The Power of Vulnerability: How Owning Your Mental Health Creates Strength | Newton Cheng (Google)

The future is how.

Have you asked yourself today, what's next for me? You're not alone. We've all felt that way at some point. My name is Frederik Pferdt, and for years I've helped the brightest minds at Google and Stanford and people around the world shape their futures. Now I want to help you to to do the same. Because the future isn't just something that happens. It's something you can create. Starting right now. From within. Instead of waiting to see what happens next, let's explore how you can make it happen. Each episode dives into one key area. Like sleep, nutrition, relationships, creativity, storytelling, mindfulness, beauty, movement, or purpose, and brings you real stories and practical tools you can use to shape a better future for yourself. So what's one step you can take today to create what's next? Let's dive in and explore how to build a better tomorrow, starting right now.

Welcome back, Future Ready community. Like in each episode, we explore how to create a better tomorrow through mind state, stories, and practices that shape the futures we want to live. I'm beyond excited to have my dear friend and former Google colleague Newton Chang with us. Hi, Newton. Such a pleasure to have you.

Hi, Fredrik. Good to see you.

He's actually the director of health and performance at Google at the moment, and he's also a fitness enthusiast, a leadership expert, and someone who has not only transformed his life but also redefined what it means to thrive in work, well-being, and personal achievement. If you're ready to dive into mental health and physical fitness, you're in for a treat. Newton, again, welcome to the show. Super excited to have you.

I'm very excited to be here. I don't know if I've told you this. You're— you and the work you did at Google and the work that I was brought into to help you facilitate CSI Lab, the design thinking workshops at Google so many years ago, that has transformed my life and career and become really part of my DNA and how I show up in the world. So thank you.

One of the practices I want to do in this show is that I rather not talk about our past bios and past achievements. I want to talk about the future Newton Chang. So again, before we dive into your incredible journey, let's start with your future bio. So imagine it's 5 years from now. What have you accomplished, created, or become?

Well, I think the most important thing is in 5 years I am still a husband and father. So that's highest priority. Second, in the world of powerlifting. So I'm a fitness enthusiast. I'm a competitive powerlifter. In 5 years, I will be 51. I would like to be the International Powerlifting Federation's Masters 2 World Champion, which means the 50 and over category. And if possible, I'd like to be strong enough to beat the 40 and over category. And then lastly, within my career, I'd love to see a headline in a— well, on the New York Times would be great, but I'll take HBR if I can get there— that says that I sparked a revolution in how we teach leadership. And do it in a way that truly integrates both the emotional and cognitive sides of leadership, focusing on the skill of vulnerability.

So let's dive right into that future that you want to see happening. I really love that you start off being a father. I think you're a father of two and a husband. So relationships really matter, right? And I think that's what all sorts of studies show us, that if we invest in our relationships, right, we're going to have a healthier, happier, and actually longer life as well. So really wonderful to hear you kicking us off with that focus on our relationships and families and friends and communities that we are part of.

Yeah, I think just one thing I want to say there, and this points to this direction of if we go into this topic of vulnerability, I was recently in this leadership summit. And so it's a room full of senior leaders at Google and we're just doing some icebreakers and someone asked, how many here have caregiving responsibilities for aging parents? Over half the hands in the room go up. And then I look around the room and I knew a lot of the people and for so many of them, like you have kids too. So you are like in the caregiving sandwich and most of us don't even talk about that. But I see this and I'm like, well, for all of us, that's actually job one. That's actually highest priority. And we've been hiding that from one another. It's a huge, huge load. So that's kind of an example of something where it's like we know this to be true if we just think logically about how many people are carrying this load, but we don't share it and therefore we can't support each other through that struggle.

Yes, such an important point. And I love that you kicked off the conversation with asking people, you know, what are their caregiving responsibilities? And as you mentioned, you know, we are most of the time in a sandwich situation, right, where we have to take care of our kids or friends or, you know, even other people's children, right? When we, you know, have them at our house or have them in our place, you know, we have some sort of a responsibility, but also to our parents, right? We all have responsibilities that really we mostly do not talk about or not share with others. And I love that you kicked off that summit by just having people share what they're currently dealing with, right? What's on their mind and what's keeping them also motivated, probably in a way, to become better human beings, right? To take better care of the people they need to take care of. So if you want to talk a little bit more about that notion of vulnerability and how important that is in your work and in your life too.

