Balancing Stress and Success: Leadership and Mental Health with Dr. Mat Park

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.

Matt. Thanks for joining us today, Kwame.

I'm excited.

Thank you. Me too. Me too. So how about we get started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah. So, you know, I work a couple different hats. One of my first hats, I'm an organizational development specialist at NASA. So I've been at NASA for about seven years, but none of what I say and none of what I'm talking about is a representation of NASA. Couple other hats, and that's what I'm bringing to the table. So my wife and I have a consulting and coaching firm, and we really train executives, leaders, managers on how to. Our tagline is living and leading wholeheartedly. And my wife got trained by Brene Brown. And, you know, she's a social worker and she is a researcher, and she has these incredible findings in vulnerability, leadership, and shame and how to be the best person possible. So we extrapolated a lot of her research and applied it in, you know, how we can help individuals live and lead wholeheartedly. And so primarily, we fall under that umbrella, doing a lot of leadership coaching, leadership training under the Insight company. And then another thing I do is, you know, we started a golf academy, a mental training golf academy. And so we work a lot with elite golfers. And once you get, you know, at a certain level in golf, then it becomes mindset and mental training. And so my background, I have my doctorate in clinical psychology. That's been my thing for a while, working a lot with kids and at a pediatric hospital. And then I have a specialization in sports psychology. So wearing many different hats and kind of juggling it all. But I just love working with people. And so when you asked me to come on this podcast, and, you know, working and, and I love your tagline. And, you know, there is a lot of life and beauty and a lot of great things on the other side of the difficult conversation. And I truly believe that. So I was really honored to be on your show, Kwame.

Oh, well, I appreciate it. And I was honored that you accepted the invite because I know you're busy wearing all of those hats. So we appreciate your time and the value that you bring is so profound because a lot of times people focus so heavily on strategies and tactics, and those are important, but they forget the mental side of the game. And you have a lot to offer in that regard. And one of the things that you talk a lot about is mindset. And before we even get into mindset, I'd like to get an idea of what your definition of mindset is.

Ooh, that's nice. Definition of mindset. So I believe the mindset is the control center. And if you think about an athlete per se. So there are three things that we really focus on in athletic performance or any type of performance, whether it be, you know, an executive or leader, you know, having to perform in their workplace. So there's three things that an individual needs to really focus on and master. Number one is their craft. Like, they have to be good at their training, their craft, their technical skills, whatever it might be. So with a golfer, which I specialize a lot in, you gotta have the fundamentals and consistently replicate that under pressure. Number two, an individual has to really focus on their body. Like your body needs to perform the way it needs to perform on demand. And executives these days are, you know, if you look at some of the top executives, they're working out, they're getting in shape, mainly because it requires that, like, we're on the go constantly meeting after meeting, going to different board meetings and different forms and functions. And we just have to be on our game and our body is our mechanism to do so. The last thing, and I think the most important thing is mindset, because I think the mindset controls everything else. You can have the best craft, the best technical skills, and you can have the best body and be in shape. But if you're crippled by anxiety and fear, or you're crippled by distractions, then no matter how fit you are, you're not going to be able to perform at your best. So all those things ride together. I think they're like a, you know, a three legged stool. And that the mindset is just as critical as your technical skills and as your body. But it's all three in combination. That makes one perform at their best.

I love this. This is. This is great. This is great. Strong start, Matt.

Strong start.

I'm loving this because you're right. Mastering the fundamentals, but under press last part is often overlooked. Right. And the last part of the pressure piece ties in really nicely with mindset, because your mindset will help you to perform under pressure. Or if you don't have the right mindset, it'll hurt your ability to perform under pressure. Because I think in sports, we. We've all heard of the. The people in the locker room who, they crush it in practice, but they can't perform when the. The bright lights are shining and we think about our colleagues down the hallway who are incredibly articulate with brilliant ideas, but then when they are in front of people in a meeting, they, they kind. So that's really important. It's not just getting the fundamentals, but mastering it under pressure, the body. It's funny that you talked about executives getting in shape. So for me, Matt, with my TED Talk, I was vain. I was saying, oh my gosh, I got this gig, but Kai's two years old and I'm developing a dad bod, so I need to work out. And so I was working out five days a week, and I was planning on just stopping once I was done, but it was the business benefits that surprised me the most. I was so much more productive, so much more energetic. I was able to keep a high level of mental acuity longer in the. So that body is really important for us as everyday professionals. But none of that matters if we don't have the mindset. And I think this is a really, really great way to encapsulate it for the listeners.

