Leading Under Pressure : Burnout, AI Anxiety and Executive Performance

FULL TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is based on the episode’s English auto-captions and has been formatted for readability. Please allow for occasional transcription errors in names, acronyms and specialised terms.

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A lot of things that I see is where people have issues is a chronic under recovery. You know, and a lot of times that's disguised as ambition. Where I see leaders wear exhaustion [music] as a bandage, sleep as an afterthought, and treat their nervous [music] system like it's has unlimited bandwidth. When your nervous system is depleted, it's just as [music] it affects the individual. It affects every decision and every room and every person that the leader touches. So, the judgment and the emotional regulation and the strategic thinking [music] are biological functions. Chronic active stress response, which is [music] a real um was never designed to run for years at a time. So, that's why, you know, remember you have like 7 days in the week and on Sunday it was your day of rest. And burnout is what happens [music] when chronic stress exhausts not only the like the chronic stress [music] is there, it also um it depletes the physiological reserves that we have [music] that show up as typical exhaustion, cynicism, and a drop in efficiency. That willpower alone can't even reverse.

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AI has introduced a new category of uncertainty because for some people it, you know, it feels like um rather existential, [music] you know, than situational. And when people can't predict what their role [music] is or what it will be in 3 years from now, 2 years from now, the nervous system takes that on [music] as a threat. You know, if you don't have good sleep, you know, it [music] degrades your memory and judgment. And if you don't have a good nervous system, when your nervous system is overload, it keeps your body constantly in [music] fight or flight. If If you ask me what a leader should stop doing and start doing, [music] they should stop treating exhaustion as proof of commitment. I mean, that's what we started our conversation with today. [music] And they And they should start measuring their performance inputs with the same [music] rigor that how they apply it to business and protect your recovery time as fiercely as you protect your clients' relationships cuz ultimately you are the >> Hello and welcome to the Enterprise Tech Talk podcast. I'm your host, Saumitra Kalikar. In corporate environments, when we talk about resilience, we often talk about technology resilience, cyber resilience, and business resilience.

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But there is one thing that gets far less attention than it deserves, and that is the resilience of human operating system. The leaders in particular today are expected to absorb constant space of change, uh respond to market pressures quickly, and make faster decisions. And nowadays, they're also expected to navigate the the uncertainty created by artificial intelligence. But underneath all of these, there is a real question that needs to be unpacked. That is how long these leaders can sustain high performance if their health, their energy, and their resilience are quietly getting depleted. And this is the focus of today's conversation. Uh and to unpack this really important topic, I'm joined today by Dr. Pat Boulogne. Dr. Pat is a performance optimization strategist, uh an executive coach, and international best-selling author. She has more than 30 years of uh clinical and functional and medicine experience.

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Dr. Pat, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you here. >> Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be here, and this is a sector that always AI and that sector of tech always really, really interests me. I don't know if I understand all of it, but I'm certainly always have my ears open and I like to see people to sustain that performance of that they work so hard to get to where they're at. And that's something that you pointed out if which is the reason why we're here and having this conversation today. >> Yeah. So, Dr. Pat, you would have audio journey as a clinician and performance of commercial coach. You would have had close view of many high achieving professionals, right? How they operate and how they break down. You So, my initial question is, what are the common patterns or behaviors you see within these high achieving professionals who appear successful from the outside but maybe from inside they are under significant strains?

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>> Well, you know, a lot of things that I see is where people have issues is a chronic under recovery. You know, and a lot of times that's disguised as ambition. Where I see leaders wear exhaustion as a bandage, sleep as an afterthought, and treat their nervous system like it's has unlimited bandwidth. The pattern is consistently high output early and then slow erosion from clarity, patience, and decision quality as they attribute that in the or they have a tendency to attribute that to being just busy. You know, I'm just busy. I'm a little bit There's, you know, I'm a little bit you know, edgy today. You know, that type of thing. Rather than looking at the physiological cost of that. >> And when you look at these patterns, how do you What What do they tell us? Do you see the relationship between the health of high achieving professionals and their their performance?

