The Top Athlete’s Approach to Peak Leadership Performance with Jeff Salzenstein

Could have let that loss taken me down. But instead I used my adversity and the tough times to get better. And that's what I want to keep helping people with, especially when we get into the zone of excellence. I had two surgeries before the age of 25, Ashish. So I went from being the guy who was rocket ship up the tennis tour rankings to now at the bottom. And it was at that moment that I made a decision and the decision was to become obsessed with all things high performance.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspiration to help you operate at your fullest potential. Integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. I'm your host Ashish Kothari, the Founder and CEO of Happiness Squad and author of the best selling book Hardwired for Happiness. I will be your personal guide on your journey to explore the many facets of happiness, well being and flourishing, from personal growth to building more positive environments at work. In each episode we will share powerful insight, tips and stories from our guests who are leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge. Whether you're looking to overcome life's challenges, to go from good to great, or to enhance your team's performance through flourishing, this podcast is the place for you to find more joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Join us every week as we rewire for happiness together. Welcome to yet another episode of the Happiness Squad Podcast. Today it was my pleasure to host Jeff Salsenstein. A former top 100 world ranked tennis player, two time Stanford all American, a National champion, Jeff shared his incredible journey to become an elite athlete and how he has translated his hard learned life lessons into the Zone of Excellence framework for busy corporate executives. Through inspiring stories of competing in the U.S. open and NCAA Finals, Jeff highlights the power of resilience, perseverance and personal growth. Together we dive deep into what it means to optimize the body, mind and soul for peak performance and lasting happiness. From the challenges of seeking external validation to finding balance and fulfillment in a success driven world. In this episode we offer insights on how to thrive both on and off the court. Get ready for a conversation that explores the essence of essence of well being, focusing on rest, recovery, emotional mastery and how athletes like Rafa Nadal and Simone Biles demonstrate the importance of self care in achieving greatness. Stay till the end to uncover some powerful practical tools that you can start to implement right away for operating in your zone of excellence and living a life Filled with more meaning, love, health, and happiness. Hi, Jeff. It is so lovely to have you on our Happiness Squad podcast. My dear friend.

It's so amazing to be here. I feel like we've known each other for a long time, but we are just getting to know each other.

I know. Isn't it funny how it works? So friends who are listening, you know, Jeff and I met actually for the first time. I was out. I was actually on stage at the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit, and I was talking about Rewire and these practices around the Sunflower. And I was, you know, it was really a discussion with one of my clients who's CEO of the cybersecurity firm, talking about why they chose to implement this program at a startup. And that's where Jeff and I connected. And it was like, right away, it was like magic. You know, there was so much synchronicity and our work, and we've gotten to know each other really, really well. I really admire Jeff. You know, he is one of the former top 100 ranked tennis players, and we all know what that means. You know, it's like the elite level of performance. We're just coming off the US Open. I was thinking about you every day. And so I'm just super excited, my friend, to have you on the show. You know, talk a little bit about your journey to the top of the game, what lessons you learned, what helped you get there, and then we'll talk a little bit about, you know, how you're taking those lessons into the corporate world through your Zone of Excellence program and really, really helping so many.

Thank you. Ashish, you know, my story and the life lessons already. We could talk for a long time. I just did a podcast with a group of tennis people, so they wanted to know all the inflection points as a tennis player. And I realized I was like, oh, my gosh, I have a lot of stories. So what we're going to do is we're going to. We're going to highlight the big ticket items, and then of course, you can. You can take it where you want to go.

Absolutely. So, you know, maybe. And even I always, you know, maybe start with saying, you know, what are two or three events? Oh, yeah, right. As you think about your arc that have shaped you into who you are, that top, you took you to the top of the game.

