The Secret to High Performance? Slowing Down.

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Hi, I'm Susan Drummond. Welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we help strengthen leaders and empower teams to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Are you curious about your development path to enlightened leadership? Take our free 5 minute quiz@susandrum.com to discover your superpower and the roadblocks that could get in your way of effective leadership. Today, we're focusing on something we all could use. How to experience less stress and more energy. And I am grateful to introduce my guest, Lee Holden. Lee is an internationally known master qigong instructor and an expert in making ancient wisdom applicable to modern life. Lee is author of the recently published book Ready, Set, Slow and the producer of Superhuman Experience docu series. Lee is a favorite on PBS with his shows less stress, more energy reaching 50 million households across the US and Canada. So welcome Lee.

Hey, so good to be here.

Susan, I am so excited to talk to you about this because given the chaos in the world today, I know most leaders are dealing with unprecedented levels of stress and managing that is become front and center in terms of how we can perform at work. So can you share with us? Maybe we'll start a bit with your book since it was just released. Tell me a bit about Ready, Set, Slow. What are the concepts in there and what are the key messages?

Right. Thanks, Susan. You know, ready, Set, slow is a counterintuitive approach to getting things done. You know, I was talking to somebody the other day, and it was about going slow to get things done quickly. And, you know, I think leaders especially want efficiency. They want to get things done quickly. They want productivity. And when we slow down, we can really lean into what's truly important because there's so much chaos in the mind, there's so many distractions. And when we slow down, we can be more mindful, we can be more resourceful, more centered, more efficient. And as we say in Tai chi and qigong practice, we can get into effortless flow. And I think effortless flow is always available to us, but sometimes it requires us to slow down, refocus, get present, and then take all, take all our energy and move in the direction that we want to go.

Absolutely. You know, I want to highlight some of the science that to layer this on. I'm, I'm in the process of an advanced certification in the Neuroscience of change. And we're looking at different brain states and how they impact our performance. And when we are running so fast and almost that state of ruminating where you're just going over and over things, it's called a dysregulated self awareness state. And that state, actually, we think we're going fast because our brain is going fast, but it doesn't mean we're actually producing results and, and shifting to an embodied self awareness state, which is we're far more present to our own self. It's the self experiencing the self versus the self, thinking about the self. Right. And so this embodied state is truly where the flow state comes from. And it is a very different brainwave state. So I'm excited to dive in and learn a bit more about why this matters.

Yeah, I mean, I love what you're saying because it's the convergence of some of these ancient philosophies. And like you said, modern science, we want to see results, we want to get things done. We want to be our most joyful, happiest, impactful selves as we move into the world on purpose. You know, slowing down is a wonderful way to. To bring out great results, great energy. It sparks creativity and insightfulness. When we're frantic and stressed out, we don't get good results. And like you said, the studies are in that even students who are stressed out, they don't perform as well on tests, they don't articulate as well. When we slow down, at least creating some moments, strategically slowing down, it's not always going slow, but it's having slow techniques in your toolbox for productivity and flow state. And I think that's where it's really exciting. Getting into flow state is really where things start to work together. You know, it feels like the universe is conspiring with you as opposed to against you. And I think there's a particular state in brain and body that happens when we slow down and get into flow.

Well, we need to talk about what are these strategic moments of slowing down. But you're reminding me of that great phrase that I think they teach EMT first responders, which. And I may not be getting it exactly right, but it's something like slow is steady and steady is fast. Something in that realm.

Right. That somebody just said that to me, and I love it. I was just on a trip in Bali and exactly what they said. And they were an emt. They used to be an emt. Yep.

Yeah.

And that. That really articulates it well, because when we are slow and Steady. We are efficient. We're moving our energy into a particular direction. You know, I'm an athlete. So when you go slow, for example, when you're rehearsing performance, or even when you're exercising and lifting weights, and I think this kind of embodies what we're talking about as a concept. For example, when you lift weights slowly, you don't have to do as many sets or as many repetitions. You get slow weightlifting results, which means you're going to build strength and power in your muscles. And so when you do slow weightlifting, you work out two, maybe three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes, and you get great results. So you actually save time by going slower.

I can attest to this.

Right. Many things are like that.

Yeah. There is. There's a. There's a studio here called Exercise Coach that I've been going to for a couple of years, and it's only 20 minutes of strength training. And so normally you'd be like 20 minutes twice a week. How could that work? Because it's both slow on the eccentric and slow on the decentric, a computerized machine that you have to keep within a certain band. And that slowness makes it really challenging, but also makes it really efficient. So this is all coming together where slowing down can be efficient. And that's sort of weird for me because I run pretty fast. Right, right. But it is true.

Yes. And, you know, I have four children, I'm running two businesses, I'm traveling and teaching. And for me to slow down is essential because it gives me that focus to make sure everything's running smoothly. And so if you're busy and you want to get lots done, some of these techniques are so empowering that I think they can't be missed. You know, my training is from Eastern medicine. I'm an acupuncturist. I teach meditation and qigong, and I've. I've worked with Silicon Valley executives and companies for many, many years, and I've just seen how it works both in my life and how effective it is in these leadership roles.

Yes, yes. Well, tell us a bit about that type of work in particular. So when you've worked with executives, maybe you can share a story or two of what was the shift that you saw and how did they actually get more productive as a result?

