How to Enhance your Personal and Professional Life Using the Mind Body Connection

And that's taking you away from your mind wandering, the worries of your life and everything like that. The other big thing that I think is really important that he said that a lot of people don't realize is that you have to have what he referred to as an oh well attitude towards distracting thoughts. That nobody can sit there and focus without their mind wandering for, you know, 5, 10, 20 minutes, whatever that may be. So what I've seen with people who are starting out, they focus on their breath and then they realize, you know, 5 minutes later, oh my gosh, my mind's been wandering. And then they get upset with themselves, activating the stress response kind of getting down, which is, you know, the exact opposite of what you want to do.

Welcome to the Mind Body Space podcast, where you can stress less and boost your performance and wellness down to the cellular level just by listening. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a mom MD passionate about sharing evidence-based tips to keep you and your family well. For the past 10 years, I've been teaching the science of resilience to high-achieving individuals at many different schools and organizations, And currently I'm on faculty at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, teaching gifted students how to stress less and perform at their best. I started this podcast because I wanted to share what I learn with my students, fellow parents, educators, and anyone who's interested as I explore fascinating topics like neuroscience and meditation with experts in education, medicine, and psychology. Your support makes this possible. Please subscribe and share with a family friend, anyone who needs to stress less, boost performance, and be happier. If you have questions for my guests or for me, or if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, please head on over to mindbodyspace.com/podcast and ask away, and we will answer your questions on the podcast on the last Friday of every month. If you need a good night's sleep, head on over to my YouTube channel, Fall Asleep Easy, to drift off and sleep like a baby.

Today I'm so happy to have my colleague and friend Tom Kusiewicz with me. He is the founder and president of Smart Health Wellness and Performance.

He's dedicated his career to teaching youth and teens practices that build resilience, strengthen their mental health, and help them achieve success in all areas of their life. Tom is not just an incredibly nice guy, he's also creating massive change and impact for teachers and students. We discuss how he secured funding for public schools in his local community towards the end of the podcast, so stick around. And by the way, since this interview his podcast has officially launched, and I had such a fun time being interviewed by him and his sister Jeannie. It's called Raising Resilient Kids. It's an awesome podcast, and the links are in the show notes. So without further ado, here's Tom. How you doing?

It's so good to see you, Tom.

Good to see you. So thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for taking the time out to be here. How have you been?

Good.

So Tom, did you start your new podcast, and what is it going to be called?

So we're still in the planning phases. It's basically going to be just around like focusing on the youth and building resilience in youth. So that'll be interviewing experts like yourself and other experts, you know, that have gone through difficult times potentially, just to kind of spread those messages to, you know, to parents, to teachers, coaches, as well as kids and teens themselves.

So you're gonna be discussing basically what you do every day and what you've dedicated your career to, right?

Correct. Exactly.

So we were all very excited to hear about your podcast coming up, and I'm really excited to be a guest on it. You told me that you're gonna be starting it with your sister.

Yeah.

Is she in the field of resilience as well?

So she is. So she actually was in, uh, or actually still is in Hollywood basically. So she actually used to work for the Ellen DeGeneres Show. So she's got that expertise. The one thing that we both have in common is we love kids. We love working with kids and things like that. So she's actually started a YouTube channel that basically is teaching kids kind of some, just like little kids, like basic stuff from numbers and letters and, you know, things that fly and things like that. So. Both of us got degrees in education, so that's kind of where we're coming from. That it's kind of funny that it comes now full circle and we're gonna be working together to help kids.

Oh my gosh.

I love it.

Yeah.

I did not know that about your sister, that she was in Hollywood.

Yeah.

Because you're in Illinois, correct?

Yep. Yeah.

So she grew up in Illinois also.

She grew up in Illinois. Yep. Yeah. And then moved out there.

What is her name?

Jeannie. Well, her last name is Stathis. I don't know if you'll find her under Stathis. I hope she does.

Okay. How do you say your last name?

Klishevitz.

OK. And I thought we were friends, Tom.

I did not know.

You said, how the hell?

We're always talking about the resilience stuff, not—

I guess I never said your last name.

Yeah, I know. That's right. Say it again. Kliszewicz.

Kliszewicz. Yeah. OK, that's not hard.

No.

Kliszewicz. Yeah, there you go. You got it.

Tom Kliszewicz and your sister, Jeannie Kliszewicz Stathis.

Correct.

