Breathing in the Corporate World

Foreign.

Welcome to the Oxygen Advantage Podcast with your host, Oxygen Advantage founder Patrick McKeown. With the oxygen Advantage podcast, we aim to show how functional breathing is an essential part of a healthy and well balanced lifestyle. Each episode we meet experts in their field from around the world and talk about their lives, their experiences and how they learned the importance of breathing. Join us on Get Inspired, get the Oxygen Advantage.

Is there a role for breathing in the corporate world? I think so. I actually think the potential is enormous. You know, when we think about individuals coming out of business, college and other degrees and professions and going into the corporate world and they are not gave the tools how to focus, how to concentrate, how to deal with stress, how to conserve energy, how to upregulate very, very important tools. And that's what I want to have a conversation with Lars. So Lars is from Norway and he lives about an hour outside of Oslo and he's working specifically. Well, part of who he works with includes corporations and I think there's a great fit there. So Lars, welcome. And yeah, it's a really important conversation, isn't it? Given that people spend maybe 30 to 40 hours and more of their week in a corporation, even more than their family and yet there can be high stress levels there and a lot of politics and people don't necessarily, they are not trained in the skills to be able to self regulate.

Yeah, 100%. And yeah, first of all, thank you for having me and having this conversation because like you said, it's, it's very important. And yeah, in Norway it's the same throughout, in the western world is that the, the, the workload and the stress load is increasing and problems with burnout and depression and mental health is on the rise and the tools that you have provided the oxygen advantage method and of course all this new knowledge that have come have, it's possible to reverse it if people get to know it, if you know what I mean. So it's powerful and it's easy but it has to be implemented in, in, in corporations. And that's, that's the big, that's the problem, you know.

Yeah, but you know, you know, maybe I'm cynical here, but I think there's only one thing that corporations are concerned with and that's the bottom line.

Yeah.

Does it doesn't make a difference to that. That's the question. Can we show it makes a difference?

Yeah, and that's, that's the cool thing because we have this really fascinating story about how we turn conflict into kind of success by making people thrive through Working together on team development, but also on implementing stress management tools. And the bottom line was that when after people started really enjoying themselves at work and trusting each other, then, you know, revenue increased because we were innovating on the products. We were innovating on the way we treated customers, innovating on the way we sold products, and that's how we increased our revenue. So it's a really cool story about using these tools and spending time training on it and then seeing the results.

So how did you approach it? So you don't, of course, have to give me any details of the company or anything like that, or if you want to, that's fine. How did you approach it? So you're going in or maybe it's your business, I'm not sure. Can you just give me a little bit of background? I'd like to see all of the practical. How did you introduce it? What way did it work? The detail.

Yeah. So I can tell you like, a little bit of the background story because, like, my story is that, you know, I worked in this company, it's a big media company in Norway, and we had this conflict at work and that conflict was just really eating me up on the inside out. You know, I was. And it was affecting my sleep, my mood, my stress levels. And that again, you know, it impacted me being a husband and a father and a friend. You know, it's when you don't sleep, you're not, you're not a good person. So, so what happened was that and, and I've, I've been an expedition leader, so I've been taking people on Arctic expeditions to, you know, Greenland and small bottom places like that. And then I started thinking, like, why am I focusing so well when I'm out in this extreme conditions, if you would like to say it. And I started thinking about, like, I, I, I, I'm perfect in the field when I'm out in nature, but I'm not like that when I'm at work. And then I started thinking about the basic needs. You know, we take care of ourselves. We, we sleep enough, we eat proper food, we take care of each other in the team. We have good communication lines, we have clear goals. And I, then I started talking to my leader and saying, like, could we maybe try to implement some of these things into our apartment and work on it? And, and the second part of the story is that my, my dad, he died last year and he was, he was working, you know, he was working too much and he didn't have all these tools that we're talking about here.

So can I ask you what age. I'm sorry to hear of your dad's passing. I know it's. It's really, really tough and.

Yeah, it's tough.

It can be a long time to work. What age was he?

He was 73.

So it's still young. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And his last 10 years was he were in poor health. So I have kind of seen the dark side of having poor health.

Across you. Do you think it was solely related or very much related to stress in the workplace?

No, I, I mean it's bits and pieces, you know.

Yeah.

You know, trauma from his early days. He lost his early. He didn't process that the right way. He headed into the work life, you know, like just working, working, working, you know, didn't care. Didn't he. He used to be an athlete but he stopped doing that and then he, my brother was he. Is he. There was an accident when he was born so he, he was, he had this brain damage. So you know, lots of things that happened through him in the early days and I think he kind of, you know, worked his way through it by working a lot.

Yeah, yeah. That was, that was his way of escaping and working a lot was kind of akin to that generation and I think our generation or at least I'm not sure what age you are, but I'm almost 50. We also, we worked a lot and I really wonder is it. And we were putting all hours on of. You know, and it's not. I know people talk about life, work, balance. I do believe there's. There's a thing. It's important to work.