Well, let's start. Yeah, let's start at the US Open. Yeah, let's start in 1997. I'm playing a second round US Open night match in front of 24,000 people. Millions watching on TV inside Arthur Ash Stadium, where they play the finals of the U.S. open. And I'm competing against. I'm battling against world number two, Michael Chang. Michael Chang is one of the most gifted, talented, fastest player in the world. And here I am, this little kid from Colorado who was not so little anymore. Now I'm 6 foot 1, 170 pounds. But I felt like I was the underdog because I was 150 in the world and he was number two. I remember walking into that stadium, looking up, seeing the 24,000 people, and I am shaking in my boots. I mean, anxiety, worry, overthinking all the things that people struggle with. And yet I'm also extraordinary because I can hit 130 mile an hour serve in forehand. Somehow, despite the nerves, I get it to two all in the first set. When I finally took my first deep breath, For the next 15 minutes, I started kicking Michael Chang's ass. If you were watching the match, you would think I was the number two player in the world. So I get to 5, 4 in the first set. Those 15 minutes, I was lighting it up. The crowd's going crazy. I'm serving big. I am in the zone five, five games to four, one point away from winning the first set. I hit my big lefty serve, I come to the net. I hit a backhand volley to the open court. Chang can't run it down. I win the first set against Michael Chang. So I always say, hey, we got to fist pump our wins. I was fist pumping, winning the first set on Chang. I walk back to the baseline, I'm staring at my box. I got this big smile on my face. The TV cameras are panning on me. John McEn. I was announcing the match, and that's when the match ended. The reason that the match ended was because the dominant thought in my head was, jeff, thank God you didn't embarrass yourself tonight. I couldn't overcome my limiting thoughts and beliefs. I couldn't overcome the waves of pressure, anxiety and stress I was experiencing on the court. I couldn't sustain that zone of excellence over a period of three hours. It lasted of help, 15 minutes. And I lost the next three sets and the match to Chang. I always like to start with that story because I really believe it exemplifies what the entrepreneur, what the founder, what the leader struggles with. Because we are extraordinary in what we do. And then we're also ordinary. We have limiting thoughts, we have limiting beliefs. We have imposter syndrome holding us back. And I like to illuminate that story. Because even though I was one of the best in the world, I had the same limiting thoughts that kept me from being even better. That kept me from being more at peace with myself in that moment to be able to perform at my highest level. Now, of course, there's so much more to the story after and before. But Ashish, I'll turn it back to you to let me know which direction you want to go.

Yeah, well, you know, it's. I love that you opened with that story, Jeff. You know, I've had the pleasure of having a couple of CEOs, CHROs, you know, these senior leaders and this notion of constantly feeling not enough and in our head beating ourselves is something that, you know, everybody struggles with no matter where they are. And so, you know, when you open with that story about, here I am playing the number two, I just kicked his ass and yet my first shot is, oh my God. I didn't embarrass my, embarrass myself. Right. Wow. And it's so true, right? I think it's these limiting beliefs that kind of really hold us back. Let's go back a little bit. Not many people, you know, get to. My son is 14, he loves tennis. Talk to us a little bit about your journey on what got you there, Right. What were some things you put in place that really allowed you to even get to that place where you were playing that match? Because I bet it didn't come easy.

What's so fascinating about all of this is, you know, when you send your bio out, they say two time all American at Stanford, top hundred in the world, he did this, he did that. But they don't know what happened underneath the surface. So when I was born, I basically was born with a tennis racket in my hand. My father was a tennis coach. My mom was an intermediate to advanced player. They used to play. My dad taught tennis for a living full time. My birth certificate, when they sent the birth announcement out to everyone, they said I was going to play Davis cup for the US in 1991. I was born in 1973. So they envisioned me playing in Davis when I was 18 years old. It was in the stars, right? It was already put out to the ethers. So I'm playing tennis. I got a racket in my hand at 4 years old. I'm, I'm chasing the ball around on the court. I've got exceptional hand eye coordination. My parents divorced when I was four years old. I moved to Denver where I grew up. I went to Cherry Creek High School. And I'm a Denver guy. I love the Nuggets and the Broncos. I move here with my mother, single mom, only child, my father's in St. Louis. I tell people, I'm like, listen, I think the one way I wanted to get love from my father is, is every summer I'd go out to visit him and he was the pro, head pro at the tennis club. And I just wanted to show him how good I was. So I would work all year, super serious, super focused as a 6, 7, 8 year old to go impress my father. And so, you know, it goes back to that drive, right? Like where do we get our drive, that internal drive. And I've done a lot of excavation therapy and coaching around where I think this comes from. The divorce was a pivotal moment. That desire to be number one, to be a perfectionist, to be loved, to be liked, the external validation. And I started winning trophies at eight. And I don't know if you're listening to this podcast, if you've ever won anything at a young age, you start getting hooked. You get that dopamine hit of like, I got another trophy, another trophy, another trophy. So it's wonderful because it keeps you out of trouble, but it can be a double, double edged short. At nine years old, I'm number one in the state in Colorado. I'm like this kind of tennis superstar, if you will. You know, I'm a wonder kind nine year old from Colorado. At 12, I win a national championship. So I'm the best 12 year old in the country. I'm coming from ski state of Colorado. We don't play tennis in Colorado, we ski here. And somehow I was beating kids from, from Florida and Texas. So I clearly had fundamentals, I had drive, I had smarts. An interesting moment at age 12, 10 months before I won that national title, My mother had remarried to my stepfather when I was nine. So now I went from only child to blended. He wrote me a poem and when I was 12 years old, and that poem is called the Champion's Poem. And it goes like this. A champion is a gentleman. He does not whine or complain. He picks himself up when things get tough. He absolutely never quits. He wins with class. He sometimes loses, but does so with class. A champion stands tall with his head high. He walks proudly and with a purpose. He you are a champion. The reason my stepfather wrote that poem for me when I was 12 was because I was so hard on myself. I used to cry when I lost tennis matches. I'd cry when I'd strike out in baseball when I'd lose games. I was so hard on myself, and I was a perfectionist. And he just wanted to find some way to take the pressure off. So I used to. You know, that's a pivotal moment at 12. I used to read that poem almost every day. I read it in college. I read on the pro tour. And, you know, in this era where all of us are watching social media and we're bombarded with the news and all the negativity and the cell phone, I had this piece of paper that I could pull out at night before I went to bed to read. And it's the thing that shaped me at a young age, the one thing that shaped me and gave me the foundation around character and integrity and class, and that built the foundation. When I was 15 and a half, Ashish, I hadn't grown yet. I was 5 foot 4, 102 pounds. I could barely see over the steering wheel. And I dropped from number one in the country to number 70 in the country. So imagine you're a teenager and you're the best at 12, and now you're the worst, and you're losing to everyone. Usually that's when you either start smoking weed, drinking, or finding girls. And I did none of that. I quit basketball, I quit skiing. I changed rackets, I changed coach. I started growing a little bit, and I rededicated myself to the fundamentals. I think that was another moment in my life where it could have gone the other direction. So there's this thread of resilience and perseverance that had started at four or five years old. It continued on into my junior career, and it allowed me to go play college tennis at Stanford. My freshman year at Stanford, I had the worst serve in college tennis. So I'm playing for this tennis legend of a coach. I'm playing for the best program in the country, but I have the worst serve in college tennis. I remember between my freshman and sophomore year in college, instead of following the herd, I went, came back to Denver and I worked on my serve, and something clicked, and I transformed my serve between my freshman and sophomore year. I like to share that story because we all can transform at any time in our lives, and there's different ways to do that, and it's never too late. When you're 19 years old and you have a terrible serve, you're not going to play pro tennis. But when I transformed my serve, it gave me a chance to play at the top of the Stanford lineup. It gave me a new pathway in my Life and allowed me to go on to play professional tennis and ultimately play Chang about four years after I changed my serve.