So now she is out of Hollywood, or she's still in Hollywood? What does she do with The Ellen Show?

Yeah, so The Ellen Show is no longer, so she's not doing that. Basically, she's kind of trying different things right now. And this is the big thing. Thing as far as kind of her focus these days is on helping kids too with, with this YouTube channel that she's got started. I can, I can send you the link to that. Um, she published maybe the past 3 or 4 weeks, so she's been, you know, building it pretty much.

Oh, cool.

The past few months. So it's called Happy You're Here.

Nice.

That's her YouTube channel.

I love it. Okay. So, so she's into educating young kids, like little, little kids?

Correct. Yeah. That's my work. She loves working with the little kids. I love more the middle school, high school kids.

Awesome. Yeah. I love all of them. Every single bit. I do too. Like from Day one, I loved every single moment of raising my kids. Obviously, I've told you that before. That's really exciting. And what did she used to do on The Ellen Show? Did she used to manage the talent with the kids there? Because I have a couple of students from Juilliard. I'm pretty sure they have been on The Ellen Show. Oh, really?

That's fun.

OK.

So I wonder if she was on there.

So, yes. So it's like her official name was producer. I mean, she started out basically as the receptionist. What, a producer? Yeah.

I love— she has to come on my podcast. Oh my God. Really? She started as just like 30 Rock when that guy starts as a tour guide.

If you search some stuff on YouTube from her, you'll see kind of her story of how she got, how she got started on there.

Cool. But yeah, tell, give us a little synopsis.

So, so basically she just was to like try to win contests for Ellen and she never won. They finally brought her out, try out a contest, and she got the job. And then Ellen was in the studio live. She would be giving away. Prizes to people who were in their homes. And my sister would be the one who would knock on the door, actually surprise the people with, you know, Ellen on a TV, you know, live essentially.

So, so, oh, you mean like those people who would go up to people's steps and like ring the bell?

Exactly that. Yep.

And bring a big check or something for Oprah. Exactly. That's so cool. What a happy job.

I know. That's, that's pretty cool.

All right. That's really fun. Yeah. So back to you, now that we talked so much about your sister, I don't want you to feel left out. All right. So Tom, we met through the Benson-Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and we've both been trained to teach youth about basically their mind-body connection, right?

Correct.

Yeah.

And all of the science behind that. So tell me how you got into this and what made you so attracted to this field? 'Cause I know before you used to work at corporations making educational videos.

Yes, exactly. Yep. Did a lot of, a lot of corporate training. That's kind of how I started up. Actually, when I first started to learn about all this mind-body stuff, when I was in high school, cuz I loved studying successful people, seeing what made 'em tick, what were the habits and practices they were doing on a day-to-day basis. Certain things kept coming up over and over and over again, and a lot of it was this mindfulness, this meditation. So I'm in the Chicagoland area, so the Bulls were huge on this. Phil Jackson came in and kind of had, you know, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman meditating and things like that. So that's kind of how I first got curious about it. Basketball players, you, I mean, Steve Jobs meditated. I mean, you know, any performers really. If you look at anybody at the peak of their, whether it's business, whether it's sports, all of them are doing some type of a mind-body kind of focusing on the mental training portion of, of, you know, of the, of what they do. That's how I kind of first learned about it. And then I started to kind of dig in about it. And then I started to kind of dig into all the research and everything. And, you know, I mean, there's thousands of studies out there that show the benefits of all this stuff. And then I started to practice it myself and saw, all right, all these benefits from lowering stress to performing better, to being more focused. They were all happening in my own life. And that's kind of when I said, all right, I gotta find a way to, that I can tell everybody I possibly know about this and the benefits to it. And that's when I started to kind of search around. 'Cause when, when I was doing this, this, it was a lot more woo woo and kind of, you know, wasn't as accepted as it is today. I mean, it was probably 15, 20 years ago is when I really kind of, kind of started to get into it.

And so you just started like reading and researching on your own?

Exactly. Reading, researching on my own. Yep.

Do you remember like what was the turning point? For example, for me, I found Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, and obviously he was one of the people to really bring meditation into the United States culture. I started listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn, who was a big proponent of meditation, mainly mindfulness, but he resonated with me because he was a PhD biologist from MIT. That was his training. So the way he talks, I don't know, something about the way he talks touched me in some ways. And it's funny because I gave it to my sister cuz I'd lost my mother at that time. She was my sister's mother too. Anyway, so I gave it to my sister, but she did not like his voice. Sorry, John. Uh, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. She did not like his voice. For me, it was a lifesaver. And even during the pandemic, he actually had live free meditations like every single day during the pandemic and I would do it and I don't know, he's so comforting. So is there any particular ones that you're a fan of? Obviously you're a fan of Dr. Herbert Benson.

