Simple Practices That Help With Brain Hygiene With Wendy Swire

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Wow. I'm so glad that this is what came up. And I want to lay out the roadmap for myself in this moment for how I'd like to track what you just said and see if you buy into this. So there's this voracious curiosity, which is so cool to meet somebody who's curious, because I think a lot of times curiosity is a thing that sort of peaks in childhood. And it's sort of in a process of setting, sunsetting after that for some time. But that curiosity and you becoming a brain geek in the work that you do, I want to sort of layer that on the idea that your dad also modeled for you the way of being— the philosophy, if you will, even of being successful as an entrepreneur or in other areas of life. It's really about work ethic. And the way that I want to approach this is from the standpoint of our research on resilience in many ways is pitting 2 philosophies or 2 paradigms against one another. And the first one I'm going to call like a 20th century paradigm. That's just a random way that we assign a way to look at it. But that paradigm is one where tenacity, grit, perseverance, the things that I was raised on, you were raised on, a lot of people have been raised on this idea that if there was just one thing that would help us be successful, it would be our willpower, our ability to grit and grind. No matter what. So there's that I'll call 20th century paradigm for resilience. And then there's a 21st century paradigm that we talk about based on our research, which is not about endurance. It's about recovery. It's about restoration. It's not about how we endure, but how we restore. And those 2 things are— were not really visibly in conflict until the pandemic.

Oh, wow.

And then the pandemic shows up and people are exhausted, and we have this massive resignation and quiet quitting, and people are anxious levels that anxiety has never been visible in this way before. So all that to say, can you share a little bit about maybe dad's work ethic programming for you and this idea of how our brains work and ultimately how we maintain curiosity Especially when, if you're tired, if you're depleted, if you're exhausted, you're probably not too curious either. That's a mouthful.

No, it's a lot. It's wonderful. And I absolutely love the model because it's absolutely true. I think this idea of grit it out and just work to the bone. Unfortunately, I was raised to work hard. Okay. But do it in a place I had, again, my father was a role model. He loved what he did. So he did it with joy and satisfaction and he felt he was doing something purposeful. And I think those models, and I think you're right, some of the research, Angela Duckworth's grit, some of this is really getting looked at now that it's really not necessarily the best paradigm. You absolutely must, must, must have recovery to be at peak performance. And I think you and I are singing off the same sheet of music here. The brain must have recovery. It is not a waste of time. Yeah. And I love what you say, self-care is not selfish. Absolutely not. And we know that from brain science. So when you want to be at peak performance, your brain must sleep. It must sleep. Otherwise, if you think you can skip sleep, you're being a fool because the brain is more active when it is sleeping than when you are awake. So you must take time to reflect. To be at peak performance, and I know your listeners, they care about that. Reflection, whether it be journaling or taking a walk in nature and thinking, is critical. So I think that what I have learned is that you can have both. You can work hard, and it's not work hard, play hard even. It's you can feel fulfilled because you're working hard. That's the work ethic. So everything I've done is because I've worked hard, but I've also tapped into the curiosity. Yeah. I absolutely honor that the brain needs exercise and hydration and rest and having time with friends, all of these practices. I wouldn't say I work hard and I work long because I love what I do, but I take my self-care very, very seriously. And you will find that people at peak performance and high performers do. They really do. They sleep, they eat, they fuel themselves, they take time for one of the things I know you talk about, a spiritual resilience. So it's the whole deal.

Yes. And I want to dive into the superfood aspect of this that you said curiosity is like a superfood for the brain. I want to talk about what other superfoods there are, literally or figuratively, that will help people with their brain recovery. And in part, I want to just say this to the audience because It's a foregone— well, there's tremendous research suggests that we're going to live longer, and you may anecdotally be seeing this already, but people are going to live longer. So that's the good news. If you're watching this, listening to this right now, you're going to live longer. And it's likely that with each year that you live, that some additional time is going to get added onto your clock because of advances in science, advances in technology, so many things that are just going to continue to elongate, expand the, what's possible in terms of normal longevity. But what is also shockingly the case is that our brains and our brain health may not make the trip, may not make the journey with us the way our bodies do. And I don't know about you, and I want to get your thoughts on this, Wendy. I can't think of anything that would be more devastating than to see someone you love in cognitive decline. And especially if that person is the person sitting in your seat right now. Wow. Because that would just be devastating, not just to me, to all the people that would become your caregivers, your family, the people that will be devastated to see you just not be the person you were. So we've gotta take care of our brains. And that's in part the reason why we wanted to have you on the show today to talk about this because it's so vitally important. So Let's talk about superfoods for the brain. Okay.