That's amazing, right? There is so much rich nuggets in there. So this notion of drive, right? And also this knowing where it comes from. So like you, your drive to achieve was driven by, you know, showing to your father and hustling for his love because you tied your dry. You know, if you weren't good, you weren't going to be loved or as.

Much loved, which by the way, is not true because my father was amazing and not, not exactly all the peaceful. But a four year old's going to decide that, right?

So I, you know, very similar. Like for me, right? For me, that translated into at a young age, if I got 97, I knew my parents are not going to be happy. That was my story in my own head. Even though they always said, hey, you got 97, you could get hundred. But they weren't saying 97, I don't accept you, I don't love you. Right. They wanted to push me to do even better. But my story was, my love was tied to that. But drive matters, right? Why? What is your why that pushes you? I also loved your piece, Jeff, that you talked about. You know, even your last piece, which is around growth, right? We have our strengths. There are things that we can work on. We are not fixed. We can grow if we spend the time. And so I love that part. Like even at 18 or 19 and my friend, I wanted to reserve the last part of what I so take away is I love that letter of yours because so many of us overachievers are so harsh on ourselves. You know, we beat ourselves harder than anybody will ever beat us. But through that, we also sometimes sabotage. You know, we pay a huge cost when things don't work out. Right? Totally. I mean, each one of those was just brilliant. But also this notion of focus, you didn't explicitly call it out, Jeff, but you said, you know what, I went from like number one to number 70 or something. So what did I do? I didn't quit. I actually quit all the other things so I could singularly focus on getting better at something I cared about, which is again, something that, you know, the business world can learn a lot from because when things don't go well, we drop. We try and do too many things rather than recommit to what got us to where we needed to be. Right? So, I mean, I love, I love that. Thank you. It's brilliant. So talk to me a little bit, Jeff. You've taken all of your life lessons and learnings around. You know what got you to the top of the top for your team, and you've translated it into your zone of excellence framework that you're now working with business leaders to try and help them integrate some of these. So share the zone of excellence with our listeners, and let's dig into a couple of really specific things that you help leaders do.