Yeah. You know, so, so really for me, I get distracted when I have guided meditations. I'm much better kind of on my own focusing on my breath, you know, whether it's breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, whether it's doing, you know, some of the, the 4-7-8 breathing techniques, all of, all of those various breathing techniques. That you and I learned at the Benson Henry. And, and so, so I wouldn't say there was one person, but how I got to the Benson Henry was once I decided that I wanted to do this for a living and really teach people about this, I kind of looked around and thought, all right, what's the best program out there? And researching it, I really thought that, all right, the one at Benson Henry is because it's so comprehensive, it covers so many different options. Mindfulness to meditation, to, you know, to visualization and imagery and things like that. And that's really what kind of drew me to it because everybody's different and what works for me might not work for you, might not work for somebody else. So if we could have a program that offers so many different techniques, trying them all out and then figuring out which one works best for you, and that's the way you can run with it. So that's what I really liked. And I found myself over time, I will get bored sometimes of the breathing techniques and maybe I'll move to an imagery. And because I have that education through Benson Henry, I have a lot of different tools. When one starts to get boring or, or, you know, it's distracting, I can do something different.

That's a great point because, you know, that was one of the things also aside, obviously from the scientific methods that Dr. Benson and his team promoted. So that was something that was so important to me because there's so many people out there who'll say, oh, this is the only way to do it, or you have to use this method. And Dr. Benson really studied all different people doing different techniques. And really describe the physiology of the relaxation response, which can be brought on by many different ways.

Yeah.

So yeah, I love that you brought that up because it's not one thing fits all and it's not one thing fits all at different times in your life.

Yeah.

What were the things that you read or listened to when you started to hear about the athletes?

I love reading autobiographies and that would kind of send me down a rabbit hole, whatever it was. Jackson and the Bulls would be a good example of that.

And Phil Jackson taught his team mindfulness. Zen and the Art of Winning: Phil Jackson's Team Leadership. So he won 11 NBA championship rings as a coach, 6 with the Chicago Bulls and 5 with the LA Lakers. Right.

He brought that to LA as well. So he had, you know, Kobe and Shaq meditating, you know, all these people you wouldn't imagine.

Yeah. Like you said, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan. He talked about no ego. He brought in Zen meditation, which is a Japanese Buddhist meditation, and then he also brought in philosophy and it sounds like Native American cosmology as well.

Oh, so learning kind of through Phil Jackson and everything, that kind of led me into different areas. And George Mumford is one who was brought in to kind of teach the Bulls meditation and mindfulness and things like that. So I kind of learned from him. I know he's written at least one book that I've read before. So, so those were different things. So again, it wasn't one person, but just kept seeing it over and over and over again. And it, it led me to think, okay, this is, there's something to this. If there's all these famous people that are doing it and there's all this science and research behind it, there's something to it. And that's what convinced me to try it. And then as soon as I tried it and it started, tried it and it started, everything that they said was gonna happen started happening for me. That's when I was sold on all the relaxation response stuff that we learned through Benson Henry.

Going back to George Mumford, for people who might not know about him, he had a story as he was an aspiring basketball player at UMass. And he did study with Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Yep, he did. Yeah.

So he was a heroin addict and then he ended up getting clean and he enrolled in Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction program, I guess back in the '90s.

Yeah.

That's an amazing story in itself. As you were reading these things, what did you start as your personal practice? Like you would sit and focus on your breath or what, what did you do?

Correct. Sit and focus on my breath. What, what was a one? Um, another one was just prayer. I know Dr. Benson talked about that is any kind of repetitive prayer, no matter No matter what type of religion you're in, pretty much all of them have some type of repetitive prayer. And that would, that would help to lead, you know, to that relaxation response as well.

Of course. And what kind of religion are you? Catholic.

So, okay.

So Catholics have a lot of prayers.

The rosary is a big one that, that, that is kind of a repetitive prayer that, yep.

Yep. Do you have rosary beads?

I do. Yeah.

It's kind of like those Buddhist beads too. Like that's the same thing you're doing. Probably.

