Boosting Team Productivity Requires STOPPING Common Mistakes

Do you ever feel like your team is working hard but not getting anywhere? Meetings are unproductive. Deadlines are slipping and creative endeavors seem to be a distant memory. Well, you're not alone. Businesses across the country are bleeding billions every year because their employees are distracted, mentally checked out while the workload just keeps piling up and piling up and piling up. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that your customers and your employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is the Zen Boss, Laurie Saitz. And today, we will be exploring how you can create focused, resilient teams by eliminating distractions, reducing stress, and boosting productivity through the power of Zen leadership. Does that sound a little woohoo for you? Stick around, stick around because it's going to be a very valuable episode. If you're a leader, manager, or business owner, you know what it's like to feel like you're constantly spinning plates. Your team's working hard but something is just off. Meetings drag on. Projects seem to hit roadblocks. And honestly, there are more frustrations than forward movement. But here's the thing. It might not be a time management issue. It could be something much, much bigger. And that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, are your employees mentally distracted, unable to focus on tasks that matter, and it's showing up really in your day-to-day bottom line? I'd love to hear your stories. Go ahead and share your experience on social media. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is Zen Boss Laurie Saites.

Hi Marc!

She's not just any expert in workplace well-being. Laurie is the founder of the Zen Leadership Program where she helps stressed-out executives and teams transform the chaos into focused, resilient productivity. With a wealth of knowledge in wellness and communication strategies, she's the go-to authority for business leaders who want to create the collaborative, drama-free environments that get real results. And when she's not helping companies level up their productivity, Laurie's living the nomadic life. For a short time more, cat-sitting her way across Southeast United States. It's a journey that strengthened her own resilience, flexibility, and trust. Something she brings into every conversation she has about leadership and well-being. Laurie, welcome to the show! I am so tickled you're here today.

I am thrilled to be here, Marc. Thanks for having me.

Maybe you could start telling us a little bit about who your customers are and how you serve them.

Yeah, my customers typically are business leaders who manage teams, more mid-sized businesses as opposed to the really large ones, and some entrepreneurs who are, of course, also business leaders. And what I'm doing with them is teaching them tools and techniques to help them manage their energy, increase their resilience, improve their creativity. through what might be seen as some kind of non-traditional methods.

And so, we're talking today about kind of the overarching issue of people. Whenever I work with entrepreneurs, they're always pointing out to stuff. It's like, oh, my people just aren't engaged. My people seem to be so distracted. We're not getting things done. What do you see as the biggest barrier to productivity in the workplaces?

Distractions.

In what sense?

The distractions that are going on in people's heads. So, a lot of times, people talk about time management and there is a benefit to that, to time blocking your calendar and all of that. But how are people managing the distractions in their head? You, let's say, had an argument with your partner last night and you're still thinking about it this morning even though you're supposed to be working on a proposal.

Honey, I told you not to say anything!

Yes. Well, or you're thinking about the conversation that you need to have with a difficult conversation that you need to have that's coming up next week. And these are the things that keep people from being really focused. So, they're maybe moving forward. They're working on the proposal. But it's taking them hours longer than it should. They may be making mistakes that are just silly mistakes that could be prevented. And they're not being as innovative with their ideas. They're not making good decisions because they've got all this chatter going on, mental chatter going on in their minds.

So, when it comes to these distractions. You talked about some of the causes being like personal, whatever. Are there like, what are the signs? Like, how does a leader know that he might have a team member or 2 who are being distracted by personal problems, by overwork, by burnout, by fatigue, any number of things?

Yeah, well, it comes down to how long is it taking people to do things. And now, we need to set some realistic Expectations here because I feel like a lot of times bosses are like, this should just take you an hour. And, you know, and then they give you a stack this big. It should just take you an hour to get through these papers. Okay. But, but realistically, you know, if something is taking longer than it really, uh, should take, or are people getting in— they're not having conversations with each other and collaboration. that needs to happen between either between departments or between colleagues on the same team is not happening. And this is even more challenging now that so many people are not working in the same physical environment with each other.

Yeah, so hybrid has a lot to do with that as well, especially the lack of control of not having a controlled workspace. You don't know that your worker is sitting at home babysitting a sick puppy or a sick child or Yeah, yeah.