I'd love to do that. I want to provide a little more context. I'd like to share two more situations to lead us into the zone of excellence, if that's so. I transformed my serve in college, and now the coach puts me at number two singles. My sophomore year, I get to the finals of the NCAA with my team. So it's Stanford against usc, and we're in the finals, and it comes down to my match. So if I win the match, we win the national title. If I lose the match, we lose the national title. A thousand people watching, and it's three all in the third set. And I've got my legendary coach, Dick Gould, on the sideline now. Coach Gould is like the John Wooden of tennis. He won 17 national titles in 39 years. He's iconic, and he's on my court helping me to try to win. And I remember there's this one point. I hit this serve, I come in, the ball flies out, but I fall down, I trip. I don't see it land out. And I had a choice. I could have called the ball out. But in tennis, if you don't see the ball land out, you can't call it out. So I didn't. So that takes me back to that champion's poem, that foundation that was built at a young age. Character and values and integrity. I couldn't call it out, even though I should have. And it was out. And I ended up losing that match. And it was one of the most devastating experiences in my life. You know, certainly it wasn't. I wasn't in a war, and there wasn't a crime committed, and I wasn't homeless. But when you care about something so deeply and you feel like you let your coach down and your team down, it can be traumatic. So I lost the deciding match for the national championship. Another fork in the road. That's a moment where I could have gone south. But instead, we rededicated. And the next year, my coach elected me as a team captain, and we went on a magic carpet ride of the season, going undefeated and winning a national title. Again. I could have let that loss taken me down. But instead I used my adversity and the tough times to get better. And that's what I want to keep helping people with, especially when we get into the zone of excellence. After I played that match with Chang the US Open, we fast forward a couple of years. The next day I signed with an agent. My pro tennis career was going to take off like a rocket ship. Three months later in an off season training session, I felt a pain in the front of my ankle. It was misdiagnosed. I had ankle surgery. Six months later I hurt my knee. I had knee surgery. I had two surgeries before the age of 25. Ashish so I went from being the guy who was rocket ship up the tennis tour rankings to now at the bottom. I'm living in my parents basement. I don't know if I'm going to come back to the tour. I'm riddled with stress, anxiety and worry. My career is maybe over. And it was at that moment that I made a decision. And the decision was to become obsessed with all things high performance. I went to my first yoga class at 24 years old and rebuilt the body that was out of bounds. I started eating organic food before Whole Foods was even cool. I started becoming aware of my negative thoughts and limiting beliefs, started processing emotions like anger, fear, frustration, worry. All these things that were hurting my performances, that were hurting my ability to play on the pro tour in a healthy way. I went on a journey. And what I realize now, looking back 25 years ago, that I was starting to study and apply the things that I'm teaching now, that I actually wasn't, it wasn't about playing pro tennis. It was actually that was the thing that called me to learn all these things. But ultimately it's to put me in position now to be a speaker, a coach, a trainer, a facilitator, a mentor around the zone of excellence. So what you see today when I go into corporate and I work with founders and entrepreneurs, you see this body of work that started when I was four years old as a tennis player. But at 24 years old it was like I'm going to do yoga, I'm going to eat organic, I'm going to go deep into spirituality. I'm going to go see the astrologist, I'm going to drink alkaline water, I'm going to slip. Like I did all of it. Not knowing that all these years later it would be the framework from which the, the zone of excellence is built. And so, you know, I had a really up and down professional Tennis career. I played 11 years. I was injured probably four of it. I broke the top 100 in the world for the first time at the age of 30, which was dinosaur back in 2004. Took me seven years to do it, Ashish. So I wasn't Andre Agassi or these other guys. In the first year on the tour, I'm at the top. I struggled and I did a lot of it alone so I can connect to the leader who feels lonely at the top. I traveled alone. I didn't have enough money to travel with a team. I lost a lot. I played a lot of minor league tennis. And so I think that really shaped me. All the losses and the losing helps me identify with a founder, an entrepreneur, someone that's going through the ups and downs of running a business. So the zone of excellence is this idea of optimizing the body, the mind and the soul. I take a holistic approach to someone's performance and health. And that's one reason why you and I connected right away, one reason why I went beeline towards you because I said, oh, this guy gets it. He's locked into this. We could say the softer skills of happiness and fulfillment. That is not taught on the killer pro tennis tour or killer business. Right. It's like we are validated in tennis if we win our ranking. It is so accentuated, even more so than the business world. If you win, you move up the rankings, you get prize money. If you lose, there's no salary. I didn't make any money if I lost. Right. And so I've lived that life. I know that deep, painful feeling of losing over and over again. And so I had to go on this quest, this journey to try to bring some balance into my life around how do we find fulfillment and happiness and peace in a world that's set up for external validation?

Yeah. I mean this constant, you know, we are taught if then else, like if you want this, then you, you know, go do this. Once you get there, then you're going to be happy. And it's a never ending. It's. It's never ending. Right. You and I both know, and this is the irony of the whole thing, right? Which is literally this is the classic lesson we pick up. I'm reminded of one of my friends, Emma, who does a lot of this work. Emma Seppler said to me, she was teaching this class and a student came to her and said, I can't really do your class because it's so against everything that I've learned. And she said, what do you mean? She said, well, I was taught that if I have to be happy, I have to be successful. And I asked my parents, how do I be successful? They say, you have to work hard. Say, how do you know I'm working hard? It's like when you're suffering. If you're not suffering, you're not working hard enough, but you're not going to be successful, which means you won't be happy, Right? Isn't it ironical that the path to happiness is through suffering? The path through success which we are chasing to be happy when we can choose happiness instead? And all the signs, you know, I say science of happiness is science of human performance. If you be at your best, we have to be at our best physically, mentally, spiritually. And we have to do the hard work. We have to do the hard work to rewire away from all the things we learn from the world. And we have to do the hard work to rewire away from our own brains. Right. Which is at the heart of the work I do.

