Most of us think of relaxing or sleeping a little more when taking a rest. But that’s only one way of taking a rest (physical). What about the 6 other types of rest? From emotional and spiritual rest to creative and social rest, there are many surprising insights into the science of proper rest.
If you’re looking to reach your peak performance, you need to know how to incorporate ALL 7 types of rest into your life regularly.
Join retired Chairman of Microsoft Europe / Olympic mental coach Jan Mühlfeit and top-rated CEO / Executive Coach Lisa Christen as we share the 7 types of rest and best practices for incorporating all 7 into your routines.
For the full transcript:
Jan Muhlfeit 00:03
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. Good evening.
Lisa Christen 00:07
Hi, everyone.
Jan Muhlfeit 00:10
We have a great privilege to talk today about different types of the energies and recovery and all of this stuff.
Lisa Christen 00:20
Exactly seven who knew there were seven different types of rest.
Jan Muhlfeit 00:25
Good evening to Finland, my wide some folks. Long night, you know in Finland I can imagine, guys if you can put in comments and you can see us and hear us I will check it you know, I see here on the we are already on YouTube. And I will see
Lisa Christen 00:52
what I have to say we did have some trouble with LinkedIn the last few times so fingers crossed that it works video comes across sound comes across we’ve been trying to talk to them behind the scenes and work the systems to make sure that it comes across smoothly for you. If not join us on YouTube.
Jan Muhlfeit 01:10
No, no, no 50 people on LinkedIn. Alright, so it should be okay. With you. Yes, it’s working on Dani better. It’s okay. Well, I don’t know. Let’s guys, let’s start. Let’s not lose anything. I was telling Lisa. I have my, you know, a lovely daughter. At home. She arrived from London, and she disconnected my PC. I wanted to do it outside of my minnow house. But unfortunately, I’m still sitting it’s relatively hot here. But anyway. So Lisa, kick it off, you know, what are we going to talk about today?
Lisa Christen 01:45
I would love to and I want to kick it off by saying I have to apologize. I obviously did not take good enough care of myself and had to rest because I had COVID this week, and I’m still recovering. So if you hear a weird cough or, you know, weird,
Jan Muhlfeit 02:01
it’s taken time COVID already right for you. Um,
Lisa Christen 02:04
questionable. I think I had it in February 2020. Before you could test I see. So I’m glad that we are virtual for this one. But I will say this goes to show how important our topic is here today, which is that there are 771234567 types of risks and most of us couldn’t even name all those seven, let alone are we making sure that we have all seven types in our life. So I’m gonna go ahead and let’s you know, clear the field right here. And now if it’s okay for you, yeah, and I’m just going to introduce them so everybody at least knows what are the seven types. The first one you already know. By the way this is a great book called sacred rest recover your life.
Jan Muhlfeit 02:50
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
Lisa Christen 02:51
exactly. Perfect. Dr. Sandra Smith. So she was she was a doctor. She had burnout young kids couldn’t figure out um, getting enough physical rest, which is rest number one. I’m sleeping right. So what’s going on? Why am I still so tired? Why am I still so burned out? Well, first of all, even with physical rest, there are two components one is that like passive where you’re sleeping, you’re napping, you’re laying but there’s also active. Are you doing yoga? Are you doing foam rollers, you know, are you getting physical recovery. And you know this, by the way, if at the end of the day, your shoulders are hunched, your lower back is hurting, your legs are swollen. This was all signs that you’re not getting enough physical rest. But there’s more because that’s only the first number two is then mental rest. Yan and I have talked about this so often, right? I was in peak physical condition. And what happened? Right, yeah, I’m story. I think everybody knows this now. You know, I ended up going to the mental hospital to get taken care of because the mental rest wasn’t there. How do you know if your mental rest is there when you’re laying in bed? How long does it take you to fall asleep? Here’s a big clue. Guys. If it takes you one to three minutes, you’re physically exhausted, you’re not getting enough physical rest. If it takes you much longer. 1020 3040 50 minutes because your mind is spinning. You’re not getting enough mental rest. So you can see the difference. If you notice when you go into the grocery store and you said oh, I needed eggs, butter milk you walk in Well, what did I come here for? What am I doing? How why? If you can’t remember three little things on your list, your mental load is too heavy. So that’s a good cheap little trick to know. Am I getting enough mental rest? Now number three, oh, this is gonna be controversial. Social rest. So many of us are givers when it comes to being social. We want to know how are you we’re checking in what’s going on in your life. I was asking you on how is it with your daughter visiting? Is it fun? How was it when you were going to Spain and giving some talks? Right? At some point, if you’re giving, if you’re giving advice, you’re there for a friend who’s going through a divorce, you’re they’re giving advice to a friend who’s a manager? You need a break. How much of the social relationships are you taking on for yourself? This is an important question, ladies. I’m looking at you, parents, I’m looking at you. Because you think I go home to have social rest. But then your kids want something and your partner wants something and your mom wants something. You don’t actually have social rest necessarily at home. The fourth one spiritual rest. Do you actually wake up every day and know what I do? Makes a difference. And by the way, makes a difference to someone other than me numero uno, right? If it’s beyond the ego, am I am I helping the environment? Am I helping the people around me? Am I helping my community? Do I belong to something greater than myself? Because you can have the best high paying job the best relationships in the world. At some point, if there’s no meaning to what you do, you will feel burnout, tired loss of motivation. So you need to make sure you’re recovering and finding spiritual places to re energize and recover number five, this is one I give to people so often now and they go oh my god, I’ve never thought or heard about this before. Sensory rest. You don’t notice this yet so much visually is coming in. This sounds are coming in, you’re getting advertisements. You’re walking through the airport, you hear the noise of the people around you, you see flashing lights, you see an advertisement, you hear a you know, one of these driving things going by I mean, it’s over whelming how many times during your day do you actually sit and just close your eyes not to nap not to sleep to just stop having inputs. I actually sent a client fairly recently, a nice set of noise cancelling headphones, going back to the office is a lot of sensory overload, noise, cancel your space, lower how much sensory is coming in, and then you won’t have you have that sensory restaurant of the overload. Emotional rest. Listen again, emotional rest is actually about how authentic you get to be. So for example, we’re talking about senior leadership. Lots of companies are going through