Calm Leadership + Resiliency with Jennifer Watson (Part 1)

Burnout doesn’t start with your calendar. It starts when your body stops feeling safe, and you keep calling that “drive.” We sit down with Jennifer Watson, a former D1 track athlete and two-time All-American turned executive performance strategist and wellness expert, to unpack what resilience really looks like when you’re leading, building a business, or simply trying to stay steady through a hard season.

Jennifer shares the uncomfortable side of high performance: identity loss after sport, loneliness when mental health is still taboo, and the moment you realize success can coexist with misery. From there, we move into a more useful model of mental health and resilience rooted in neuroscience and the mind-body connection. Her big idea is simple and challenging: healing matters, but so does execution. Once you’ve done the work, you still need real-time frameworks to make aligned decisions under pressure without forcing yourself into a constant state of chaos.

We also get concrete about workplace culture and leadership. Psychological safety isn’t a buzzword here, it’s the foundation for honest conversations, better decisions, and teams that don’t quietly fall apart. Jennifer explains why leaders don’t need to be therapists, how a seven-second pause can change the way you respond, and why policies like minimal PTO and rigid nine-to-five days can quietly fuel anxiety and burnout. If you lead remote or hybrid teams, you’ll take away practical ways to create real connection on screen and off.

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The Quiet Gift: A Journey of Self Worth and Resilience is now available for download as an audible.  Check it out!

Transcript

Opening And Tornado Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today. And joining me, of course, is your co-host Pam Cass. Hello, Pam. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

I am good. I'm looking at myself on camera and I'm a little, my hair is disheveled because I ran my dog out really quickly before, and I didn't realize I was in Oklahoma in the middle of a tornado.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

It's funny, as as we started recording, like I could hear the whistling. I'm like, what is happening? Where is that sound coming from? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

And Pamela, I don't know if you're crazy, or I think what a what an amazing woman that's willing to do a podcast in the middle of crazy mother. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Yeah. So I but I'm here. I'm ready. I know that I'm gonna have to go to my listings after this and make sure all my signs are still here and not in Wyoming. But other than that, I'm excited to be here. And I love our podcasting.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Here's the thing: the sun is out because I was just talking to my daughter and she was telling me that it's snowing there. And so, you know, on this lovely March afternoon, I will take the sunshine and the wind. It's a spring in Colorado. That's what we get.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Spring in Colorado. And it is supposed to, I don't know if you saw this, it's gonna be 80 degrees next week. I am ready. I am beyond ready.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Okay.

unknown 1:56

Okay.

Meet Jennifer Watson And Her Story

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Well, we have a fabulous guest joining us. So I will let you introduce our guest to the listeners, and I can't wait to dive in. I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

I know. I'm really excited about this one. And when our guest came on, she already had the energy, so she already brought the energy. So I hope you guys are all buckled in because now you got three people with equal high energy. So it's gonna be a fun one. So today we have joining us Jennifer Watson. She is a dynamic speaker, executive performance strategist, and wellness expert with a gift of providing high-level advisory support to CEOs, business leaders, and high impact decision makers navigating complex transitions and high-stake decisions with focus, clarity, and strategic insight. A former D1 collegiate track athlete and two-time all-American, she has been featured on TEDx stages, NBC, Fox Radio, and Top Summit. So welcome. We are so excited to have you here today. And so, first, I'd I'd love to hear kind of about your journey being a D1 athlete and all-American before we even jump in. Because I'm imagining that's playing a role in what you do today.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