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>> Well, it's you know, a lot of times, you know, when you're looking at performance issues, it's it's not in their stress and their burnout, you know, um, and it truly affects, we all know, their performance issues. And then it's not just a personal well-being topic. And the reason for that is is because when your nervous system is depleted, it's just doesn't affect the individual. It affects every decision and every room and every person that the leader touches. So, the judgment and the emotional regulation and the strategic thinking are biological functions. And we frame that as health, as personal well-being. So, it isn't something that's optional. When we frame it as a performance input, it becomes a leadership responsibility. >> And I wanted to impact that because, um, when you look at different most of the organizations today, they offer wellness as one of the employee benefit programs, typically.

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But, when the the leaders are under stress, under pressure, that doesn't really typically remain personal, right? Because that affects the teams, that affects the decision quality, etc. So, in your view, in your view, where does the the health, stress, burnout, etc., should that be treated more of a performance issue than just a well-being program within the organizations? >> Well, I think they need, you know, a lot of, one of the problems that, you know, I wrote a article a couple years ago, about, you burnout, and that one of the things that, you know, and you're looking at like wellness programs and that in in that integration of that, um, you can't assist, you can't have a cookie-cutter type program. You have to, a lot of times people are not looking at performance, they're not looking at the diet, they're not looking at um their personal, physical, emotional, and social well-beings. They're looking at, you know, and the ultimate thing is that you're making decisions based upon you know, a certain level amount of energy that you can expel at a specific time. So, I talked to a lot of when I talked to a lot of people, you know, there's that um it affects the nervous system.

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You know, in regards to that. So, you have to have something more than just like, "Hey, do this diet. We're going to do a challenge." You know, you really have to look at what's happening with the person's cognition, how much sleep they're getting, the quality of sleep. You have to look at what kind of foods they're eating cuz some foods can make you have brain fog, you know, and more increase more inflammation. You have to take a look at, you know, the quality of sleep, you know, the sleep hygiene, you know, and then you have to look at that mindset piece of it. It's that personal uh you know, the resilient mindset. Resilient mindset doesn't happen, it doesn't become robust like overnight. You have to feed it the right food, you have to feed it the right thoughts. You know, so a lot of the self-talk that you're talking through which you talk through three brains. And the three brains you talk through are the the lizard brain or the primitive brain, the mammalian brain, and you and I speak also to the conscious brain. So, if the if it's getting the wrong information, then you have this, you know, you're getting a lot of mental fatigue for no apparent reason. And I think you have to have the right programs in place to help support people so that they can even be better. And it's a lot of it always goes back to what you're putting in your >> Right. And um in the corporate environments nowadays uh uh the leaders often face multiple uh precious scenarios simultaneously, whether is a similar pressure because of um the the uh economic uncertainty, whether it is because of AI disruption or regulatory disruption, whatever it right? But the the point here is they continuously are under pressure. So, that starts becoming to what you also said is uh becoming the constant phase of being under pressure, chronic chronic >> Mhm. >> Uh you touched base on this uh a little bit, but I want to understand how the long-term effect, what are the long-term effects are on and for being under pressure for a long time on the cognitive abilities, uh decision-making skills, et cetera.

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>> Well, you know, um the uncertainty and information overload that you talk about and the transformation fatigue, you know, and you said economic pressure also, you know, um and the rising expectations of people who are leaders, like, you know, you can't your you know, you have to your inclination is to always do more as opposed to really protecting your space. And that stack forces people to make you know, it keeps it's a constant uncertainty that keeps the nervous system on a low threat state. So, remember that primitive brain I talked about? You know, that's what we're talking about. It's always going like, oh, you know, you don't have to do that. And then your brain goes, oh, remember when you did this? You know, this is what happened. And they all talk to each other. So, that added information and that overload is and what it does is it transforms fatigue that the brain never gets a true clear signal to downshift into recovery cuz it's always on.