So, Asishu, you reminded me of a powerful concept or story that I don't think I've shared much before. It's around a player on the tour named Rafa Nadal. Rafael Nadal won 14 French Opens. 14. Like, I won one main draw match, you know, in a major. I played Wimbledon, French Open. I won one match. This guy won 14 titles in one tournament. And the French Open is about suffering on the red clay, five hours. It's just. It's grueling. And he did it 14 different years. And he used to say that he just suffers more than everyone else. He's willing to go through the pain and the suffering to win. And it reminds me that in order to be the best, you have to be willing to suffer. But then what are we doing when we're not suffering? Right? And you, you taught. You've really helped me a lot. You've helped crystallize this with me the last couple months as we've gotten to know each other better. This idea that when we're suffering, when we're working hard, we've got to take breaks, we've got to have these practices in place. And I do really get the sense from Rafa Nadal that he actually is peaceful off the court. Like, he's relaxed, he's more OCD on the court with his rituals and his routines. But off the court, he seems very relaxed, very chill. And it almost like he has his routines that allow him to find some semblance of peace now, not all top pro tennis players do that. But he seemed to get it, and Roger Federer seems to get it. And Novak Djokovic, who has taken meditation and holistic health and performance to the stratosphere, he seems to get it. And we all have our moments, but I think it's when we're, when we're suffering, when we're working hard, we have to be able to rest and recover and have these happiness principles in place.

We hope you're enjoying this episode and would love your help in spreading awareness and furthering our mission to help a billion people Rewire for Happiness. Please consider leaving us a review and sharing this podcast with others in your personal and professional life who you feel could benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend and spread positivity. Also, check out Rewire, our proprietary offering to move you from knowing to doing. On the Happiness Squad website, www.happinesssquad.com. rewire uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to help you build happier habits in five minutes or less, daily. Now back to the episode. Yeah, and you know, look, I mean, the US Olympics is just over. And if you look at Simone Biles, right, and her story from Tokyo to now, the biggest difference, she is older as an athlete, as gymnast, right? So physically there is deterioration. That happens. But she was so much stronger mentally and spiritually, right? Her pressure to perform was not driven based on out there, but based on in here and the effort and all of the work that she put in. She showed up in an unbelievable way, right? So again, if you look at all the athletes that you talked about, right at the heart of the top performance. I have the pleasure of serving the US Olympic Committee and I'm doing some work with the USA Gymnastics. Now, this notion of we don't get to be at the top, dear friends, we don't get to be at the top unless we really, really go beyond the physical. We go to the mental and the spiritual and the emotional and the social. We don't get there. We don't get there alone, and we don't get there without investing in it. The same is true for the corporate world, right? Somehow we have this story that we have to charge our phones three times in a day, but our brains and our bodies, we can just keep going on all day, all day, all week. We'll recover on the weekends.

That's one of the paradigm shifts that I'm asking people to consider and the question I ask when I do workshops and keynotes, when we get well, it's to all three components, body, mind and soul. But particularly in the body around rest and recovery is. What if we started thinking, feeling and acting more like elite athletes that have mastered longevity in their respective sports? So if you study LeBron James, if you study Novak Djokovic, if you study Biles, if you study Dara Torres and Allison Felix, they had these 20 year careers. Look at their habits and what they did. Like, some people have five year careers, but the ones that have 20 year careers, they're sleeping eight to 10 hours a night, they're meditating, they're eating great, they're stretching, they're paying so much money for their bodies, getting the trainers they need. Now, we don't use our bodies the way elite athletes do, but individuals and teams expend a tremendous amount of energy every day to perform at the highest level possible. So why would you drink a lot of alcohol? Why would you consume caffeine all the time? Why would you get five hours of sleep? You. You have to. The paradigm shift is you have to wake up and say, I'm Novak Djokovic, I'm LeBron James. I've got to take care of the whole self. Otherwise the foundation will break at some point.

Totally. So let's get into some of the ways, right. Some of the kind of, if you will, practices that, you know, Jeff, you invite through your zone of excellence, work for leaders to embody and build habits around.

Sure. So when it comes to the body, I mean, I just turned 50 last year, so I'm on the second half of life, just getting started here, warming up. I feel like I've had a rebirth with moving from the tennis world, transitioning into what I'm doing now, and my cup is full. So before we even get into those three concepts around body, mind and soul, being of service, being in purpose, being in alignment is so important with things we talk about. Right. And I know you're on purpose now. It wasn't always that way for both of us. We were doing what we wanted to do for a certain period of time and then we were done and now we had to find the next thing. And I think people really struggle when they don't do that. But when we get into the body, I've been obsessed with the body for 25 years, so movement is really important to me and nutrition is important to me. But the place I really hone in on, and I touched on it earlier, is around rest and recovery and sleep. We've talked about this as well. Can you take the, the mini Little mini nap every day or can you take your, you know, mindful moments where you close your eyes and you just rest instead of working all the time? Can you get your sleep up to six and a half, seven. Seven and a half hours of night? Everyone's a little different. Can you get your sleep hygiene totally dialed in? So I really try to help leaders just impress upon them the importance of rest. And sleep is such a huge leverage point. And all we have to do is look at what the athletes are doing. They are sleeping, they are resting. And that's hard for us because when we're working we don't think we need it as much because we just go on caffeine and adrenaline and we do that for years. When we get into the mind, before.