restructures Mergers Acquisitions, and you as the leader Whoo, this is great. I have to toe the party line. I’m so proud we can do this, we can make it forward. And then in your coaching session with me you’re actually saying I’m quite sad colleagues are leaving, there’s a lot of uncertainty that people left are confused. But you have to show up and show a brave face. So you might not be getting enough emotional rest. And the last one creative rest. How many of you are making the time and the effort to just have something beautiful in your life? This sounds like oh my god, Lisa, what are you talking about? That’s not a form of rest, but it is because it’s a creative inspirational it could be music, it could be I don’t know dancing, it could be artwork, it could be you painting this weekend I went to Art Basel because there’s so many amazing emerging artists and I just wanted to you know have my cup filled with inspiration and new ideas you see I have a my daughter’s painting in the background here. fill your life with some beauty elements could be going out for a walk in nature, but there’s something that needs to be visually creative and beautiful and fulfilling for you. So seven different types of rest. Now the question is for all of you who are watching along how many of you are actively making sure all seven of these elements are built into your life and yeah, and I would love to hear from you what do you think what stood out for you from those seven or what are you finding the easiest or the most difficult
Jan Muhlfeit 09:30
Well for me I you know if I would make some score for like my Microsoft you know carrier okay I would say like the physical you know, I was fine I would say mental I was really bad I was working all the time and the same way the sensory creative was okay emotionally it was really okay so show also gain spiritual was also good. But what I what I tried to Say I mean, in all grades, this is more granular and I like it in all grades, they talk about four energies, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. They call it Calaca. Garcia doesn’t matter more or less, it shows that, you know, mind, body is important mind is connected with the body, through emotions, and spirit, it’s about your meaning in your life. And as rightly, Lisa said, you know, spiritual energy is really about, like, be yourself, you know, be authentic, leave your, you know, own purpose, if you will, you know, based on your own, you know, authentic talents, right. So, that’s kind of the that’s kind of the rating now, why I believe it’s important to use those energies and renew those energies or have a mentor as I mean, we can talk about mental energy and mentors, it doesn’t matter, right, it’s like renew. Because today as Lisa rightly said, we are under huge pressure. And, you know, if you if you think about it, in one week, your brain needs to process as much as information as the brains of our produces 100 years ago for the whole lot. So there is a there’s a huge pressure, if you take for example, our you know, senses, our senses, which are key, our sense, our senses are key to pay attention, basically. Because if your senses if you are not like sharp, sharply focused, you are making a lot of mistakes, whether those are mental mistakes or physical mistakes, because as you know, I coach many you know, top athletes in fact, I’m you know, leaving two day after tomorrow for blood on to coach you know, you’ve ever had Scott at the checkpoint 77 on the on the top 100. So, but anyway, so, you know, the, the central areas is really important, because we are under the huge, you know, pressure. So I may give you a couple of tips and tricks what you can do like for sensor areas, because 70% is usually eyes, okay, so your eyes, especially if you have like discussion through, you know, the screen, you know, zoom or Microsoft team, so whatever, you know, your eyes are getting really tired. Okay? So it’s good to take after 4560 minutes with a call panorama, take view, you go outside, or you open the window, and you go through panorama, you know, through your eyes couple of times, you know, right? You have you ever or you can close your eyes, you know, right? That the this is it. The other thing what do we know it as soon as he rightly said sleeping is great. But sleeping is not enough, because you can have like eight hour sleep, right? But if it’s not quality sleep, it’s quite bad. So I’m using our variables I’m using ordering. That’s from Finland, so I think you know, meat gonna ever be. And it’s like application, it’s the it’s basically sensing you know, what, what’s going on with your body during the sleep and during the day. And it’s giving you some tips and tricks what you should do when you are you know, Ready when you are you know, I serve and so, okay, now on, on sleep, you know, right sleep is important not only for your body, but also for your mind and for learning. Because if you learn something, for example, if you follow what we are saying now, you know, it goes directly to your short term memory. In order to create synapses in your long term memory, you need to have a good amount of deep sleep basically which is happening while we sleep in 90 minutes. You know, kind of the chunks, it’s like deep, you know shallow and obviously, Rem is rapid eye movement. That’s what we are aiming dreams. Okay, baby save between 10 to one 130 There’s a lot of you know, deep sleep, so you need to have a good sleep before midnight or after the minute. If you go to the bed at two or three o’clock you Are you your body will not have a read or you will not remember anything from your training or from your job or whatever. So that’s that’s another you know, that’s another piece okay. Then on on like creative for us both what is helping me I love you should guys figure it out where is your energy coming from? My energy is coming from see or generally from the water, then from the mountains and from the sun. Okay, so even if there’s a shift, you know, where in the morning I still have some pictures on my phone, where I’m like setting up my mind basically Hey, this is it. You know what I see? like pictures, paintings and stuff like that, because you can, you know, it’s called priming in the morning in the morning, you can really prime your mind, it’s very bad habit, if you just take your phone and you will start to do your emails. That’s exactly what your amygdala wants you to do. And then you are done. Basically, your day will go like, Hey, this is better, whatever I’m like, I’m touching my phone, nine o’clock. I mean, I’m, like, downloading some podcasts to run or to like, walk they don’t Nordic walking, but nothing else, you know, right. So you know, in the morning, it’s up to you. And it’s up to it is up to recreating, you know, great habits, great, you know, habits which can help you to create the right you know, I call it mental cocktail. Because if you do imagine do have two scenarios, you do something in the morning, which is very inspirational, somebody or 1015 minutes, and you like it, because you are inspired, then endorphin is release, okay? You have everything like, hey, it’s according to the plan. So dopamine is, you know, release and you are looking forward for the day. That’s one option. The other scenario is somebody will you email, it will be based off and it goes, like, you know, and I know those situations, because I was there in both, like all the annual you go, you know, to work and you’re like, off and, you know, a lot of cortisol was released. And this is not good, you know, right.
