Learn to Coach Your “Brain ON!” Mode for Well-Being and Optimal Results

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's Working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential.

0:45 Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Relise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program. Please for tuning it in again this week. Great to have you. This show has been brought to you with passion and price since February of twenty fifteen, and I enjoy hosting it each week. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If we've not met yet before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist and therapist local therapist to be particular, speaker and author, and my team and I at gusto Now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meaning and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant destination workplace. There people are intrinsically motivated to perform at their best, can grow into their full potential, and are committed to stay and perform dynamically in the company's mission. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com or Alascortes dot com. Now getting into today's program we have with us deb Smolenski.

1:53 She's a highly sought after speaker and award winning thought leader in the area of human performance and health work. She serves as the Well Being an Engagement Practice leader at NFP and as an advisor for the insertech, fintech and digital health startup communities. She's the author of brain On Mental fitness Strategies for sharpening focus, boosting energy, and winning the work date, which we're talking about today. She joined today from Chicago. Deb a warm welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you so much, Thank you for having me. This is so exciting. It is exciting, and I want to celebrate what you've brought to the world, this beautiful book. Look at this thing that you did. Thank you so much. That means so much to me. You're very, very very welcome. You know, I don't know if you're a mom, but I'm mosteners and viewers who have been following the show for a while, I've heard going to say this many many, many times. Bringing this book into the world is actually much harder than bringing a human being into the world. Yes, I should have talked to you before going on this adventure that A learned. I understand, I understand, but yet we keep doing it. So it's wonderful and we're here where the winners for it, and so I want to get into and as I mentioned to the show being curated, we want to build on all the other beautiful things we've learned on the show, And there were so many things that I took from your book deb that were delightfully refreshing and different. And I want to start with just situating why I think your work is so important and taking a little bit from Jeremy Hunter's forward that wrote in your book. He situates in that forward so beautifully.

3:27 And we've become these knowledge workers, innovation workers, and we're working in cubicles, and this whole notion of needing to the fundamental shift from physical work to mental, emotional, and social and that entails working in these cubicles, and that we're encouraged a multitask like the computers on our desk and leading to depleted mental reserves. We created an always on technology that never lets people rest and recharge. And then he says, no wonder people are burnt out, refusing to go back to the office, including their jobs, and droves who wants to live like this? So if we situate that's kind of where we are right now, is kind of a context of why your work is so important and what you're teaching us at it, let's start there. Yeah, I, first of all, as you alluded to it's never just one person contributing to a book, and I was so grateful to doctor Hunter for adding those insightful comments. I listened to his work as a professor at the Peter Drucker Institute over and over again, and it resonated so much with me in terms of we are knowledge workers. We use our brains all day long to create work. So eight hours a day, my brain is on, your brain is on four hundred and eighty minutes every day. We have never learned how our brains work at work, and we've never been trained how to really show up and use our computer system the workplace. And that is at the

5:01 fundamental crux of why I wrote this book, right, that is what we are dealing with when we're overwhelmed, when we're burned out. I just keep seeing the signals go on and on, and it all gets back to understanding our computer system in context of how work in the work environment is created and is you know, part of our daily what I call obstacle course. And as I mentioned DEBI I just think that what you've what you taught me, because as you know, I read the book cover to cover, but there's so much freshness in that I learned about how my brain did work, and I want to course share that with our listeners. And I appreciate that you really situate that. You know, you say the core of well being is nurturing a strong, healthy, resilient mindset, and this is really, you know, what you've been working on for much of your career, and so you're talking about what you're really putting forth is prioritizing well being above anything else.

5:55 And you go on to say that this is a radically new way of thinking about your work date taking the steps to ensure your mental well being is intact for tackling any of your goals for the day and interacting with your colleagues and team. I find that to be not only just honoring yourself, but responsible for your own life and dreams. I love that. And you know, thank you for reading my book cover to cover. That is just such a generous gift and I really appreciate that. And the insights you pull like this question is amazing, Right, you got to the correux of what I'm trying to communicate. And so yeah, with that, we are just we're constantly trying to figure out how to work better. How to work smarter.

