa, whoa, where'd you get that?" Well, let me send you the science.
56:40.6 Yeah. But it's really interesting because you have to stay hydrated. Oh, absolutely. The body runs on this. I think people get that when they're physically observing themselves. I think where people lose that thought is, you know, no one at LinkedIn has a, um, physically, um, you know, challenging job, right? No, we don't have a manufacturing line. You know, no one's working a jackhammer. So we don't necessarily have sweat. You know, we're not working hard in that way. But we really try to help people appreciate that even the slightest bit of dehydration has a negative impact on your cognitive function. Right. And everyone has cognitive, you know, responsibilities to be sharp or even just wanting to be sharp so you can respond in a witty way to a comment or whatever and really understanding that even the littlest
57:25.6 bit of dehydration... Again, not dehydration where you're like parched and your lips are cracked, but th- you know, that has a really negative impact. And when we're trying to respond in stressful situations to not say things we regret, to not send an email we wish we could take back, being properly hydrated is one of the most simplest things we can do for ourselves. It has such a tremendous long-lasting impact. And to speak to what you mentioned, too, about two minutes, having two minutes, one of the biggest misconceptions people have, I think, around wellness practices is, "I don't have time," because there's maybe a thought that, you know, it's, it has to be a one-to-one ratio.
58:00.9 Like I sat for an hour, so I should exercise for an hour. But the body is so amazingly transformative that it don't, doesn't take that much time. As you said, two minutes can go a long way. You know, it doesn't need to be that one-to-one. And same with little simple things like hydration. You know, having that proper hydration, uh, giving yourself those 10 seconds or two minutes if that's all you have, has such a transformative aspect on our overall wellbeing, uh, that we shouldn't dismiss it as not being worth it because it wasn't a huge time investment. Wow. You said a lot in the last hour, my brother.
58:37.6 You helped a lot of people. Well, and I, I know, I think that what you've done for us, uh, well for me, you know, since I met you, I wanna say it was like six years ago, seven years ago in Washington, DC at a conference. Yeah, you had me there. You know, I . I think you've gotten younger since then. But, uh, you know- I'm working on it ... what I've come to learn from you over the time and how valuable it is, and when we think about our own care, um, you know, whether it be trying to reduce medical bills or keep those things low, the ability to use our breath as a tool to heal is just so immensely powerful, and I think so easily dismissed by
59:18.8 people that the work you're doing to help bring this expertise to people and practices, I mean, I can't thank you enough. And I really think people in general can't thank you enough for just how valuable it is. Wow. I, I appreciate it. You know, I look at you a- and everything you've done in your life and where you are and the people you're helping. You're, you're kind of a 21st century sage in the corporate environment, you know, always tinkering, looking for ways to improve things that we did last year, and trying to make it better this year. And then there's gonna be a catapult of that in the next year.
59:52.5 You know, it's not a destination. It's a journey. And we're always looking. You know, we always wanna do the best we can, and do the, you know, be the best we possibly can be, but that's not a destination. That's a journey. It changes every day. That's it. And the idea is just be present. Just be pre- just show up. Yeah. You're overqualified to be great at whatever you do, and you support people in such a way, it's exemplatory. And I'm just proud, uh, I'm proud to know you and everything I've learned, but also the great group of people that you've facilitated at LinkedIn, Michael. So thank you very much.
60:33.0 No, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much. Take care of that new puppy. I will. I will. Astrid. Astrid Mochi. I wanna make sure I do it right. There you go. That's a bumper sticker or a license plate. I can, one or the other. And for all fans of The Office, you'll get the, why her name is Astrid. The boys named her after an episode of The Office. So, there you go. Thanks for spending an hour with our audience. You're one of the all-time greats, buddy. Appreciate you. And back at ya, man. Right back at ya. You're a legend. Keep it rolling. Thank you, man.
61:03.2 Bye-bye. See ya, everybody.