Lisa Christen 16:40
Yeah. And I think it just want to add here, it’s really important, because I think a lot of us think, oh, we need this mental strength and mental toughness, and that I hear what you’re saying. But that doesn’t work for me. But actually, our brains were they work in a very particular way. And what Young’s describing is the way that you can hack your brain and make it work to your advantage. So if you think like, yeah, that doesn’t work, or that sounds fluffy, or that’s nice that he does it, but I couldn’t because of XYZ. You can. It’s the same thing as when your athletes are preparing in advance, and they’re visualizing the success, our brain doesn’t know the difference between when you imagine it, and when it really happens. So if you wake up in the morning, and you imagine this is a great day, and you imagine what that beautiful picture, you know, being out in that field, it can literally be as good for our brains as being there. So there’s a science behind it.
Jan Muhlfeit 17:40
Yeah, you can absolutely you can memorize your future it sounds stupid. But this is it because everybody’s got a memory and everybody’s got imagination. And because our brain I mean our the memory part of the brain works like hardest it does it does not distinguish whether it’s true or not that we can that’s why we can visualize that’s why there’s a lot of advancement, advancements in humankind because this is it because we are really creative, you know, people and and obviously we are also curious people curiosity leads to refer to it the other the other element I would like to say that you know, business seem to me like collecting behind recovery big time I was for two days in Spain and I know one of the best golf course in Andalusia is a you know, it’s like PGA you know, golf course and they’ve got a there was a company they were like large conference so I spoke about you know, flow and how you know, you can build great teams and so on. And after the speech a lot of people came to me because I shared also my experience with my depression they came to me and they said how what can we do better in our company and I said, there’s still a huge difference between business and sports because in sport recovery is part of the process it’s part of the performance if you recover guys if you are like Nadal okay if you are a file Nadal you go to him blood on okay you you you think hey I may you know when another vein blood on and then I may do like urine again so I’m if I’m bending us over because he did Australian and and and French Open obviously, then you know recovery is as much as important as winning against all you know, opponents. It this is it. Recovery in sport is part of the performance, recovery in business very often we take it as a weakness, I need recovery. So I’m weak, I’m been paid. I’m not bullshit, all of that bullshit. And unfortunately, you know, it’s very often driven by the leaders because you are leading by example. If you are there till 10 o’clock in the evening, you have no recovery time, whatever. And guess what the people, people will follow you, you know, that’s but it’s not necessarily, you know, nice, right? So, yeah, so we should do definitely and people would perform even better if they would in business, if they would have enough time to recover illusions to think more I will work better results I will have what I’m saying more I will work and more, I will have recovery time and I will be more productive. That’s the way you know, to succeed. Absolutely.
Lisa Christen 20:39
Absolutely. The more you work, the more your brain is just in that doing doing doing mode, and you can’t like zoom out, see the big picture, look at the strategy, have a sense, see where the team is lacking. Because you’re so in just doing doing you’re so tired, tired, tired, get it done, that you actually end up doing a lot of work that doesn’t need to be done, because you end up making a change later or decision later. Or you end up doing it really crappy, and you have to fix it later. Much better to have the recovery, zoom out be the strategic. That’s why everyone who gets coaching actually says I’m so busy, I take this one hour and all of a sudden, I have so much clarity, it makes the rest of my week that much easier to get through and get really solid results. Well, that one hour produce this much productivity. Imagine what you could be doing on your own right?
Jan Muhlfeit 21:31
Your guyses especially like your physical energy is finite every day. You cannot I mean, you can, there are people who can do like five marathons a day, but normal people can do. So and as the same as your you know, mental energy or mental energy is finite. That’s why you need to have recovery. And it’s good to have even recovery during the day. A lot of people are like sitting hey, I need to finish you know, my work, whatever. It’s stupid. Our brains don’t don’t mind. We don’t know exactly why. But our brains like to work in 90 minutes chunks, and then to have a break like 1520 minutes to go outside, do some breathing exercise and clean your you know, brain basically, right, returned back and then then you can you know, continue. This is it. But if you work so many hours, you are not very productive. That’s for that’s for sure. You know, right? This is this is unfortunately not the case, right? And as I said today, our brains are still the same like the brains of our predecessors couple of centuries ago. We just have much more, you know, pressure on us. And we think I tell you what, the problem with amygdala was like protecting our you know, predecessors like hey, you know, fight free freeze, they were they were some danger. Today, there was a very little natural stress, we are creating stress on our own. And for amygdala, everything is Arjun and amygdala is never logic, okay. amygdala is showing you where you have what can go you know, wrong, but there are no like solutions fight free or free. There is no logical solution. So I mean, more you will think like, logically, hey, is this really mean? The one question which helped me a lot. When I got so many tasks on my, on my shoulder or on my table, I was always asking, what is one thing, one thing most important now? Okay. You go back to the present moment, you say, Now, you go to the present moment you concentrate, and then you can make you know, some progress for sure.
