Highest Potential with Fiona and Juna

Hello, welcome to RxChill Pill. Meditate your brain to resilience. Resilience is about bouncing back from setbacks by adapting and learning so you can thrive through life's challenges. Your time is precious, so I work to deliver research-backed tools to boost you and your family's resilience. Each of the episodes strive to leave you with an action or meditation prescription that you can apply immediately to your life. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a board-certified physician and mom of two amazing kids, and my purpose is to make the neuroscience of wellness accessible to you and your family's everyday life. Because when I became a mom, I wanted to do everything possible to empower my children with healthy mental and physical habits. This wasn't something that I had growing up, so I had to learn how to create a healthy and happy home life. I'm definitely not aiming for perfection. But I can honestly say that the mind-body skills I learned transformed my family's life. After years of training, I fully transitioned into teaching mind-body medicine, leaving one of the most prestigious private practices in New York City so I could dedicate my time to creating and teaching the science of resilience. My almost decade-long experience teaching high-performing students of all ages have now led me to the creation of my newest courses, Plan to Soar and Soar Under Pressure. To make these tried and true courses widely accessible, I'm rolling them out with partnering schools, organizations, and online for individuals on mindbodyspace.com. A portion of all proceeds go to those students in need. Happy New Year 2021. If you're listening, you survived. So glad you're here, and I'm excited to start a new monthly chat called Our Highest Potential with Fiona Merton, my great friend, awesome mom, award-winning author, host of Dot to Dot podcast, and a chartered psychologist in London who coaches top performers and C-suite individuals in business, healthcare, sports, and politics to achieve optimal performance. We immediately hit it off because we're both endlessly curious. About the science behind positively influencing our own brains. We're on a mission to widely share practical cognitive and motivational research tools with curious people who want to fulfill their potential and ultimately lead happier lives. Hi, Fiona.

Hi, Gina.

How are you?

I'm good, thanks. How are you? I am good. I'm hanging in there.

Just, you know, the holidays are a little different this year, obviously.

Definitely, yeah.

I'm so excited for this new chat that we're gonna have.

Me too.

So today we'll dive right into it. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about how we should assess our place in life. And Fiona, you work with a lot of C-level executives and you've written a couple of books that have to do with reflecting a lot.

Mm-hmm.

When you work with these C-level executives, do you take them all the way back to their childhood or do you start where they are and kind of go backwards in a sequential order.

No, we actually start with childhood, because what you'll find is if you ask someone to tell you from about when they were 13 years old, often people will go back further. So, you give them the option of what they're doing. You basically say, "Tell me about when you were blah, blah, blah," and they'll say, "Actually, do you mind if I go back a bit further because I moved when I was X and Y and my parents split up or whatever. They, when you dive them into their childhood, they then want to tell you the complete story. And the reason we go back to childhood first is, well, it's actually using something called social constructivist theory, which means that what people tell you when they're talking you through their storyline tells you a lot about how they see the world in itself. So you let them construct what they're telling you, and then when you get further into the session, because this session is usually 4 hours long, then you start hypothesizing and saying, "Oh, it's interesting because I noticed you talked about this, this, and this. Does that mean X, Y, and Z?" So for example, someone might say they were really outgoing when they were, um, They were at school and then they've become far more introverted as they've got older. And you say, okay, why do you think that is? What does— was it because of this situation that happened? Or is it because you've got a lot of pressure on you so you're needing that time to yourself? So it's just working things through and you hypothesize and hypothesize and hypothesize until you hone it down into a judgment.

So when you're actually having these 4-hour sessions with a C-level executive or a high performer in some area of their life, you're analyzing them as you look past into their—

Yeah, so one thing that we, well, I was trained very much to do is to suspend judgment.

Mm-hmm.

So rather than thinking, "Oh, well, they've said that, that must mean this," you hold a really open mind the whole time. So you listen, listen, listen, not like you would in a normal conversation. It's quite hard work because you're basically operating as far as possible from the frontal lobe of your brain, the slower thinking brain, which is quite hard work. You're being open-minded, you're being non-judgmental, you're being curious, and you're pulling together hypotheses of what might have happened and why might that have happened. And then you test those hypotheses with that person rather than saying, "Oh, well, I found that everyone that says that they were very good at sport is very good at teamwork. So it's not jumping to conclusions ever. It's really testing it out with a very open mind.

These people that you're helping are already very successful, right? So what does this add for them? This reflection?

Yeah, well, self-awareness is never a finished article. So our world is constantly changing and evolving around us, but also within our own mind. I mean, we know this with, you know, the work that you do, Juna. It's the neural connections in your brain are constantly changing and evolving. And so it's not static. We can't pick one point in time and say, "Right, I'm now very self-aware." It's something that we have to keep working on. And actually, the more self-aware we become, the more aware we are of what we don't know about ourselves. And we also know that to perform optimally, we need to have a really good level of self-awareness.