Yeah. It's that, that repetition. Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, I always have to explain everything with a neuroscience bent, but you know, basically like when you're touching those beads, you're using senses, right? Counting.

Yeah.

Or maybe you're not counting. Do you count? No.

So it's basically just, yeah, you're different prayer, whether it's a Hail Mary and Our Father with, with each of the beads essentially.

So you're holding it and then you go on to the next bead.

Exactly.

And so you feel it in your fingers, feel it in your, your somatosensory cortex as you touch these. Beads, and then you are doing these mantras or prayers, which when you repeat something, you're basically pulling your attention away from self-referential thinking or rumination or just the mind wandering that we do that now they say it's not something positive.

Yeah. The worries about the future, the regrets of the past that are always in our heads takes us out of there.

Absolutely. So you would pray.

So it would be prayer. It would be focusing on my breath, just whatever seemed to be the right thing to do. It could be, you know, an imagery, you know, joyful place imagery, tho— those types of things. Just thinking about a place that brought me joy and all the details around that, that another one. So I just like to try many different techniques. All have seemed to work for me at some point.

I wanna go back to 15 years ago when you're starting this, how many minutes a day did you do? When did you do it? How did you do it? And how did you feel after you did it? Like what convinced you that this was actually doing something to your brain?

Originally when I started out, it was probably about, you know, maybe 5, 10 minutes. I would do it once a day and probably towards the end of the day before bed. That I would, or to do it. Always just felt a lot more relaxed, especially, you know, stressful day of having young kids and working in the corporate world. You know, there were always a ton of different stresses and I just knew that I felt better. I slept, I was able to, you know, get to sleep easier. I wasn't, you know, my mind wasn't ruminating as I was getting into bed. And then I just kept building from there. And now I'm up to, you know, 20 minutes once or twice a day is easily what I do. And I think most people say, oh, that's way too much, but you know as well as I do that you're just so much more focused during the day after you've done that, that it's the time, the investment of the time, because you're a lot better and more productive.

So when you do those once a day ones, which one would you choose, the morning one or the evening one?

The morning one. I'm pretty consistent with the morning one. So pretty much every morning I'll work out and then do a 20-minute meditation. So that's consistent.

Wow.

Work out first. That's great. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I usually, if I'm gonna meditate in the first thing in the morning, I have to meditate first. And you, you probably have to get that physical energy out first before you can sit still.

I do. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm the opposite. It's the opposite for me. So you were talking about kids. How old were your kids when you started meditating?

So, I mean, you know, my youngest was probably 6 or 8, I think. So I've got 3, I've got much older. So one's outta college, one's in college, and one's in high school.

So I've got, you definitely have to meditate with teenagers.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. With teenagers, you probably gotta meditate.

Yeah.

So, so, um, my daughter, if she would, if she would've been 6, my son would've been 3, and actually my youngest would've been a baby at that.

Oh, wow. So he must have benefited the most.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I guess they weren't old enough that I can ask them, did you notice a difference between before and after your dad started medicine? No. Yeah.

You can probably ask my wife that, but I don't know. Oh yeah.

I was gonna say, what does your wife say? Did she say anything about, uh, missing anything about you?

Um, she. Definitely, I would say now I'm not as uptight, maybe that's the right word, as I was when, you know, dating. So I think I'm a lot more relaxed as a result of, of the meditation.

You've been battered by 3 children.

Exactly.

Okay. So that's awesome. But like, what if somebody said, what's the difference between, you know, stress management and resiliency training and the science behind all of it? What's the difference between to know all that versus just going to church or temple or whatever your religion is. I'm not religious myself, so I don't go to any particular place. But if you were to go to those places of worship, why would you need to know the science? Or why would you need to know any of this stuff that Dr. Benson researched? Is it different for you after knowing the science of doing the rosary beads as opposed to before?

I would say yes, because I kind of knew what I needed to do. So, so, you know, you talk about going to church or whatever that is, pretty much when you go, or at least when I went to church, it was very easy to not really listen and be distracted and kind of be in my head anyway, thinking about, again, worrying about what I had to do that week or regretting something I did earlier, you know, the week before. I just thought, all right, I need to be there. But now kind of knowing the science behind, all right, it's being present. It's, you know, just the whole mindfulness piece, being present, paying attention to what's going on, or with the rosary, kind of, you know, focusing on the prayers and the touching of the beads, you're more focused on that one thing and being in the moment beforehand where I was just sitting there kind of daydreaming.