6:42 But it's inside, it's internal, like we are at charge, we are the CEO, we are the computer. It's just we don't know how, we don't We believe what we're thinking, but we don't understand that it's not accurate. I always say, our brains actually are program to be our bodyguard. They're not programmed to help us learn, help us grow, help us connect, help us communicate, help us to work. Like the list goes on and on. Those are skill sets. I got so much from that, the science and the insights that you put in your book there, and even so much that you really helped us understand, just even the you know the name of your book, Brain on. But then you go on to distinguish how easily our brain gets tripped up and turned off, as you say, by the daily distractions and obstacles that pop up. And I love that you go on. You see, it doesn't matter how smart you may be.

7:36 Your brain isn't built to process the thousands a piece of information coming out of each day. And when it feels overwhelmed, it stops its healthy thinking mode and in defaults to its primal emotional mode. And that's when we get ourselves into trouble and we make our poor behavior choices and unwise decisions. They have lasting and destructive consequences on ourselves, our team members, and others in the organization. Which is what you put forth. I think that's really important for our listeners and viewers to understand just the consequences of not really you know, monitoring this and intervening and as you we'll talk about coaching your brain. Yeah, what you're hitting upon is like a crucial point, and it's this concept of being aware. Being aware is a muscle, a brain rep and you know that doesn't write a book Like I kind of been done in one sentence, as it turned out, is like you just have to be aware of what you're thinking and processing at every moment. But I expanded and I'm glad you found it helpful. I think what was very intriguing and very transformative in my own growth through this is knowing that it's normal. Our brains are programmed and the default system is to be in fear mode. It's that primal brain trying to keep us safe and so giving us grace. Knowing that every time our phone likely drop, our phone or an email dings or like a doorbell rings, the initial response is just who's there? What's going on?

9:09 Like, the fear brain is normal, and we have to realize that and then turn our thinking brain, or our prefrontal cortex brain, our smart brain on to override that primal response. And we've just never been taught that. You know, one of the things I say when I'm working with organizations and leaders is, you know, as amazing as we really have evolved to be as a species. I mean, we can send people to the moon and back, we can create beautiful skyscrapers, we can create amazing innovative companies, we can run crazy huge countries, and yet at the end of the day, we still have that reptilian brain that's still running us. And so learning to engage in that thinking brain is so so interesting, And I like some of the practices that you gave us in the book. You give us lots of ways to try to elevate this awareness. Just even asking yourself, we hang on, right now, how am I feeling? Who does this?

10:05 Very often? Right? Nobody does? That's the whole point, Like, that's only a second reason I decided to go on this two year journey to write We just don't know that these are so important yet so simple, So thank you for pointing that out so clearly. You know, if we would ask ourselves and check in with ourselves, me, myself, and I, we would not be stressed out right now, We would not be burned out. I believe we wouldn't have the conflicts we have because we are aware of how we are showing up. It's just we don't know. So we now have to train our brains by asking ourselves, Hey, what am I feeling right now? Or this is really exciting. I feel excited talking to you here. Every moment before an email or before a meeting, now I try to ask myself, hey, what's going on? What am I feeling?

11:01 Or what where's the tension? Because emotions are just as powerful as the thoughts were thinking and making sure I come with my best self if I am not there, So there's so many beautiful layers there, and then that kind of builds onto the next thing I wanted to talk about, which just really frankly blew me away. Deb but you do talk about you know, some days are more energy depleting than others, and of course our job is just to stay aware and to monitor how fast our brain power is draining. Be cognizant of this, you know, turn yourself on if you will, and carefully and continuously to redirect energy towards those goals and tasks that lead us to more productivity, growth and joy. And what I've found really interesting was you say dealing with these challenges and distractions can take up to more than fifty percent of our day. That is mind boggling. Yeah, the science really shows mind boggling statistics. It shows that our mind is wandering almost fifty percent of the day. It shows our attention span is less than eight seconds. I think at this point in time, according to a Microsoft study, the way our brain works in this complex VUKA world is not coinciding and it is not for our best interest. So I think what I realized after doing what I'll call the cognitive or the brain on mental fitness exercises and showing up with clarity or focus or connection or whatever my intention was, is I was still exhausted some

