The Secret to High Performance? Slowing Down.

Foreign 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, 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, is a counterintuitive approach to getting things done. You know, 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 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, 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 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. Stress 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. Do, I'm sure, some deep breathing yourself and reconnect to your intention or the vision of what you're trying to create. Yeah. What else is there? Those are too many ones. I mean.

Yeah, I think you said it. 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, 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, take two or three deep breaths, come back and have a clear communication because you're going to get your point across the first time rather than having to repeat yourself or have that job not get done in the right way or the way that you wanted it to because you are coming across with that frantic, frenetic energy. So slowing down in communication can be extremely helpful. When we communicate and are agitated, we often hurt people's feelings. People don't like us. They have a repulsion against what we're saying, even if they know it's right. But if we're calm, centered from that slow space, we can really get something accomplished much quicker.

Yes, you can influence so much greater. If you've ever read the book, never Split the difference where this master negotiator from hostages brings his techniques for how he influenced hostage release. And obviously that's a very stressful situation, but he called it the late night radio, FM voice. Slow, steady, talking through. And that actually has more power than okay, we need to do this and this. You got that? Okay, we get this.

Right, right, right. Oh, I love that. I haven't heard that before.

Yes. Yeah. So, so in influencing people, they're not as well influenced unless you slow down. Right. And but what's interesting, because some of us are also impatient. So like, come on, get to the point. Like, don't talk so slowly. And I think it's about varying. What I like about your techniques are it's not about going slow all the time. And it may not be about talking slow all the time, but it's choosing strategic moments to slow down your speech. I mean, certainly as a speaker I know that. Right. There are certain moments that you really want to land the point. You don't want to be talking fast, then you want to slow the pace down. And it also clues people in to pay attention when you do that and you have that variation. So that's another great technique. Fantastic.

And I think, I think you, you really hit it. Pay attention. When you slow down, all of a sudden your mind becomes alert. And you know, when we're talking about meditation, if you slow down, slow down your breathing, if you also slow down your body, like in Tai chi practices or in qigong practices, this is a way for your mind to start to be more alert. Like, what's going on? Why are we going slow? So in, in these energetic arts, these martial arts that use slow techniques, you move your body very slowly. And why one is as you slow down your body, you slow down your mind and you just like regather your resources to a moment. And then when you're enter into the moment, that's when you can go into flow state. Flow state is a stitching together of our moments where we're paying attention, where we're aware through each of these moments as it turns into a flow. And so that's why athletes talk about being in the zone and being in flow state. One of the ways to do that is to first slow down. Now athletes get into flow state all the time and they're not going slow. But advanced slow techniques are like this. You might be surfing, you know, the face of a 50 foot wave, you might be running really fast in a soccer game or a basketball game. And you all of a sudden your perception Expands, you feel connected to your players. And almost all athletes describe being in the zone as a slowing down, like time almost standing still. Even though you're going fast, there feels like internally a slowing down and a connection and an increase in energy. And so that's the kind of thing we want to explore, is that it doesn't really mean how fast and how quick your movements are. It means an internal state. When your internal state is slow, you can have that opportunity to enter this flow. And that's what I love about this work, is that you get into that flow state and all of a sudden you're, you get so much done and you just like, how did I, how did I accomplish all of that in this little amount of time? Because time all of a sudden stands still and things are working with you.

Yes, you're reminding me. The visual I'm getting is the Matrix when the movie, when, you know, bullets coming at them and they slow.

Yes, exactly.

It's still happening very quickly, but they're able to respond to what's occurring in a way that's meeting the moment. But it feels like, I think this main thing, that embodied state of what it feels like is going to be different.

Yeah, I love what you said, meeting the moment. And that's what we want to do. How many moments are you having throughout the day of high levels of energy where your heart feels open, where you feel excited and passionate about what you're doing? And I think that is the opportunity. We slow down, we enter more into our fully resourced state. Brain, emotion, body, all working together and then we're moving through our work and our lives with much more inspiration and passion and joyfulness and that is a very impactful state.

Yes, yes. Well, tell us a little bit about these ancient arts have modern day importance, but for some people who don't know much about qigong or tai chi, perhaps you could explain what they are and even how they're different. Those two.