And you also lose out on those informal conversations that happen maybe around the proverbial water cooler.

Yeah, I like to say now—

Where people have that opportunity to collaborate.

Yeah, and I think that's no longer water cooler. Now, it's around the Keurig.

Oh yes, right.

So just, yeah. And so, I call these constructive collisions. When people bump into around the photocopier, around the Keurig machine, and so on. Not having that, do you think that that has caused a handicap now in organizations? And as far as their culture is concerned, that you might have people hybrid working from remote. But then, you also have people who are in person experiencing these constructive collisions.

Yeah, and I know that this is not the most popular position right now when people are being forced back to work in the office. And I'm not saying that everybody should be back in the office 5 days a week for 8 or 10 hours a day. However, I think there is— we are losing touch because humans are still wired to connect interpersonally. And when we don't have that interpersonal connection, we're not seeing each other face-to-face, the energy is different, the collaboration is different, the conversations are different, the Everything is different and it makes it much more difficult.

So, I know that in your notes, you mentioned that businesses across America are losing up to like $650 billion a year due to distracted employees. Is this one of the drivers? Is that one of the drivers for this loss that we're seeing?

Yeah, it is one of the drivers. I think the biggest driver of all of them is Uh-huh.

Yep. Honey, you were right.

It's because we are connected to it almost 24/7. And it is designed, if you read some of the, I don't know if it's research papers, the people who designed them, deliberately designed them to be distracting.

Yeah.

All of the apps are designed to keep your attention, to keep you online, to keep you scrolling. And what it does is it trains your brain to be distracted, like literally rewires your brain to be distracted. And the job for people now, the responsibility For managers, and not just for managers, but for each individual member of the team. I think it's, it's partly a responsibility of managers to bring the tools and techniques to their team to help them. And then it is the job of each individual to implement those tools and techniques to take back control of your brain. It's like you're being taken over by some kind of alien, and it is your job to take back the control of your brain and re— again, to rewire it. Like, think about when you're out walking, you've seen paths worn in the grass, right? Like, there's— there may be a sidewalk, but then there's a dirt path that was a faster way to get there, and people have just worn that path. Well, that's what happens in your brain. You're, you're rewiring the connections in your brain, and so you need to Rewire, like take back control and rewire it to your satisfaction instead of letting— and I'm going to pick on social media companies but it doesn't have to be just them. Whatever is on your phone is rewiring your brain. Take back the control and rewire it to a way that works for you.

To your point, I've seen that there's all sorts of scientific studies about dopamine and how that how we get these hits of dopamine whenever we do anything, play video games, get onto social media, and so on. But we're also seeing now that mental health and wellness is deteriorating at an exponential rate because of the information that people are getting. And when you think about how social media is structured, that you really only get the information that interests you.

Yeah.

creates almost like this bubble of information that is supporting and detracting from your mental wellness. It's supporting the dopamine but subtracting from mental wellness. And so, how do we overcome that in our workplace? Because email is the same kind of situation. It's the same kind of stigma behind that. So, how do we overcome that in the workplace?

One of the easiest, I'll say easiest, But also could be, for some people, the most difficult thing to do is turn off your notifications. Like, you're going to know that you have email, but your phone does not need to be dinging every 3 seconds. That is— it's very distracting and it's not necessary.

Mm-hmm.

Like, you don't have to be— and because every time you hear it, your brain's like, oh, let me look. Oh, let me look. And you get pulled away from the project and task at hand. And now, this is another reason why it takes 10 times longer because every time an email pops up, it makes a sound. It makes a sound.

Yes.

Or it flashes in the corner and your mind is constantly being distracted. So, turn off those notifications. And when you sit down to do something, sit down and do it. Turn everything else off and put your 100% focus right there. And then, when you're done or when you're taking a break, you can go check email. You can go check your social posts, whatever. But that's one really easy way. And it's easy and it's also really hard because people are so addicted. I mean, it is an addiction to get that dopamine hit.