So before that you felt like you were there physically and that was it.

Exactly. Correct.

Yeah. But then once you knew the science, you were like, right, I do need to actually focus on what I'm doing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And be there sensory-wise. So interesting. Um, it's the same thing with yoga, right? So many people practice yoga and they still feel stressed out. They're still like snappy or angry after yoga class. I used to get mad in yoga class if I didn't love the teacher. Like, you might not just, you gotta get outta here.

Well, we always used to say like leaving church was always dangerous because the parking lot was the most dangerous place after church. So you had all these people that went in to be really nice and, you know, pray to God and everything. And then you get out and you'd have all these angry people trying to get out of a church parking lot.

So funny.

Yeah.

It's like yoga class, right? Yeah. It's crowded and like nobody moves over. Or in fact, one person scowled at me. I mean, like people scowl at each other if there's no space in yoga class, unless actually, unless the teacher says something like, you know, we're all here, make space for each other.

Yeah.

Really makes a big difference what the teacher says.

Yeah.

But yeah, you could do yoga for hours. You could meditate on a cushion for, you know, years and like that old Zen fable, you just get up and you're back to where you were because maybe your mind wasn't there. So yeah, I agree. For me also knowing the science and knowing the steps, maybe you can go over the steps that Dr. Benson has laid out for any type of thing you're doing, whether you could even be knitting and making it into a relaxation response.

You know, the big things that I remember him kind of saying is you've gotta have something that you're focusing on. It could be a breath, it could be a word, could be an image, whatever that is, that one thing. And that's taking you away from your mind wandering, the worries of your life and everything like that. The other big thing that I think is really important that he said that a lot of people don't realize is that you have to have what he referred to as an oh well attitude towards distracting thoughts. That nobody can sit there and focus without their mind wandering for, you know, 5, 10, 20 minutes, whatever that may be. So what I've seen with people who are starting out, they focus on their breath and then they realize, you know, 5 minutes later, oh my gosh, my mind's been wandering. And then they get upset with themselves, activating the stress response, kind of getting down, which is, you know, the exact opposite of what you want to do. So what he always said is, you know, just have that oh well attitude. Once you catch your mind wandering, realize, okay, oh well, I noticed that. Allow that thought to flow out of your mind and then go back to focusing on whatever you chose. Again, that breath, the word, the image. And then he always talked about how you've got to be doing it for enough time though. You know, if you're just doing it for 5 minutes once a month, it's not really going to have that benefit. You've got to have that consistency, you know, and I always say, hey, try 5 minutes a day for 30 days. And I'm pretty sure if you're doing that consistently, you're gonna be, you're gonna be hooked by the end of that 30 days because there's so much you'll see, you'll feel more relaxed. You'll see so many benefits in your life.

Even just start with one breath, right?

Yeah.

The minis that they talk about, the mini meditations. And honestly, like that's all I try to do sometimes. Some days I can only do those minis, right? Just take a few breaths and, uh, on that relaxation response.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I do remember him talking about, you know, the word he uses is nonchalant, being nonchalant. Oh, well, it goes again.

Yeah.

So not to get caught up in that. I wanna talk about your emphasis on performance. How does self-care and mind-body medicine, and mind-body medicine by definition is that our mind influences the health of our body and that our body vice versa influences the health of our mind because it's all one nervous system. It's connected. In your case, you've focused a lot on performance. I know you work with youth and young athletes also. Can you go into detail about how mind-body medicine can help people become more confident and even perform better in whatever they're doing?

I think, and it really goes back to what we were talking about before, the whole Bulls, you know, aspect. That's how I kind of, you know, one of the ways that I kind of learned about it, the fact that they weren't doing it for health reasons, they were doing it because it was making them better at basketball so that they could win all those championships and everything like that. And the reason why I pushed kind of the performance piece is because I think every single kid in the world can benefit from this stuff. But especially with kids, if they're not in some type of crisis situation, it's hard to convince them that they need this stuff. So what I've found is it's a great kind of hook, a way to convince them to say, hey, whatever it is that you love to do, whether that's playing a musical instrument, playing a sport, Playing video games, even if you're practicing this stuff consistently, it's going to make you better at whatever it is you love to do. It'll make you better at that. The idea then is to hook them on this. So they start to build the practices, build the habits consistently. And then when challenges occur in their lives, they've kind of built that resilience. They kind of can lean on this stuff and they're better prepared to hopefully, you know, get through those issues and maybe even thrive after them. So my whole kind of thing on the performance is more just as a way to convince kids to do it and to do it consistently. Really my true end goal is to make them the best human, resilient human that they'll, they'll be so that no matter what, you know, most kids are not gonna become professional athletes, but all this stuff they're gonna be learning in athletics and the mental training will apply into whatever it is they do in the future.