Yeah, I was going to get to that next because obviously you're not having therapy sessions with these people. They are there because they are concerned about performance, right?

Yep, they are, or their bosses are.

So Coming from a performance perspective, it's still really important to have that sort of self-awareness and a reflection of how you've gotten where you are now, right?

Yeah, absolutely. What can you take as learnings from where you've got to so far and how can you project those into the future as well? So how can we construct our future based on our past? And that's just the way it works. Narrative identity. Is saying, "This is how things have happened, so I expect this is how things will happen." It's complex, but I think the complexity of it also highlights the need for constantly working on it. But it's very, very fulfilling as well. It's, I mean, it's immensely good not only for performance but also for well-being.

Yes. So it's like, it's a double whammy. You get the performance and you get the well-being. Which is amazing.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's so funny what you said about predicting the future, because for the image that I picked for our podcast episode, it was, um, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, and it was the Delphic Sybil, which is a prophet. So that's, that's why I picked that, because, you know, when you— so when you look backward, you can go forward in a better way, in a more intentional way in your life, right? So if there were things that you would say, um, that you should leave behind in your past, what would those things be? Is there anything that you should just leave behind and say like, let's not revisit that so much?

Again, it's the subtleties, but I think suppressing something is not good, um, blocking something is not good, but nor is ruminating on something. So if something's been a problem and you keep going over and over and over and over, it's not helpful, it's not healthy. But the, the most helpful way of looking at this, I think, is based on the research by Dr. Tasha Urich, who is a New York Times bestseller psychologist, and she's done huge amounts of research on self-awareness. And what she found is when people introspect, her initial thinking was, well, when people introspect, they are going to be more self-aware. But what happens is when we introspect, we can get ourselves tied in knots.

Yeah.

We can go down rabbit holes. We can, we can really—

Downward spiral.

Exactly.

Yes.

So then she thought, what—

Ruminating is not a positive thing. We're talking about— Not at all. No.

So it's the keep thinking the same thing over and over and over again, gets us into this spiral, like you said.

Mm-hmm.

And so she thought, well, how come some of these people that are immensely self-aware are introspecting, and some of these people that are actually depressed are introspecting? And what she found was that when people asked why, it got them into the negative cycles. When they asked what, it helped them to think about it far more constructively. And so when we look at ourselves inside, when we reflect, when we think about who we are, it's thinking about the what rather than the why. So rather than saying, oh, why did I fail that test, you know, or why, why did I perform so badly in, in that event that I just had, I mean, we all fall into it, I think, a little bit every so often. It's, "Oh, why did I say that? Why did I do that?" Yeah. It's thinking, "What did I say, and what would have happened if I said something different?" Mm-hmm.

Opens up possibilities.

Absolutely. It just reframes it in a very constructive way. But then the work you do, Juna Bobby MD, mindfulness, I think, so important here as well, because it's rather than clinging on to and holding tight to a thought, So, "Why did I do that?" or "Why did it go wrong?" or "Why was I such a disaster in, you know, year 9 when I did X, Y, and Z?" It's thinking, "I can let go of that." Now, it doesn't mean you're forgetting it forever. It doesn't mean it's not part of who you are, but you're not going over and over and over and over and reliving it and reliving it and reliving it.

Yeah, and I love that point because it is, neurologically, as memories go, It is about how we recall the memory. So scientists have seen that, you know, when you recall something, that memory changes every single time. So if you recall it in a very negative light, constantly, you know, asking rhetorical questions of, "Why did I do that?" and, you know, you can't change something, then that makes it even a stronger negative memory. Whereas if you start to look at it in a different light, perhaps, you know, what you were saying, what did I say? What could I have done differently? Opening up different possibilities for that memory. Every time you bring that memory up, it changes into a more positive learning experience. So rather than leaving that negative experience behind, we can actually repackage that memory in the way that is useful to us to go forward.

Absolutely. And it's hard, you know, because we have tendencies to think without being aware of what we're thinking a lot of the time. And we can't be aware of our thoughts all the time.

And that's where mindfulness comes in or meditation. That's where the— yeah, that's where metacognition comes in.

Absolutely.

So that's, you know, even if you don't have a meditation practice, you could have a cognitive practice. Which I know you're very well aware of, where you can start to notice, you know, what you're saying to yourself, your self-talk, and have that sort of third-person distance from your own thoughts. So that's the cognitive psychology.

Absolutely. And I think if mindfulness doesn't sit with some people, which it doesn't, having a reminder that comes up on your phone several times a day just to think, "How am I talking to myself at the moment?" Or you have it tied to a routine. So every time you brush your teeth, you think, how am I thinking about my day? How am I thinking about what's coming up? How am I thinking about what I did yesterday? So, but it's, it's having those reminders in place because otherwise we kind of merrily go along and we don't—

Our thoughts take over.