Let's talk about superfoods for the brain or even brain hygiene. Okay. Another way you can think about this is we have personal hygiene. We shower. Most of us shower every day. In some cultures, you don't as much, but we also have good dental hygiene. You need sleep. You need brain hygiene. And your brain is the most powerful information transfer system on the planet. Let me repeat that. There's nothing more powerful than that 3-pound mass of basically, you know, I've held a brain. It feels like tofu. There's nothing more powerful, so you must honor and respect it. There's a couple of things you can do. One is, I think I mentioned curiosity, just learning. The brain is starving for new knowledge and information. As we get older, we get in patterns. We get more comfortable. I know I've become a little more inward-looking during the pandemic, a little more introverted. Oh, do I want to go out? My husband's like, no. Okay. We've gotten into some patterns. But the brain loves novelty, and that will stimulate— basically, it stimulates brain cells. Dendrites, which are at the end of the cell, start to grow. Well, actually, they show growth. So again, and we're not talking, well, I play cards once a week, or I golf. I've been golfing for 20 years, so I'm going to go to a new golf club. I know you're in San Diego. Golf. I'm going to take a new golf club or try a new course. No, we're talking— You pick up pickleball or you're going to learn chess or you want to challenge your brain, learn Chinese. I mean, you do something really hard and challenging and it's like, whoa, it is just going to wake up your brain. Okay? And we know that. In the pandemic, I've never done crossword puzzles. I've always admired people who can do them. And I just started, I know anything, just pick up something new. There's a practice you can take. It's called the 30-Day Neuroplasticity Challenge. I've done it for a while. Challenge yourself to learn something new for 30 days. If you always wanted to write fiction, write a spy novel in 30 days. If you've wanted to learn a new sport or something, just do it for 30 days. You want to learn to make— cook or something, or learn how to anything, and you do it for 30 days. It's fantastic for your brain. I did cartooning. I'm the worst drawer in the world, Adam, and I learned to kind of do cartooning. It was just for fun. Okay. Or bake, whatever. So again, that's a wonderful thing for your brain. So I would say that's thing one for just good superfood for your brain. Thing 2, I mentioned is sleep.

And I want people to remember this term brain hygiene, cuz I've never heard it before and I'm gonna repeat it and I'm gonna share it with as many people as I can. Love it. Love it. Cuz I think it's just a, we get it right when it's simple and we get it, we go, oh yeah, brain hygiene.

Okay. Brain hygiene. Yeah, 100%. Okay. 2, I've mentioned sleep. We could do a whole session on sleep. Yes, we should. I'm sure you've had guests on sleep. Please take your sleep seriously. For my parents who are listening, this is critical for our children, particularly if they're in learning environments. We are competing against the algorithms of these powerful devices. I get it. But prioritizing sleep is probably, I think, one of my superpowers that has fueled my success.

Yeah.

You have to have sleep hygiene to get ready to sleep, but that's a whole separate— we could go down that if you want. Number 3, hydration. And know what? I know when I'm talking, I sound like things that grandma or your auntie used to say, but it really is true. The brain is over 50% water.

Yep.

Hydrate. The reason at 3 o'clock you are tired and really tired and you run for the Red Bull or the cup of coffee or the donuts, for many of us, it is because our brains are very, very, very tired. And they are dehydrated because you've been using them so much. So that is why you need to hydrate. Super important, I would say, is hydration and water. And if you're not a person who's drinking water, put some lemon in it. But it is just for the way the neurons fire, they need water. It's really, really important. I would say that's 3.

Yeah.

I can go on with some more, but those would be the 3 I would start with. And I'm not—

I'm gonna add a 4th one, and I know you're gonna say it's on your list, but I wanna just bring it up because there are 2 things I heard when it comes to our brain health that we can't do without. You've mentioned water, which I'm really glad you brought up the hydration piece, cuz I hadn't really heard so much about that, even though relative to a million other things, the hydration's been on my radar. So thank you for bringing that up, Wendy. It was sleep and it, and movement and exercise.

Oh yeah. Movement. Look, Movement, I think that to me is a given. Physical fitness, you need that for part of your mental fitness. Absolutely. Really, really, really important. I think the other one I'm going to suggest to you that I think is really, really important is just a gratitude practice.

Hmm.

Because the brain has a built-in negativity bias. The brain is built in and wired to be negative. That's what kept us alive. And there are circuits of the brains that are there to protect you. You have a 24-hour ADT alarm system going in your brain. It's happening right now. That is there to protect you. And it's built to keep you on alert and high alert to protect your body. To protect this asset. It's beautiful primitive wiring. We've had it for a couple hundred thousand years. It's really not serving us today. So what do you can do to counteract the brain's built-in negativity bias?