You go to the mind, I think, Jeff, let's stay on the body for just a minute.

Okay.

I think both of those two are really, really important. They're two of the core, you know, micro practices that are in rebuy. Right. And friends, we are a sleep deprived nation. So listen to. We had a whole episode with a sleep neuroscientist just a couple of weeks ago specifically on sleep because, you know, we are so sleep deprived. And if you look at the rise of incivility in the workplace, there is a straight correlation between how much less sleep are people getting and how emotionally regulated they are. The outburst that we have in the rise of incivility. Right. And it's foundational and we don't talk about it. And so if you are a leader, go get your team to get oura rings or get an apple watch and have people track sleep. It can be the biggest unlock in terms of the creativity. Right. The effects of not sleeping are so clear. It's no different than drinking alcohol. We'd never get into a plane of a pilot who slept five hours. But yet we pay consultants and you know, we pay our people so much money and they're showing up, you know, half, only half thinking unclearly in a brain fog.

Yeah, I mean, you brought up. I'm about to do a workshop in Kansas City for an HR group and their, their focus is on psychological safety because there's issues coming up and I'm going in. They already have kind of their psychological safety expert and they're going to do all the thing, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to tie it to the sleep. I mean, if you're not sleeping, you're not going to be able to create the trust and respect and the safe environment because people are going to be more irritated and on edge. And so it fascinates me that we have some of the smartest people in the world creating amazing businesses, and somehow they don't make that correlation that their sleep is hurting their performance. Oh, I can sleep when I'm dead. Or what if you wake up when you're 75 years old and you have Alzheimer's? Well, guess what? If you slept five hours a night for 40 years, you're not cleaning out your brain every single night. So it's interesting to me that, like, very intelligent, driven, super smart people are not making the connection that disease down the road is coming if you're not taking care of your sleep, whether it's diabetes, cancer, dementia, Alzheimer's, it's all connected. And so, yeah, it's just amazing.

Beautiful. And I love movement, too. Right. Again, something that people, we've become. You know, there is this beautiful saying coined by the Mayo Clinic. Sitting is the new smoking, the effects of sitting on our body, and the costs again, that we're paying in our 30s, 40s and 50s towards, you know, whatever the story of getting more money, getting promoted, doing more work, hustling for success. We've changed hustling for love and acceptance to hustling for, you know, success, because that's how we feel. We'll belong and continue to be part of it. And friends, we're all going to live for long. Be cognizant of the costs you're paying now because you're going to live for a long time. And you want to make sure your quality of life in your 60s and 70s and 80s, the seeds of that quality are what we are sowing now. And so I love that you introduce more movement. And really inviting leaders is not just about going for a run once a day. It's movement throughout the day. Right. It's not sitting all day. It's moving. So I love those, Jeff, that they're a core part of your program. Talk to me a little bit around mind and some of the things that you're inviting people to do.

Sure. Well, going back to my original story, that limiting belief. Thank God you didn't embarrass yourself. You know, I performed at the level of my belief of my identity what I thought over and over again. Just don't embarrass yourself. Just don't embarrass yourself. So, sure, there are probably thoughts of like, I can beat this guy, but not embarrassing myself was the more dominant thought over and over again. So, you know, your program rewire you're firing and wiring the neurons in your brain every single time you have a thought. And if you have 60,000 thoughts per day and 80% of them on average are negative, because most of the thoughts are subconscious. You don't even know you're having them. Because we're designed, we've talked about this. Your brain and your body is designed to keep you safe. The amygdala starts firing threats out there. So we're wired for negativity. So I believe one of our responsibilities as humans is to actually become aware and learn this and flip the script to reframe the limiting beliefs and thoughts that we have. 90% of the thoughts we have today are the exact same thoughts we had yesterday. So if we have 90% the same thoughts, guess what? We're going to make the same choices, which leads to the same behaviors, which creates the same experiences. So our role and responsibility as leaders is to learn what our thoughts are, learn what is holding us back. And when I go in and work with CEOs and companies and I do this exercise and I ask them to write down a limiting belief, I hear it over and over again. I don't think I'm a good leader. What if people find me out? I'm time poor, I don't have energy, there's not enough time in the day. Like all of these things come up. And what we have to do is we have to reframe it, we have to unpack it. So really just helping people change their thoughts. You know, I just was at a workshop with Greg Braden and Bruce Lipton. They are icons in this field of neuroscience, heart centered leadership, the power of the heart. And you know, they just talk over and over again about how important thoughts are, beliefs are. Because if you have the wrong beliefs, they can create disease in the body. There's science behind all of it and the power of the word. So if we're speaking negatively, that's four to seven times more powerful than anything positive. That old adage in kindergarten, you know, if you say one negative thing, you have to say five positive things. It's true. So we have to be very careful about what we think and then how we externalize that to the world. Yeah, I help people with that. Change your mindset. That's really what it is.