Yeah.

It's important to give it your best shot. I absolutely believe in that. It's almost that we've gone from one extreme to the other. So your father would be non stop working and now it's almost that. Okay, that would been very much a yang and now there's a tendency now that quite quitting and slow quitting and all of this stuff going on over here. What about the middle? You know, so I think that's where you're kind of going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, that, that leads us to the philosophy that we develop in the team and that was that we, we wanted to call it sustainable performance over time. So that means that's exactly what you're saying about being in the middle. And we stopped talking about work life balance. And then we said it's all about life balance because you know, you work and you live and you work and you live and it's, it's impossible to separate those two things. So we made this philosophy about like, what is sustainable performance? You know, we like to perform at work, but how do we do that good over time? Because it's super easy to, you know, like give full throttle. You perform super high at one week, two week, maybe six months, but then you get exhausted. So we figure out like it's kind of three levels. You have to have good health in the, in the bottom, right? So, you know, proper sleep, good stress balance, you know, eating properly, moving, connecting with nature, those kind of things. And then we said also that we have to have the energy and the surplus to live the life we want. Like I'm a father, when I come home from work, I want to play with my children. I don't want to just like dive into the sofa and be exhausted or my mind is all over the place and not with my family. And we figured out if we can do those things in the bottom, then we can have the energy to perform good and sustainable over a long period of time. Because we don't want to lose people because either they, yeah, quiet quitting or if they are getting burned out. So that's the purpose. So in further on, and I'm going to go into the practical how we did it, but we found out that self leadership and feedback culture and psychological safety, those were the three kind of compounds that we can work on and also that we can measure. So we wanted to see where are we now and would we improve if we will start doing all of these different, different tasks and work on, on developing people. So in order to break it down, we kind of, we, we broke it down into two different levels and that was stress management and self developing for becoming a better team member. And that's when the magic started to happen. And I remember in, in terms of breathing, like we want to talk about that. Because after I was in that conflict and you know, Covid came and then I came over, you know, both the oxygen advantage and the XPT training from Laird Hamilton and the Wim Hof meth method. And then I was like, wow, we can use this in the workplace, you know, because it, it gave me such a profound change, like connecting with myself, you know, connecting with my feelings. But also I kind of felt this cognitive uplift. Like I was thinking better, you know, I was more present thinking better. And I was like, wow, this could be implemented into the workplace. And I remember the first time I did that, it was really out of my comfort zone and I went to the team saying, like, okay, we're gonna have this creative workshop today, but I want to, I want to introduce some breathing techniques before we begin, just so we can be present, focused and energized. And people were like, looking at me and were like, okay, Lars, where, where are you going now? And what, where is this coming from? But they were like, after we did it. And that, that breathing exercise was a, a mix of, you know, relaxation, slow breathing, but also a little bit of the activation part, like a little bit of a hyperventilation and some faster breathing and some breath holds, like in the WIM HOF thing. But I did it very easy. And people were like, wow, what happened? You know what happened? And I could immediately see the change in the team after doing those exercises. Like, people were calm, present. They were not like fidgeting on their phones or the laptops. They were like. And they said it afterwards, like, wow. I came from back to back meetings and doing that breathing exercise. I kind of cleared everything and I was fully present. And that was. I can't, can't remember the last time I was like that at work. And that's when I kind of figured out, like, okay, this is something that I have to do more. So I, I developed this kind of breathing program where I took bits and pieces like, again, bringing in the foundation was, was the health part, like nasal breathing, you know, slow and low and through the nose during the day and teaching people, like, why is it important to do it that way? And how we can optimize our respiration system and everything. But then I also taught him like, this kind of cool exercises in order to activate the system, you know, like upregulate, but also how to perform under pressure, you know, if you're gonna have a lecture or a sales meeting or whatever. And. But the part also that people really like was the recovery part, like breathing for better sleep or meditation or relaxation. So. Yeah, and, and I've gotten really good feedback on that.

Why do you think, why do you think it's taken so long? It's, it's a question that's puzzled to me. I use breathing in my everyday life. I have a small business. Anybody with a small business needs to. Because there's always going to be certain amount of, you know, pressure, deadline stress, etc. Why has it taken such a long time for an awareness in terms of breathing?

That's a good question. And I, I haven't solved it myself because, you know, like, I, I've a. I'm a strong advocate for it and I Have so much passion for it. So I have kind of like, you know, been missionary in the all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah. And, and people really like it. But I still kind of are figuring out one thing is to get the kind of doing it once or being on a two day seminar but how to get people to continue practicing.

Yeah. And I agree with you. It's. See but the thing is that it can be made very accessible.

Yeah.