Yeah, you know, a lot of these researchers, you'll start hearing this more and more. There was a researcher at Harvard, and she's saying that the next global pandemic that we as a society are facing after this COVID 19 pandemic is a mental health pandemic. And we're starting to see this where there's a lack of boundaries and burnout. Burnout is a term that has been originally used in the workplace. You know, in it, the. What's the World Health Organization defined burnout as when you're feeling emotionally exhausted or you're not feeling as productive or effective and you're losing interest in things that normally give you pleasure. So anhedonia in the psychological term. So now it's translated out of the workplace and in an everyday life now there's parenting burnout once Covid hit, it's like there's this lack of boundaries where workplace personal life has kind of shuffled together and mixed up. Now everybody is like, meeting after meeting and adjusting on the fly. And it's caused a lot of internal stress. And so doctors Amelia and Emily Nagowski, they wrote a book called Burnout Completing the Stress Cycle. And they have some incredible research on the importance of understanding that in life there's stress and there's stressors. Oftentimes, when we get burnt out, we often look at the stressors, which are the external things in life. The deadlines, the meetings, the picking up schedules of kids, the groceries, the finances. All these things that are outside of us, but often we neglect the stress, which is internal. And so if you do not address the stress that is inside. And one of the best ways to address the stress inside the internal things is physical activity is walking, getting out in the sun, working out, you know, playing, playing golf. There's so many benefits of getting outside in the sun, moving around, and physical activity can complete the stress cycle that is internal. So it's really important for us to kind of really consider that there's stressors, external and stress that really cause the burnout.

Wow, this is great. First of all, new word alerts. Anhedonia. That's great. New term. Did I pronounce that right?

Yeah, anhedonia, loss of pleasure of things that normally gave you pleasure.

Incredible. And I think we can all relate to that in different aspects of our lives. But that distinction between stress and stressor is so important. And tell me if I'm encapsulating this in a way that makes sense, Matt. So we have these stressors that cause stress. And so we identify the stressors and we say, I'm stressed out because of that, this, and the other thing. And so my solution is to address this and that. And so we might effectively address those things, but we have yet to address the residual stress that is still within our body.

Yes, 100%. And the analogy that the book used, the research used, was oftentimes when you have a big deadline or a big project, like, for example, myself when I was working on my dissertation and I had to finish it during a certain deadline, and I finally got it done. It was one of the most stressful things that I've experienced kind of in my research. And I got it done. And the day after I got sick, like, my body broke down and I got sick, and I was thinking, like, I just got it done. Should I should celebrate with, like, you know, champagne and things but I caught a cold, I got sick is because the stress inside was not addressed during the whole time I was trying to address the stressor. We experienced that in life. We have these milestones but we feel really depleted and we get sick oftentimes.

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Make sure to start your 7 day free trial today. Matt, this is great and I appreciate you accepting the invitation to this counseling session because that's exactly what happened to me at the end of last year. I checked off that one last box the last Friday and I sent Whitney a text like we closed a big deal. And I sent Whitney a text, I said all right, I'm going to buy champagne. We're celebrating tonight. So literally closed the deal at like noon. Sent Whitney the text at 1 and I was at urgent care at 5. Like literally mat wheeled into Urgent Care. It's like my body completely shut down. I felt great after I closed that deal. I'm planning the party and my body just shut down. And so if we can get into that psychology a little bit, is it that your body, it's almost like a fight or flight response. Your body is geared up for war and then once that war is over, it's like the floodgates of stress come and take over.