Indeed. Yeah, I mean, the cognitive load, I think people don't quite get this. And where it became obvious to me that we are not all getting this is when you hear, and maybe you have heard this from those around you or others, that 29-year-olds are complaining that their brains can't keep up, that 30-year-olds feel like their best days are behind them, that they're feeling as though in the tech space or in some other area, that they're working in might be marketing or some other thing that they just aren't as able to think quickly enough and creatively quickly enough as their 23-year-old, you know, the next wave of startup entrepreneurs and folks. And that's just shocking. But I think on one level it is, but it begs the question, well, how did they feel that way? Why would they feel that way? But our cognitive load has changed. Can you say anything about what that Yeah. What that looks like between, like, this decade and 2 decades ago, right before the smartphone came into everybody's hands in 2008 or so.

Oh yeah, I think you've hit onto something. I work with a lot of people in the tech space, actually. They're a large part of my client base. I think you hit onto something that's fascinating, and that I can tell you that the neuroscientists, in 10, 20, 30 years, we will know the impact of the devices and multitasking. The research is just too new right now in terms of long-term, longitudinal studies and things like that. However, I think common sense will tell you, and what I wrote in my book, I call it cognitive capacity overload, CCO. Your brain can only take in a finite amount of information. We are not designed to live in the modern world as it is designed. To multitask. It's just that dumbs you down. In fact, if you continue to do these practices, you get signs. If you continue to live with such high levels of stress and this kind of cognitive overload, it actually shows signs of your brain will basically have patterns of like ADHD. You can't focus, you can't concentrate. That's why when you're working like this and so much information is coming into the brain, Sensory information, visual information.

Literally every second.

Every second. Billions of pieces.

Waking second of your day. Every second.

Billions of pieces. Your brain is processing billions of pieces of information per second. Let me be clear, billions. And so of course you're tired. That's why you're fatigued. That's why all you want to do at the end of the day is just turn on a video and veg out because your brain is exhausted. But what's so interesting to me On this is that you need to understand that we were not meant to do this. And by continuing to do this, and society rewards it, it rewards it. And you have to, for me, you've got very, very powerful tech companies. And again, I love social media. I'll get on Facebook or Instagram and I'll go down a rabbit hole sometimes and I'll look at the algorithms and, oh, this is really interesting. And I'm on it for half an hour. And I will never ever get that TikTok time back in my life. Okay? But those algorithms are designed to create addictive patterns that keep you engaged and your brain just wants more and more, and then it is cognitively overloading. So again, how you are swimming upstream if you're saying, I'm not gonna do this.

Hey, you know what? Just parenthetically, that statement you just made 3, 4 years ago might've been revelatory. Right now, I think we all know, I mean, like everybody knows that that's what's happened. And that's what was happening. And this is the real true mark of great addiction, if you could call it that, is that it doesn't matter that people know that that's what's happening, and yet they cannot stop themselves, nor will they will themselves to stop consuming all that content or diving into those rabbit holes. That's what's really amazing now.

Right. But anyway, I'm sorry. But remember, you're fighting, but you're fighting against— you literally are going to battle against algorithms That are there to create cognitive capacity overload. So it's hard. Like, I wanna acknowledge it is hard, and I love doing this stuff as much. But again, if our theme is resiliency, peak performance, living a life where you feel, as we talked, you were alluding to it, I'm gonna get the best out of my brain for the long term, and I'm playing a long-term game. I am playing a long-term game here. Then just 3 or 4 of these practices, as you said, physical movement, critical for your brain. Sleep, good fuel your brain properly. All of these things, it's so simple, but it's not.

Yeah. And of course you're tired. That's what you said. Of course you're tired.

Of course. Of course.

Because when you're in, in this constant cognitive arousal state where your cognitive capacity overload is being triggered pretty early in the day, I'd be curious when we hit overload. I haven't seen too much study around the concept, you know, like sort of when in the day, cuz we all live a little bit different rhythmic patterns, but let's just say we're on a circadian clock. So mostly the same. We get up around the same time and we work around the same time and we go to sleep around the same time. So when do we hit that overload? I mean, you put one out there earlier. For me, it was always like 2 o'clock in the afternoon. That's when I'd be reaching for the coffee or something. And now in my book, Change Proof, we talk about certain practices, and I'll share one with you, and then I wanna get some of the practices For our folks that are listening to this that you use or that when you're consulting to an organization and you're talking about, alright, are we gonna change the fact right now that there is this abundance or even an ever-expanding content that is the stream of content that we cannot turn off, will not turn off? Like, again, we can know it that it's coming, and yet we won't do anything about it. The question is, how do we recover from that? Or shield ourselves, or what's the right method? So in the afternoon today, now instead of taking coffee at 2 o'clock, I will do my legs up the wall, which is as simple as it sounds. I'm literally gonna lie down on the ground, put my legs up the wall vertically to create an L shape with my body. I'll put something dark over my eyes. I'll set a timer on my phone. I might listen to, like, Insight Timer or some meditation or something. Right? But 20 minutes is gonna be the alarm on it. I'm not gonna sleep past 20 if I fall asleep at all or whatever. But when I do that for 20 minutes, I will stand up. And, and for years that I've been doing it, people always thought I was outta my mind at the beginning, right? Right. I stand up from that now. It's as though I've started, like, I'm back to where I was cognitively speaking. And from an energy and an enthusiasm standpoint, I'm back where I was at 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm not grumpy. People say, ah, that sounds like a nap. Like, I get up grumpy, I get up groggy, and neither of those things. So that's my go-to. Wendy, I want to know what some of your go-tos are.