You know, it's not something you don't need any equipment. You, you, you don't need and you don't even need that much time. You know, you can go for a walk. I'm. There's quite a bit of rain coming in so I just need to close the window. But I'll continue talking. You can go for a walk and bring good breathing practice into your walk. Yeah, you, you can, you know, before sleep you can be using the tools to down regulate. So it's really about making it accessible. I don't think it has been made accessible to people. I don't think people really understood and all in terms of breath was, you know, most of the instruction was take a full deep breath for yourself. I'm sure that's in its, that's going to do zero, absolutely nothing. It's probably the, the, you know, it's, it's probably for some people it could do more harm than good. I remember going into an exam and I was stressed about it. Go back 25 years ago and I took these full deep breaths and I went in lightheaded and everything. You know, so there's a lot of misinformation out there. But anyway, coming back to you.

Yeah, and, and I think that you said it. Time, it's, it doesn't have to take much time. But this is my, my personal thought is that you know, people are so stressed during, during the days at work or in their everyday life, so just taking the time to sit down and you know, just look at the birds or do some breathing or whatever. It's hard because people are. They want to be performing, be effective or they have too much on their table to, to, to do so it's, I think it's, it's super hard to, to get people to, to make the time and that's why I want to kind of make this into. And, and that's also part of the success we did in this department that I work for because we, we put it in the calendar so it was part of like weekly meetings and stuff like that. We had that sometimes just Five minutes, just like relaxing before we started the Monday meeting. You know, like downregulate, have a nice slow start on the Monday. And people loved it. But still, I don't know, some. Some are using it themselves and some just do it when they're told to. Yeah. So.

But. But it's there and they can always fall back on it. So I never. I never think it's wasted. You know, I think when we plant a seed, you know, things happen in people's lives, and breathing is always. And I think there's a comfort in knowing that. Do you feel yourself that you can take on more challenging situations, given that you have breathing to fall back on or to prepare you, that it gives you a comfort knowing that you have some degree of control?

100%. And I use very different kinds of breathing tactics in terms of what. What my needs are. Like, sometimes I feel like some days I'm kind of, you know, a little bit drowsy or a little bit down. Then I do some breathing for regulating up or before meeting, I'm doing the more kind of how to perform. And I did some breathing exercises before our conversation as well. But I think, like, in terms of meditation, that's also a very important part, is that like I told you about my father dying. In our times, when things are going fast and, you know, exciting things at work, it's hard to take the time to be in the sorrow or the morning. And, and, and that's also some of the things that the breathing techniques have really taught me is that when I've kind of. When I do longer sessions, let's say 20, 30, maybe 45 minutes, and when. When I kind of go into the depth and take away all the noise and distractions and I'm at my core, that's when I realized, whoa, I'm still mourning. You know, I have to remember that, you know, things are going too fast, but I have to remember that I'm still missing my father. You know, I'm thinking about it and it's there. You know, this subconscious. It's there, but it's hard to pay attention to it because the days are going fast. So the meditation part for me has been maybe the. The biggest impact of all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of the science. People like science. You're also looking at the science in terms of application of breathing. And many people are wearing aura rings and different devices. Yeah. That gives you feedback on your resilience. And tell me how you're incorporating both. Because of course, we are using breathing techniques and deep Sleep to optimize that. And the device is giving feedback on it.

Yeah, it's good that you mentioned that because we did one project, this before the summer and because there's this doctor in Norway who has written this book about how we can use biometric measurements like Oura Ring Whoop or Garmin. So I, I made this agreement with Garmin Norway in terms of letting employees buy discounted watches. And we, we, we had several lectures that either that Dr. Torkil did or myself in terms of breathing and stress management. So all the employees that wanted to, you know, increase their awareness, you know, their surplus, their energy and learn how to self regulate better, they applied on that project. And we did the measurement before and after and it's, and, and this was like a really easy experiment. So I'm gonna work on kind of on developing the framework on that. But in just a couple of months, we measured on surplus, better sleep, better stress management, and better focus. And the reported self reported. So it's not science, it's only self reported. But it varied between 20 to 30% increase. So people were saying like after starting using this watch and after implementing breathing techniques, mental training, all that, you know, they improve between 20 and 30%.

It's huge.

It's huge. And you know, like Dr. Torko is saying, like these are the things people get sick from. You know, too much stress is what we get sick from in the, in the long term. So when we, if we can apply this in the workplace as, as something that is, you know, some part of the, the work life culture, we can, we can improve. Yeah, life balance. Work life balance. But also getting people to be healthier and stronger for a longer period of time.

Yeah. And also they will be happier during that time.

Exactly.

You know, because if we're stressed, it's, we're not happy at that time, regardless of the impact it's having on our health. But very often though, we're stuck in it and we don't always see, you know, the, the perception is difficult to perceive where we are in that. We're just caught in it. And sometimes for some people, it's, they're burnt out before they realize it.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people reported back saying that I didn't know what was my energy leakages. So let's say for alcohol, for example, everybody, they know that alcohol is, you know, bad for you in, in if you drink too much. But after they started measuring, they see like, whoa, alcohol is so much worse than I thought. So people, they, you know, they decrease their drinking or do not drink that much. And they reported back saying, I didn't know that I needed more rest. You know, I thought that I needed more hard training. But it was the opposite. And especially those people that did the breathing or incorporated breathing exercises or protocols in their daily life, they said like this is the most, an accessible tool of them all. So I think this is really just the beginning. And like you said in the beginning here, why is it not there yet? I think it's in the beginning and I think this is something or it has to be incorporated in, in our organizations.