For your audience, I'll give a little bit of background of how I've gone into this direction of thinking that vulnerability— we've all been talking about vulnerable leadership over the last few years, but what I've come to realize over the last 2.5 years as I've been experimenting with this is we're all talking about it, we're all looking for academic studies to say we should be more vulnerable, but then at some point, if I take vulnerable leadership out of the equation, let's just say talk about the skill of playing the piano, It's like we have talked about playing the piano, we send each other articles about playing the piano, we look for academic research to say we should all play the piano. And then I look around and say, how many people are going out every day and practicing piano? Because that's how this is going to happen. And when I looked around and said, we're all talking about vulnerable leadership, but who's actually trying to push on this and figure out how to really do this in the workplace? The number was really small. So, a few years ago, just to go very quickly, I ended up despite all my expertise in health and well-being, health and performance, I'm a high-level competitive athlete, I actually helped roll out many of the resilience programs at Google. Despite all that expertise, I still ended up in a bad place and I burned out and went on mental health leave. Now, the thing that was unique was that because I worked in that role, I also knew the data around how many were struggling inside and outside at Google, and it's a significant number. So, some of the studies I like to cite from Microsoft and McKinsey show that up to 1 out of 2 of us feel we're burned out at work and 1 out of 4 of us had had a struggle with mental health either currently or in the past. So, a huge, huge number, but none of us share that because of stigma. So, when I came back from mental health leave, I came back with this determination to say, I'm going to share my story wherever I'm invited to do so. It accelerated really quickly. So I did one podcast and then I posted on LinkedIn, and that post got 20 times the engagement of anything I'd ever posted. So then I kept posting, more invites came, people started asking, can you do talks? Then they'd say, can you do workshops for my team? And I'd say, I don't have a workshop, but I know how to prototype and test, you know, thanks to working with people like Frederick. And so I'd say, yeah, let's give it a try. And so now, 2 and a half years of prototyping and testing, talks, workshops, as well as experimenting with how I show up, what I've learned is vulnerability, you know, showing up vulnerably the first time, it's really a true act of courage. But after that, and getting it right, it's a learned skill. But you wouldn't know that unless you tried over and over and over for weeks, months, years. And that's what I've done for the last 2.5 years. So now in my talks, I've both tried to model vulnerability by sharing my story, but then I quickly get into tactics of, hey, here's how you actually show vulnerability with one another in a way that will feel safe for the group and stays wedded to the work. So it's not just people trauma dumping on one another.

Fascinating. Yes. Could you share maybe a story of someone that participated in one of your workshops or your talks and how that notion of showing up more openly, being vulnerable, combined with courage to do that the first time and then it becomes a learned skill and how that changed their lives.

Yeah, I'll do actually 3 quick stories because it kind of shows the progression. So early on when I was sharing my story, I got invited to share my story with my entire larger organization or my boss's boss's boss's organization. So I'm like, "Great." That was, I think, 1,500 people at the time. And I was presenting into a tiny laptop camera because I couldn't get a full video conference unit. So I'm presenting into my laptop, I'm looking at my slides so I can't see the audience. I tell my story, I do my talk, and then I have no idea how it's landing because I can't see the audience. But then a friend of mine back in Google's headquarters, she sends me a chat message and says, Right now I'm hiding in the back of the room choking back tears because for the first time in a long time I feel seen. And on the one hand, it was joyful to just hear like, okay, you don't feel alone. Like I've reached someone, like someone I know. On the other hand, I was kind of horrified because I know this person. I've known them for years. I didn't know they were struggling like that. And so that was my first aha. I was like, okay, So many of us are struggling. We're all still hiding it due to stigma even though we're trying to show up caring with one another. So, that was the first thing. Now, fast forward, let's say a year. I've turned these talks into more practical workshops. I do a workshop for my friend's team and it goes well but not remarkably so. It goes about as well as they all go. But at that point, I figured out what works. And so, it's working consistently. What that looks like is I give people language and frameworks to talk about their struggles. They open up with one another. They start to share what's really going on with them both at work and then beyond work and how that supports or maybe impacts their ability to be at their best. And so, as I'm leaving the room, my friend walks out with me and he's like, "That went great. That went so, so well." And that feels good, but this will sound arrogant, but I'm like, "They all go about that well. Why did that feel remarkable to you?" And so I asked, "What do you mean it went really, really well?" And he said, "Well, they come from a traditionally buttoned-up industry and this is a relatively new team. They don't know each other." And that was kind of striking to me because based on the dynamic I saw in there, my assumption was, oh, you've all known each other for years or you wouldn't open up this quickly. But he said, no, they're all ex-consultants and they've only been together for a few weeks. So that was my aha of like, okay, wait a minute, this whole vulnerability thing, yes, it's an act of courage,. But if I treat it like a learnable skill where I show you the baby steps and then I give you a, a safe sandbox to practice those baby steps, you can get there real fast. So that was the second one. And then the last, the last story is at some point after I practice this over and over and over, what I've been able to access is I was having a meeting with my team and I had been actually struggling again. With mental health where I was struggling with depression for a few weeks and it was starting to impact my performance. So, I said to my team, "Okay, right now I want you to know my depression is kind of flared up right now." And, what happened as soon as I said that, all the heart emojis started coming through the video conference. And, I thought, "Okay, that's wonderful, but wait, stop, please. That's not what I'm looking for. Here's what I'm looking for." "Because I'm struggling with depression, what I want you to do is be much more precise with me about what you need and by when, and I'll make sure I prioritize that to get it to you so that we move forward." And so, once you've done this enough, two things happen. Like, one, you still feel your feelings, so you have full access to them and you're truly integrated, but you can talk about topics like depression with no emotional charge at all. So it's like, no, this is just a topic we should talk about so we can be at our best versus hide it. So now it's like, it's kind of like accessing a new way of being, not just with yourself, but with your team.