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You know, and it's and it's it doesn't know when to stop. So, it's when you're constantly under stress, when people don't get enough sleep, they actually act like they're drunk. They have the same mechanisms and the same brain pattern, you know, from sleep deprivation. And the result of that, you know, what happens is that chronic active stress response, which is a real thing, um was never designed to run for years at a time. So, that's why, you know, remember you have like 7 days in the week and on Sunday was your day of rest. You know, for some people. Some people don't I mean, I've worked on Sundays, too. But, [laughter] they you know, but you don't do it all the time. You know, that's why you take vacation. That's why you And when you take vacation, you really need to turn everything off and get yourself out of your environment. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, yeah. Um in interestingly, um when you look into our corporate environments, what I observed you would have noted this as well, um that many leaders, sadly I would say, they they consider this high-pressure situations as a kind of badge of honor. Uh in the sense I um in the sense that uh uh having um a long day hours, having poor sleep, or back-to-back meetings, uh etc. They they feel that that is a sign of commitment to work.

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Right? Um um but they don't realize what it actually is to what are the impacts, long-term effects that is having on their on their cognitive and and physical um uh body. Uh but how do you um address this this this mindset? What are the risks that carries? >> Well, you know, you know, when you're looking at cortisol dysregulation and you're looking at the architect of like the sleep portion of that and the inflammatory overload, the pa- the patient, excuse me. I'm so I'm used to being in an office this week. Um and how your emotions become very narrowed and you almost have this like um like a there's a fog around it. So, you're not making, you know, the decisions that you want to have. So, it's kind of like a false trade-off >> Mhm. in that depletion that somebody has as a senior leader, you know, in or any type of leader is that you have underlying systems that don't that support the leader but they're not being optimized. You know, it's just like I used to be able to do that. You know, I could like keep up with 24-year-olds when I was 50 years old. You know, I'm 70 now. Can I keep up with 24-year-olds?

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You know, I can but I know that people who are in constant roles where they have demands that, you know, and they have deadlines and they don't have enough support, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or social, then what happens is is that there's that trade-off and cortisol um happens to be one of those dysregulations when you start getting like fat around the organ systems, you know, and fat in your belly and it just never goes away. And you have, you know, and then if you're not sleeping well, so many people tell me, you know, like, "What can I do to sleep better, you know?" And I have a whole list. Sleep in a dark room. Make sure the room is cool enough and that you're not too hot. Make sure that, you know, when you go to sleep, if, you know, and you tell yourself it's okay to go to sleep cuz you're going to have to have that self-talk cuz if you can, you know, I talked about the primitive brain or the the the lizard brain, if you can control the conversation you're having with that brain, then you can control a lot of your other outcomes. So, there wouldn't be a false trade-off. There wouldn't be depletion, you know, in how someone's functioning and how and that on those five levels that I always talk about, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social. Um and that's, you know, that's what happens when someone no longer normalizes that depletion. And the good way to change that is like and I give the example of I I people just stop eating bread, rice, and um bread, um rice, and um Oh, pasta. Okay, I thought I'd get [clears throat] it.

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And when you do that, you know, and then stay away from it for 30 days. You know, I said, "Okay, go add one of them back in your diet and see how well you respond." You know, and some of us are like, "Well, I didn't have a problem with rice, but I had a problem when I started if I went to eat pasta again. I was exhausted. I wanted to go to sleep an hour later." That's your body telling you that you're not regulating that food and you probably shouldn't eat it. You probably should cut it out of your diet for quite a while. Does that make sense as an example? >> Yeah, as an example, definitely makes sense. And probably this is the issue just keep moving away. Have a have a good sleep. But but you also leaders tend to keep themselves connected with the with the work even after the work hours so and they feel that the connection making themselves available is important. So, how do how leaders should kind of break these kind of habits to have a very clear work-life balance?