Well, first of all, that is wonderful. You're getting so much blood flowing. It's a great exercise, kind of a yogic move. I love it. So listeners, this is a great one. Okay, a couple things. I think there is interesting research. People are on different circadian rhythms, but as you said, most people in the working world are on a 9 to 5, 9 to 6 kind of rhythm, unless You have that flexibility. So I think there's a couple. One, absolutely take breaks throughout the day. Non-questionable. It's one of the questions I will always ask if you work with me as a coach. I mean, how many breaks do you take a day? Are they intentional breaks? Are you working through lunch? Stop doing that. Take a 5-minute break. Absolutely, you must get movement. The body needs oxygen. It needs fresh oxygen. What Adam is describing, what you're describing, is you're getting oxygen to your brain. Nature. There's some fascinating research on nature. Getting outside, getting some fresh air, particularly if you're in an office building working from home. Get some movement in the afternoon would be exactly what I would say. All right. I would say, how do you start your mornings? Do you have rituals in the morning? What are they? Are they intentional? The word is whatever you do it, do it with intentionality. When I am taking my shower, Are you going through your to-do list or are you taking this as a 5-minute— it's a mindfulness kind of thing where I'm just going to feel the water and relax and just think about something wonderful or let your mind wander. You will probably do better thinking if you let your mind wander in the shower than if you're like going through, okay, when I get out of the shower, then I got to shave and then I got to jump in the car and get to Starbucks. No. Take that time and let your brain relax or set an intention for the day. And I've got clients like, Wendy, I'm a working parent. I don't have time for this. We're not talking adding time, right? You're going to brush your teeth anyways. Add something positive in there. Do a positive gratitude practice, right? The first thing I do when I hit the ground is I have a practice. I hit the ground like, today's going to be an amazing day. I'm so happy to be alive. Or something, anything. Here's a little fun one. If you have pets, just be with your pets for a couple minutes. It sounds silly, but just pet your pet. Just be present. In my book, I call it being present, aware, and focused. Just take a minute and just be present of something in the moment, and that will quiet and calm your sympathetic nervous system if you don't have time to get the legs up the wall or take a 15 or 20-minute walk. But again, why are you doing this? To be intentional, to be at peak performance, to be the best person you can be running your business or as a parent or whatever you want to do. This is critical.

Is there also, Wendy, an optimal period for you that when you've— in your work that you find that a break of this length of time is optimal? Is there any such thing like that for you?

Well, I always take a lunch break. I will always take a lunch break and go outside no matter the weather. Take a little walk. I usually sometimes in the sun, like in the summer, I'll sit outside. I will always get some fresh air at lunch. I will always like, I hold that as time where I'm not working. That's one I will do. I don't have an optimal time because my schedule's kind of funky. I work different days, different hours, but I will hold my mornings as really—

Oh, I'm sorry. My question was inartful. I apologize. I meant in terms of the duration, because a lot of times people say, how long? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Okay. Duration. According to the methodology that I use on mental fitness, you don't need a lot of time. You need 2, 3 minutes, maybe a minute.

Exactly.

That's the short part, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Neuroscience. And this one makes sense to me, and I'm sure it does for you, and you're a proponent of it. You're going to breathe anyways. The beautiful thing about your cerebellum, And deep limbic system and the autonomous nervous system is you are going to breathe regardless. That's why your brain is so beautiful and so magical to me. Your brain takes care of all your autonomic functions. You do not need to worry about breathing. Your brain takes care of it. You don't need to worry about blinking your eyes or your liver flushing, or for example, all these things, your heart beating. It takes care of it for you. However, if you can take a minute or two and pay attention, basically these somatic markers, it's interoception. If you can just spend a minute on it, it's very calming to your nervous system and it doesn't take a lot of time. So in my methodology, 3 deep breaths can reset the nervous system.

Exactly. Box breathing. There's so many things that people can do in 60 seconds.

That's right.

To reset their nervous system.