Lisa Christen 23:48
That’s right. We’ve got quite a few comments here. Why isn’t there a 32 hour week and eight weeks of vacation in the companies? Because I can give you that answer. Because Jana and I sit in on those business strategy meetings, they don’t want to add more headcount. They want to continue working with fewer resources, they want to continue to pursue new opportunities, because they don’t know what will work out. Right. So let’s just try everything. I’d say the biggest challenge that I see in business is prioritizing, focusing and saying no to a lot of things that almost nobody does it. So well, we’re just doing it. It was
Jan Muhlfeit 24:27
open, you know, anyone open an interesting question, because he basically is asking, Can we be if we will be smart? Can we be as much as productive in 32 hours, interestingly enough, okay. When I was young manager, I was always making jokes, hey, in France, you know, they don’t have like 42 hours, you know, we it’s like socialistic back in France, productivity per hour is higher than in United States, productivity per hour week. We talked over. So the question is, if we will have, you know, less hours and work, you know, more productively? Can we have the same, you know, output? That’s number one. Number two, I still I still think we still measure progress around the world by the G GDP. And it’s a very, you know, outdated measurement, you know, because it’s a global world, you know, right, and so on. And, you know, can we grow maybe a little bit, you know, bless the economy and have more fun, you know, right. Because in some countries, Bhutan, in Bhutan, they have a global happiness product or whatever. I don’t know, this is just, you know, from the top of my head, obviously. But, yeah, this is it, because I believe that you can, you can, you know, if you work as, you know, as I mentioned, you can work smarter, not harder, though the efficiency and also how to slow down at the right time to keep high performance constant.
Lisa Christen 26:09
Yeah, and I think it’s really important to note here, there are a lot of cities, counties, you know, companies who are trying out what’s it like to have a 32 hour workweek, and they’re doing those studies to check on productivity, because they know the way that we’re going towards burnout. Almost every single person that I coach, not that they come to coaching for burnout, but they’re at the edge, everyone says to me, I’m basically pre burnout that’s just normal in corporate business at the moment is and forget it in startups, right. So it’s just become normal to be in pre burnout and burnout phases. At some point, we’re going to have that backlash, and we’re starting to see it, that they’re doing the research to pull it back to give more wellness and well being tips and to figure out ways and to ask managers not to send emails at night or in the you know, so we’re struggling and trying to find what’s the right balance here, people are having an awakening that what we’re doing isn’t sustainable. What they’re not yet ready to do is overcome the fear of but everyone else is working really hard. If I work 32 hours, how are people going to perceive me? That is the least that we haven’t been able to overcome.
Jan Muhlfeit 27:28
It’s it’s a fear of missing out. Absolutely. This is there’s a football fear of other people opinion, but it’s this fear of missing out, you know, right? Because we think hey, if we will not work that hard, then that means a you know, we are not part of the group. And so So Clara is saying this is what always work is that only three hours of sleep are enough or delete home. I mean, yeah, the other is, it is okay, if you need to come to work. But the other thing is, a lot of people thought that if you drink, then you sleep well. It’s not true, actually, you know, right. And know that sleeping is not you can go like for 810 hours doesn’t matter. But it’s not high quality, it’s okay to have like one glass before the bad or whatever. But if if you drink, you know, heavily, that that’s not good. But you can like, delete your mind your thoughts in this way. I did it many times when I was.
Lisa Christen 28:36
Yeah, I mean, the point is, so many people will do an up for caffeine in the morning, in the afternoon throughout the day. 2345. And then they can’t fall asleep at night. So they need a glass of wine to relax, or they need a sleeping pill or something. You’re going too high and doing too low. Find the balance, right?
Jan Muhlfeit 28:57
Yeah, it is. It is what do we know about coffin? First, like 50% of the coffin is gone from your body in first two and a half, three hours. Then then the other part saying they’re eight to nine or nine hours, you know, right? There’s a there’s a podcast from you know, Andrew Huberman and he talks about it. Because if you have a coffee at four o’clock, you know, it can be that you still feel it that around the midnight you know, right? So
Lisa Christen 29:30
and people who say I don’t feel in coffee and doesn’t affect me that way, that tells me you’re not getting enough mental rest. No. But here’s something really interesting. There are two things that I still really want to make sure that we talked about because people will often say, okay, you know, social rest. How do I do that? How do I escape from people because here’s the thing that’s really important. Social rest all day you’re with colleagues. So you have have to act a certain way. You can’t just like Be yourself, then you come home and the family has needs, right? And then for most people in business, your free time, you’re often doing things like going to networking events now going to conferences in person again. So once again, you’re you’re not just sitting and being yourself and being relaxed. You’re always putting on your persona. Right? Here’s professional, Lisa, you just be Lisa. That is the kind of social rest you need. When I ask people, What do you do with your friends? For fun? It’s like, oh, I barely see my friends. Oh, I see them once a month, and we have a night out. Okay, so once a month, you’re getting social rest, where you’re with your friends where you can just be and the rest of the month you’re doing what? So I want you to really reconsider as you’re rethinking do I need to be working 14 hours a day? No. What do I want to fill that time with? A lot of people will just say, I’ll stay at home, I’ll watch a little more Netflix, I’ll get a more physical rest. I will spend time with the family. Please don’t forget to add in the social rest where you’re with friends. Not because there’s a purpose, not because it’s going to build your career. You don’t have to be doing something productive. This is the trap people are in. You need just the opposite. You need the unproductive time protected and built into your schedules.