Thanks for sharing these, these 3 stories, all 3 remarkable in their own ways. Where it really brings to life this power of vulnerability and when we actually make use of it. And it's just an incredible example of how a single experience can change the course of our lives, an experience of sharing something that you would otherwise not share with your colleagues, with your friends, and so forth, and how that can impact your life and future moving forward. It also brings to mind another principle you've been promoting, which is called ikigai. And for those listening, ikigai is a Japanese concept meaning a reason for being. It's about finding the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you get paid for. Or can get paid for. So how has that concept of ikigai shaped your life and helped you to navigate life as well? And how do you use it to guide your decisions?

So I think I learned that framework maybe about, let's say, 10 years ago. I think I really started pondering some of the components of that, like what do I love and what does the world need? That would've been really during my first job after my undergraduate studies in electrical engineering. So the beginning of my career, I started as a disgruntled engineer and the company I worked for, the team was great, the people were great, they were all top-notch, and yet I was really discontent. And so you suddenly start bringing up these questions of what's wrong or what's wrong with me is like the narrative. That I was coming up with. It was very self-judgmental because it's like everything's good. There's a career path here, cool technology, great people. Why don't I feel happy? And so, at the time, if I think about what I took stock of in terms of ikigai, in terms of what I loved, I knew I was interested in helping people improve their health and well-being. I knew I could get paid for that in certain contexts, whether that would be in, say, the fitness industry, the corporate context as health and well-being programs were emerging. In terms of what I'm good at, I had a lot of knowledge there. I was good at relationships. Eventually, I would become better at things like strategy and leadership. And then, what I could get paid for, I could do that either, again, in the fitness industry or companies such as the Googles of the world were starting to actually staff people to care for the health and well-being of their workforce. And so this shifted me from the electrical engineering world off to business school to study how health and wellbeing intersects with businesses. And I came out of that and managed to land this role at Google. And that was 16 years ago. 3 years ago is when I went on my mental health leave. And so I had kind of thought up until then I'd have a singular ikigai.. And now that I'm a little older, you see, that's a little naive. And I can look retrospectively and you kind of, you try to imagine your ikigai with whatever information you have in the environment you're in at that time. So like, if I go all the way back to high school, I thought I wanted to be a doctor like my parents. I just found them incredibly inspiring. The world needs doctors. I could get paid to be a doctor. I could learn to be good at being a doctor. And so, I thought that was my ikigai. Things kept shifting. I thought my job at Google is my ikigai and it is to a large extent or a lot of it is, but then life hands you something like a mental health leave and all the struggles related with that and the way it affects your family. And then, it gives you for whatever reason this fire to tell your story. You tell your story, you start to see change happening. And so now I feel like life has given me this new tool where it's like, what are you good at? What is this thing you have to offer the world? It's like, well, I have this story. I've used the story to create this flywheel where I keep learning from others around their struggles. I learn about what the skill of vulnerable leadership looks like. And I don't know exactly how to get paid for this. You know, you get paid to do talks and workshops. There's something emergent there., but I feel like the world needs it. So it's not my day job, but I feel compelled to keep pushing on this and seeing where it goes. And then I'm sure in about 10 to 15 years, life will hand me something different and my ikigai will evolve again.