12:35 days at two pm network or right now, I want to take a nap for some days even by eight if my commute was really brutal, And so that energy. Dan Pink says it in his book When Right, Knowing when you're the most productive, and energy management is the second part of the formula to brain on to get to an energizer state. You have to have your thinking brain, but you also have to manage that energy throughout the day and do those brain boosters too at what I call end up better at the end of the day than you started, which I'm not sure any of us even know how to do at this point. You know, it's funny you say that, dev Now that you've said that, the way that you do, I can remember a few days that really stand out as just smashing, and they were because I had this crescendo of energy. It just seemed to grow during the day. May stand out because they're unusual, right, They don't happen every day. They don't happen you know, regularly for that matter, right, And so part of it is we can make that happen. We can look at our obstacle course, which I called the calendar. Right.

13:46 If you don't have any white space in there, and you're making your brain run through emails and meetings and conversations without any recovery, that energy management we fall on the couch as the whole world society right by the end of the work day. But the point is, back to your brilliant synthesis, is it's all about awareness. Building in that space or managing our energy is the key to those downstandout days, and we can create more of them by following that. I love that. So one of the many things I appreciate about your book is I like how you organize ideas. And so you have this brain on energy matrix that you started to allude to with the energizer piece here.

14:30 But if you could just kind of speak to that, there's two you know, it's a four part quadrant if you will, and so you've got to disengage. There's two kinds of disengage, and then you've got the engage two kinds of engage. Can you speak to that a little bit please? I think that's fascinating, very helpful. Yeah, thank you so much. And I love how you It is a matrix. You described it perfectly. So when I think about the work day, there's just two things to really live your best life at work. It's managing if you're in your thinking brain and seeing things clearly. So the brain on brain off up against are am I engaged. Am I doing what I love to do? Or in your in your context, am I aligned with my purpose right in those things?

15:16 Or am I disengaged? And when you put those across a matrix, you get four key areas that don't tell your you know that don't tell you just one and done, like for the rest of your career. It's a daily exercise. So if I'm brain off, meaning I'm in my negative thinking and I am low energy or not engaged, I'm what I call survivor mode. I'm just watching the clock until it clicks five a clock, right. But then if I'm still brain off and I'm not really thinking about my thoughts but I'm really engaged in what I do or I'm really loving the day, then you can get into kind of warrior mode like go go, Go, go go, and you can be in that mode until you burn out. So it's only when you cross that threshold of turning your brain on paying attention to things that you have a chance to get into that energizer mode or winning your work day. And the difference is on the left hand side. If you're still brain on and you're aware of what's going on and you're managing your motions and regulating them. But something's missing that spark, as you well know, like with those beautiful books and insightful books behind you, you're in the seeker mode. There's something missing, and until you align with your strengths, your purpose, until your goals include your wellbeing, you won't move over to that

16:49 sweet spot which combines being brain on and energized about your day, which is why I call it the energizer. Oh, that was beautifully explained, and so it's to sync. Let's let our listeners and viewers think about that as we take our first break. Here those four different buckets seeker, survivor, energizer, and warrior. I'm Elie Cortez, your host. We've been on the air with Debs MULLINSI. She's the Well Being an Engagement Practice leader at NFP and as an advisor for the Sirtech, fintech and digital health startup communities, serves to help lift the world. We've been talking a bit about why it's important to be aware of our brain and whether or not we're a brain on or not. After the break, we're going to learn about creating the emotions we actually want to experience at work. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose.