Yeah, yeah. And oftentimes that floodgate of stress takes over and we don't address it properly. Like, and what they're saying is completing the stress cycle we often get and they said there's this, imagine a tunnel and at the other side is completing that cycle of stress. And we often get stuck and we do certain things and we get stuck in this tunnel where we're not addressing the physical ailments that stress causes inside. So the community, the physical activity, the sun, all that, it combats the stress that we feel so it doesn't come crashing down on us at the end of of that thing where we get stuck with it and we deal with the ramifications of physical ailments and sickness. But along the way, if you can continue to address the internal stress while you're dealing with the stressors by Making sure you take care of your body, making sure you have belly laughs, they said. Or doing something like hobbies that make you passionate, where you forget about work and you're constant mindset and internal emotions. When you can address those things along the way, then you don't have that experience of crashing at the end.

Amazing. This is great. There's so many fascinating realizations that are happening in my life, and I think it's the same as happening for listeners too. And I'd love you to paint a picture here. Let's do a little hypothetical case study. So let's say we have two different scenarios, but for the same person. We have somebody coming into a negotiation or a difficult conversation, and they have stressors that cause stress, but they haven't completed the stress cycle. And so there's lingering stress going into the conversation versus the same person who has addressed the lingering stress and they have completed the stress cycle and they go into the same conversation. What would be the differences in performance in those situations?

I love this. You know, one term that Brene Brown says a lot is a term called offloading hurt. Offloading hurt. And so we have two scenarios here. Scenario number one, someone who is feeling. They both have a difficult conversation that they're entering, but one hasn't dealt with the stress internally and one has the person that doesn't has not dealt with the stress internally. Oftentimes you'll see that they're a little bit more irritable, they react a lot quicker, they're less mindful and patient. Things that you preach all the time. Kwame. And we often offload hurt to the ones we care about and love the most around us. So we're triggered by something emotionally, something triggers us, and we have not yet afford time to explore what it is and getting to the root cause of it because we have no space. We have not dealt with this stress because we're constantly fighting and dealing with stressors in our life. So we're reactive. We're very reactive. And we don't create that space. I think that's the key word is creating space. Because Viktor Frankl, he wrote, you know, man's search for meaning. One of my favorite quotes is, you know, in between stimulus and response, there's a space, and in that space is our freedom to choose. So people who deal with stress and the stressors simultaneously, when they can constantly monitor themselves, what I see happening is they get curious. They have room to get curious and explore whether those, their emotions are where they're being triggered, what are they feeling and there's a term called name it to tame it. And it was written by Dan Siegel, psychiatrist, who wrote the book Whole Brainchild. And he said, if you can name your emotional experience, it's like an iceberg, right? We only see the tip of the iceberg. And all these emotions are blue. And it's really big, it's vast. Our emotional language is really vast. But if you're able to accurately name and label what you are feeling and why you're feeling this, then you're able to tame that emotion. So in order for you to be able to have the clarity in the space to name that accurately, you need to have the mental acuity in the space. And I think those who create that by addressing the stress, getting curious about their emotions when they're walking into a difficult conversation, there, there's room for this back and forth negotiation tactic where there's a little bit more space, they're a little bit more calmer, they know what their triggers are, so they're not constantly reactive and offloading hurt in wrong places. So that's where I see the difference between one who addresses the stress and one who doesn't. Going into a negotiation or difficult conversation, it's incredible.

And what we're seeing here is that this is not a skills issue in a lot of cases, it's a mental challenge based on stress. And I think that sometimes when we think about stress, but also sleep deprivation, things like this, we are so chronically in a bad position, we're so chronically stressed, so chronically sleep deprived, that we don't even know what it feels like to be well anymore. And so you might not even be able to perceive the level of stress that you're actually feeling day to day, because you've become normalized to it and habituated to it over time. And so you listen to podcasts like this and we talk about compassionate curiosity, acknowledging emotions, managing your own emotions, being more curious, not being as reactive. And you're listening to this and you're blaming yourself, saying, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. But it's mental health. You cannot be better because you're so stressed.