And when you think that some municipalities or some states or governments are kind of now going to be banning social media for anybody under the age of 16. I think we're on a cusp now of a change. And it'll be very interesting how that plays out. I do know that in schools now, they have to check in their phones. And the parents are given like the biggest pushback to the change in schools with the teachers saying, but the kids are so distracted all the time. The biggest pushback to kids turning in their cell phones was the parents saying, but I gave her a cell phone so I can get in touch with her. But she's in school. So, if it's an emergency, you can call the school. We're more than happy to help you.

Yes. Well, remember back in the day when you and I were in school, there were no phones. So, that's a benefit.

I remember when electronic calculators came out for the first time and my math teacher just went berserk because I brought— I dared to bring a calculator into school. So yeah, I can't imagine what that reality is like now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember being— I had newly gotten my driver's license and I took my mom's car and I accidentally locked myself out of the car. And I was like 2 towns away. I couldn't call her to tell her I had done this. Like, you didn't have a phone in your pocket to call.

You had to figure it out.

That's right.

Cut the umbilical cord. Hey, I'd love to get into some more actionable strategies that our peeps who are tuning in can take. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with the Stress Eradicator, Laurie Saitz. Laurie, you are also the author of the book called Love Warriors: The Conscious Expert's Guide to Healing, Joy, and Manifestation. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, I actually am a contributing author to that book. So, I wrote a chapter of the book, not the whole book. But yeah, there's a whole bunch of us in there. And what I wrote about in that book was 2 years ago, in August of 2022, I took a month-long road trip sabbatical with my 19-year-old cat. Because I had reached, even though I am the one that's teaching other people how to manage stress, I had kind of reached a stage where I was losing touch with gratitude. I was feeling very stressed and burned out, and I was working all the time but not getting the results I would have liked to see. And so, I decided to just take an entire month off and not work at all. And yeah, Panther and I went on a road trip, and what I learned on that trip that's related to business is that we have to learn how to relax and give ourselves space. So I had— I since created a downloadable PDF called, um, 5 Easy Ways to Start Living a Sabbatical Life, and the subtitle is Without Having to Take a Month or a Week or a Year-Long Mm-hmm. And to live this way every single day. And what this involves, one of the strategies for that is to put your phone down. You know, we have to plug— the phone is not always— if you're using your phone all day and you don't plug it in at the end of the day, in the morning, the battery's gonna be at zero.

Right.

And we are the same way. So, it's a matter of putting things down and taking time to recharge our own batteries. And what does that look like? That looks like a different thing for everybody. For somebody, it might be going out on a run. For somebody else, it might be gardening. For someone else, it might be playing with their kids. But whatever it is, I can pretty much guarantee it does not involve electronics.

Well, I do. I'm playing a lot now. My big hobby now is electronics like sound equipment and engineering and that sort of stuff. So for me, it does kind of sort of involve. Okay, all right.

Thanks for proving me wrong.

You've mentioned that some of the highest performing business leaders in the world use certain practices to sharpen their skills. Now, we've mentioned this idea of turning off the big device. That is a huge distraction. What else can people do to kind of sharpen their skills to become more present as opposed to more distracted?

Yeah, what those highest performing business leaders are doing is they are practicing meditation. And a lot of people push back on that term of meditation, like, oh, well, I'm not good at that, or because I can't get rid of the thoughts in my head, or I don't have an hour a day to sit and meditate. And the thing is, those are a lot of myths. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions around what meditation is. But for those people who still don't like the term meditation because it just makes them feel uneasy, let's go with grounding exercises or calming exercises. It could be as simple as Taking 3 minutes. Andrew Huberman has done some research that shows as few as 3 minutes a day has tremendous beneficial effects and benefits on the brain and the nervous system and the whole body. And so, taking 3 minutes to breathe. Now, let's talk about breathing because I know everybody who's listening to this is like, yeah, I know how to breathe. I'm breathing right now. But are you really breathing deeply into your abdomen, all the way down into your abdomen. If you put a hand on your abdomen and another hand on your chest, most people are breathing very shallowly because that's— because we live in a state of constant stress and that's how we breathe when we're stressed. But if you take in a super deep breath, like all the way down into your abdomen and feel it going down there and then hold it for a couple seconds and then just let it go, you can feel your shoulders relax, your neck relax. Do those Do some of those breathing exercises. Breathing just like that. There's nothing special here for 3 minutes, even 90 seconds. But 3 minutes, it's a great exercise. It's a great way to start a meeting. You don't have to necessarily go for 3 minutes because 3 minutes actually feels kind of long. But let's say you're starting a business meeting. Okay, we're just going to sit and we're going to breathe for 30 seconds. Just To refocus your energy into the room. Everybody turn the notifications on your phone off. You don't have to turn the phone off, just the notifications that are keeping everybody going. And practice some breathing. And then, another great exercise to start a meeting. What good thing is happening right now? We are so programmed to be focused on what's what's not going right. And again, can you refocus your energy and your mind space to what is going right, right now?