It has to be. I, I went, I did business college, you know, I was in the corporate world. Yeah, I absolutely hated it.

Yeah, yeah.

And it wasn't the company, but it was the stress levels and the stress that was put on top of us and stress put on us and we had to put the same stress on the people below us. Like it was terrible situation. And we were working, we started work at 8am, we finished at 6pm, but we never finished at 6. It could be 8, 8pm so we were doing 12 hour days. We were working half day Saturday. And I did that for three years now the only thing I got out of it was I said I would never work for anybody ever again in my life. And that was it. And that was it never worked again for somebody again in my life. But I was lucky to find breathing coming back in. So breathing kind of became my career as well, of my salvation. Coming back to the metrics though, and hrv. So you were measuring primarily, I'm assuming HRV from the Garmin device?

Yeah, yeah.

Were some people quite low? Were you, were you shocked? Were you surprised?

Yeah, both, both in terms of the BOLT score, but also the hrv.

That's a question. Did you see a correlation or any correlation between them?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the people with the lowest HRV also had low BOLT scores. So. And I'm not a doctor, so I'm kind of, I'm not wanting to say that oh, we did this and we fixed everything, but I, I really saw people that when they started realizing how HRV and the nervous system is all, you know, how that works and how you can affect it yourself and what it is affected by, like how you eat, the people you're surrounding yourself with, you know, how alcohol, poor sleep or good stuff, all those factors and people can start working on themselves like they have the power of doing it themselves. And then you see, you know, BOLT scores increases and HRV most of the times Increase as well.

There's a relationship there between the two. Chemo reflex sensitivity and viral reflex sensitivity. So it's, it would be too scientific in terms of going. And I don't fully understand it because HRV is quite a difficult metric. You know, in a very simple measurement, it's the. Or the or interval or the time between heartbeats. And if we're in balance, during inspiration, you know, I'm just kind of giving you a quick picture. During inspiration, your heartbeat should accelerate a little bit, so your heartbeat should be faster. And during exhalation, during rest, the time between each heartbeat should be longer. So your heartbeat should be slowing down during exhalation and speeding up a little during inhalation. And there's many factors influencing it because. So say, for example, you're working with somebody and he's 40 years of age and he is a metric, and his HRV is, we'll say 30 or whatever. And then he goes in on Google and he says, oh, my God, my HRV is terrible low. It should be way up here. It can be disconcerting for that individual. Do you approach that or what do you see in terms of.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's super important. Like, first of all, when we introduced these tools, first of all, it was 100%, it's optional, so you don't have to do it. It's for the people that are curious and open and interested in it. And second part was that we were particular and saying that, you know, this is an individual measure. You know, don't look at other people's measurement, but focus on the long term and focus on slowly increasing the measurements that you can have. And it will go up and down. So. And I, I used to show my kind of stress levels and, you know, took the screenshots from my Garmin watch or my whoop and saying, okay, this is where I argue with my wife. You know, here it's red. And here you see, I drank some alcohol. It's red. You know, the HRV is going down. No problem. I can, you know, as long as I have control on the long term.

Yes. So.

And that's very important because you, like you say some people, and I always get this question like, oh, I'm not sure if it's good for me to, to pay attention to it, because I know it's bad. And that's also something that I'm kind of like, yeah, but if you know it's bad, don't you want to change it? So that's also been A part of the process telling people like do you want to acknowledge it and work with it or just put it away and you know, ignore it. Yeah, ignore it and pretend it's not there.

It's not really bad per se. It's just that's where you are at this present moment.

Yeah.

So you've got something to work with. And the only other thing is, would you feel that some. I think in terms of bringing technology into corporations that management may be using the employees may feel that management is using the data as a means of selecting. Yeah.

So yeah. And that's the first time I asked employees. So and going backwards before we applied technology, I remember I asked people in the company like who do want, who wants to join a stress management course? And nobody was saying that they wanted because stress management is like oh I'm, I, I'm not strong, I'm stressed. It's a weakness.

Okay.

So I figured I have to do shift the way I presented the different words. So I said who wants to be better at turning on and off and who wants more surplus or energy or want better sleep? And then people say oh yeah, I want that. You know, it's all about how you tell the story.

Yeah. It's about this. Sidash Atomic focus.

Yeah.

I wrote a book, anxiety free in 2010. Yeah. Very few men were reading it.

Yeah.

Atomic focus, Oxygen Advantage Drive. The language we communicate is very important. And that's coming back to you. Another question I asked you, how come breathing has been overlooked? It was because the language.