That's at the heart. That's why self awareness, you know, in our framework is at the heart of it. Nothing else is possible without self awareness because that's how we sabotage. And I had, I'd love to Jeff, introduce you another guest we had, you know, I think it's two podcasts before when this one releases. Her name is Rosie and she wrote this beautiful book. She's an unbelievable graphic artist. She went to Harvard. She does a lot of work in adaptive leadership and she wrote this beautiful book and it's called Everybody has a Sam. Right. It's that voice that is constantly judging and constantly telling you you're not good enough and you're screwing up and what gave you the right? Why do you think you matter? Right. And it continuously is pulling us down. So I'm curious, so you help leaders recognize that they have this thing. There's a belief, there's a limiting belief. What are some ways in which you teach them to break away from it?

Right. This is going to sound a bit Tony Robbins ish, but I actually am working with a client right now in the sports world, high level athlete going through a lot of negative thinking and anxiety and pretty extreme case. I've got to get this thing to turn around quickly. So last night I said, listen, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go outside for 10 minutes. So now we're getting the outside, we're getting fresh air, and you're going to go for a walk for 10 minutes. And you need to verbalize out loud the thing you want to create. I'm this, I'm that. I'm going to dominate. I'm the best. I'm. And it's almost like doing the incantations from Tony Robbins. Like every day, in every way, I get better and better. And so this guy's been suffering from anxiety and I had him go do that for 10 minutes last night. He came back, he texted me, he's like, I feel so much better now. So, like, imagine if we did that, if that was our. That voice in our head was doing that 24 7, how good we would feel all the time. So there's something to be said about, you know, Tony and others know that, like, if you verbalize what you want to create, create, or how you want to show up in the world, it gives you more energy. There's an NFL football player. I found an Instagram reel similar to this. They had him mic'd up. He's one of the best defensive ends in football and they had him miked up and he was basically talking to himself. He's like, you're gonna kill this guy. You're the fastest guy out here. You're the best. Like, he's literally just talking to himself, like in a Very exaggerated way. So that's one fun thing I like to do. I also have people journal, where I'll have them write down their limiting thought or their fear on one side of the paper, and then they have to reframe it. And it's interesting because when I ask them to reframe it, this is one of the tools I use in the workshops that I do is when they. They reframe it unless I give them clear prompts, it's not easy for them. And they'll start using words like I should, and I try and I need to, which actually creates more expectation and doesn't really kind of get you clarity on where you want to be. So we work on words like I commit to. I love to. I'm getting excited to. But I am, I am. I choose to. Like, we really bring clarity to the language, and it's written and then it's verbalized. And you have to overdo it because again, 80% of the thoughts are negative firing and wiring for years. We have to undo it with these practices. And we start with these micro practices around being aware of our thoughts, how we externalize them to the world.

I love that. You know, I just recently read this book called Mind Magic. It's by the Stanford neuroscientist. And it's amazing, right? Like, it's, you know, it really turns a little bit on its head. That is the whole secret and intention and what we put out in the world. And there's a lot of, like, bad science. But the overall concept is correct. And he really looked at when we verbalize, when we set intentions, what shifts in our brain and how the neural pathways really shift from that. You know, I trained with Julio, who's an ontological. Unbelievable. Teacher of ontological coaching. And we again, you know, highlight how words, beliefs, somatics, body. I love the fact he told him to go out for a walk and exaggerate. And moods. Right. All collectively are critical in shifting the observer. So if our limiting belief is holding us back, that assessment is going to show up in every other part. You have to engage all three to be able to shift it. And it takes work and it takes repetition because you are reprogramming whatever, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of the stories that have kind of both fueled your success but now are not serving you.

Correct. It's 100% right. And we can look at someone who's successful, let's say, in business, but maybe they struggle with relationship, or maybe they've got a great relationship, but they struggle with business. You know, Gay Hendricks talks about the upper limit. So we have these upper limits that we bump up against based on our beliefs. And when we start to unpack and uncover and have some accountability around it, that's when it gets. Starts to get exciting.

Yeah. No, I love it. So let's go into the last part, my friend. Soul. What are some things you cover in soul and invite leaders to integrate?