I love that because it's okay aside from the breathing, which is step number 1. The second part is this idea of gratitude, of being able to say, hey, this is what's going. I'm not going to harp on the stuff that I know is a challenge. But I'm going to harp. I'm going to be thankful for what is going right or something that I can celebrate.

Yeah. Now, we're not saying ignore and be Pollyanna and say, oh no, nothing's going wrong. And, you know, there's a dumpster fire happening behind you. Nothing to see here. That's not what we're saying. We're saying find the good, find the gratitude in every situation, because you will always find what you're looking for.

I like that.

Yeah. Yeah, and I just want to step back. Oh, go ahead.

How do leaders— like, it's one thing because what you've said so far is really self-driven. Somebody's turning around saying, I want to be more mindful. I want to take the 3 minutes. I want to take 3 minutes to breathe. I want to have more gratitude for the stuff that is going well. Dan Sullivan wrote the book, The Gain and the Gap, where he talks about that we're always looking at everything we don't have. But we fail to look backwards at everything we've achieved. So, being able to have this gratitude is really great. But this is again something that you do for yourself. How can leaders kind of take on their leadership role to create a culture where this is celebrated and reinforced?

First thing is to practice these things as individuals. To be a leader, to be a role model. And to let people know that this is what you're doing so that they can see that it's okay to do it. Going back to the question you asked a little bit earlier about the top-performing business leaders, they all practice meditation. And all— a large majority of them. And they talk about it. We're talking about people like Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Company, Arianna Huffington, who is the founder of Huffington Post. What's his name? Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson.

Mm-hmm.

And Ray Dalio. I always love bringing up Ray Dalio because he's like an OG on Wall Street. And Wall Street is about, in my mind, as far away from woo-woo as you can get. And yet, he talks a lot about how he attributes much of his success to his meditation practice. Now, that doesn't mean he sits there. On the couch for hours at a day. Yeah, right. Visualizing money, bags of money falling from the sky. But what it's doing is he's preparing his mind and, again, rewiring his brain for success so that he can make better decisions. He can be more open and logical and think from a place of clarity instead of all the circuits are firing all crazy. It's— you are, again, literally getting your brain and your heart synchronized so your nervous system is in order. And this immediately makes you more— better able to respond instead of react impulsively.

Mm-hmm.

And what this does is it helps you be more creative and innovative, helps you make better decisions, helps you be more emotionally Emotionally stable? That's not the word. Well, it will do that too. Emotionally intelligent. That's what I was looking for. So, and it improves your conversation, improves your communication, and it makes you less likely to be drawn into conflict. So, now you have better interpersonal relationships. And this comes back to how it affects teams.

Wow.

And so, Doing these things as a leader and so that it makes you a better leader and teaching them or leading by example to get your team to then buy into doing them as well. And that's how you build the cohesive collaborative environment in your business.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of supporting the behavior we want in our environment. I always fall back on the adage, what gets recognized and rewarded gets repeated. That is, if you recognize behavior you do see and you reward it in some means. And I'm not saying it has to be monetary. It can be just a recognition of gratitude. We know that those behaviors will get repeated. So, what role does gratitude play in what we're talking about today when it comes down to leadership reinforcing kind of those principles of not only the gratitude but your idea of Zen leadership?