100%. And when people say, I don't have time, I'm like, your energy will follow your focus. Your intentions will follow— your actions will follow your intentionality. So what's stopping you? What is stopping you from right now listening as you're listening to this, just taking a deep breath and pausing or looking outside? One of my favorites, and again, this is an easy one, the maestro Leonardo da Vinci, who I adore, I went through a period, I was obsessed with Leonardo da Vinci and his creativity. But he said you're supposed to look at the sky 7 times a day and notice the color. Just look outside and notice the color of the sky or the tree. Very wonderful thing to do. Well, why don't we do that? Well, I don't have time. Of course you have time. Of course you do. You're sitting, you can look outside. You have time to spend a minute breathing before your next Zoom meeting. Before you get on, take 3 deep breaths. That's the power of, in your model, of that resiliency is also intentionality. It's not energy management, it's not even time management, it's focus management.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new, but the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to ResilienceRank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to ResilienceRank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Indeed, it very much is. I get the honor. I know you do as well to be a Resilience keynote speaker. I or or they'll sometimes have me come in to talk about stress management or work-life balance or anxiety even in the workplace or mental health in the workplace. And I love the opportunity to speak on those topics because they're such different areas, and yet they have so many common threads. There's so many things that's literally the same that runs through them. And one of them is this idea that our recovery can be so simple when we just get this one. Concept. I'm in favor of going and spending a week in Los Cabos. I'm ready to do it. I'll do it anytime or go to Kauai. I mean, we had a trip there a few weeks ago, but that's not what gets me through a year. It's not what creates productivity for me on a day-to-day basis in a year. That vacation was spectacular. We have pictures from it, but in terms of it being in my body, it's gone. It was gone from my body. The day I flew home. And we all know what that feels like. But these rituals that take 30 seconds, 60 seconds, or sometimes for us, when I talk about this in terms of, like, a light switch, we call it a toggle. And the toggle method is literally like turning on and turning off, turning on and turning off. How many times during the day do you consciously flip the light switch off and then on?

Oh,

yeah. And that off-on Is every time you flip it off, it's that opportunity to recharge. And that flip doesn't need to be an hour. It can be 30 seconds, 60 seconds. For us, the sweet spot tends to be between 5 or 10 and 30 minutes, which gives you that time to be able to put your legs up the wall or take a walk or eat your lunch more consciously, slowly chewing your food, like the kinds of things our grandparents would tell us about. Right? Yeah. Or as Da Vinci— now, I've not heard this one, so thank you so much, Wendy. Get out and look at the sky. There's a great deal of research when it comes to our sleep that, again, the concept of our nighttime rhythm, our daytime rhythm, circadian, ultradian rhythms, that what can help you to sleep better at night is simply to get out in the morning and look at the sun at the beginning of the day.

Yeah.

If there's sun in the sky, get out and look at it. I mean, for 5 minutes. Hello? Look at the sky for 5 minutes. It's going to help you to sleep better at night. If you get out around dusk, around when the sun is setting or has set, and you just walk outside for a few minutes and look at the sky when it is setting, it will help you to sleep better at night. These are simple, simple things.

Yeah. And you know what I love about your approach, your methodology? It's very grounded in brain science. It really is. And it can be simple. Simple can be elegant. I don't want And that's why I'm a huge fan of yours. I don't want people to think, well, this is not that complicated. Oh, you know, then it's not. No, no, no. That's a myth. Again, you're swimming against society if that just praises complexity. That's why we love Google, you know, the homepage. It's simple. That's why we like an iPhone. It's simple. Yeah. These beautiful, ancient, simple practices, they're ancient. You can call them contemplative practices, but some of them are coming from ancient wisdom traditions, are just vital. And we need it more now than ever, ever. And it's a plea I have with my clients, and I'm sure you do with your audiences. Let's take just 5 minutes and appreciate being alive and breathing and all these little things you're doing. Very powerful work, Adam. And it's really grounded. And these little things build up and are life-changing. That's the key thing I want. If you take on some of the practices, listeners, at Adam's suggestion, you will see the brain will start to rewire. Now, it takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Unlike physical fitness, where if you start running to the gym and really doing it consistently, you will see your biceps and your triceps, you'll see muscle gain. Mm-hmm. You are creating different circuitry in your brain. You don't see it, though. It's invisible, but it will happen, and you will notice subtle shifts in resilience, in endurance. It happens. The change happens. It's powerful work.