Jan Muhlfeit 31:32
Yeah. Mica mica is saying I worked for huge international Finnish company established in 1848. And I immediately recognized what makes them going so long. It’s really not in many companies, you know, we’re having that history. Efficiency and care of all employee needs? Absolutely. You know, that’s
Lisa Christen 31:58
have to care about the person.
Jan Muhlfeit 32:00
Absolutely. That’s for sure. I think the to be fair to the companies, I think a lot of companies are really starting to think about, you know, mental health and stuff like that. But they don’t know how to do it, you know, right? Because there is like, there’s a push, like, we need to deliver on the quarter, you know, we need to and then hey, have a you know, rest and so on, you know, right? The one thing which is quite radical, you know, what I would if I would be very powerful man, I would say okay, let’s report towards three once a year. Because everybody talks about sustainable business. And we still report quarterly which means I mean, if it’s like the whole year, you know, if you if you play Bundesliga, whatever football or whatever sport, okay, this is the whole year, this is not like quarterly, you know, winner, right. But this this is like, what? I think the short termism is running a lot of, you know, stress and stuff like that, right?
Lisa Christen 33:04
Yes, absolutely. Everybody’s focused on the short term, we just need to get through today, we just need to get through this project, we get through this. But you’re in survival mode, everybody’s in survival mode. That’s why you’re overworked. That’s why you’re overwhelmed. That’s why we’re unhappy. That’s why spiritual is missing. For so many people. I was coaching someone recently. And I said to them, I feel like I’m not clear on what your purpose in life is or your purpose in your role. And they said, Oh, you know, it’s to be a good parent. I said, Okay, that’s a good value. What’s your purpose? You know, I do my job. Well, excellence is a really nice value, what’s your purpose? What had never thought about or hadn’t known what to think about didn’t even know purpose meant it has to be beyond you know, nothing wrong with this person. It’s we’re so focused on the short term, we’re so focused on the doing getting done achieving, we don’t stop and look, that’s where we don’t have the time for the social rest, the creative rest, the, you know, maybe we schedule it in and we pencil in it, but it’s not to enjoy, it’s just to stop the tenseness from the overwork and the overwhelm. We need to have a little bit of happiness like Bhutan has a little bit of joy. No, because
Jan Muhlfeit 34:27
look alive should not be race life should be adventure. Okay. And there is there is no nothing adventurous if you are like racing all the time. I mean, I like competition. I like races. I mean, I coach many, you know, top athletes, on the other hand, you know, I’m telling them if you will, like what do you do if that that activity will be your purpose, you know, right. You will have also good results. Now we talk about, you know, I think a lot of companies are really you know, By producing this fixed mindset, it’s all about the results. Okay, it is about the results. But we the best companies, as you know, mica rightly said the best companies are those who are taking care of the people who are taking care of the process. And we’re making sure that they use best in they people, and they people like what they do. Okay? Because if you if you have emotional connection to what you do, then chances are that you will have really long term good results. Right? And that’s about growth mindset. Right? Which, I mean, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a company or whether it’s a human being. But if you have that, you know, mindset, only based on the results. I think it’s not good, right? Yeah. And I love what you’re saying that we are mental food for the week. Thank you very much.
Lisa Christen 35:59
Well, then, let me add on top of that, if you were looking for a nice dessert to keep continuing the conversation, because here’s an insight that almost nobody knows. And it’s really important. Why a why are we often in our mental running, running, running? I have to have mental strength I have to. Actually, it’s because we’re afraid to face the emotional part of us. I’m feeling hurt. I’m feeling jealous. I’m feeling sad. I’m feeling stupid. I’m feeling not good enough. I’m feeling irrelevant. I’m feeling I can’t tell you how many people behind closed doors are like, what is this web three blockchain? Crypto NFT. I have no idea what it is. But I sit in meetings and talk about how it’s our future strategy. But they can’t say that out loud, right. So all the time they’re feeling I’m going to someone else is going to come in and take my role. I’m stupid, I don’t get this. I need to get this and then. And then instead of looking at those emotions and saying, Oh, I’m noticing I’m feeling fear. Let’s Why am I feeling fear? What’s that about? How am I Atrix? That, then they go live a mental strength over it, I will be afraid I’m the best. But that stuff is still there. So the mental effort it takes for you to go, I’m afraid. No, I’m not afraid. I’m the best, I’m afraid. No, I’m not afraid that you’re losing all your mental energy just running away from facing the emotions. And you could just face the emotions and clear them and move on.