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>> Well, it's it's really important like turn your phone off. It's like and you want to see someone stress out a little bit, it's just like turn your phone off. Don't have it next to your head. Your telephone emits electro like it electromagnetic frequencies, you know, and it can interrupt how you're sleeping. You know, don't have the Wi-Fi box in your bedroom when you're going to sleep. You know, have your Wi-Fi box as far as possible away from you. Wi-Fi signals go down. They don't go up. So, when you have it in more in the attic or on the second floor, then it can spread out. So, but never have it anyplace where you need to be productive. >> Um one thing other other point I wanted to impact with you, Dr. Pat, was the impact of the burnout, the continued the chronic condition of being in in stress. And just building on what we discussed so far is a Sometimes burnout people don't feel they're burnt out.

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They there is a difference between to me is what I would call as productive stress that is stress for a for a short time for a particular need for 1 week or few couple of days. Because there is important work to be closed out. Versus you are being in that condition for a continuous long period, right? And people don't realize they're transitioning for a for a from a productive stress to a a burnout So for leaders of people in general, what are the early signals they should they should realize that now they are actually getting into the chronic condition? >> So do you remember we just talked about the three brains? Keep those in mind because the conscious brain is what we're talking on right now. The mammalian brain is everything that's ever happened to you. It is stored so that you have accessibility to that like how to respond to something or you know, it's just like oh last time I ate that, you know, I got sick. I don't want to eat it again. And you know, and then you have the like the primitive brain, the lizard brain. And so remember those cuz the primitive brain that's its goal is to just, you know, kick protect you, save you from the sacred truth, make sure you're eating, make sure you're replicating yourself.

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So the difference between the productive stress, the chronic stress, and the burnout that you're talking about, the productive stress, you know, it's always those it's always going to be functioning between those three brains. But the productive stress sharpens your focus and when the situation is over, it's done, you feel relief. Right? You have you can like well, I can decompress now. You know, and chronic stress is something that, you know, is activated, there's no resolution. The body never gets the signal to shut down, you know, take time out. It's just stand-alone, and you constantly are going. And that's what a lot of people struggle with so much because then then the chronic stress becomes your new norm. And we all know what happened when we just, you know, had that new norm go on. You know, and burnout is what happens when chronic stress exhaust not only the physical like the chronic stress is there, it also um it depletes the physiological reserves that we have that show up as typical exhaustion, cynicism, and a drop in efficiency.

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That willpower alone can't even reverse. So, when you're burnt out, you're just like you're sometimes you're lethargic or you have this um you know, you like you're you're going through motions, and you realize um you're like, "Wow, it's like driving a car, and all of a sudden you get to your point to where you're going, you're thinking, I don't really remember that drive." But I know that I got here safe, and you're thinking, "I don't ever want to do that again." You know, so you start it's like it's a signal, it's a red flag for you to pay attention. >> And you also talked about uh and talked about what you described as performance intelligence method um Dr. Pat, if if I may say correctly. I wanted to understand that as a little bit a bit more. What is that about, and how does that help uh leaders um to uncover their hidden constraints? >> Well, you know, a lot of times, you know, hidden constraints, people remember that mammalian brain? >> Mhm. >> all those hidden constraints are in that brain, you know, and your body knows them, but your you know, the talk that your primitive brain says, "Oh, you can do it. You can work through it. You don't need that much sleep. You know, hey, go out and have that dessert, you know, it's going to make you feel better. It might make you feel better for the moment, but it creates a lack of um recovery. Your energy becomes more unstable. You know, and when these constraints operate, they operate below your conscious level. So, it's subconscious. So, the conscious is what we're talking with, subconscious is the mammalian brain, and the um lizard re- that primitive brain. Um and that's where it's a little bit dangerous because, you know, you if you don't have good sleep, you know, it degrades your memory and judgment. And if you don't have a good nervous system, when your nervous system gets overload, it keeps your body constantly in fight or flight.