You know, it definitely is. Thank you first and foremost, Natalie and Pamela, for being here. I was so giddy about this podcast. And then just sharing my my journey. It's just so humbling. So thank you. But yes, I was a high performer, like so many probably of your people that listeners that come on. And my first real high performance and where I really excelled was sports. And track and field was literally my meal ticket to a D1 school. And you know what? I learned so much about, I'll call it work-life balance, like athlete student, you know, balance. I learned a lot about leadership. I learned a lot about making hard decisions. I learned a lot about resilience. And some of the traits I took were just so profound. And you're absolutely right, have shaped a lot of what I've done as an entrepreneur for I can't believe I'm saying this, 18 plus years. And I also took some things that were dysfunctional into business life, into personal relationships and intimate relationships. And I learned a new way. I had to rewire some, not everything, but some of the ways that I was looking at what performance really was, what resilience really was, what leading really was. And my journey started as an athlete, and I'm so honored. I had so many experiences. I traveled to Europe for the first time at age 19. You know, I had so many experiences that challenged me at a young age and absolutely made me start thinking differently. So it was a beautiful experience, but also ripped off some band-aids of some ways that I was looking at things, including resilience and moving into a more powerful way. And my journey I'm very open about. And I suffered a lot of anxiety and depression, like a lot of athletes do. There's a kind of a thread there, I think. But and that's a whole nother conversation we can have. But I really had to learn a different way of performing and being resilient because it wasn't working in the entrepreneurial world. And I learned so much through this whole journey of being the athlete, being the healer, physical therapy practice, to now being a speaker and a coach, all these venues and all these platforms have been an opportunity for me to continue to heal and to lead in a way that is truthful, honest, and I will say from a healthy state. Because at the end of the day, we want to feel good navigating this life. Life is hard, business is hard, but if we can do it in a way that we can stay intact in a viable way that's really profound, to me, that's winning this game called life.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Absolutely. So when you were D1, so you were traveling, and my my daughter played sports in college where it was like three a days and that trying to balance school, life, sports, health, kind of all of those things. So those lessons that you learned about the high performance and about resilience, were they learned there, or did you discover that you had learned kind of some negative things when you got into the work world?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I think, you know, I could see some things when I stepped into college because even already some of the things I was working a lot harder, I became a two-time All-American, but I also started noticing the things I kind of learned as a younger athlete in high school, we're starting to have to work even as well in college. We're working, so I wasn't quite to the point of not changing it. As we all know, as humans, sometimes we need to have a little fire under us. But that the end of my undergrad, where I shifted from getting the accolades, being the athlete to now going into PT school, I had my identity ripped out from underneath me. And that's when I had to really have like what I call a come to Jesus moment of like, is this really working? It already seemed like it totally wasn't working. And now I'm stepping into PT school and then ultimately got into my PT practice where it really blew up and then it healed. But my point is I started my journey kind of more mid to late 20s, where I'm like, you know what? There was a definite inflection point. I'm like, this isn't gonna work anymore because I'm already seeing it's not fully working even in college. And it's one of the reasons, even though I work with small business leaders due to, I love I have such a heart for young leaders because I believe there's a lot, and we see it statistically, of college students really still tanking in their capacity to hold, you know, stressful times, their ability to use tools and frameworks to navigate decision making and leading themselves, let alone what career choices they want. So I have a huge heart for the young leaders, and I do speaking at a lot of universities, at least partially, to give them the frameworks I've learned that didn't work for me at the end of college. And it kind of blew up in my face a little bit as I started navigating a new identity that was not being an athlete anymore.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Did you find that the people around you were confirming that, like as you were going through this identity shift as well? You see the change in relationships, change in treatment, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