Right. Sometimes it comes back to just being stressed out. I mean, we're all people with certain physiology in a certain nervous system. And when we're stressed out, which many executives are, there lots of pressure on their shoulders, lots of Teams to manage, lots of results to get. And if they don't hit those results, then the company puts a lot of pressure on them. And I think either whether you're an executive at a company or an entrepreneur, we all have a lot of pressure in terms of financial success or productivity that we need to meet and that is demanded of us. Now being stressed out is normal to modern day life. And the interesting thing is, is that when we can transform stress into vitality, we become much more playful. Playfulness gets you the result that you want in a more efficient way rather than pressure. And playfulness is very natural to us as human beings because in the beginning of our lives, that's all we did is just play. And you know, we want to have fun, we want to be happy, we want to be joyful, we want to be healthy, we want to have energy and we all want to be fulfilled. And we don't get there by being frantic and stressed out. So taking that pause, that nice deep breath, realigning and focusing on, you know, our target, you know, almost like an archer, there's a qigong move called the archer. And we need enough energy behind the arrow and we need clear direction without distraction. Stress is very distracting. I designed, you know, some of the one thing that came to mind is that I designed all the programs for Weight Watchers company across the country. They're beyond the scale program and I worked with the, all the executive teams and we created a movement based practice that felt good for their members. And members were saying, wow, you know what? I haven't felt good in my body in such a long time. And it was the highest rated program that the company's ever piloted outside of just counting points. And the results were really interesting because yes, it was about calories and yes, it was about results and getting weight loss, but it also, there was more to it than that. There was the feeling, the about how good people felt in their bodies and if they felt good in their bodies, they sustained healthy living. So beyond the scale, beyond counting calories. You know, the science on weight loss is in is not just about how much you move and how many calories you consume. It's also about stress levels, how well you sleep, interactions, social connections. These all had a big impact on the results of the company. And so that was really interesting because stress moved people away from the results. And if they calm down and they slowed down, all of a sudden they got better results. So what we did is we brought these slow principles into eating. We said, let's stop counting calories. And just slow down when you eat. And again, you got way better results. Because slowing down when you eat, you improve digestion, because digestion starts in your mouth and you put a lot more enzymes in your food that by the time it gets to your stomach, you're transforming food into energy. And then you don't store that food as fat because your body is using it and utilizing it more efficiently. So, you know, slowing down while we eat, you know, can be a very powerful way to boost energy levels. And I think one of the things that we don't want to do is eat when we're all stressed out. Because your body's going to say, hey, we're stressed out. Stressed meaning we perceive the environment as being dangerous. When we're in fight or flight or stress mode, your body's going to store whatever you eat until later, until you can relax, which shifts the nervous system into rest and digest our parasympathetic branches where we can then turn that food into energy. So I think there's all kinds of ways that slowing down makes you more efficient, makes you more energized, helps clear stress. Slowing down is one key way to clear stress right away. Fast pace and frantic energy creates that communication to our nervous system. Hey, we're in fight or flight. Life is dangerous. We're better hold tension in our muscles and move energy away from our digestion and not be in the present moment, be either thinking about the future and trying to predict it and not being calm and settled in the moment. And then that's what we want to do when we slow down. Calm, settled in the moment, regroup, and then move forward with power and strength.

Okay, so in terms of techniques that leaders could employ, so far I'm getting one. Slow down when you're eating. For sure, that's a key moment to take some time where you can be slow when you're feeling a sense of franticness is a good time to catch yourself, breathe, do, I'm sure, some deep breathing. Center yourself and reconnect to your intention or the vision of what you're trying to create. Yeah. What else is there? Those are two ones.

I mean, yeah, I think you said it and I think there's a lot there's, you know, slow down. Let's talk about breathing because that is essential and, you know, just taking that moment to slow down. You don't have to be slow all the time, but just pause like the first bite of food. Chew your food recommendation 32. Choose each bite so you don't have to do the whole Meal that way. Slow down on that first bite, right? You got a lot to do today. Take a take two or three slow, deep breaths. Now when you take a slow breath, it's going to give you a lot more energy than a fast breath slowing down your breathing. We want to breathe slowly so we don't breathe as much because over breathing is like overeating. You clog up the system and you also, when you quickly breathe, you're selling sending a message again that you're in fight or flight. So do some perfect breathing, you know, as a way to start your workday. Three to five breaths, maybe one or two minutes. It's five seconds on the inhale, five seconds on the exhale and try to make it a full breath. Belly, ribs, chest, everything engaged. So it's a big long breath in through the nose and out through the nose, nice and slow. Gives you a wonderful reset. Mind becomes present and then we can go after it. Now slowing down sometimes with our interactions because when we are slow, when we, when we're communicating with our teams, with our families, with our spouses, when we're stressed out, we're going to communicate quickly and often from agitation because we want to have that impact. But when you slow down when you're communicating, people listen and they feel your energy, they read your body language. You know, communication is not just about the words we're saying, but a very high percentage, 60 to 70% of what we're community communicating comes across through body language, voice tone and what our face looks like. So if you slow down, you can actually be heard rather than somebody just being frantic in their own mind and missing what you're going to say. If you notice that yourself being agitated and stressed out, sometimes it's good to just take a pause, say, hey, let me talk to you in five minutes.