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And you don't want to be there because you're constantly thinking, you know, you're It's It's It's when you're driving, you know, you if you ever like take those long trips and you're going, I can do this 14-hour trip in one thing. You're pretty good maybe for the sir- first six or seven hours you get out and stretch, but that last amount of that drive puts you in a position of decision fatigue, then all of a sudden you realize, oh, I'm floating across the lane. You know, and now I'm on the side of the road. Now my car's turned over, you know, and you know, nobody wants to have those disasters in their life. And the energy becomes, you know, very unstable. So, your blood glucose levels or hormonal, which are hormonal driven, um are you know, they're creates those afternoon crashes. So, the crashes usually have come about 10:00 in the morning, 2:00 afternoon, and 4:00 in the afternoon. And so, that's when people could have to have that cup of coffee. You know, that's when people like want to have that sweet, you know, in order to help bring them up. But it's really not great for your blood sugar because this doesn't keep it, you know, more balanced. And that's why you see I see a lot of leaders like wearing blood sugar monitors. Um and it's so that, you know, they know when they eat something, you know, they can see their blood glucose levels like skyrocket. And you're thinking, why am I eating that?

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You know, it gives you it's a good like biofeedback mechanism that helps support that. So, you can get rid of those afternoon crashes, you know, and also eating properly so that you're you know, there's a a a thing called the Zone diet. Zone diet was made by Barry Sears. Um he's a medical uh doctor that's a researcher. And when you balance out your proteins, your fats, and your carbohydrates based upon what your protein requirement is, and I help people with this all the time, you know, and then it shows up like you get if you're an athlete, you run longer. You run more evenly. You burn fuel the right kind of fuel during the daytime so that, you know, you don't have an issue in the afternoon. I just got done working three full days in a in a doctor's office that normally sees what I saw in three days in five. And so, someone go like, "How do you do it?" And I just said, "I eat really well. I sleep well, you know, and I don't let anything disturb my peace of mind." You know, I like it that therefore I stay away from the news during that week. But the um but I then and then and then I eat I'm very dis- like my decision is like I don't have decision fatigue.

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And I don't have my energy is like going strong. I ended up having an emergency patient last night in this office helping this doctor out, and I was there an extra hour. So, I had my day started at 5:00 in the morning, and I didn't leave there until 7:15 at night. That's a long day. You know, and and so, um and then, you know, and you have to have your mind needs to be sharp. You have to be aware, you know, and sometimes when we can create better awareness, you know, we're like aware like certain people drain your energy. Certain foods drain like my energy, you know, it makes me want to go to sleep. So, if you eat something and you're sleepy an hour later, you know, or a half hour later, you ate the wrong thing. That's not the thing to eat for optimization. So, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, what shows up, you know, um is to have the awareness about how these things occur. And then when they happen, it's like, "Okay, I know what that is. I know exactly what I have to do to, you know, like to change that trajectory so that it doesn't affect the rest of my day." >> And and what are the good small but good habits um leaders should develop on day-to-day basis to make sure they're uh they're they remain productive, um efficient throughout the day because leaders typically um uh they'll they live in this um uh environment of ambiguity. They are they need to continuously make new decisions, right? Uh there could be a new program that needs to start. There could be new investment decisions they need to make or there are new risks they need to address, so on and so forth, right? And that's a day-to-day uh um expectation from them.

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Um I want to understand just small but really important practical habits they should develop, whether it's a uh their habits about the quality of food, whether it's a habit about um uh the the the regular schedule within the uh within the office, within the work, whether they should take breaks, how many breaks they should take in between. Uh are there any specific tips you want to give? >> Well, um I can give a good really simple tip. And I have a little bit of a dialogue, um you know, after I tell you, um because I think one of the biggest things that people when people get injured, I'm a sports physician also, and I have, you know, I have that history in functional medicine. The biggest thing that I see like in anybody, you don't have to be a uh sports person to uh to have dehydration. Majority of people when they don't sleep well, they're not hydrated.