Jan Muhlfeit 37:40
Yeah, no, unfortunately, people think that emotions are somehow wired in your brain. But emotions are created. That’s why we you can you know, rewire your brain. And you can you know, change your emotions. Definitely. Right. But first, you need to know where you are. Because if you are, for example, jealous of your competitors, or somebody else doesn’t matter, you need to realize, hey, this is it. You know, it’s this is perhaps not me, because it’s your amygdala is doing that, right? I mean, you should I mean, I’m for sure the people on this call, you know, you guys sometimes have like feeling I should kill that guy, you know, right? Are you killing somebody? Probably not, you know, right. This is your amygdala, you know, right? That feeling doesn’t mean you know, reality. That’s the problem. And you know, how many things that everything is fact. And then if you start to believe your monkey is right, then it those are definitely problems. And if you if you try to protect, look, everybody on the call, you can achieve much more in your life than you think you can achieve. Because your amygdala is slobbering your expectations in your brain to make sure hey, we play everything safe. Lisa Oriane to make sure that you you know those be successful ever, everybody will admire, right? And this is called impostor syndrome, it doesn’t mean that you are like, No, you are not under estimating yourself. But you have you know, you can achieve much more in your there’s something called negative bias because your amygdala is five to 10 times faster than your logical part of the brain. amygdala is quote, quote, protecting you to make sure that you will achieve that you know, right? Well, this is not, you know, really offensive because then you are in your comfort zone. And all you know, great things are happening out of the comfort zone, right? That’s why I’m saying always aim for the moon. If you miss the moon, you are still among the stars, you know, because you don’t you don’t know what you can achieve in your life. Unless you try, you know, right unless you try and maybe for the first time, you will not be successful. One thing I learned from Bill Gates, he was saying every no is the beginning of yes, very rarely succeed with version one, you know, we’ve got always version two, or usually version 3.0 was more successful. But 1.0 If you if you remember those of you who are like old like me, remember windows 2.1 Sorry, 1.0 it was not good version 2.0 It was good to play cards was already a very good product, but this is it. And it was the same with the other of you know, players there, right? It’s like, step by step. But this is it. And once you will figure it out, Hey, this is really you know, emotion is not you know, me, if you have some doubts, it doesn’t mean that it’s reality. Okay, guys, believe me, if you are depressed, your logical part of the brain is gone. It’s like cat more or less, you know, right. It’s not working. And your amygdala, quote, quote, is helping you but it’s, you know, putting all shit and saying, Hey, everything is wrong, everything is bad. And it’s not AI. Definitely when you recover it was you will see it’s not reality. And this is it. I’m not saying that people normally have depression, but they have small depressions. If they are not successful, sometimes they feel like that. Okay.
Lisa Christen 41:35
Yes, I often will talk about this. I say I noticed for myself when I go into victim mode, oh, my god, things are happening to me. And this is so hard. And I have a really easy mindset trick for that. Yes, this is happening. You have to accept the situation. You don’t cry about it. You don’t fight it anymore. You just say it is what it is. Now, here’s one step I can take. Now here’s one thing I can do. Doesn’t matter how small you need to get that feeling. It’s not happening to me, I have the power to do some when facing the situation. And sometimes I will tell people no matter what, and when someone says this is the worst situation of all time in COVID hit right? worst possible scenario? Where’s there a gift? Where is there some truth in there that could become an opportunity? Once you see it as a challenge and a problem, and you reframe it as an opportunity, you shift your brain you can get yourself out of the amygdala. Remember, we’re talking about hacking your brain, you don’t have to believe us that it works. You just have to trust us that it works and do it anyway. Even if you don’t believe it’s going to work. Do it and you’re going to see it does work.
Jan Muhlfeit 42:49
No, I do want to
Lisa Christen 42:51
make sure. Oh, I just want to make sure with all seven of these rests. We didn’t actually tell people okay, I have seven rests. I’m not resting enough. What do I What do I do? Where do I start? How do I begin? And young user did it perfectly. Oftentimes, I’ll ask people I’ll say think about it as a circle and a pie right? Cut into the seven pieces. And on a scale of one to 10 you can say how Where are you at with your rest? Right and each one of these areas you can read it and then you can you can literally draw this out and you can start to see is your circle round? Is it very small? I have no rest. Is it very big? I have lots of friends it’s a very bumpy is there 123 places where I’m not getting the rest maybe physical Yes, but creative No. Start with where you see your biggest deficit. Start with where you see the biggest challenge where you’re not, don’t try to change all seven at once. It’s too much. If you go step by step one by one
Jan Muhlfeit 43:57
Oh, I will follow up on what Lisa said about the live life happening to you or happening for you okay. And here you have like seven you know, form of the rest okay. Your life guys is not defined by conditions by environment, whatever your life is defined by your decisions, okay, by your decisions, and you are a decision maker in your life and then it really depends whether your life is happening to you or for you more decisions, independent decisions, you will make stronger, you know, person you will become a not all decision. I mean, I to be honest, look, I tell you what, when I was 12 years old, I came to the tennis club and the coach said you are too fat. You should do Sumo. And I was going home I was like crying. But after one day I recovered and I said nobody will decide and defy me. It’s me my life. I will you know, decide I will, you know, define who I am okay. And in one year I was the best player in the club and since that time I’m like that I made a lot of bad decisions in my life majority were good decisions, but still, you know, it was my decisions, okay, it was my decisions and more decisions you’re gonna make, it’s about self confidence, but it’s also also about that life happening you know, for you. There is a great points from mica good point Yeah, and most people still consider sustainability as go green on in my opinion, social sustainability focusing on the people is the key how to manage change is crucial to remember it. rica I already 10 years ago, I started to spoke about the fact that we need to take care of the you know, nature and global warming, whatever, while we should take care of or what I call human sustainability, okay? Because the human and it was clear already to me that people are under the huge you know, pressure, but unfortunately, we are not taking care enough. That’s number one. Okay, so there’s a huge pressure and you know, mental health it’s really a big challenge. Now, it has to do with the fact that there is only 16% of the people around the world who are self actualized which means there’s only 16% of the people who are doing you know something they really like So majority of the people they hate what they do, so there are tons of the cortisol release every day at the workplaces tons of the cortisol Okay, there is a lot of stress we are then we are you know, spending so much money for the healthcare because of the stress you know, the stress we paying the stress is major item in the national budget today. I can I mean, I don’t have a you know, hard numbers, but if like 90% of all illnesses are, you know, driven by the stress this is it. So we need definitely to take care of not only about the nature, which is great, but we need to take care about human beings. This is it, you know, absolutely.