Yeah.

And the, and the, the, the, the, the way it was put out there was not made accessible to the individual. We need to dial it down to the person in front of us, you know, because I will say there's absolutely something incredibly powerful in this. Why not? You know, it's just those tools to, to be able to self regulate is amazing. It's absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it is. And, and for me to answer that question I, I realized that first of all I have to tell my story like saying how I was miserable but I used these techniques and it helped me. And then I tell because I've been working as a, like a performance coach for both athletes, like top level athletes and also some policemen working in the like the, it's like the FBI equivalent in Norway. And when I can tell the stories about like even though you're an employee, you're a leader or an athlete or a policeman, it's all the same. We all need to perform and we're all under stress and we don't know what the stress is some of the times. And the breath work is the way to, you know, tap into. And I say that, you know, breathing is the remote control to your nervous system. And then people saying like, ah, yeah, okay, now it sounds more, you know, performance or macho or whatever. And sadly that's the way to especially men, you know.

Yeah, but you know what, it's the way it is and why not use those words? And that's why I shy away from using the words meditation and mindfulness. You know, like, dude, we have two options. We are either we are either stuck in our head ruminating and taught with all of, all of the negativity that's going on and it's sabotaging us in every part of our life or we have some degree over our control over our thinking. Do you think the education system is going to change? Because this is another question. Why isn't it taught in schools? You know, and I feel that it's going to be many, many years. Like why not get rid of history and geography, get rid of it altogether and replace it with two subjects. One is, one is breathing and self regulation and the mind. And the other is to be able to deal with financial issues, the workplace and the everyday challenges that people face. And there should even be another class now on social media, artificial intelligence and preparing these kids for the world that they are going out into. Our education system is almost back the 18th century, you know. Do you think it will change in Norway? Do you see any change?

I mean, first of all, I 100% agree and that's, that's my next experiment. Now it's actually to, to, to try to. Because I have a really good dialogue with my old high school. So I want to try to do this in that school and see and make a case out of it because like I told you earlier, it's all about the storytelling. So and, and I've been teaching some young athletes now that are struggling, you know, either with school or with asthma or with poor sleep. And especially that guy with asthma, just teaching him the oxygen advantage method. It have improved his sleep. His asthma is still there, but it's, it's really a lot better. And now he can actually do the, he's an ice hockey player now. He can do the running without throwing up because he used to, as soon as he started doing the running he just started coughing and then throwing up.

So yeah, he was in the wrong sport. Yeah, no, I don't mean that in a bad way, but ice cold dry air can cause Irritation of the airway. So for him, nasal breathing was even more important. And the connection there with the coughing was he obviously got into fits of coughing, which. Which caused him to throw up and. Because it can do. And I've seen coughing, breaking ribs as well. So that's great, great stuff. Well done, Joss. We're on the same path as, I think, as you. We've spent the last three months putting presentations together for young children, for children between 8 and 12 years of age, and 12 and 17 years of age. Atomic Focus Kids, teens and younger kids. So we'll have those presentations. You'll see them under the portal. I think it's huge.

Yeah, yeah. And. And that's, you know, like, I'm a father for two sons. So my sons are 7 and 10, and I'm doing, like, bits and pieces of experiments with them, but they're like, oh, dad, you know, don't give me. But the times that do some of the breathing exercises, they fall asleep so much faster. And I tell them, like, you know, try to see the connection of doing this, and you fall asleep faster. And so, yeah. Back to your question. I also want to do some experiments with doing some online courses, but also some physical. Physical courses, because I always see that when people kind of get an experience out of it, then they kind of hook to the feeling, and then it's easier for them to do the online trainings and do get. Get it as a part of themselves. So my big vision is that is to give away these courses and. And let people or young people experience it and train on a regular basis in terms, like you say, getting prepared for life.

Yeah.

In Norway, I think there's this new survey that was done, and it was three out of four saying they felt almost burned out or burned out at a certain period of time.

Hints.

Yeah. Young professionals. So let's say 20. Between 20 and 25. I've done some leadership training with young professionals, so I created this concept called Disconnect to Reconnect. So we brought him out in nature, and I taught him their breathing exercises. We did some cold exposure training just to make it kind of exciting. But they tell us all the same stories. You know, they feel they have to perform all the time. They're connected. Not. They're kind of, you know. Yeah. Connected to technology all the time, and they don't have time to either breathe or think and that they do all that when they come home. And a lot of the stress that they told us when we was on that trip was that, you know, they Are afraid to offend people, afraid of doing things wrong. You know, they, some of them are the best in class of what they do, but they still kind of. Their self confidence is slow and their resilience is low. So that's what we wanted to train them on. You know, like the power in the power in the body and the power in the mind and being able to trust, trust themselves.