17:52 An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and developed purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease A LISEE at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I too, am dedicated to helping create a world where people realize their potential at work and they're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we do business at Betters of World. I continue to research and write my own books, so one of my latest that came out in March of twenty It's called the Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business. And I wrote it to help leaders understand the nature of today's workforce, what they want and need to be vitally inspired and engage and give their best. And then I provide twenty two best projects to help you create an organization to meet those needs. You can learn more about it at gustodeshnow dot com or grab your copy on Amazon if you are just now joining us. My guest is Deb Smolensky. She's the author of

19:26 Brain On Mental fitness Strategies for sharpening focus, boosting energy, and winning the work day. So it's good to me. So this next bit here, I think people will be really surprised. And I love how you dangle this here for us, and I mentioned it just before the break, but we talk about how we can actually use our brain to manage and create the emotions we want to experience it work. I love that. Yes, thank you. I'm still back into the intro. I love your intro. I feel like I'm a walk up baseball player and it's totally turns vite and brain on. So thank you for that, I'm glad and honesty lost the question for just a second. You can't control our emotions and create the emotions we want, and that's that's a really good point. Even for this, I knew I wanted to be excited, but I was low energy, so I wanted to come show up with my best self. And the thing to know is again, our brain on default is fear based, and so we always have to overcome that. And if we don't, but what happens is we're either going towards the threat or the reward system. So we always want to go and be aware of how to create emotions moving us forward, how to be aware of the thoughts that will help us move forward, because there's no neutral in our thoughts. They either degrade our lives or they upgrade our lives.

20:53 And so to create those emotions, you actually have to figure out how to trick your brain. Sometimes. For example, you know, when a child falls down, you know this probably better than I do. But when a child falls down and you you don't go like you go like, oh, it's okay, right, the mirror neurons they go up and the baby starts blowing it off, or or maybe hopefully even laughing. Well, that's the kind of tricks we want to use to help our brain stay in brain on mode or in a positive emotional state. What I love about that, among many other things UB is the agency in it activating the human agency in ourselves.

21:33 I just think that is wonderful and that speaks to one of the next things that I really admire about what you've given us here. You talk about how high performing people don't leave their mindset up to chance. They actively work to overcome any misguided thoughts, in poor emotional regulation, in irrational or primal fears. And you say that's why training your brain is as important as aerobic conditioning to lead a healthy life. It's starting your day with a successful mindset. Begins by avoiding your phone owner or anything that throws you into a work mode very first thing that you're awake. You need to be able to get yourself online in in a positive, energizing way. We've had people on this program talking about ways that we can start every day by really getting clear about what's my bold vision for what I want for my life, starting with that versus social media or the news, and I think that is so powerful.

22:22 What you put forth that no one that is high performing leaves their mindset to chance. Yeah, that really stuck with me as I was writing the book over and over again. If we don't take agency, I love that words you used, right, if we don't take accountability an agency and understand that our brains just aren't wired for this. And it's a skill and a practice if we want to be our best selves, it's a skill and a practice all day long to create that forming, high performing brain to be in energizer mode. So I really studied professional athletes in this. I watched in the Wimbledon in June, one of the champions, Djokovic, in the finals match, throw his racket after missing an easy point. But that's normal, right, brain off, we'd go into fear mode immediately or anger mode. But what was interesting is he immediately did his breathing, He walked back, pumping himself up, and he visualized his next stroke as an ace. And what did he do is he aced it like in twenty seconds. Amazing athletes go from the worst brain off to bringing their brains on. So I think of us as corporate athletes. I think we all need to think of it in that way. In some regard. I like that idea a lot. And

23:57 then I'm going to bring us to this next point. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to be maybe blown away or you know, blown back by this? But I was amazed that you shared with us that science has proven that we only have three to four hours of productive brain power and resources each day. And that's it. That's it. I know. I'm grateful to know that, and I'm so grateful to those that study this all day long, because again, we don't know how our brain works, but that is it. Not only is that it is some of us work at different times better. So you might be an afternoon person, as Daniel Pink says, or a morning person, but that has really changed how I try to focus every day, even my calendar, and how I shift priorities of what I'm going to work on. Like I said, this is a little out of my comfort zone speaking to you at this point of my day, like I should be asleep right now. I knew, like I needed to save my good brain productive for this right and so I didn't stress myself out or use that much energy up until this point. It was a different type of day for me, you know, I always one of the great things about hosting the show deb is I do learn so much from my guests. You really helped me become a better version of myself, and I really appreciate that.