Yeah, so gratitude is such a big part of building strong teams. So, think about the last time that you were acknowledged or thanked in a situation. There have been some studies done that show that I think it was upwards of 60% of people said that they had never been thanked at work. And another study by the— I think it was the University of— oh yeah, University of Pennsylvania discovered that participants who practiced gratitude were 50%, 5-0%, more productive than people who didn't. So, while we're talking about gratitude as, yes, it's a nice thing, it's a nice incentive to tell people that they're doing a good job and catch them doing things right, there's bottom-line benefits to It's amazing because it's something I think that we fall back on, especially leadership and leaders in my generation anyway, which is the baby boomers.

They fall back on, well, that's the expect— you doing your work is the expectation. You doing the work is what I pay you to do. Why should I?

Right.

And so, what needs to shift? What needs to shift in our culture now? to make this more of a reality?

We need to be more human to each other. I mean, it really comes back to kindness, which costs nothing. Saying thank you to somebody costs nothing. When I was in college, I was a communication major, which means that we didn't get paid for internships. And, uh—

Slave labor.

That's right. That's right. But I learned a lot and I had a lot of fun. There was— so this internship was at a marketing communication agency. And one of the principals, every day that I was there before I left, he would say, Lori, thank you so much for your contribution today. It was really helpful. I mean, I was stuffing envelopes for God's sakes. But it didn't matter. He acknowledged my value and my contribution to the team. And here I am all of these years later, I won't say how many, But all these years later, talking about this example, and it cost him nothing to say thank you and to acknowledge and to be very specific. So, this is another thing I will say to the leaders who are listening to this is it's not just, hey, thanks for coming in. Thanks for doing a good job. I appreciate you because, give a specific reason.

Yeah.

And it, people just... Most people want to be acknowledged. People are walking— who was it that said, uh, I want to say maybe Mary Kay, um, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. What was her name? I think it was her who—

Mary Kay.

Mary Kay. Yes, I know. She had a last name. Anyway, she, she— I think she was the one who had the quote of most people are walking around with this sign, invisible sign on them, that says, you know, that they want to be acknowledged. Like they just want to be acknowledged.

Yeah.

And so, if you can do that, one, it makes you a good person. It makes you a good person. It makes you a good leader. It makes people— here's what I'm trying to say. It makes people want to support your mission.

Right. Yes. And again, it reinforces the behavior you do want. And so, That point is once you do it once, not only does that person want to get that again, the people around them see it. And I can't help but think about the Chandler Bing thing on Friends where the boss smacked everybody on— smacked him on the behind. And then, when he approached the boss and said, that's really out of line. You really shouldn't do it. The boss is like, okay, I won't. But then, he starts doing it with everybody else. And then, Chandler's like, but I want that too.

Yeah. Right.

And I think as human beings, I think we have that. I think that's one of the connection pieces is that we know that our world means something. That our contribution means something. That we being here is purposeful.

Yes. And when we're talking about engagement, because this is a big issue in corporate right now, is that people are— corporations are saying that their people are not engaged.

Right.

And that this is a challenge that they need to fix this engagement issue. People are engaged when they believe in the mission. People are engaged when they believe in the manager or the leader. When they are buying in, they are engaged. And so, how do you get them to buy in? It's all of these things that we're talking about.

Yes.

It's setting the right tone. It's setting the intention for for a meeting, setting the intention for the day, acknowledging people's worth and not expecting that just because that they're showing up just for the paycheck. A lot of people, yes, of course, they want to get paid for their work. That's why they have a mortgage to pay or something.

Hmm.

But more importantly, people will leave a job and customers will leave a company too. This isn't just the internal. Customers will leave a company that they do not think appreciates them.

Yes. Yeah. And this is why any service customer-facing industry is always looking at how do we build customer loyalty. Like they put all these strategies together to try to create that. Social media is all about reaching out and telling stories and connection posts and so on to make that happen. So, this becomes the strategic focus when it's trying to attract customers. Would it be fair to say that those are the same strategies we need in order to attract our employees?

100%! And taking care of your people, teams, or leaders who take care of their people, those people then take care of their customers. And the opposite is true too. So—

Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, this is just really fascinating, Laurie. Could you just tell everybody if this is resonating for them, can you tell them how they can get in touch with you?

Yeah, my website. My company is called Zen Rabbit. Z-E-N Rabbit like a bunny. Zen Rabbit. zenrabbit.com is the best place to find me. And you can find links to my social. Like, I'm always on LinkedIn. You can find links to that on the website.