Lisa Christen 47:16
And I’m glad I could bring joy with my nail polish color again.
Jan Muhlfeit 47:20
Oh, yeah. Next, I realize I have some athletes and they have like, on each and every, you know, finger, different color, you know, I will do
Lisa Christen 47:31
Okay, let’s do that look young and I will color coordinate our nail polish.
Jan Muhlfeit 47:39
Anyway, Michelle Miko my friend, Michelle is asking our most successful people who experienced failure in the life. Ilya, Ilya in de la Miko definitely mean in my view elior Do you fail better for you? You know, that’s for sure. Which means also, it has to do with the fact that if you are a risk taker, if you are curious, you probably will fail at some point. Come on in, alright. And then you recover more of a failure. We should not I tell you what, recently because I have many athletes and they talk about failures and they were beat. They lost and stuff. Like I said, I don’t want to hear this, okay, you win. Or you learn, which means that you win all I’m student, you need to change the mindset. And the student if you if you are like changing the mindset, the key word to me, it’s it is a student. Student is a new word. You know, you’re like learning. Okay, I lost, I learned, you know, let’s move on. Right. But definitely, Mikkel, I would be very much interested about Lisa opinion, but I think elior you fare better for you.
Lisa Christen 48:51
Yes, me call. I was just last week giving a presentation to Stanford graduate students who are looking about pitching and how do they pitch with confidence? And I said, right, rule number one for pitching with confidence is to reset your expectations. If your expectation is I’m going to work hard and I’m going to get it perfect, then you feel like I failed. It’s not really about did I fail? If you set your expectation. I said, How many times do you think the average entrepreneur is going to pitch before they actually get a deal? To fire 510 50 100? I don’t know. But let’s be realistic. It’s your first time running a business. You’re not going to get funded the first round set your expectation that it’s going to take 50 pitches. If it only takes 10 That’s great. Absolutely no failure even though you fell nine times because you have to reset and reframe your expectation of what success is going to look like in the end. so young when he was young and his coach said not going to happen. If he had taken that failure as a truth, then no having failures earlier on in life would have been more traumatic would have put him more into protect mode. If he took that as a reinforcement. Oh, yeah, I’ll show you. And then he did it. That reinforced in his mind, you see, when someone says, No, you can do it anyway. So it’s not about the failure in and of itself. It’s setting the expectation and how you react to the failure, no matter what stage you are in life, although the younger you are, the more malleable your brain is. I put it in for my daughters all the time, like, Yeah, but it’s not a failure. That’s just part of the process to getting to success, like, and we don’t even call it failure, we just say that’s the process to success. And then that becomes normal for them. And this is the key, it has to feel normalized, it has to feel okay, it can’t feel upsetting. It can’t, you know, it should just feel like okay, this is a thing we do on the way to success, very successful people. I cut out, they hit challenges, and then they go cool. And what’s the new opportunity? Cool. And what did I learn? Cool? And how do I pivot on that? Wow, what a creative thing to do. How do I do this? So they don’t let the failures hurt them, stop them or bring them down?
Jan Muhlfeit 51:29
That is a there is a huge difference. You can say, I will never be there or I will never be that good. Or you may say I’m not there yet. It’s a very different if you are saying you know, I will never be there. It’s fixed mindset. I am not there yet. It’s a growth mindset. You are making some progress. You are not there yet. Some schools in us, Raisa. Are you there? Now you get you get cut. I can see Lisa on LinkedIn moving whatnot. Okay. Lisa, how are you dad?
Lisa Christen 52:15
We have a thunderstorm happening now. Yeah, so we have a thunderstorm and I live in the countryside. So as soon as the weather goes bad the internet.
Jan Muhlfeit 52:24
Okay, that’s okay. Only on the LinkedIn, you are moving, you know, only a first team. Anyway. So slowly, but surely, shortly, don’t worry. We have like seven minutes to go. There was a huge when I was flying to Barcelona, that was a huge thunderstorm like 200 kilometers we were already sending. So it was like my biggest fear these days, you know? Absolutely. Anyway, so there are schools in the US instead of the fail, they are using not yet. Yeah, which is, which is quite, you know, interesting.
Lisa Christen 53:08
And I can tell you, my daughter who’s in second grade, by the way, in Switzerland, they don’t take tests until third grade. So she’s taking her first set of tests in second grade to know what it will be like in third grade. And she had her math test today. Okay, and what are the questions that I asked? Right? I asked her Hey, what what felt hard for you while you were doing that? What felt easy for you what felt fun for you about that? And then when we’ll get the results back, it won’t be what was your grade? How did you do? We’re just going to talk through it. Oh, what was the best part of that? What would you know? What was the experience? Like? What are you curious now to learn going forward? And it’s a conversation. It’s not a grade, and this is what’s missing from school children, but also in the workplace. It’s not that you did bad or good. It’s not an evaluation. It’s not a right or wrong. It’s a never ending infinite cycle of learning. So why give a grade on it? We just talked about what are you curious about for the next time what are we looking at for the next time and the next time? It’s
Jan Muhlfeit 54:11
a process so ACDC is blank Melissa they must be like 80 years old, I think ACDC
Lisa Christen 54:25
still rockin they must do their seven rests pretty well.