25:18 And I want you to know that what you taught me, this idea that we only have three to four hours of productive brain power, has radically altered the way that I want to utilize, especially my weekends, because I tend to use my weekends for writing and longer research projects. But I can let myself get totally distracted, and before I know it, I've lost those three to four beautiful, precious hours, and then I'm mad about it when Monday comes. And I want you to know that you have changed me in this way for the better. Thank you for that gift. Oh thank you that such a generous, beautiful comment. I will treasure that, and I'm so glad. You know you've wrote such beautiful books and empowering books, and as you know, you just want to help people, right, and so that makes me so happy. First of all, I'm just absorbing that with gratitude because that keeps my brain on and keeps me engaged. And then also I too, just want to admit that I continuously have to check in with myself too, because we get distracted, and it's a key mental practice just to use those three hours strategically. So I think you're highlighting for all of us a practice that we can take back immediately and always check in. Am I using my time? Right? Is this my productive power? Let's go?

26:41 Yeah, exactly, And then you know, again that builds us. Just to this next point that I wanted to make. I was just also another one of the beautiful, very fresh points that you make in your book is you know you talk about if anybody were to if you were to ask anybody you or me were asking any about their important relationship in their life, they would name such things as their part or their children, their parents, their siblings, their friends, their boss, their coworkers. But no one would actually say their relationship with their brain was a top priority. But in the end you say, it's the most important relationship that we have. I found that so compelling. Yeah, if you think about it, you know they always say you're your best cheerleader. It's just you in the end, right, you have to be self sufficient and independent, but it's really you and your brain. Like if your brain is being kind to you, which takes practice to not wander in negative neighborhoods and those things. The relationship with your brain understanding your thoughts and your emotions, I call that the fountain of youth.

27:48 Oh my gosh, that's delightful. Well, as we said before we got on their deb you know that particular idea that we just have been talking about is really cultivating the relationship with your brain in an intentional, loving, nurturing way. That idea really resonates with me. And again, doing so then allows us to be able to do what we want with our one precious life in a much more effective, impactful way. And I'm behind that one hundred and twenty eight percent type of that. Yes, giving ourselves grace and knowing this is the key, knowing that our default system is going to be fight flight freeze. It just is. That is how we are wired for that one day. May it never be so that a car comes running down right or some bear jumps out of the woods. Our brain is ready.

28:41 That's what it's designed to do, and it's always going to react. So where's my keys? Oh I'm so mad I missed the meeting. Why is this like everything first starts with the negative, and we have to bring it to the positive, but not beating up how we think, just knowing that we have to strengthen our thoughts and we can do that. Science shows with neuroplasticity, which is mental fitness, and that is the only way up greater thoughts, up greater thoughts. We wire our brain. We wire our brain so important every minute of the day. Well, and I also appreciated that in order to do that, that neuroplasticity you offered, you know, prioritizing self care with brain boosters. And I really get behind this because I also put this in some of my programs. But you talk about the importance of actively planning your day to include enough rest, and I know people say, well, I'm so busy, and people are, and yet you still have the choice of when you go to bed and when you get up. We also introduce the importance of nature and music and play and connection and these are always to restore our brain's energy when we're feeling a drop or in the brain drain. And so that's why some of the programs that I do, I incorporate those sort of things. Jaw Joy, Gratitude, Wonder, awe, because they're they're they're there's there's so what I want to say, well, energizing. So I appreciated very much that you talked about that we have within our means, these these immediate brain boosters. So if you could say just