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You know, and you need that hydration cuz you need it for every cell, organ, and tissue in the body. So, one of the biggest things is making sure that you get enough hydration based upon your body weight. And in then in the states it would be, you know, like you would take if you weighed 100 lb you would should drink at least a minimum of 50 oz of water. Not just any water. Cuz you don't want to drink in the United States there's an issue with like uh chlorine, fluorine. It's like I'm sure it's like that in Australia also. And there's chemicals that are in the water. There's some of them and they're neurotoxins and you want to avoid them. So, it's really important to drink more purified water that has a very low total dissolved solids or it's called TDSs. And there's certain type of water products that you can do by reverse osmosis. You can use a filter that takes out a lot of the those impurities and things that so you don't want to be drinking plastics cuz plastics never ever leave your body. So, but the hydration's important and the quality of the water is important. If you really want to make water really work for you even more, if you put a little bit of cider vinegar in it or lemon juice, you know, that lemon juice I is what I usually use and that is like brings up the right kind of acid in it so it maintains the right kind of acid in your stomach. So, it helps balance out the pH to where it's supposed to be cuz if it drives too low then you have like stomach burn, right? And then you know, and then you have to I don't want to get into the logistics too much, but you know, you want it to make the reason for the lemon juice is because it helps, you know, keep the pH of the stomach. It's also is a blood purifier. It helps the liver do its job. It helps the gallbladder do its job. And you need your gallbladder because the gallbladder puts the bile in your stomach so it protects it so that the acid doesn't burn through a holes through it.

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So, you know, that one thing of water, it does so many things. Like if you work out, you need it for your joints. If you sleep, you need it for your brain, so your brain can detox, cuz the brain detoxes when you're sleeping. >> Yeah, yeah. And what about the food habits as well, Dr. Pat? Because I often see you know, in in again when when about particularly in the senior leaders, they're always in demand of one meeting to another with followed by another meetings, etc. And they typically compromise on on on the the other habits, like your personal habits, like food. But when they're actually into important meetings where the the the important strategic decisions are to be made, how important it is for them to have a very balanced diet with regular on on time regular lunches, etc. >> I was in acupuncture school at the age of 53 or something like that. You know, I studied in Mandarin. I didn't study in English and or Pinyin.

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And so, the what I found, and I always said this even when I had my practice, I go, "If you want to be an excellent performer, if you want to run like the Kenyan runners, if you want to, you know, have that, you know, mental clarity, so that you can make a decision on a drop of a dime, and that you have to eat so clean that, you know, it's it's not, you know, it's not negotiable. um, and it doesn't mean you can't ever have like an occasional dessert, but I tell you that to completely avoid sugar. Um, that would be my other recommendation besides the water. Um, because when you eat those things, you end up having end up having decision fatigue, you have energy instability, you know, and you have and they all show up in your performance. So, one of the things that would be really crucial for that is having an objective assessment. So, there's no guesswork. I don't guess, I test. And I have a specific way that I look at biomarkers and recovery patterns and cognitive load together so that you can pinpoint a specific constraint cuz how what you need to eat and what I need to eat in order to achieve that result are likely to be two totally different things. And where some people can handle a carbohydrate load, other people can't handle a carbohydrate load. Like nobody who's an excellent performer who runs eats carbohydrates anymore before a race.

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You're not going to last. You know, you eat you eat things to make have that the muscles need in order to be able to, you know, effectively move smoother and lighter. And but you can't run smoother or lighter. I don't You know, everyone has a big Christmas dinner. You would never go out and run right after that. Everyone's, [laughter] you know, wants to go to sleep, right? And if you do that, like when you're in you talked about board meetings, you talked about being in a meeting and eating on the run, you know, some of those things, you know, you're like you're not looking at what the ingredients are and there's so many hidden sugars in food. You know, [snorts] it's much better to have that Caesar salad with, you know, salmon or Caesar salad with very lean meat on it than it is to have, you know, than to have that, you know, that sandwich, that chicken sandwich. You know, or something that has a lot of carbohydrates cuz a lot of chicken, you know, has has a product in it called sugar and that's one of the preservatives is that they use in it. So, you know, it's like like like so there's no like guesswork about it. You know, it's like I say at the very beginning I said stay away from bread, pasta, and rice. And then that and that would be like a big huge thing cuz I've had people who lost inches around their waistline just doing that one thing. But I have a very, very specific protocol for people to follow for at least 2 weeks to see if that kind of that kind of food plan is the best food plan for them.