I really agree with you that the earlier you start, the better. Because of habits, right? What do you think about that?

I always say, you know, if we can teach kids when they're, you know, in the early grades, whether it's grammar school, middle school, or high school, and they build these habits, then there's no telling what they're going to do in the future. I mean, it's incredible. And that's the kind of future I want to live in where we've got all these people, you know, who have great, like you said, emotional intelligence. They've got the ability to focus, that whole kindness and compassion that just comes from practicing this type of stuff. That's a great world to live in if we've got more and more kids who are growing up with that. Continuing that through their adult lives.

Mm-hmm. And I mean, obviously we're not gonna be perfect, but I mean, at least if we are aware and we are self-aware as much as we can be.

Yeah.

And then, you know, react with kindness or an apology. Yeah. Right? Yep. How did it change you as a parent? Because, you know, that's one of my favorite hobbies being a mom.

Yeah. My fa— and my dad is, is my favorite job I've ever had. And I'm sure we'll be as close.

Oh, great.

Me too. We have that in common for sure. Yeah.

I mean, I think it, it made me more patient. You know, it, it helped me.

Why?

Just because I guess I was able to kind of, you know, like I've heard people talk about, kind of you get that little space between what happens to you and then how you react to it. And as you practice this stuff more and more, that space becomes a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. So you have time to kind of stop, take a breath and say, okay, what do I want in this situation? Where before it was like, all right, I, you know, react negatively, throw, you know, kind of fly off the handle. As I was able to kind of expand that space, it would be, all right, what do I want in this situation? You know, I want my kids to know that I love 'em. I don't want, you know, to hurt this relationship. So it, it kind of helped me to react better over time as I, as I practice this stuff more and more.

Mm-hmm. And again, we have missteps, right? But then at that point you are self-aware enough to be able to apologize maybe.

Yeah, exactly.

Or maybe in my case, I love to use the brain and explain What happened in my brain? Or what happened in their brain?

My amygdala took over.

And yeah. Yes. And you also know, because you've been studying mind-body medicine in youth, you know about their brain development. So that will help us as parents to understand, like, there's no connection.

Right.

They're not trying to manipulate you. They're not trying to, like, pull one over you. There's actually no connection.

Yeah.

That's a great point.

So that really helps with my patients.

Yeah. That's a great point.

Now I wanna talk about the amazing work you're doing, if you don't mind talking about it a little bit. You just recently got or will be getting a huge grant in Illinois.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. To teach mind-body medicine to kids in public schools.

Correct.

The amazing work you're doing, if you don't mind talking about it a little bit, you just recently got or will be getting a huge grant in Illinois.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

To teach mind-body medicine to kids in public schools.

Correct. We basically, we worked through our, our congressman as well as the United Way of Will County. Um, and we were able to get a, get a grant to offer this program to teachers. So it's the Resilient Youth Program through the Benson Henry Institute and everything like that. And what we'll be doing, we've got enough money to actually train over 500 teachers that are in schools in Weld County. There'll be elementary, there'll be middle, junior high, as well as high schools. Sure. To teach these teachers so that they can then bring these techniques into the schools. And what I love about that is cuz then once the teacher has this education, they can continue year after year.

And you know, it's new students come in and they're gonna reach 25,000 25,000 students, right? Correct.

Yeah. 25,000 students will be able to.

If anybody's a grant writer out there listening to this, please contact us and then we can get this in New York as well.

Correct.

So this is incredible news. I love it. Thank you so much for all this work you're doing. This is just phenomenal. All right. Thank you so much, Tom.

Thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing as well.

Since this interview, his podcast has officially launched. It's called Raising Resilient Kids. It's an awesome podcast.

You can find the links and more about Tom at smarthwp.com.

To get a good night's sleep, head on over to my YouTube channel, Fall Asleep Easy, to drift off and sleep like a baby. Please subscribe and share with a friend, family, anyone who needs to stress less, boost performance, and be happier. And soon enough, you'll be surrounded by Zen people. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you and your loved ones wellness.