30:12 a little bit more about you know, how do they work, and you know what else, what other options might we have? Yeah, and I did notice, and I love how you do incorporate them seamlessly right within the work and the organization. And so I appreciate that call out because we can focus on our thoughts. We can focus on our thoughts and trying to change them and being aware of how we feel. But at some point we just are in a funk, or we're tired and we just need just a spark of something or or rest in recovery. So this work actually comes from doctor Rock and doctor Daniel Siegel. It's called the mind Platter. And when I heard this, I'm like, why don't we know about this more? But it's ways to feed and energize our brains. So in my book, I basically have an illustration of the brain like with a charger, right, a plugging in. This is how we charge our brains, just as if we charge our phones battery and so it really is, according to science, all the things that actually elicit those dopamine hits or oxytocin and release those neurotransmitters and chemicals that actually connect us back to people or energize us or fill us up.

31:34 And so I love the ones you named. I always say my name backwards. Deb is bed So I hit the twenty minute nap all the time. I think I was bored for that, and when I was writing this book. Or if I have a hard meeting, like I mentioned earlier, I have a walk up song for three minutes, I listen to something so engaging in terms of music, even like your introduction to this show is amazing. But I also find like even hydrating, So I have a hydration drink here and just filling up. If you're hungry, you're kind of depleting your brain uses glucose. Those kinds of things are really helpful just to keep that brain power going. Oh so, such good self care mechanisms. All right, let's grab our last break here at Deb. I am doctor Releas Cortez, who were on the air with Deb Smolenski. She's the well being an engagement practice leader at NFP, and she also serves as an advisor for the insertech, fintech and digital health startup communities. We've been talking more about specific ways that we can monitor and help energize our brain. For the last segment after the break, we're going to get into how we can use her work to build what she calls regenerative cultures. Say what, We'll be right back.

33:06 Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com.

33:50 Now back to working on purpose. It's interesting with us and welcome back to working on purpose. I'm your host doctor Earliest Cortes. I mentioned in the last break about my latest book coming out, the Great Revitalization. Along with that, what I did for you is I created an organizational best Prejudices Assessment and it's waiting for you on Gustodashnew dot com or at least Coortes dot com. What it does is lets you really measure the extent to which your current projectes are actually meeting today's needs and standards. If you are just joining us today, my guess is Deb Smelensky. She's the author of Brain On Mental fitness Strategies for sharpening focus, boosting energy, and winning the work day. So for this last bit here, Deb and I really wanted to take us back into the workplace. Of course, we can use these things anywhere we go in life, but both you and I do a lot of work in the workplaces, and it's exciting to think about how we can use what you have created for us to actually create beautiful, energized, connected teams.

34:47 And so once again I go back to one of your beautiful matrices, your quadrant of four boxes here, and this is what you call It's about becoming a brain on regenerative culture. So if you could again distinguishes you just before you know the four pieces, the X and Y axis and what's in them. Yeah, I think it was very important for me to first train our brains as individual employees, right, this is all about work and how we show up. But then it's also extremely important, like you mentioned, to talk from an organizational perspective to those that have any influence over others brains or creating and transforming the collective brain. So this part gets into the organizational section and it can be applied in the same manner, meaning as an organization if you are creating a brain off, brain on engage, disengaged society or collective community. If your brain off and you are not engaged as a group, it's very, very depleted. It's very it takes everything out. You're sucking the life out of every employee. Right, if your policies don't nurture people, if your culture is do this, do that, no autonomy, mastery purpose, So it takes around that scale. If you still stay kind of

36:22 brain off in the way you treat your employees, meaning you look at them as just more assets and not as a relationship, it can become very transactional as well. But when you start engaging in the collective community and a lot about what you write, where your practices take into account, maybe feedback from employees or your team, where you are asking people what they think, You're making sure psychological safety is there. You hit that mark of sustainable right, which I think is where we see the bar. But what I wanted to encourage people and workplaces specifically is to really start aligning with their strengths and purposes like you allude to and promote. Because what that does when you recognize somebody and value them and align the work with that, it leaps them over into that white right truck TALP quadrant, which is regenerative. You're no longer deleting and defeating and depleting. You're no longer just sustaining. You're growing and regenerating and fueling both yourself in the individual as well as the organization by doing so.