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>> Um I want to unpack a specific uh agenda with with you, which is more about the what I call it AI anxiety. Um artificial intelligence anxiety uh because uh uh AI disruption is uh has a significant impact nowadays on our corporate environments. And that impact is at every level uh within the uh within the corporates. For example, every employee uh they the anxiety is all about whether my job will be relevant in next few years, whether my skills will be relevant. Um uh how should I build my career um uh over the next 2 3 years? Um so on and so forth. Um Uh and whereas at the leadership level, the anxiety uh and for expedition is all about what does AI mean for for my business? So, do you do you have any specific um advice or observation on AI?

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>> Well, first off, AI, we all have to agree that AI first off, on a bell curve, we're still going up. >> Yes. >> We're not We haven't shipped, right? And so, AI has introduced a new category of uncertainty because for some people, it you know, it feels like um rather existential, you know, than situational. And when people can't predict what their role is or what it will be in 3 years from now, 2 years from now, the nervous system takes that on as a threat. And so, and it's an ongoing threat. Remember we talked just going to talking about chronic stress? You know, that ongoing threat compounds all of the pressures. So, there is a a line that says, you know, fear is false evidence appearing real, right? And so, but we don't know what the uncertainty is. What we have to like, is that true? Well, it could be true. And then it's like, you know, and based upon what we've seen so far, you know, makes people feel even um more um it makes people feel even more uncertain cuz they just don't know. And when they don't know, they don't they're constantly like they don't digest their food, they don't sleep well, you know, and they make bad decisions. You can't make a clear decision unless you have clear focus, you know, and it's you know, so it's that um you know, it's it's like learning to control and learning to be able to adapt because the um success of any species is its ability for adaptation.

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>> Yeah, and I wanted to build on that because that was my next question as in Dr. Perry. Yes, if within the corporate environments, the the expectation nowadays is that you need to be more adaptable, you need to uh absorb new changes continuously, etc. But how how can individuals, normal common employees build their adaptability when they are under under fear, continuous fear of of losing losing their job? How that fearful mindset help them or or stops them from being more adaptable? >> Well, one of the thing is that, you know, like I said, remember there's the false experiences appearing real? It's like we need to focus on what's always been true. And we need to focus on our ability to learn and adapt and regulate under pressure. And that's the actual asset that's in your back pocket. It's not a single skill set.

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So, I encourage clients to audit what their energy looks like, what their recovery system looks like first, because app- adaptability is a physiological capacity before it's a strategic one. And you can't out-strategize a depleted nervous system. >> Um but what question I have, and I wanted to understand with you, is we talk about um individuals to how we can actually bring more uh make them more resistant and uh resi- sorry, resilient and improve their health. But there is something about um overall health of or or a healthy environment, I would say, within an organization at organizational level as well. Um do you have a specific uh view or position on that as to how apart from building healthy individuals, how organizations should build a healthy environment culture with >> Well, I think that in corporations, that being resilient puts the burden entirely on the individual to withstand a broken And designing a health performance culture means that the organization exam- ex- excuse me, examines its own uh contribution and with the workload design and meeting cultural and leadership behavioral issues, as well as building an environment where resilience isn't required to survive.

[00:37:49]

Because when you have a robust resilient mindset, for some people it comes naturally. You know, but being resourceful is a crucial tool and be able to able to have and adapt also. >> Yeah. Yeah. Look, as we start wrapping up, Dr. Pat, I have those more focused questions just to get more practical tips for our audience here who are uh business leaders, executives, etc. Um uh because many of these senior leaders, uh while they might have intention to improve the health of themselves and their teams, etc., typically they get bogged down with the with the time constraints, back-to-back meetings, and so on and so forth. So, if an executive who might be listening to this episode, and that person wants to start with, let's say, a a 30-day reset for themselves, what would you recommend or how they should start?