Right. I love it. You know, most people don't know what qigong is and that's what I've been known for. I have shows on public television and, you know, I've written books about it and you know, I got my start learning qigong and tai chi in my early 20s. I was a ghostwriter for a very well known qigong teacher and I did, you know, 10 to 15 trips back and forth to Asia writing, writing books for him. And I was always like, how do I explain this to my friends playing soccer? How do I explain this to my friends in Silicon Valley? Now, and so simply chi, as in Tai Chi or as in qigong, means energy. Energy is life force. Let's recognize that we are alive. There's a force that's keeping us alive. There's a force behind your heart, a force behind your breathing and inspiration. There's a force in your mind, there is this bioelectricity that's moving through us. Now, in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, holistic medicine, they look at that life force energy as it moves through you. Acupuncture, acupuncture points, all work with this life force energy to maintain a state of health and vitality. So qigong is done very slowly. Both Tai Chi and qigong are done very slowly. Tai Chi is actually a form of qigong, but in a martial arts context. So every movement in Tai Chi has martial application. Qigong is a little bit more involved with medicine and maintaining health. It was part of Chinese medicine. So there was five branches of Chinese medicine, which was acupuncture, herbs, massage therapy, nutrition and qigong. And the way the medicine worked was that you paid your healthcare practitioner as long as you were healthy and as soon as you got sick, you stopped paying. So the medicine was actually inverse to what we do. Yeah, you know, like, hey, doctor, you know, I got a headache, I'm not paying you this month. So it was like a small fee every month. And their job was to keep you healthy. So qigong was instrumental in preventative health because you did breathing exercises, stretching, slow flowing movements, meditation. You can think of qigong like a bit like yoga, a bit like Tai Chi and a bit like mindfulness, all in one practice. And I think that all in one, that synergy is what gives it its power. So, you know, maybe a modern definition of qigong would be less stress, more energy, because you're clearing stress that's held in the body, whether it's emotion, physical tension or pain. And then you're boosting energy levels. Now, when you have high levels of energy, you're going to bring your best self into whatever it is you're doing. When you're depleted, you're going to not be the best version of yourself. You know, think if you didn't have a very good night's sleep and now you have a lot to do and all of a sudden you're Today. Yeah, exactly. Your employees, your kids are all tugging at you, you're going to be snappy, you're going to be cranky, you're not going to be your best self. So increasing energy to be more resourced is a key component to qigong practice. I mean it's very, it's very spiritual in terms of high spirited, not in terms of religious, but just feeling your best self, feeling elevated. You know, I love this practice because it just is so practical. It's so efficient at getting us what we need.

Yeah. This is just fascinating. I mean, I've done a little bit of qigong in meditation retreats, but you're making me really want to explore daily practice now. I mean.

Yeah.

Convincing me. I'm so excited.

Well, Susan, I'll hook you up.

That would be great. I think I need this.

Yeah.

To help with, particularly these days that didn't sleep as well and there's a whole lot to do before I'm about to go on a longer trip. So. Yeah, I love it. What would be one thing that you would recommend an entrepreneur or an executive do tomorrow to help them create less stress and more energy?

I would say do seven minutes of qigong. You know, seven minutes is the amount of time of your snooze button. Try a seven minute little routine of qigong. You know, I have a lot of them on YouTube. I did a 30 day challenge which was 30 different seven minute routines.

Oh, nice.

So it just delivered to your email each and every day and you're just like, okay, seven minutes. And it's one activating activate your energy, one stretch that clears tension out of the body and one flow. And so that kind of routine, activation, stretch and flow really helps to create an empowered state. So I'd love people to just try doing qigong because I know once you try it, you're going to be like, this feels amazing. In seven minutes, I feel this much better. And I think getting ourselves into the right internal state leads to success because as leaders, people already are successful. They've already created, they're already powerful people. And I think leaders with these slow techniques or resourced energy practices can really have big impact. And the big impact that I'm really excited about is how do we create a better world? How do we create a more integrated, connected, human, open hearted world? And it's not from being stressed out and frantic when we call. When we're calm and relaxed, we're much more connected. We're much more connected to our humanity. We're much more connected to this beautiful planet and we have impact that is not just self centric but more global. And I think that's where the exciting work is to be done.

Yes. That was so beautifully said. And I am signing up for your 30 day program. Where can people, where can I do that? Where can other people do that?

Oh, come, come see me@holdenchigong.com so Holden, my last name H O L D E N and qigong is spelled Q I g o n g holdenchigong.com and there's the 30 day challenge. I have a video class subscription. You can take class with me each and every week. And then I have a whole bunch of condition specific routines. Whether you have high blood pressure or neck pain or digestive issues, I show routines that will help with our, you know, most common ailments.

Excellent. You've sold me. I'm, I'm there.

Let's get the cheese flowing.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. And now people have your website that they can go to. It was, it was definitely enlightening.

Thank you so much, Susan.

And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Brandon Fong, who enlightens us about curiosity and believes when we embed curiosity, curiosity into our approach of life and work, it unlocks new pathways for personal and professional revelation. Let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive. Sam.