Lovely! You know, we've talked about so much today. I'd love to get into some pitfalls and cautionaries to watch out for as maybe leaders want to start implementing some of these ideas in their workplace. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I hope you are getting tons of value from today's episode. As you can tell, Lori and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or someone you know might be planning a leadership retreat or conference, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. Our contact information is in the show notes. So, don't be afraid to reach out. Laurie, what's one simple technique just to get the ball rolling that a leader can start using today to help their team regain the focus when distractions are creeping in?

Yeah, I think that the easiest— we talked about a couple of them already. And I think the easiest thing for people to when they hear, oh, start a meeting this way. Oh, breathing exercise. Oh, Put down my phone or turn off the notifications. That just seems too easy. Like again, as humans, we want to overcomplicate everything. Why can't? Can you give me something that has 17 steps so I can skip the first four and then tell you it doesn't work? What? You know, I think the the biggest challenge is just doing the thing. Like yes, it is that easy, and yes, you will see. Tremendous benefits just from those simple things. So, my encouragement, my invitation is to take one of those actions. You don't have to do all of them right away. Take one and do it for the next 7 days and see how you feel. See how it feels to wake up in the morning. We didn't talk about this one, to wake up in the morning and not immediately touch your phone. Take 3 minutes to do the breathing. And during those, while you're breathing, think about how you would like to feel today. How would you like to feel? How would you like to go through your day instead of immediately jumping out of bed and going, oh my God, I got to check all my emails. I got to respond to this. I got to do that. I got to remember to make this list. That is not the way to start. That is the worst way to start your day. And yet it's the way most people start their day. Can you give yourself 3 minutes, 3 to 5 minutes of space to set your tone, set the tone for your day? Again, being intentional about this.

And what you've just outlined works just as well when you have your pre-shift meeting at the beginning of the day to turn around and just do a quick round robin with your team and say, how do you want to feel today?

Yes! Yes, and this is how you bring the things that you are learning in, let's say, personal development to your team so that it becomes then professional development.

Well, and I'm a firm believer what people say, they believe. And so, when somebody turns around and says, today, I want to stay optimistic and open to whatever's going to happen, it's really hard to then fall back onto the negativity side when you started your day with this vision. of how you want to react to the challenges coming up in the day.

Yeah, it is harder to fall back on that. Yeah, I mean, of course, chaos is still going to come in.

Yep, and people will fall back. But it's harder.

Yes, you're going to find that it becomes easier and easier the more you practice it. The more easier? The more easier it becomes.

The much more easiestly it becomes.

Yeah, yeah.

Are there any Cautionaries or pitfalls that we should be watching out for as leaders want to kind of incorporate some of what we've talked about today into their corporate culture? What are some of the things we should be cautious of?

I think the thing we should be cautious of is not doing it. What happens if you don't? That's the question. Yeah, like it's not what do I do. We just talked about some of the things you can do. And there are many more that I teach in my Zen Leadership Yeah. But the question is, what if you don't? What happens?

Now, I mean, I'm a big fan of failing forward. I think that we learn more by failing, by doing and failing rather than doing and succeeding. When it comes down to this idea of leaders being afraid of something when they think about implementing that, what would that fear be? What are the excuses why people won't do something like this?

Because people fear that expressing gratitude and/or showing vulnerability, which is what humans are wired to do as well, it makes them weak, makes them look weak. And so, I hear this a lot. Well, if I tell people I appreciate them, they're going to take advantage of me. They're going to, yeah. Well, we've already covered all the reasons why that's not really true. Yeah. And that they'll seem weak.

Yeah.

And again, expressing vulnerability. So, a lot of people maybe, a leader might say, OK, I'm going to do this. I'm going to start practicing some 3-minute breathing exercises in the morning before I get out of bed. But I'm not going to tell anybody because because that's going to make me vulnerable. And nobody wants to see— be seen as vulnerable because they equate vulnerability with weakness.

Right.

And yet, there have been studies that show that team members and people in general look more favorably upon people who are vulnerable. They see them as more human and more relatable. And yet, those same people are reluctant to be vulnerable themselves Because they think it makes them look weak. It's an odd circle.