Yeah. There's an element, Wendy, of— I mean, I'm going to use a word that's not necessarily a word we hear in science very much, but I do think that it's possible for these things to be integrated still further. Even without calling— I'm going to use the word faith, but I don't mean religion. And it's not because I'm bashing religion. I don't happen to be a big religion guy, but I'm certainly a very spiritual person. To me, that means that I'm not a believer in randomness. I believe in integration and intelligence in the universe and an expanding universe. But regardless of that, I'm not thinking of faith in those terms even now in this conversation because it's That to be able to understand— here's faith to me. You plant a seed. Let's say it's a tulip bulb or something like that. You plant it in the spring, and in the fall, there's something that's going to shoot out of the ground. You plant it in the fall, there's something in the spring that's going to shoot out of the ground. You don't know that that's happening because you can't see it. It's under the ground. There's an element of faith, scientifically speaking, That what's under the ground produces what's above the ground. That's how we know that we can have a crop that we can— that where we're gonna eat, we don't have to worry the way our ancient ancestors did that maybe there would be no food. We understand the way cause and effect works that way. That's, to me, faith. So what you're talking about that's so powerful is that to do these things, you have to have an element of faith. That's the— in our resilience quadrant, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual. The spirit part is, in many ways, that understanding that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not— you can believe it even if you can't see it. Because, yeah. Does that make sense to you, Wendy?

100%. I'm happy to talk about— I didn't think we'd talk about faith. I'm happy to go there. Yeah, absolutely. And I love the metaphor of the bulb. I had never thought of that, and I'm going to use that. That's really nice. I mean, I don't know how electricity works. Most people don't, but it works. But we love it and we know when we turn on the light, it works. So yeah, absolutely. And I just love the fact that you're bringing in all 4 of those because I think all 4 of those are critical to resilience. But I also think the brain, when there's balance like that, it's good for overall brain health to think in those different quadrants and different domains. So yeah, really fun, fun stuff here.

Your book is called— would you share?

Sure. My book is called Anytime Coaching. And it's a book that I wrote that really is kind of a manager for managers coach, and it's available. And it really is, I believe, I come out of the coaching field and there's some neuroscience in it. I was very happy the second edition, we were able to get some neuroscience in the book. And I will send that to you. So if you want to put it in the listener notes, and I have something for your listeners, more information that they'll be able to find it. But basically coaching, asking— another really interesting thing, if you want to pivot and go there, is how you are with other people, that emotional piece, your interactions, the questions you're asking, the company you keep. Are you around a lot of toxic people? What kind of conversations are those? Those kinds of things also are important because they will create those emotions, and emotions we know will create different neurochemicals. So that is also something to be really, really mindful of, the company you keep, whether it's toxic, the conversations you're in. So one of the things about coaching is that you can engage in coaching conversations, right? You don't have to be a coach to ask powerful questions, to have meaningful conversations. So the book is meant for anybody. Anybody can learn to coach. I went to Georgetown Leadership Coaching School. You don't need to go to Georgetown. You don't need to go to a coaching program. There's common sense things that you can do to help you have more meaningful conversations and more meaningful relationships.

I personally, that drops deeply for me because I think in many ways there's this thing that happens, and I actually tell a bit of this story from stage 2 because I make a bit of a joke of it. I put up a picture of Joey Tribbiani. And we all know, right, Joey from Friends. And what was his funny, famous thing he would say to people is, how you doing? Right?

Mm-hmm.

Hey, how you doing? And there was a time I had longer hair than I do now. People, haha. I'm, I have a beautifully shaven head now these days. But back then I would get mistaken. People would say to me, you look just like that guy from Friends or whatever. And so I could do the whole, how you doing thing. And I think that's a problem in the workplace because while so many organizations are becoming more conscious of the need for wellbeing, and in many ways our organization is committed to corporate wellbeing, that's the bigger sort of brand promise of our company, is that we help create more wellbeing in the workplace. And part of that is to talk about this way of doing That how you doing thing. They say they want to know more. They wanna understand their workforce, their people more. They wanna support them to be more productive, to be happier, to be, you know, not have to feel like they need to quit or whatever, try to find the grass being greener elsewhere kind of thing. And I say to them, so stop asking this question that no longer works. And it may never have worked again anyway, because when I ask somebody, how you doing? Or you do that, Wendy, what do you normally hear people say?

Fine.

That's it. Yeah.

Good question. It's a weak question.

It's a weak question. And in where I grew up, it was always met usually with the same question back when nobody ever answered it. It was like ping pong. You just like literally go, how you doing? Like, oh, how are you doing? And literally nobody answered the question anyway. And if they did, it was like, ah, you know, hanging in there fine, good, whatever. You know, like that was the answer. It's the wrong question. So then the next thing I show is a picture of the guy that I get Compared to these days, which is like Stanley Tucci. So, and now, so the question is no longer how you doing.

That's a great compliment to be both.