You know what's really interesting? You know, I grew up in an era, you know, I don't know how old you guys are, but I grew up in an era that they didn't have sports psychologists. Mental health was still very taboo. There's shame because I did have friends and I was doing well in school. So I pulled back a little bit. And that's probably why I struggled a lot in college behind the scenes. I'll be honest with you, my family, when I finally came out, like I'm really struggling, you guys, at the end of college going to PT school. God bless them. They love me, but they had no idea of how to support me. They're like, what's going on? Like they were surprised because they didn't have the tools. And at the time, I remember feeling hurt, but looking back, they just didn't know. You know, they didn't, you know, mental health was still kind of tabooed. They didn't know anybody that necessarily struggled with it, or at least was admitting it. So I had friends, I had colleagues, I had family that were like, we care, but we don't know what to do. So some distanced, some ghosted, some stayed close. And what I had to learn to do as a at a very young age is advocate for myself. Traditional talk therapy and medication. I'm not saying that's bad, you guys, just for me it didn't work, but I had to literally get on the mat and kind of swipe through the forest with the butter knife, so to speak, of being an advocate for myself, communicating at a young age to my family what I needed and not being ashamed of it. So there's these whole layers of my journey. So I'll be honest, at the beginning, I didn't feel a lot of support, but I think it's partially because people didn't know how to deal with it. It wasn't really even now what we have as far as tools and people being more open about it. So the first three years were a little bit lonely, but honestly, it gave so much more empowerment to me to advocate for myself and figure it out. And now I get to help others that are younger than me and even small business leaders. Man, I remember with my first PT practice, I had so many business leaders that came to me and they're like, we have back pain, but we have depression. Can you help with both? I'm like, yes, we can. Because we I took courses and I was treating mind and body. I was doing coaching probably in PT before it was even popular back then, and I was seeing a variety of things. But I wanted people to feel safe to talk about this and learn maybe resilience and mental health in a different capacity. I mean, I'll have so much different frameworks. I give my clients now neuroscience about how we've been accessing resilience and mental health. I would say in the not most effective way. There's better ways to become resilient, there's better ways to tap into mental health. And I feel like you guys, this is really not my opinion. I mean, we look out there, and still companies say the number one thing they're seeing with their employees are mental health issues and having to pay for that or time off. In college, the same thing. So we can sit here and say, oh, we've talked about resilience and mental health enough, or we can go, we're talking about it in a way within which people are not actually getting it. And I'm a big advocate of like, you guys, life is too short and it's hard enough. But I believe all of us can have peace and joy even during the hard times and increase our capacity to be resilient during hard times and do it in the right way. And it was through my own journey of kind of doing it alone until I finally got an advocate for others and then was doing it with others around me. So it's been an amazing journey, but I'd be lying to you if I if I didn't say that it was very lonely and scary at first. But God is good and it just he just guided me with little pebbles toward the things that I learned for myself that I did in my physical therapy practice and what I teach partially, among other things, and what I coach now. And I love it. It's a beautiful way to kind of pass on my journey and the things I've learned.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Yeah. Well, kudos for you for having the courage at a young age to be an advocate for yourself because I'm a Gen Xer and you just powered through, you know, you just brushed off with a little bit of dirt and drink some hose water and you're good to go. And so it's yeah, so kudos for you. And I do think there's definitely more awareness now about it, but I don't think I think we think we barely even scratched the the surface. And I I think it almost needs to start at even a younger age than like you said at the college age. I think even in the schools today, in the in the primary schools today, it it needs to surface.

Heal Then Execute Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Absolutely. We're we're seeing this, and just in the world we live in, we keep hearing it, the accelerated world, the the things we're seeing that's so much more in their face than even when we were growing up. So, yes, I think it needs to be taught. A lot of things need to be taught, I think, at this stage in the younger education, the primary years. But I believe it's never too late. You know, all of us can learn something, and and that's something that I'm super passionate about with the people I work with on mental health and resilience. And that's even only a small part now of what I do as a consultant, but it's where we start a lot of times. You guys, I have to tell you, you know, I've worked with six-figure, seven-figure, eight-figure business owners. I've worked with highly successful people, and there's people that literally don't get this. And the things they could do when they do get it, I we don't realize we're hearing a lot about mental health and somatic work and somatic healing, somatic leadership, and I love it. And there's things that we need to do to advocate for that and connect it to not just, oh, I feel better and I'm healed, but how can I use it to lead better, to make decisions in real time? And that's something I really advocate for is healing. But then how do we take that healed person? And I have frameworks of how to do it right, how I feel. I don't say right, but I would just say more effective with the science I've seen, and then go into execution because there's gonna be times, you guys, where we're not gonna have time to journal for three hours or do a meditation for thirds, which by the way, because I'm really not knocking like you know, therapy, therapy is like it's so important. There's people that have trauma that's stored in our body, and there's things that we need to do that that actually can be the stuffed part to help open up Pandora's box in a in a powerful way. But sometimes we get too stuck in the healing part and we don't give in real time for students or for business owners that are in real time struggling with stress and they don't have time in the middle of the day to you know do kumbaya for an hour. And by the way, I love that stuff, but we have to give them frameworks in real time and something I'm really, really an advocate for that yes, we need some deeper work and healing, but we also need things for kids and small business owners in real time to go from healing to execution. And I do believe that's a missing part, along with that we're teaching even resilience. I will say humbly, in the not most effective way. And there's a better way to teach it, and there's also a better way to execute it in real time in the day and age we live in.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Okay, so is it executing the healing or is it executing so kind of explain that a little bit to our Yeah, no, absolutely.