[00:38:51]

>> Well, you know, one thing they they they can do, you know, like cuz real change means structural change, right? And then and then your realism for staffing and the actual capacity, you know, you have to take a look at, you know, like what can you do for recovery and arms? Like what can you do for for meeting, you know, like mental hygiene so that you're not feeling like you're being, like, you know, like you you just bring in like a mental tool for yourself so that you can barrier. So, things that [snorts] I tell people that they can do for simple recovery is to go out and I could call it hugging a tree, taking in my office that I had on Cape Cod, you know, I used to have a large rock that was about 5 lb, and I anybody with somebody was having that they they weren't part of the team where they were having their struggling, you know, they had an opportunity to go outside, sit down in the sun for 15 minutes, you know, and just like just tone out, come back in, you know, and come back and refresh. What I tell now people to do there is a person by the name of Jose Silva who's no longer alive, but his his system is alive, the Silva mindset piece. And then you can listen to some of their like resetting, like, you know, because if you can make your body so your body is relaxed under any situation, and you can have mental relaxation at the same time. You can be what's considered in an alpha state. So, when you're in an alpha state, your body works better. You have that physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social, and you know, even financial part of it can come together much easier for you. So, that's one of the things that's like it's like if you want to call it meditation, it's a 21-minute, you know, type of meditation that you can do to start your day.

[00:40:44]

You know, to be in your groove, be in your vibe, you know, and you know, and then understand what the capacity is around it. Um also, you can um besides that, you can um make sure that you get your hydration in. You know, and so when you're looking at your leadership um people, you know, and around you, you can do challenges. So, like everyone can be on the same page. I was um went and worked with these people in Mississippi a couple years ago, and they have this really intense uh portion. And what we did is we designed a diet um or food plan that everybody could be on. And so, when they're on that food plan, what happens is is that they have um uh they're they're they're thinking better, they're working better, and they actually work in in in sync with each other. So, um you know, those are things that, you know, and they can also buddy up so that they have an accountability partner. Um which I always find that is very helpful for people when they're trying to elevate and elevate a whole team.

[00:41:52]

>> Yeah. And out there among these, are there any any highest impact hybrid they uh leaders can focus on to start with? >> Well, you know, um let's start with the example of sleep consistency. You know, um like when the way that somebody would do that is like wake up at the same time every day for the first week, and then going into the second week, um [snorts] like midday have a nervous system reset where you would like take that maybe do that 20-minute meditation type thing, and then go into looking at like you know where your gaps are, and then using objective data and not guesswork. And so that then you can create a non-negotiable boundary for your energy. So, the prioritizing sleep as a performance lever is is a performance lever and not a luxury. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Um on that note, Dr. Bat, thanks. Thanks for your time. Uh this was really in my view what very valuable conversation. It was a different topic for my podcast to be honest, which focuses more on technology, uh but this was I think really important conversation to be had um in this age when leaders are continuously under pressure, and uh this really gives us the uh very practical tips as to how they can improve their performance.

[00:43:12]

Um and key takeaway is that uh when people leaders talk about transformations, big changes, um we organizations typically think of technology change, the business change, process change, uh but equally important I think um is the the the the human capability, the human capacity to absorb change, to navigate change, etc. And I think through this episode we focused on that aspect well well enough. >> I just want to say one more thing. If If you ask me what a leader should stop doing and start doing, they should stop treating exhaustion as proof of commitment. And we that's what we started our conversation with today. And they And they should start measuring their performance inputs with the same rigor that how they apply it to business, and protect your recovery time as fiercely as you protect your clients' relationships, cuz ultimately you are are asset, and the entire organization depends on you.

[00:44:09]

>> Well said, Dr. Petra. Great great insight there. Uh thank you again. Thanks for your time. It was pleasure hosting you. If you found this discussion valuable, please follow and subscribe to Enterprise Tech Talk. And thanks for listening. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.