So is there, so is there something happening in society? I get it in terms of social media and you were talking about those, those youngsters, you know, they're, they're connected with it all the time at work, but they're also connected with it all the time when they get home because they're probably scrolling their phone, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. But that thing about being afraid to offend, it's almost that, that's. And I have to be careful what I say. Okay. I'm saying I don't mean that, that we have the right to offend people, but it's gone to a point almost that we have to be conscious of about anything that we say because anything that we say could be taken up the wrong way. It's, it's, it's kind of. And it seems to be a recent thing as well, isn't it? So I can imagine then the pressure. So these young kids, okay, Young professionals, they have to doubly. They have to be so careful about what they say because it can be construed as. That's another pressure. Yeah. Okay.

And we asked them questions like what would be your dream life? Or what is success? And we had to, we had this, we were sitting in this next to each other in a ring and discussing these topics. And people said, like, to be honest, success is working with something meaningful. But it doesn't have to be a high salary or a fancy car or fancy job title. It's about doing something meaningful, having a positive impact on society. And they also said, when I feel that I'm the most alive is when I'm at my cabin, drinking coffee, not having any plans, going for a swim, being in the forest, you know, like not performing at all. And for them just to sit in the ring and discussing this was. They said that this is so refreshing because I thought I was the only one having his thoughts.

I know, but see, there's another aspect of. As well. You know, maybe we don't always get to, to work in a work that's absolutely impactful and meaningful.

Yeah, maybe we don't. Yeah.

So what happens there? Yeah, the person gets depressed, you know, if you were to look at even any, any age group, you know, like, do we have a self right to have absolutely impactful contribution to make? You know, I, I'm just trying to rephrase this. I'm just, I wonder, is it possible that like I remember, you know, having a conversation 30 years ago, I was just coming into the workforce 30 years ago and I said I would love to have a job that I would love to do. And an older man at the time said, he says, you'd be very, very lucky, Patrick. Now I was lucky, but a lot of people and I've seen all of my peers at the time and we, they were up, they're all highly, they're educated people, they've done well but they weren't necessarily happy and a lot of stress. So we, we don't always get to find a role that we are aligned to. And I don't know if it's possible for everybody. And I'm just thinking about the people that are, Is there, is there another way to look at this? Lars? How about a young 20 year old goes out there and gives it their best absolute shot, gives it their utmost and then, then life starts to direct us and help us in different ways as opposed to waiting there and waiting. Yeah, I'm not making an impact and I'm waiting for this impact to come, but I'm not doing anything myself to strive towards it. What do you think on that? I know we're going off topic, but I think it's interesting from the.

Well, it's off topic, but it's still on topic because this is, these are some of the discussions that we did in our department actually. And what I found out was that doing small changes can have big impacts. So let's, for example, let's say job roles. Right? So the traditional way of having a job role is that, you know, Patrick, you're supposed to do this, this and this and this and you're, you're the role and I'm supposed to do this, this and this. And we had this discussions within the team saying like, what are the things you do like in your role? What are the things or the task you do not like? And then we spoke openly about that and we figured out like sometimes I was doing tasks that I hated and it took me so much energy and other people in the team that would love to have that task. So then we just switched. So we kind of like, okay, let's not have this rigid old fashioned way of looking at how subtitles are, are made. So that's one thing and another thing is that. So I have had this brilliant leader now called cd and she figured out that if I can do bread and butter, you know, like, you have to do these tasks, but whatever you want to do, as long as you deliver on the KPIs that are set, you can do whatever you want. So then I started working on more, you know, sustainability things, you know, like, and that was important to my values. And then I created a meaningful task even though I was working on something else. And so we started slowly incorporating, like if people had passion and the surplus to do more than their kind of bread and butter tasks, then they can start creating. And suddenly we found out that sometimes that was something we can also turn into revenue. So it's kind of a, you know, it's hard to explain, but it's, it's a bit of. And I know Google have done this as well. You know, like you can take 10 to 20% of your time following a passion thing and maybe it will be something you can put into work or you can, you know, start a business or whatever. And I feel that that was also something that we did with a lot of success because then people kind of could think for themselves starting small and adding more to it. Bitten bits, bits and pieces, if that made any sense.

Yeah, totally. So once the bread and butter is done, you can, you can direct your energy to a skill and you're going to learn about yourself in the process.

Just for me example was that, you know, stress management and performance management was something that I wanted to develop as a skill. And as long as I did bread and butter, I was able to do lectures and workshops throughout the company for people that I didn't know. I was saying to people, please attend this breathwork course. And it was nothing we charged anything for. And I did it on just because I wanted to train and get better at it. And that was a huge benefit for the company.

And it's 10 of your work time.

Yeah.

In other words, it's, it's, it's a good give and take.

Yeah. And I had people coming back saying that I have avoided, you know, panic attacks or now I. There was this girl, she lost her job and she thought she was having a heart attack on the train station. But then she realized, ah, these sensations are what Lars taught me about when we did that, accelerated breathing, you know, the same sensations. So she was figuring out, ah, maybe it's a panic attack. And then she was down regulating herself. And I have so many stories about similar, you know, episodes and that's all because I was, I was able to do it as aside from my bread and butter task. So yeah, it's a big, big plus for, for companies.