Building Safety Through Better Leadership

SPEAKER_00 15:03

So healing happens, you guys, and sometimes it can happen while you're in real time, like integrating things, like in your day in, day out. Sometimes it, depending on the trauma, you have to set aside time and take time from work, take time from whatever. When I say heal to execution, I actually mean now that you've done the work, now you're ready to step into the full space of you. How are you showing up differently with these new tools to create safety in your body, to create calmness and maybe a chaotic state and execute a line decision that's right for you, college student, to execute in a high-stakes moment for a small business leader that needs to invest in something and not sure if they should. So that's what I mean with execution. I will say sometimes it's not always that we have the time or the space that we spend three months just healing, but you are maybe for some of us having to focus more on healing than work. Because there are periods that that happens. But what I mean is once we're kind of healed and we're like, okay, we're kind of getting what it takes to increase our capacity to handle more during hard times, to actually move into a space of alignment. Now we have to use frameworks to now execute from a healed state. I believe we need healed leaders. I believe there's a lot of leaders that are really in this state of low capacity and mental health issues and they're not executing well over here. Or they're high performers and they're working really hard to do it. So they might have success, you guys. Many people come to me, they are successful, but they're like, I am so miserable. I'm so exhausted. I'm like, okay, maybe, and that's where I was at. I was still successful, you guys. So I was like, but I remember sitting back. I live, this is part of my TEDx, you guys. I have a TEDx on the chemistry of resilience, the science behind how we're doing it wrong and how to do it right. And I remember sitting in my PT practice and going, I'm a healthcare provider. I know the mind-body frameworks, and I am exhausted. I'm living like a lie to the clients I'm serving. I'm like, there's gotta be an easier way. I've got to believe I can be happier on this playground. And that's when I started actually tapping into what does this really mean to actually heal and then execute? What does it really mean on day in, day out? How can I be more vital and at peace during chaos? Chaos without doesn't mean chaos within. It doesn't always mean you're happy, go lucky, but it can mean still be grounded in a place to handle more at different times. And I have a framework that makes people more resilient, but it's not what people are taught. What we've been taught is push down the emotions, double down on doing 20 things, make sure it feels kind of sucking and hard. It's a feather in our cap, you guys. I thought it was like we're supposed to be miserable and be martyrs for the cause. You gotta say, like when I started thinking like that is so that's so crazy. Like when I stopped and started thinking about it, I just kind of reflected back in a mirror, me saying that. I'm like, that doesn't even make sense. How much better could I do when my body is in a peaceful, healed state? This body is so brilliant. It wants to be brilliant for you. But when you're in chaos up here, it's like, hello, I'm trying to help you out. So we need to listen more. And that's something I teach in my frameworks of going at it, actually challenging it ahead of time before the problem. But then when you're actually in the moment, it's the opposite. You guys, you're actually going into an ease and flow, which we can get into. So there's a point of challenging yourself ahead of time to increase your capacity to be resilient during harder times. But when you're in the hard time, you actually go have to go through a different angle, more of ease and flow because your body wants to be in a calm state to handle what's going on around it. Isn't that the irony? Exactly. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