So that's, that's what it's looked like for me. That's such a beautiful way to live life, right? To not just have one ikigai, but have your multiple ikigais that you can always pull out and look at, reflect on, and change. I think it's such an important way of looking at life in general. You also mentioned something interesting, which is something that is handed to you. So life hands something to you in a way that you accept it, you work with it, but also then you figure out a way moving forward, right? And ikigai can be such a compass that's really helpful to figure out, like, what's the path forward here? What do I love to do? What do I get paid for? And so forth. So let's shift to something equally important, which is that general topic of mental health, right? With everything you've achieved, right? And you've been really working in that field for a very long time. How do you manage your own mental well-being? What practices help you stay balanced? Are there any ways that really help you to just pay more attention to your mental fitness and mental well-being?

Any practices that you want to share? Yeah. So at the beginning, when I talked about what's my future headline, if you go back and listen to that, there's 3 categories there. It's family, it's competitive athlete, and then it's leader in the workplace or in this topic of mental health. The reason I do that is, one, it fits the way I think about my life, but then two, it's also a reminder to me of what's important. And if I nurture a system made up of these 3 parts in the right way, then I have the best chance of building the life that I want to live, and that's my best chance at having good mental health, in my opinion. So family is most important. Second, even though it doesn't pay me anything, like I actually lose money on it because no one cares about the sport of powerlifting, I put competitive athlete as second because being a successful competitive athlete, it requires me to really stay in a good place in terms of physical health, mental health, social health and relationships, as well as what I refer to as spiritual health. And so, the definition I like for that comes from a thinker named Caspar Terkyle who comes from, I think he runs a consultancy called the Sacred Design Lab. He's out of Harvard's Divinity School. And, he talks about spiritual health being as your connection with yourself, others, and then something greater that knits us all together. And so, there's that part. And then, the last part is leader in the workplace/mental health advocate. Both those things are very fulfilling to me, but I also know I'm wired for achievement. And so, I have to keep that third because it will try to suck up all the energy and capacity in the name of achievement at the expense of both my family and my health. And so, if I can keep that system in balance, and just to be clear, balance doesn't feel good, it feels like uncomfortable tension because you're saying no to stuff you want to do all the time across all three of those buckets. But if I can keep that in balance, like the correct uncomfortable tension, then I have a really good shot at having good mental health.

Thank you for sharing that and bringing that back to the 3 categories, which is really about prioritizing as well. If we put relationships and family first and then performing as an athlete second, and then also What is the contribution that we want to make to the world, right? As a leader in the, for example, mental health space as you are, I think it's really helpful to have that prioritization always ready for you because that also helps you make better decisions in the moment, right? What am I prioritizing right now versus tomorrow or the week after, right? And so thanks for sharing that. Yeah, happy to. I want to dive now into what I call a mindstate moment. So I want to take a moment to reset ourselves. And I want to do that using a quick body scan, but with a twist. So we're going to ask ourselves one simple but powerful question. What would it take to feel just 1% better right now? So that's the question I want to have you take to that quick experience, that mindstate moment.

Next, let's take a moment to pause and reconnect. This is your Mindstate moment, a chance to reset and come back to yourself, wherever you are right now. These moments of presence are powerful. They remind us that the future starts from within. By shifting how we show up in this very moment.

So if it's safe for you, gently close your eyes. If not, just follow along with my words. And let's start with your feet. Feel them on the ground and just ask yourself, what would it take for these feet to feel just one 1% lighter. Now move your attention to your legs, just noticing any tension, asking yourself, what would it take to feel 1% stronger in these legs? Focus on your core. Take a deep breath in and feel your center expand. What would it take to feel 1% more steady and connected? Shift your attention to your chest and shoulders. Let them relax a little. What would it take to release 1% of weight you've been carrying? And now your hands. Wiggle your fingers and ask yourself, what would it take to open them just 1% more, ready to create, to give, or to receive? And finally, bring your focus to your head, noticing your thoughts without judgment. What would it take for your mind to feel 1% clearer or lighter? Take one more deep breath in and just exhale Slowly, when you're ready, open your eyes and just return to the present moment. So with that mind state moment, for me it's incredible how even small shifts, just these 1% shifts at a time, can change the way we feel and even think. And your journey really, Newton, is a reminder that the path to transformation begins with curiosity, right? Small steps, small experiments, asking the right questions, prioritize what's important to us, and maybe ask, what would it take, right? That's a famous question that you asked a lot when we were working together, and that really helped you to also lead your teams effectively, right? Asking What would it take? So Newton, before we wrap up, what's a practice that people really can try, which could be like just that 1% shift on a morning or the next morning they wake up? I think you shared in the past some easy but powerful ways that you start your day. So are there any practices or experiments that you can share that really help us to just be ready for the day and have a very different experience with our mornings.