Jan Muhlfeit 54:29
I think there’s something you know, interesting. They do.
Lisa Christen 54:34
Yeah, we got to study them. As we’re wrapping up today, is there anything else from those of you who are attending live that you want to know about how to implement
Jan Muhlfeit 54:46
maybe some techniques for the rest you guys are doing to share with the others you know, right?
Lisa Christen 54:51
Yes, I love that.
Jan Muhlfeit 54:55
Yeah, the one thing I would mention, which is really helped me a lot It’s Wim Hof, which is like cold water and breathing technique, and it’s it’s good for your immunity, but it’s great for mental energy and emotional energy. It’s really you know, good. Even like in the morning if you’re like, hey, you know, I’m tired or whatever and you get this, you know, cold shower and dependent, that breathing exercise is great. Yes. Me has also experienced school. Yes, he’s
Lisa Christen 55:28
I hope Oregon is a little more civilized than where we are. One thing I do want to say, I’ll give you a perfect example. I went to a networking conference last Thursday on Friday, but instead of going in, I have to impress I have to show up a certain way I have to get business. What I did is I said, I’m going to make this a social rest. Yeah, I’m gonna look at this as like a nice fun getaway weekend happens to be with some great and interesting people. I can have some interesting intellectual conversations. I didn’t even bring business cards. But because I was there relaxed ready, I was recovering. I was open to connecting while I met, you know, two, three women who just were stand up connections for me, I don’t need to meet 100 people, right? I need to two or three. And one of the women that I connected with is Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter. And I was talking to her because I said Africa lately has been calling me I’ve never been I have no idea why. Something about Africa’s like, Lisa, you need to have and I said it’s It’s faith that I’ve met you. And I would really like can I give you a call when I come and visit? She’s like, Yeah, sure. Give me a call. So I’m like, so now I have her name is Swati Mandela. She does amazing work on bringing women’s voices out. So I’m like, How can I get there? How can I support your mission? How can I go to South Africa and experience it the way Nelson Mandela is granddaughter would get there. And that’s what you get when you stop forcing it and you show up with a resting mindset to all that you do?
Jan Muhlfeit 57:12
No, look, when I was young, it was always like, hey, you know, how many business cards can I you know, exchange and it’s like, at the end of the day, you are not able to be in touch with those people. So you need to be very picky. What do you want to achieve? You know, right and is it is the same like right now rather people approaching like if I speak some people like approaching you know, me is the same thing. I cannot it’s like 100 people sometimes in the line I cannot you know answer all questions I try to answer as as much as I can. I give them hey, there is a business car you can you write me whatever. But but this is it. Because if your interest is if it’s Africa, definitely there is a granddaughter of Nelson Mandela. That’s the that’s the it no contact, definitely. But what you should, you know, like, figure it out in your life, there’ll be a lot of people and a lot of interests and other books. But life is short, you are not able to make happy everybody, okay? And it’s your life, your you know, I mean, it’s good to make, you know, happy other people through something you laugh, you know, but it doesn’t need to be necessarily on one on one basis. That’s why I try to do like, you know, live with Lisa and in Czech language, and there’s the online Gods whatever, you know what I but I cannot do it because I’m getting a lot of requests to coach people on what basis and the day is having, I still need to get like eight hours, you know, sleep. I do like two, three hours, all day, every day. So you need to pray that what I’m saying you need to prioritize basically, right and you you prioritize, kind of try to build a win win, and you will not make everybody happy. But that’s, that’s like, you know,
Lisa Christen 59:01
that’s right. Prioritize your rest show up with this growth mindset, this abundance mindset show up with a rest mindset Wait, Leon, and I literally plan our lives around how do we make sure we have these types of risks, and it works out because then you can be at your best. And then you can find the clients or attract the clients or have the clarity to know who you want to be with. And then you can be more intentional, and you can create the life that you want. It’s all very simple. Instead of playing someone else’s game and someone else’s rules, you start prioritizing you and start with the seven types of rest to really get the best out of yourself.
Jan Muhlfeit 59:41
It is my addition, you know, when I was 50 years old, I was as you know, deeply depressed for six months. And I realized that you know, my energy is much more important than the money or the results or whatever because if I will not have any energy, there are no return. However there are no results that’s why like recovery and renewal is really very important because your energy and your health is key I mean it’s the base for everything unless you have an energy and health there’s no way you know to do whatever you want you know right and and again, you know, recovery is not weakness recovery is part of the process you know, and you should enjoy it you know, as much as you enjoy your performance whatever your performance is, Miguel is like scientists and you know, you should enjoy also recover because once you will start to enjoy recovery, your life will change, I can guarantee you
Lisa Christen 1:00:46
Yes, I’m actually very much looking forward to going to bed right after this phone call.
Jan Muhlfeit 1:00:53
One more tennis play like Junior Tennis bocce placed and people don’t also what a week from now, by then. Okay.
Lisa Christen 1:01:05
Thanks, everyone for joining. Let us know if you have a very particular topic you’d like to talk about. And otherwise we’ll see you again right here in two weeks time. Thank you