It's a great compliment, right? I love Stanley Tucci. So, I wish I could cook like him. But I can eat like him. I know for sure. Now the question for us is, what are you doing? And I think that's a level of inquiry that is quite a bit different. Like, what are you doing for your weekend? And they go, well, what are you talking about? What weekend? I don't have a weekend. Yeah. What are you doing in your free time? What are you doing to pursue something that you're passionate about outside of work? What are you doing with your family, your kids, your loved one? What are you doing to find that special person in your life? It's like the what questions lead to this thing. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because of what you said and because of your book. Because sometimes what I hear back is that I Meaning me as a manager, as a leader, whether it's a senior level or junior middle level manager leader, they're not equipped often. They don't feel they're trained to ask that question. And if they get the response, I'm struggling. Frankly, I'm not sleeping well. I'm having almost mini anxiety attacks happening throughout the day, and I'm barely kinda white knuckling hanging in there. They don't know what to do. So what I think for our listeners, I just want you to know this, is that as part of the show notes, of course, we're gonna have more information about Wendy and her work, as well as where you can get her book and learn more about it. Because I feel like that's great training for a manager to be able to have those conversations with people. The distinction, the wall, if you will, between work and non-work is being torn down. Because it was artificial to begin with. I call BS on the whole work-life balance thing anyway. It's harmony we're after. There's no balance. That's utterly nonsensical to the degree that, like, I'd say to you, well, how do you season your food? Do you take the equal amount of pepper and salt, and that's how you season everything? It's ludicrous. It's a little bit of this, it's a little bit of that, and that's how you have to integrate these 2 areas of your life more effectively. But people have to be coached in that area because it's not something we grow up learning. We're not trained. It's not in school. And that's why people like you help in any of those areas. And I imagine people are taking your work and using it to help other people as well. That's your ripple, right?

Yeah, that's my mission. Look, I wanna encourage everybody that, look, I've been a coach for 20 years and I'm credentialed and I went to Georgetown and all of that. There are some simple coaching practices. That's why my co-author and I, we wrote the book. And I'm going to actually— I have a special page on my website for just listeners of your podcast. I'm going to give that information. I'm sure you'll put that in the notes, but I'll give it to you right now. But anyone can ask coaching questions, simple open-ended questions. So I would even take, what are you doing now? And we can expand it. What does success look like for you? What's important to you about this? How can I set you up for success? Simple questions. And particularly, the book is written for managers, but I have heard people from all walks of life are using the book, which is really gratifying. So again, you ask questions, you meet people where they are, you listen, you slow down, you quiet that part of your brain that's like, I've got to solve it. Let me tell you what to do. And you really— questions are a gateway to open up to those conversations that can lead to change. And really, in a minimum, what would a coach— what would a professional or executive coach, what would a trained coach, how would they handle the conversation? Well, what do you do? Why is that important to you? That's what I want to know. And how can we build upon success? These are the kind of coaching questions. That you can add. And I just want to encourage people, when I first started this, look, I started as a Wall Street banker and I'm an economist by training. When I had to start with these questions, I had to write them on a note card. But then I learned and I learned because of the curiosity. And then now I basically compile questions. I love compiling questions.

Mm-hmm.

So if you hear someone ask a really good question, so if Adam, you ask a good question on this podcast of the guests, And listeners, if that's like, that's a great question, write it down and copy it because he's throwing out some amazing questions. And if you hear something in the workplace or in a meeting, like I've sat in meetings where someone's like, why strategically? Tell me why that's important. Yeah. Wow. That's a great question. Not a threatening question. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. But people, if you could really get into the power of questions, that's a whole nother hour. How people can use questions because it is, again, something that gets the brain. When you ask me a good question instead of telling me what to do— so in my book, Anytime Coaching, are you an asker or a teller? We want you to be more of an asker. And this is, by the way, for parents as your kids get older too. Are you asking or are you telling? If you're more of an asker, you really are going to untap people's thinking. And unleash their thinking. And that's the whole goal.

Yeah.

In today's world is getting people to do their best thinking.

I know we're wrapping up here. As has been said, there'll be more information in the show notes, so please go there, check that out. I agree, it could be another hour just on questions. In fact, to me, questions are in many ways have a cause and effect relationship, meaning questions to answers. You cannot get a, ask a question. My faith and experience in this, you can't ask a question and not get an answer. The only answers you don't get are to questions you never asked. And that's a big challenge. So to stay away from, you know, and why we say, well, why do we do that? Why do we do that? Again, go back to childhood, right? I learned to not ask questions when I was embarrassed in school. When I asked a question that somebody says is a stupid question, usually that was the teacher. And that could be that they literally said, that's a dumb question, or you should know the answer to that, or gave, made the face that the class would see the face and then laugh. I mean, it's like, So we get it why we just stop being curious because we're taught very early that curiosity somehow is associated with people with humility, like not knowing, like being, you know, somehow. And that is a shame. And then again, that could be its own separate podcast. And Wendy, I'll get you a copy of this book, Change Proof, as well, because the whole through line of this book is a methodology called Pause, Ask, Choose. And the ask part is just what you're talking about.