I think one thing I've gotten inconsistent lately, but well, this is a good reminder to get back to it, but I have a process that I try to start mornings with. And this is highly dependent on how the kids sleep or if they stay in bed when I think they are going to stay in bed. So, life's gotten pretty volatile. But, on an ideal morning, I'll come up to this office and I'll meditate. And, one of the things that I heard on a different podcast that I realized I was doing and now I'm trying to reset my approach to meditation was I was using meditation as a way to quell my physical state to kind of just lower my state of arousal to just kind of relax. But what I also found I was doing was it cleared my mind, but at the same time, it probably helped me avoid a bunch of feelings. And so, all the mess that was in my mind, I'm like, "Ah, it's quiet." But instead, what I'm trying to do is look at the mess. So, I might spend the morning taking a few deep breaths and trying to observe the mess with less labeling of the experience to just say, treat it as truth. It doesn't have to be good or bad, it's just this is what's going through your head. And so, then once I'm in touch with that, I go straight to my journal. And, I like to use this practice called daily pages from a book called "The Artist's Way." And, what I do is I'll set a timer for 10 minutes and I say, "I just need to write continuously, no editing, No self-censorship, just write it all out on a page, 10 minutes, see what comes out. And, it feels awkward at first, it just feels like rambling, but then eventually a few gems spill out that I didn't know were in there. And, that gives me a new path for self-reflection. And then, finally, I try to list out, okay, and today, what are the most important things? What's the most important things to do as husband and father, athlete, and then professionally. And that is ideally how I center my day.

And if it's a really good morning, then after that I go for a walk. Thanks for sharing that. Yes, I think something we can all try out the next morning, right, to really see what changes we can experience in our morning routine. And just that notion of experimenting, right, trying something different, is very powerful because so many times we wake up and we instantly go to our routines that mostly are not that beneficial for us, to be honest. Which reminds me of an approach that Tim Ferriss just recently shared where he said his morning routine is guided by a motto, which is make before you manage. So he's really promoting something similar to you where he says, try to find something that you can create or make. As the first thing in your morning. It doesn't have to be something big. It could be make yourself a coffee or a tea, make breakfast, or make a piece of writing, or make a piece of creative work. And you said that even in 10 minutes, writing constantly and just trying to produce something is a better way to start your morning before you actually start to manage all of your inbox and incoming messages or whatever is there for you to manage. I think that's a good reminder that sometimes we need to prioritize make before we actually manage, which gets you into also a mode of accomplishment, right? That you feel like you actually have accomplished something as the first thing in the morning, which gives you a little bit of satisfaction, gives you like a little bit of a boost, right? It gives you a motivation to say like, hey, I created something today.

This is going to be a good day today. Yeah, actually, I love that saying, make versus manage. I haven't heard that one, but my aha just now was if I have to offer another tool and I'm now using it for the first time in real time, if I audit the times— so I work at a big complex organization— the times where I start to feel really discontent I'm making or I'm managing a lot more than I'm making. And now I can kind of take that back and say, when I'm feeling that way, how do I rebalance that?

Such a great reminder, as you know, you're promoting vulnerable leadership, right? I think just being reminded that whenever we feel bad or we feel like burnt out or we feel like some sort of emotions that are negative, right, we tend to do more managing., right? And probably we don't manage at our best. Just remind yourself like, hey, why not going back into creating mode, right? Or making mode, which probably could be a lot more beneficial for me and for my team as well. Yes.

Thank you.

Absolutely. Great. Newton, I have to say, like, you know, you inspire me every time I have a chance to talk to you. And I'm sure our listeners are taking many practices and inspiration away from today's show. So thank you so much for joining us. And I want to just remind people that there is some great work out in, in the world from Newton, some great practices that everybody can try around mental health, around also physical fitness, but also around vulnerability and vulnerable leadership. So check out Newton Cheng on, I think, Instagram and on LinkedIn. And you're going to find many more pieces of inspiration and practices that we all can try out to live a healthier and better life moving forward. So thanks again, Newton, for joining us. That's a wrap for today's episode. And if this conversation resonated with you, please share it with a friend who might use a little bit of inspiration for their lives as well. And you remember, your next chapter begins now. So thanks for joining us on The Future Is How, and talk to you later.

Thank you. That's a wrap for today's episode of The Future Is How. Remember, the future isn't something we wait for. It's something we create with every choice, every breath, and every step we take. If this episode sparked something in you, Share it with someone who's ready to shape what's next. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your next chapter begins now. So what will you create today? I'll see you in your future.