It is. You know, I think some of the deepest conversations I've had with my bosses when I was working in businesses was when I sat down with one of my bosses who was having a really terrible day and he needed somebody to talk to. And so, being able to be that person didn't lower his standard. It didn't lower his my belief of the kind of man he was. In fact, the fact that he said, hey, I just need somebody just to listen to what I have to say because I'm super frustrated and there's nobody I can talk with and I trust you. Can we sit down for 10 minutes?

Yeah.

Right? To me, it was so powerful. It was so powerful. And from that point on, it was like the trust level got so high because if you're willing to be like that with me, now I'm more willing to be like that with you.

Right. Yes, exactly. He built a human, a bridge between 2 humans.

Yeah, yeah. Laurie, this has been absolutely fantastic. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Yeah, on my website is zenrabbit.com.

Lovely. And as we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Oh my gosh, all this good stuff. You know, I, I have a, a program called Staying Calm in Chaos, which is a digital program. So sometimes people don't want to bring me in to do a full workshop, uh, but the digital Staying Calm in Chaos is a little more easily accessible. And my challenge for listeners is to take one of the tools— challenge, invitation, I like that word better— uh, to take one of these tools or techniques that we talked about and practice it Like I said, consistently for 7 days to see if it works for you. If it works for you. And if it doesn't after 7 days, you get 2 choices. You can, one, either say, all right, it doesn't work for me, and walk away. Or you can take another 7 days and see if it, if it, uh, you know, settles in after another 7 days. We're not—

Hmm.

I know the whole, like, Creating a habit takes 21, whatever it takes, however many days. That's not what we're doing here. We're just practicing consistently. That's the big key— consistency. Because doing it once today and once maybe a year from now, that's not going to give you results.

Yeah, we are programmed over our lifetime. So, is it logical that doing something for 7 days would make a transformational change? that we're hoping to make?

It can. It's the start of it. So, all of the things that we talked about today will give you immediate results. That breathing, that 3-minute breathing, you will immediately feel more relaxed. You will immediately be able to make better decisions. You will be able to respond to a situation instead of react impulsively immediately. And over time, as you continue to practice that, You will see cumulative results.

Gotcha!

So, the 7 days is really just to get you into feeling, to evaluate it, being able to evaluate, how do I feel?

Yeah. So, where does journaling come in? Like, I know we're just wrapping up and now I'm introducing a brand new topic. But this idea of, I mean, to start today with a 3-minute practice and then come back next Wednesday. And say, how do I feel? How do you compare that? Because you have to be intentional on how you feel right now. And then, you have to be intentional on how you feel then.

Yeah.

So journaling, is that the secret behind that or what?

Sure, you could. I'm laughing because people are always telling me to journal and I'm like, God, I'm not gonna journal.

I don't want to write. I don't want to sit here and write nothing.

Yeah, I feel like it's a chore. So, I'm not inviting people to do anything like keep a gratitude journal if it feels like a chore, because that's not what we're looking to do here. So, yes, if you feel like you want to track, and I know, I know Dan— not Dan. Dan, what did you say?

Dan Sullivan.

Dan Sullivan. I was going to say Dan Kennedy. I knew that wasn't right. Dan Sullivan, what you track improves. I get it. Yeah. So, you could keep a journal. You could just write down, how do I feel today? On a scale of 1 to 10, what's my stress level? And keep track of it. And then go a week from now and say, how do I feel overall? I mean overall, because moment to moment, that could change. You could still be super stressed in this moment, but how are you handling it? Can you see yourself handling things a little bit better?

Love that! Love that! Laurie, this has been so fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you being here and sharing your knowledge and your passion and your expertise. This has been absolutely fantastic. Thank you for doing this with us.

Thank you so much for inviting me, Marc. This was fun.

It's a lot and I knew it would be. For some reason, I knew it would be a lot of fun. So, thank you again. If you have questions about today's episode or you'd like to have a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you make sure you're subscribed to this podcast and follow me on social media? We post all sorts of really great interesting things 3 times, 4 times a week. And you get first dibs at picking my brain through social media. I know it's a distraction. But you can plan time. It's okay. It'll be fine, I promise. Thank you again for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.