Absolutely.

So looking at reflecting. Upon our past year or weeks. How often do you think is the most ideal amount of time that you should reflect? Do you think like once a year? I know there's no real formula, or maybe there is a formula, maybe there's a study.

Well, we say with the profiling, so when we do the in-depth psychological profiling, we recommend on a report which we write up on an individual afterwards, to revisit it after 2 years. Hmm. But it depends what you're doing because if you're trying to change behaviour, so within a work environment, trying to change behaviour, you will probably want to revisit that behaviour every 6 months. But it might be more frequent. We have different ways of doing that, different techniques. So we have something called a 360-degree feedback. Which is often used within corporate organizations where you're asking feedback from other people because whilst you may think your behavior's changed, you really need to know what other people think.

Mm-hmm.

And that might be a 6-month thing, but yet you might want more frequent feedback than that on something you're trying to change. So if, for example, you're trying to speak up more in meetings, You're trying to get your voice heard. You might have someone that you say, you know, this is something I'm really working hard on and you come to a lot of the meetings I'm in. Do you mind if I ask you for feedback after each meeting? And that could be a weekly thing. So, it really depends what you're trying to achieve, but I think the deep dive, you know, sort of a A rough guide might be every 2 years.

And I think, um, if you're younger, maybe you're a teenager or a young adult, you might want to, you know, if you want to speak up more in class, for example, you might ask a trusted professor or teacher to give you feedback, or a friend, right? And that could occur more often, I would say.

Absolutely. And, you know, a lovely way of asking for feedback which is so simple and it's not scientific in any way.

Mm-hmm.

But it's ask someone for a score out of 10. So, today when you heard me speak up in class, how do you think I did on a scale of 0 to 10? So, was I more vocal? Was I more clear? And your professor or your friend might say, "I'd give you a 7." And you say, "Okay, what would make it a 10?" And it makes it very comfortable for the other person because people can feel— I mean, in England, people are awful about if you ask for feedback, like, oh no, it was really good, yes, wonderful, lovely. Um, but I know from having worked in the US as well, there's the same tendency, it's just not quite as extreme as in the UK. People feel uncomfortable when you ask them for feedback, and it's a nice—

really, I, I wouldn't have thought that about The British people, I don't think they give you honest feedback. No, it's awful.

No? They fumble over themselves telling you how great it is and trying to get away as quickly as they can. So, so this is just a— it's actually Jack Canfield who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, that's where I got this from, and it's just, it's just a really nice constructive simple way of doing it, which means that the person being asked doesn't feel uncomfortable and the person receiving gets a nice constructive workable solution.

Nice. And it's important to know that you can trust that person you're asking.

Absolutely.

You gotta pick the right person.

Absolutely important. You do. And you don't want someone that's gonna give you 10 out of 10 every time either.

No.

You know that lovely friend that's just gonna go, "Oh, you're brilliant." You need a coach kind of person.

Yeah. Somebody who's gonna be honest with you. So, But if you don't have that person, we can work on our metacognition to see how we're doing ourselves. But I think it's really important to have an actual measure even for yourself. So even if you put it inside like your own planner or calendar and kind of tick off what you're doing, that is really good feedback because we cannot rely on our emotions and memory because we're never going to remember exactly the way things happened. So it's so important to have that, like a logging sort of method where you— what am I trying to say?

I mean, I think it's spot on because unless we have a measure of some sort, we don't know how we're doing. We have no idea.

And we're so bad at it, right? Human perception of something could be colored by whatever your emotions are in that moment. So it's really hard.

Totally. I mean, I personally, whenever I present, not that we do this anymore because we're not on stage anymore, are we? But whenever I present on stage, I always think, "Oh, that was so terrible. That was awful. That was really bad." And then if people come up to me and they say, "Oh, that was great. It was amazing," I think, "Why are they lying to me?" Because they're British. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's it. I was just kidding, Juna. Oh, but you know, in a situation—

have you ever seen yours? Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just gonna say, in a situation like that, um, it's very much clouded by emotion because there's a huge amount of emotion involved in presentation.