Oh, man. You know, athletes are really ahead of the game on this. And I think executives and leaders and typically athletics has always been about 10 years ahead of the business world where athletes, they work on their body and executives started to pick up on this and how physical training can help with the mental acuity and performance. Athletes worked with sports psychologists or mental coaches to help them perform better. And Nowadays, business leaders and executives, they're starting to hire a lot more executive coaching and leaders to work on this mental performance side of things. What we find is that, and there was a research done at Stanford, Sherry Ma, I think M a Her research was featured on ESPN and she talked about the criticality of sleep. Like sleep. If you look at athletes, they get a minimum seven to eight hours. And if they, they're, they're napping throughout the day because that's where the body recovers. So in executive training and leadership development, we have this phrase called slow down to speed up. It's very, you know, you say, okay, yeah, I, I get it, I get, you know, slow down to speed up. We don't really apply ourselves. We have the head knowledge. I mean we're learning all these things. We read all the same books. They're all the basic, same concepts out there. But those that actually apply it and those that actually do it, where they take the time out of their day to meditate or they take their time to just slow down and work on themselves, you know, taking walks, when you say, I can't afford that, like I'm just, I'm so busy. Then back to, back to back to back. The meetings that you have, you just, over time, you're just not as effective. You're not performing at your best. You're worn down. It's like a car. You're constantly going, as opposed to kind of resting, letting it cool down a little bit, you know, kind of recharging, refueling. And our bodies are vehicles that move us from place to place. And our bodies need rest in order for it to be in tip top shape. So those three things, working on your craft, it's great. You gotta work on your body and you gotta know your body to know when it needs time off and a break. Because then the mind kicks in and the mind, you need to get the mind to rest too. All these three things ride together. And so I agree with you, like we need rest. Well being is not just a, you know, a soft thing. Oh yeah, yeah. Take care of your well being, go ahead. But executives, high performers, they really have to do something about it in order for them to not only model it for the people that they're leading, but really taking care of themselves so they can sustain this long term term high performance.

I love this, Matt. And when you think about it, listeners, we've been talking for a bit, but when it comes down to it, everything that we have said can be encapsulated in one word, science. These aren't just our thoughts, our opinions, this is based on science. And I think a lot of people don't respect the science because we have this self serving bias where we think we can overcome it. Right. It's either we think we can overcome it. So there might be some hubris, some arrogance, some ego in that, but also it might be some insecurity too because we don't feel like we're worthy until we're pushing ourselves into the ground. And so I think a lot of times we have to recognize that we don't fully understand the difference between a luxury and a necessity. We think mental health and time and the ability to reduce stress is a luxury, but it's a necessity. We can't function without it.

Yeah, you know, based on science. So my wife and I, we train on an instrument that's called EQI 2.0, emotional intelligence 2.0 and it's from Multi Health Systems and they have tons of science backing this instrument and it's both reliable and valid and one of the few instruments out there and we're both research based. So it's really important for us that any assessments we use on leaders is valid. So they have a wellbeing indicator where you can actually measure well being in your life and do something about it. And the beauty of emotional intelligence and assessing yourself is it's a snapshot in time. So for example, if you score low on the well being indicator, it just shows that right now in your season you might be overly stressed and your well being is low, but it shows you what you can do to address well being specifically to increase that, to have more of it. And so you can model it for others in an accurate research based way. And the four indications or the concepts behind it is when self regard is high. So I have high self esteem. I believe in myself. That's number one, self actualization. Where I have passion and purpose in what I do. Like what I'm doing has meaning and this is really purposeful for me. There's a deeper connection there. The third is optimism. When I have high levels of optimism, then it goes directly into my wellbeing score. And then the last one is interpersonal relationships. So social network and the community around you is so critical to one's well being. Like we can't do this alone, we're never meant to do this alone. And so, you know, connection, genuine connection. And having that close network of friends or mentors, mentees, just people in our lives is so important. It's not how many, it's just Having those deep relationships and connections that matter. So all four you can actually measure.

Well, being incredible, Matt, this has been exceptional. I really appreciate you taking the time here and I know a lot of people are listening and saying, I need more Matt in my life. So can you let them know again about the different companies that you have and then also how to get in touch with you?

Yeah. So we have a website, it's called the insight company.org and you can find us on social media, Instagram, the Insight company or LinkedIn. That's primarily our coaching consulting. And then we also have a golf academy. If you're an elite golfer, if you want to work on your mindset, it's called MPGA. So Mental Performance Golf Academy. And that website is mpga golf.com so yeah. And thank you for having me, Kwame. I really appreciate you.

My pleasure. Likewise. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before.

Just kidding.

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