37:46 You know, we've had many people on this program deb over the years talking about, you know, the role and responsibilities leaders have because literally leaders really think about this. Ladies and gentlemen, listening or watching your leader literally impacts a lot of your life, not just that whatever happens during the workday, but how you show up when you come home with your family, and how you interact with your significant other, your children, whether or not you choose to engage with positively or negatively, with your community, it follows you. And so your impact as a leader is profound. And I hope in some ways that that's a little scary. In other ways, I hope it's really really inspiring that the difference you can make in someone's life. So what I got really excited about with your work their depth and I could envision this.

38:29 I don't know if it's on your website. I didn't look that deeply there. But what I love about what you did with that simple little matrix, I think a lot of organizations think we're doing fine, we're good. Okay, maybe you are fine and good, but yet there is this whole other opportunity, this whole regenerative space that you maybe don't understand that you could actually move into. And that's where I get really excited to. Yeah, I just admire your work, and those really focus on leadership. So let me just double down on what you said. There is such a need an opportunity right now to show up as human centered, compassionate leaders. Those are all skills. Yeah, the thing that we need is a skill, and I call it a mental fitness skill. So I do specifically talk about this leadership mental fitness circuit above and beyond the individual what else you need to do.

39:31 And so that is really, in the end part of a key part of the formula. And I know you've said this before and probably lots of times, but people quit bosses, not jobs. And I spent the last week based on this New York Times article and this research by doctor Wellington. I believe his name is I should have looked, but I'm coming out that says what workplace wellness doesn't work. And really what his research says in terms of resilience and mindset and all of this work is it's an and if we don't help leaders and the culture wrap around and support people, this regenerative culture will never come to fruition, and we will continue to turn people's brains off at every corner, every communication. And again I find that really encouraging because to me, what you put forth is an opening, it's an invitation, it's a space to walk into and then to be able to build on the knowledge and skills of others who've come before us and who are in our vicinity and surrounded and supportive. I just I get so excited and again for me to I find I'm out to build workplace destination, workplaces where people really can realize their potential. I believe in the power and the magic of work as one of the best catalyzing forces we have to realize our potential. And yet for so many people it occurs as a bad for letter where that they just

41:04 want to either avoid or try to diminish, you know, their interaction with it as much as possible. So if your work is so powerful, so important, yeah, I love that, I'm like, wow, I wish everybody would say that, Like between playing your music at the beginning and saying those words you just said about destination, where like I'm like all for it, and so it is. I always try to view this as a positive opportunity. So as a leader, if you are struggling, that is, first check in with your brain, your thoughts, because your thoughts create your reality, and how can you latch on to being mentally stronger and using the resources and tools in terms of accountability and awareness to build the workday. You want to build the team, you want to build the leader in you that you want. It's all within us. We just need to be aware of our thoughts, challenge our thoughts, and then do our mental fitness to get our thoughts going in the right direction. That's all. That's all. So, yes, I know, no, no, I'm right there with you.

42:23 Okay. So where I want to go next? I'm sorry, I'm glad I can make you laugh at that, because I meant I meant it to be meant it to be silly. Yeah, but I love on this show. What I like so much is I want it to be always educational, one part education, one part inspirational, and I always want listeners and viewers to be able to walk away with something they can immediately put into practice. And So what I want to go to next here is you offer toward the end of your book, this brain on audit that you can help that people can use to help assess how their organization and culture are activating the principles in the book. So if let's spend a little bit of time talking about each of the four buckets in that assessment, if we could. Yeah, So, the four buckets like when you are auditing for a regenerative culture.