Do you think companies are also going to go down the route of, in terms of profit sharing? So maybe there are some, a number of companies doing it at the moment but you've got a company and their annual accounts come out and based on the net profit there that a certain percent in is distributed amongst the employees. Is that something that you see in Norway? Have you touched on it?

I think it's a bit premature right now. So I think it has to kind of like we, we really got the attention like first we were showing off our, you know, the Work Life survey. I don't know the English word. Like how are people saying that they have it at work? And you know our scores went through the roof and people like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's nice. But after we show that we doubled our revenue. That's when people like okay, what's, what's going on now? This is something that we want to have as well. So in order to get the upper management attention I think you have to have those financial scores, right. So as long as you can link the activities you do on strategic things that you can measure, let's say the surveys, but most of all like let's say quality enhancement or innovation enhancement or, or let's say revenue increase, that's when you really get the kind of attention that is needed. So I think measurement is kind of a key word to, to get, to get it really going.

So was that published or was that an internal survey? I'm just wondering is it accessible on online? Can people access it?

No, it's not, unfortunately.

I wonder can it be made accessible or something similar because this then will drive a trend. Because the problem at the moment is that there's no metrics to back up something that we have seen. There's no metrics to back off the fact that your ability to focus and concentrate, attention span, improve sleep resilience, etc. Stress handling better that it reflects on the bottom line. And if that can be shown, it's a no brainer for companies.

We have had some lectures throughout, in Norway telling it publicly and you know, the feedback is people are coming like wow, this is you know, low hanging fruits.

Of course, yeah, of course. This is the language. We need to be communicating it out there. You need to write a book.

Yeah, that's true, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, no it's, it's so important. Just conscious of time in terms of what else do we need to be thinking about. So if I'm talking about breathing in the corporate workspace. So we were talking about giving is putting it make, not making people do it, but actually putting it into the calendar so that people are, they feel compelled to do it as opposed to. Because all too often we just say we're going to do it but we don't because we get so bogged down and work and we're afraid to do it because maybe we're seen as doing nothing.

And yeah, I think there's three things that should be done. And the top level thing is that my big dream is that a company would set up like this, let's call it a performance center. So the performance center is kind of providing these tools that we are talking about here. Like come here and learn how to optimize your breathing, optimize your sleeping, maybe even get financial support or guidance if you are struggling financially. You know, like all the things that can, you know, take your focus off your stress. Right. But and then also giving employees these tools accessible. Like let's say you have breeding courses either physical or online. But also getting the technology in terms of Whoop or Aura or Garmin Watches, like getting people to buy them with a discount if that's the option. So people can, you know, take this into their own lives and, and, and get the control over their own lives. That's the second thing. But I think the most important and that's where I see the biggest obstacle is mid management leaders. They need to be trained in this because I think that's what the biggest need is at right now. Because the mid management is under so much pressure. So. And I already seen that some of the leaders, they are so stressed and they are and you can feel it and their empathy and their focus in their way of thinking. So getting them to understand this and, and applying it into their own lives, I think that will be a major change in the corporate life. Because if, if the leaders are doing it then they will, you know, it will drip down on the employees.

Yeah.

So we have to have like a top down, bottom up perspective on it.

Yeah, yeah. I brought out an app, Oxygen Advantage there about six months ago and it was brought out specifically for the corporate world. Specifically if I was giving a talk and the talk was an hour and a half, I would then ask the, the employees to download the app so that they could continue doing the breathing practice. Because oftentimes if you go and give a talk to A corporation, you give the talk, but after the talk, the employees are. Yeah, they remember it for a day or two, but then they forget about it. Whereas the app was designed to replace that. Now the app went way over budget. Everything went way over. I spent $150,000 on it. I would love to see the app. Yeah, getting, getting the use. We have about 20,000 downloads at the moment. I'd love to see it going up to a hundred thousand and more. And I think there is a place for it in the corporate world. And also if we are making presentations that we can provide because maybe the app should be speaking as well with the likes of the whoop and different and maybe that's something in the future, you know, technology can assist us.

You know, and for people getting it kind of in their face, seeing it real time, that's when, that's when they understand it. So I always say, when I do lectures, always tell them about your app because it's so. It has all the tools and it's superb because it's easy. You can do the bold score, you can see improvements, you know, So I always tell them about that. But I also always include some breathing exercise. Even though I do a lecture for 100 people, I, I do some lecture. No, I let them try it.

Oh, totally.

Because then they're like, oh, okay, now I understand what he's saying. Like, I can feel it in my body and then I understand it.

Yeah, it's. It's really about the experience, isn't it?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

What do normal people. So people in Norway, you're giving a presentation, what do you think they perceive breathing to be before you arrive? And like, what's their perception of what you're going to do before you actually do it?