Yeah. Well, we're back to curiosity. So this has been so much Well, Stefan, thank you so much. What a privilege. And I'm excited to read the book. And for people listening, if you're interested, I mean, there's a special page where there's more information and more questions that you can play with.

Yes.

And I'll give you that. It's https://swiresolutions.com/becomingchangeproof. So on my website, there's a special landing page for listeners where they can get more information. And I'll send that to you and you'll put that in. But it's really for your listeners. And what a fun conversation. I could talk to you for hours over water and herb tea. I would love to.

I know, right? Exactly. We'll just hydrate and keep going. So folks, if you know somebody that would just love to hear some of the insights that Wendy shared today, please feel free to share this episode with a friend, with a colleague, with somebody that could benefit from it. We love to get your comments. And as I say repeatedly, I'm the one that will answer those comments. We don't have a bot set up to do that. So you can go to adamarkel.com/podcast and leave a comment. And of course, we love your 5-star reviews. So please consider taking a moment to leave a review. It's very helpful to talk about algorithms. It really helps the algorithm. It helps us. So we thank you for taking the time to do that. Your feedback is invaluable as always. And lastly, I will say this. If you've not yet determined your baseline resilience level, like, what is it mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? You can simply go to rankmyresilience.com, rankmyresilience.com, and 3 minutes. That's all it'll take. So no cognitive load being added to you today, I promise. And get your baseline score in all 4 of those zones. And then most importantly, what are the rituals? What are the things that you can do to start making these micro changes, these micro pivots? Toward a healthier mind, body, spirit, ultimately developing your own resiliency. So again, thank you so much for your time today, Wendy. And for all of you out there listening, we appreciate you very, very much, and we wish you just the most beautiful and blessed day. Thanks again. Well, no mistake, the conversation today with Wendy Squire was really phenomenal. I personally just so enjoyed this conversation. We talked about brain hygiene. What a crazy awesome term that is, brain hygiene. One that I'm gonna definitely be paying forward, sharing with other people. But we got into the details of what brain hygiene actually looks like. I was able to unpack with Wendy some of her own personal rituals for brain hygiene, as well as the kind of things that we can all think about doing, whether it's better sleep, time to reflect, how we reduce our cognitive load, the way that our brains work with new information and novelty in particular. And of course, how our brains are often competing with the algorithm of big tech and what we can do about it. So I so love that we talked about the 30-day neuroplasticity challenge. I'm gonna suggest that just to start, I'll give you a suggestion on this one. When you listen to Wendy's talk about this, you can think about just changing the hand that you brush your teeth with. Like, you brush your teeth with your right hand, switch it up, and for 30 days, brush your teeth with your left hand. Inside the book Change Proof, we call that the toothbrush challenge, but it's this 30-day neuroplasticity challenge. You try to say that. Not so easy. But we basically learn something new, teach ourselves something new. Very, very important how we hydrate. That again, a thing I wasn't thinking so much about was that our brains require hydration. I often talk about rest. I talk about exercise when it comes to brain health, but not often Am I talking about hydration in connection with how your brain functions? So really fantastic. We talked about gratitude practices and how we have a negativity bias. Nothing about us. We're not negative people. We're not just sort of glass half full or glass half empty necessarily. We just have a negativity bias that is built from our history, meaning that our prehistoric selves had to have a negativity bias. It's like we've got a 24-hour ADT service That's built into our primitive wiring, and that's important, but we can also recognize it and override it and be conscious about it. And ultimately, one of the best ways to do that is through gratitude practices. So we talked about cognitive capacity overload and why it is that we're, of course, tired. Why are we so tired and seemingly more and more tired and tired earlier even in the day? We talked about oxygen and oxygenating the brain. And about how it is that we use our breath. Somatic intelligence was a topic that we also covered a little bit today. Talked about Leonardo da Vinci. We talked about our massive complexities as a society and how that is contributing to our depletion as well. So much to unpack in this episode. I know you're gonna love it and enjoy it. And of course, if you do, please share it with a friend, somebody that you think might gain from this insight or inspiration. If you've got comments for myself or for Wendy, feel free to go to adamarkel.com/podcast and leave a comment. If you've not yet discovered your own resilience score, like a credit score, if you will, but for your resilience, all you have to do is go to rankmyresilience.com, and in 3 minutes, you get your own free score as well as a host of tools to help you to lift that score, raise your resilience credit score, if you will. That's something we can all do. That's something we all have some control over. But for right now, I just want to say thank you again for supporting this show. Thank you for the reviews that you're leaving. And if you've not done that, thank you for considering doing it, because when you leave a 5-star review on the platform that you're consuming this show, it changes the algorithm in our favor. It gets this information and this message out to more and more people, and we so thank you for your support of this work.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcast. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. /becomechange-proof.