43:08 There's care, there's emotional intelligence, there's communityation and growth. Those are the foundations of a regenerative culture. So for care, we have moved into the mission of HR or talent or whoever you are in that organization to not only attract and retain. We are now attract, retain and care for Yes, I love that attract. Yes, employer contract has changed. And when you bring on someone and when they join you, you are now united in caring for the organization and that individual. And so that is an audit, and I give several different topics within there that you have to start to focus.

43:57 It's new, but that is essential to build a regenerative culture. Teaching everyone emotional intelligence, emotional literacy, whatever you want to call it, is the core communication blowing through the culture. So I think there's several different studies, but summarizing them, we as a society can name six different emotions usually like how are you feeling good? How are you feeling Oh, I'm happy, sad, angry? Just six, But there's twenty four hundred different emotions that when you get very clear on them, can help navigate and elevate your life, and so teaching emotional literacy being understanding of how your words impact the others, if they have emotional literacy or if they are learning emotional like, all of that comes into play. So I am a big fan of integrating that, which then doves tails into communication. We often at an HR or organizational level, are pushing out communications. And I had the chance to ask Daniel Goldman personally, well, how do you build emotional intelligence into communications, especially email? And what he said was to me profound and he said his wife said he didn't even know. His wife said, if that email strengthens the

45:28 relationship, that is what you're going for versus degrading it. So before you hit send in your communications, is it going to make people worried? Is it unclear or uncertain that's going to cause chaos among the brains and turn them off? Does this communication strengthen your relationship with employees or degrade it? Those are the filters or audits you look at from a communication perspective, and then growth growth mindset. It's either fixed or it's growth, but they can be both, right, But what we want to nurture is those words that I'll open up the growth of the organization, the willingness to try something new because change is going to be constant and uncertainty triggers us brain off all the time, and can be strong enough to say I think I can try this, or curious enough to say, oh, can you tell me more? Growing versus constricting or contracting is the only way to move forward and create that regenerative culture. I am completely in line with that, as you can well imagine, So okay, so dat, We've managed already to come through the show.

46:45 It's crazy how fast it goes. You know that this show is listened to by people around the world who care about improving their own experience of work, being part of organizations and cultures that help them realize their greatness. They would love to be led by inspiracial leaders that really bring them to that task or become those inspirational leaders. And we do business at Betters the World. What would you like to leave our listeners and viewers with today? Every moment of every day, you are constructing your reality, building it from the ground up, and your thoughts create your perceptions. Your perceptions create your choices you see in view, and your choices then create your results. If you practice just awareness and those mental fitness exercises aligned with that, you can really find the fountain of youth. I believe at least you can win your work day, and that is my hope for everybody out there is to combat burn out and start winning our work day together. Oh Dad, what a beautiful finish.

47:54 I'm so happy to know you, to have learned from you, to have shared you with my listeners on the world. Thank you for being a guest on Working on Purpose. Thank you, it was a pure pleasure. I will treasure this. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to hear that makes my heart saying thank you. Now, listeners and viewers are going you're going to want to learn to follow this woman here. Find a way to do this. So if you want to learn more about her, her work or her book, the best way to do to do this is probably to start with her personal website. It's deb Smolensky dot com. Let me spell that for you, so Deb d eb and then Smolensky is s m O l e n Sky Deb Smolensky dot com. Last week, you've missed the live show, you can always catch it be recorded podcast. We were on the air with Marga Hooick talking about her incredibly well researched and inspiring book Tech for Good. We talked about some of the examples from the eighty five companies she showcases in the book that are employing advanced technologies to tackle really complex problems in the world. This episode will inspire you to look for new ways you can utilize today's technology to advance your mission or causes. Next week, we'll be on the air with Tamar Ryan of the Women's Being Project talking about the incredibly intimate look she gives of the women who work at the Women's Beans Project and are struggling mightily to move out of poverty and move from incarceration back into a life of productivity and happiness. Our conversation will open your eyes that the world is not at all black or white by poverty is such a curse, and inspire you to help more people. See you there, and remember work is one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making

49:27 the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes each week on W four C. Why Together We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there. Let's work on purpose.