Yeah.

Do they think it's a load of nonsense?

No, but I think breathing is, is sadly, it's the wrong people that have been talking about breathing.

Yes.

So now and, and for me, just being a guy standing on a, like a normal, normal guy talking about breathing and how breathing have changed my life, that's just one big opening. So that's one thing. And the other part is that if I can link to performance. So let's say we do a little bit of a Wim Hof kind of breathing and I tell people, do you think you can increase your breath holding capabilities just by I give you some, some tools and when people experience like, wow, I can hold my breath for double as long as I thought, like, wow. What's more into this? And, and third Is that when they can see changes on their watch or their whoop? Yeah, that's also okay now. Now it's something performance related and then it's cool.

Yeah.

So, but, but to be honest, I still struggle to get like the ice hockey team, for example, there's so much dysfunctional breathing there. And I'm trying to say to them, you know, if you just improve your breathing, you will perform better, you know, more focus. Most likely you will increase your oxygen uptake and your V2 max and everything.

But yeah, no, this is where. Yeah, I had a talk yesterday for hurling. I don't know, you might know this sport. This sport is a very old sport. It's played with sticks too, but it's on the field. It's considered to be the fastest team sport in the world. So those of international. For me it's the best sport in the world without. I find it. But I'm going to be biased. I had 25 players yesterday and I put them through the exercise and I pushed them. Because I pushed them and I said, listen guys, I want you to experience a state of breathlessness beyond what you will experience out during a sprint. And this is where it's causing the body to make adaptations. And I'll also Talk about the 65th minute when your mind is wandering. It's game over.

Yeah.

Like you've been trained how to hold your attention. And this is about physical performance, but mental performance and all that stuff we can weave in because you know, when we're talking to 20 year old, we've been there. This is where a few gray hairs can be advantageous. We've been there, we know the vulnerabilities with it and like it's almost as if because we've passed through that phase in life, it gives us some insight into where they are actually and to use the language to get them to resonate with it because so many of them are stuck in their heads, so many of them are ruminating and thought, so many of them are gassing out on the field. And this is the stuff that we really want to. I think it's the awareness part, isn't it?

Yeah, it's awareness. And I think again, it's about time. We just have to be like unpatient but patient. It's about, I think for me so far, the most powerful tool of all is to be very open about my story and to tell stories. And slowly but steadily people are kind of like, okay, what is this? You know, and then more people start talking about it and they have the let's say the Oxygen Advantage app. You know, they try that and they go on YouTube, they find, you know, meditations and they figure out what that's all about. And I think in a one or two years this will be something that everybody's doing.

Yeah.

Because. And why can I say that? Because during COVID and, and from, from coven until now, like coal exposure and winter swimming have become huge in Norway. So. And in, in the beginning everybody was like, oh, it's just a hype. Why are they doing it? This is to show off. But then people start talking about, no, it gives me more energy, more peace of mind, more resilience. I feel better, I have more energy. I just, my mental health is getting better. And then people are kind of like, okay, if it works for them and it is both children and older people doing it and all in between.

Yeah.

So I think that it just have to, you know, we have to put the knowledge out there and let people kind of dive into it and, and yeah. Make the stories kind of sexy, if you know what I mean. Have to make it into something cool.

Yeah, totally. Final words, Lars. Maybe that. Maybe that was it. But what are you, what are your fine. In terms of. So you spoke about the next two years or so. Is there any projects you're working on? Is there anything that you're working on specifically at the minute?

Yeah. So right now I'm. I used to work in the corporate life, but now I'm kind of going into some consultancy work and I'm working on making this into something that is very accessible in terms of coupling mental training. Because mental training is getting, you know, it's becoming something cool in Norway. So I'm trying to implement mental training, breathing and relaxation and meditation and the measuring biometric part into something that is accessible and, and like I told you, telling stories from special forces, police, athletes, but also corporate life. And I think that kind of universe is something that will make, make it more, let's say, favorable or something that people kind of get curious about. Yeah. So I guess that, yeah, that's, that's the, that's the thing I'm working on now. And I think also for people listening to this, working in corporate life, either as a manager or HR person or a team leader, whatever, I can just tell them that if they do this, you know, if they implement stress management and start talking about stress, talking about what gives and takes energy from the people in the team or the department or the company, magical things can happen. So it's so low hanging fruits, but and it's not something that people don't want to talk about because when you start talking about it, it becomes normal. And when it becomes normal, people want more. So it's just. Just. Yeah, it's about starting doing it.

I absolutely agree. It's. It's. I would resonate with everything you've said, so it's been a pleasure. What's your Instagram or do you do social media?

I do a little bit and I'm gonna do that more. So my. My Instagram is Larson with the L, A, R, S, S, E, N and one sign. That's my Instagram. And. Yeah, so people will find me there.

Great stuff, Lars. It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much.

Thank you very much. All right, bye. Bye.

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