The simple answer is that when we connect to our hearts, we connect to our soul. The longest journey we'll ever take is the 18 inches from the head to the heart. And I am a recovering overthinker. I have a lot to work on still part of the trauma response. So we get into somatics, we get into healing. We talk about this concept that we stay in our heads because we're not taught that it's okay to feel sensation in our bodies, to actually feel our hearts, to actually feel the pit in the stomach that we're going to be okay. We run from it and we distract with alcohol and TV and social media and overthinking. And so I really like to simplify it and say, listen, you're tapped into your soul when you start to drop down into your heart, and of course you're showing up as your true, authentic self. So many of us are wearing a mask, and we put on a mask to the world, and we're not really our true selves. And so when we start to tap into being comfortable with who we are, regardless of what people think, we don't seek the external validation. That's when we really tap into the soul. Now I specifically go into where I've kind of put this heart and soul approach is just simply around emotional regulation. If we look at our emotions, we just talk about thinking. Now we talk about the feelings and emotions. Okay. When we focus on that, if we go to the HeartMath Institute, 35 years of research around it, we have draining emotions and we have renewing emotions. And so renewing emotions give us energy, and draining emotions drain our energy. So if we're living our lives in anger, frustration, fear, worry, we're depleting our energy. Our brain doesn't work as well, and so we have to be able to shift that and recognize it. So simple practices, mindful practices of breathing. You know, there's so many different approaches out there. We've talked about the different ones. But heart focused breathing, it actually aligns your heart so that your heart gets into coherence, your heart is in rhythm, and then you get more energy back, you increase your Capacity to handle tough times. But if your heart's out of rhythm, you know, if you have the anger, fear, frustration, all day, your heart's going to be out of rhythm. So we have to practice more appreciation, gratitude, care, compassion. But the simple act of just slowing down, taking a deep breath, becoming present, allows us to connect to our bodies, connect to our heart, and connect to our soul.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of heartmath. In fact, to all of the clients I coach, I ask them to go buy the HeartMath sensor, right? Because this notion of we can see where our heart is, and it's such a simple. Even for people who have a hard time meditating, it's a really powerful visual approach, right? With the mandala that goes down and then goes up and you can sense are you red, are you blue, are you green? And just through breathing, see how you can regulate how your heart rhythms get smoother. And just through that, you're getting access to higher emotional regulation. You're getting access to recovery, your access to your parasympathetic nervous system that starts to get activated. And you tap into unbelievable pools of creativity. You tap into unbelievable clarity. Right? So, so, so, so powerful. I mean, the other one you kind of alluded to at the front, Jeff, was like, again, right. But it's another part of soulless service, another part of soul is, you know, recognizing that we are fundamentally an interbeing. Right. Spirit. We are in connection with others. It's not us against the world as we are taught from such an early age. It is truly us. Ubuntu. Right? I am, you are. So I am. It's these lessons that we so need to unlearn.

It's so true. And I was thinking, as you were, you were speaking again. Psychological safety, the challenges people are having in the world. The reason why I kind of put together this framework for people to simplify is if we sleep better, if we think better, if we emotional regulate, emotionally regulate, and breathe better, how many problems in the world would be solved?

80, 90% of them.

Yeah, 90, 90% there. If we just get seven hours of sleep every night, we start thinking differently and we start breathing and feeling more appreciation and gratitude. That's where all of the creativity, the innovation, the energy, the, the peace in the world would start from that foundation. And that's why, you know, when I go in and I do my workshops, at the end of it, I always ask for takeaways. I go in, I'll do the three hour half day deal, and I ask for takeaways. And I do get a couple people that always say, you know, I know all this stuff. I. I know all this stuff. It's so common sense. And yet kind of the way you put it, maybe because of your sports background and just the stories and the anecdotes and the data, it kind of makes me want to do it more. And so that's another reason why felt so connected to you, Ashish. Because I know you've been on your journey around finding the secret to happiness and the way you, you know, you've helped me become a better person, a better coach. You don't know this, but like, my habits are better now because I'm around you, because I hear you, because I learn from you, because you say, hey, maybe instead of five minutes of breathing in the morning, take five one minute sessions per day. And I'm like, of course, like, let's get more reps in throughout the day. That's what I do in strength training. I'll do a pull up. Hour later I do a pull up. So, you know, I just love the work you're doing. I'm so passionate about what I do and I love the crossover and how we're both on this mission to help people find their zone, help people rewire and get to the next level.

My friend, this was such a rich conversation. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. I'm really excited about what we are creating together and how collectively between all of your sports experience and my experience studying and researching and applying it in the corporate world, we really bring it together and train the next generation of corporate athletes right, who are truly operating at their best and creating a lot of good in the world. Creating a lot of good for their people. They lead because they are sleeping better, because they are thinking more clearly, not operating out of fear, and because they are even more aware of their breathing, their hearts, their emotions and doing work with a bigger why you know, from an orientation of service right for the world. Thank you for spending this evening with me.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Till we meet again, my friend. Be well.

Thank you.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you. Moment to moment in the here and now. Take care of and see you next week.