Absolutely. And we— I would love to go into that another one of these, um, discussions, but because I always think I did terribly after I give a public talk also. But I have, um since then started taping myself, like videoing myself. And, um, it took a little practice to become, uh, to get to a place where I'm not beating up on my performance. But now I can be a little more objective about it. And I have to be honest, like, I enjoyed some of my lectures, but some of it I was like, ooh, that has to improve. So you have to kind of be, um, able to be honest with yourself as well. Watching a video of yourself or listening to an audio of yourself, um, I think that's why I love podcasting also, cuz I sometimes listen to my own podcast and I'm able to redo it. And in the past I was always afraid to record myself because I was afraid that I was gonna be horrible. Yeah. So I'm not saying you were horrible, but so I am taking my own advice cuz I teach a lot of kids who are you know, high-level musicians, and I tell them to record themselves. Or even if you're at any level of musical ability or anything, I tell them to record themselves and listen to it. And they do have to practice on how not to criticize themselves, overly criticize themselves, you know. But it's a really excellent tool.

It's a brilliant tool. And I mean, I am— I don't know if I told you, I'm a qualified snowboard instructor. And when you—

Snowboarding? Yeah.

And when you learn—

Oh, I just knew you were a surfer.

Yeah, well, this is— snowboarding is actually more my thing.

Oh my goodness.

But with the snowboarding, I often watch video analysis and can see that, you know, I don't think— you know, I might think I'm bending my legs quite a lot, and then I look back and I think, oh my goodness, my legs are so straight. And so it's really useful in the sporting context. It's useful in the musical context. It's useful in public speaking, audio. I, like you, just thought I would never be able to listen to myself, but now I have my own podcast as well. I can listen to myself, which I love, and it's awesome.

It's called Dot to Dot.

But it's, um, it's amazing actually, because some, some, some, you know, podcast sessions I'll think, well, I enjoyed it, but I don't think anyone else is going to. And I listen back and I think 'No, I really enjoyed that.' And so, it does, it gives you a different perspective, but it does require that ability, particularly with high performers, not to be overly critical.

Yeah, so you have to get practice being not overly critical. Yeah.

I mean, high performers have very high standards. Very high standards mean that they're always looking to, um, everything in their mind can always be better.

Yes.

And that's, that's great to an extent, but there's one of the things we actually judge leaders on is how realistic and accurate is their understanding of their strengths and their weaknesses. Because you don't want someone who's going to overplay strengths, clearly.

Right.

Neither do you want someone who's going to overplay weaknesses.

Mm-hmm. So it's really all about seeing yourself with a clear, realistic lens. Not overly inflating yourself and also not undermining yourself.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Let's reflect for the end of the year, beginning of the year.

Well, firstly, I'd say if you're making New Year's resolutions, which I don't really agree with.

Yeah, no, I think it's superficial. It's like a line we put into the calendar, but it's a nice ritual.

I Yeah, but we can set ourselves up to not do so well because of the way we do.

True.

But they should be realistic and they should be, um, consistent. You have to consistently apply yourself to them as well.

Ask me something that I should reflect on this year.

I think with a— from a well-being perspective, what are you grateful— what are you most grateful for?

My family and my health.

And I think that's— it never— it's never, ever a bad thing to reflect on what we're grateful for. And not from the perspective of being corny, but, you know, the science as well is it's immensely powerful.

Yeah.

So I would always say, if nothing else, reflect on what you're grateful for. Mm-hmm.

That's awesome advice. And honestly, that What I just told you is always top of mind for me. So that's my North Star all the time. That's how I make decisions. I know what's most important to me. Health, or, you know, physical and mental health, and the love I have for my family and my friends, new and old.

Same goes.

Okay, thank you. This was an amazing first of many to come.

Well, I always love talking to you, so. Thank you.

So fun. Okay, thanks, Fiona. Do you want to add anything, or?

I think just, you know, if, if you're reflecting, just have a think about what you've learned, what you're grateful for, and, um, and what you want to be grateful for in the future because of what you're going to achieve.

And I want to add to that what you want to keep doing, what was good, and what could be better. Yep. Okay. Awesome. Happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Thank you so much for listening to my monthly chat with Fiona, where we focused on insights and practical actionable tips to help you and your kids reach your highest potential. Find out more about her at fionamurden.com. You can shape the content of this podcast by letting me know what topics or questions you'd like to have addressed. Just go to mindbodyspirit.com/podcast mindbodyspace.com/podcast to opt in. When you opt in, you'll get extras from episodes like cheat sheets, worksheets, and special tips just for our newsletter subscribers. You'll also get information on our neuroscience-powered planner and online courses, Plan to Soar and Soar Under Pressure, for kids, parents, and educators. You can also simply email podcast@mindbodyspace.com. Subject line: Podcast Sign Up, and just write yes. If you appreciate the content and want to help, the absolute best thing you can do is to share. Text or email your friends, share on social media a link to your favorite episode, or use the sharing links on your newsletter. Good old-fashioned talking works too. Please share this podcast with all your friends, family, coworkers, anyone who believes in the scientific method. And are curious about natural ways to boost performance, health, mental and physical resilience for themselves or their kids. Thank you so much. And until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you and your family wellness.