That's wild. I I I love that. I love that that you're able to take individuals through this as well and companies. So when you're when you're working with your clients and looking at the space that they're creating for this within their offices or within these corporations, what are you seeing? Because you hit the nail on the head. Like in our generation growing up, you don't talk about the emotions, you just shove them down. Actually, you shove them under the rug and you never talk about them again, you never discuss them. But you are seeing a lot more of like companies and corporations that are incorporating like unlimited PTO and access to different apps like Headspace and things like that to kind of give you those surrounding tools and resources. But we're not seeing a change in the data in terms of the individuals that are getting feeling burnt out, having the depression and the anxiety that you talked about. So, how are you seeing this growth and progression from a corporate standpoint?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yes. So, from either a small to mid-sized business or corporate, you guys, I will say this to anyone that is a business owner, leader, high up in corporate. We're not asking you to be therapists. You may I just want to be very clear on that. But as a leader, you absolutely have to have a pulse on your people. Okay. That does require a high level. I will say it, you guys, and if you don't feel good, this is where mentorship is needed sometimes, a high level of emotional intelligence and in intuition in surrounding yourself with people that can maybe be a pulse for you as well, for your people. Because you have to be able to acknowledge Pamela, how are you today? Like in actually, if you're like in that they feel safe enough to give a real answer, not be like, yeah, I'm fine. And then like that, they you're creating an environment for one that it's safe to not only, we all know you guys be in boardrooms and give their ideas and not feel trashed or abandoned, but it's also when they're talking about their mental health. So whether they're giving an idea for a project, whether they're be talking about their mental health, people want to have safety and an opportunity to create impact from that safety and be seen, you guys. Period. It's the number one thing you saw besides mental health, that they want that more than anything else, that they want a boss that actually cares, that they are seen and that it's safe to say something, whether it be about themselves personally, about contributing again in a board meeting. And there's a lot of different nuances depending on companies and layers there, but that has to be first and foremost that you are highly emotional intelligent or surround yourself with people that allow you to have the pulse like, hey, this person or our company or this this division isn't doing well. One and two, you guys, how are you? If you actually don't know, just be like, how is your day? Not how is your day, but Natalie, how is your day? Pause. There is power in the pause, and you learn a lot, you guys. So even if you're not fully emotionally intelligent, you have eight billion things in your plate. Really, when you just pause and listen, you start getting a pulse on things, and then you can redirect. And I will say this, you guys, headspace, look no, you guys, I'm gonna tell you right now, we are craving one-on-one human contact, whether it be in group format or one-on-one. So I'm gonna just encourage employers, you have to look at that, whether it be on site or giving them access to opportunities to get coaches or get mentors to help them move through it. You guys, it's just like downloading YouTube stuff to learn about business. You can only get so far before you probably need a business mentor to kind of take you to that next level. And I'll say the same thing there. And this is also the people, employees. Also, it requires you to have the courage. So if you're sitting there going, my boss doesn't get me, this culture, I'm a big person on ownership. I had to look at when I was struggling and when I was in my first business, I'm like, they're not getting me, and I was getting upset. And I started looking, I'm like, I'm not even sharing where I'm at. I'm not being honest. I need to step into that. So there needs to be advocacy, you guys, it's not all on the leader, it's on the employee, too. So it's really having autonomy, it's really having ownership on both sides. And when you do that, this problem can change. So when you create space, have higher emotional intelligence, get a pulse. There's layers to this, I realize for people, but doing that on either side and both feeling safe to share, to question, and then actually give them tools outside of a headspace, you guys. And I agree that. Just isn't enough. And research is showing that we we humans need connection right now, especially in this AI world, everyone. So that's the biggest thing. Figure out what the pulse is for your place. How can you create safety? And people, your employees, you know, our employers, sometimes I you guys I speak at a lot of conferences. They roll their eyes, what's safety? And like, if you want to use a different word, fine. You want to create an environment that people don't go in and feel threatened. And threaten means they feel like they're gonna be rejected, they're gonna be kicked out, they're gonna be fired, they're gonna be ostracized, whatever you want to call it. If you don't want to use the word, you know, safety, I'll use a different word. But at the end of the day, our number one desires that we feel we're a part of community, then we're not threatened. Okay, there's six human basic needs. That is one of them, that we're part of a community and we don't feel threatened. If they're going to work every day feeling threatened, it isn't gonna work. They're never gonna share with you, they're gonna end up not doing well. You're gonna wonder why Jane Doe is not being productive. So it starts with higher level awareness of your team. It starts with a pause. You guys, I actually have a whole keynote, which I'm just gonna give you guys a little bit of magical dabble here, but I'm actually gonna be coming up with a whole new keynote. It's called seven seconds. And seven seconds pause, and it's about seven seconds in how seven seconds actually is optimal for our body to integrate and be aware. So we have 40 million sensory input and outputs by the heart itself. You guys, did you know that? It's constantly sensing the world around us and then absorbing in and then trying to tell us what to do next. Did you know that? No, none of us trust it though, but it requires a pause. And there's research on how long to look at an environment, take it in, and then take it in here, and then put it up. And there's a lot of research on that. And I have a whole speech on this, but the pause, and I say the seven-second pause is optimal to integrate what's going on for you, what's going on with others, and respond accordingly. And from that place, you can start having conversations increasing capacity for sure. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

And I think for all of the leaders that are listening, like understanding, and when you say like creating like the safe space, that just really resonates because I think a lot of employees are out there, and those that are in middle and and upper management, they, if their their work face happens to fall off and people actually see them and what's truly going on, right? Like the anxiety, the depression, the personal things, life is happening, and they just need a moment, and no one, everyone around them has failed to ask, How are you? Yes, and yes, wait for the answer.

Work Less For Stronger Performance

Leading Remote Teams With Real Connection

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yes, yes, and you know, it's it's so funny. So I do a lot of symbolism with our body, you guys. And our body, the words about balance, where he's like, there's no such thing as balance. I'm gonna argue there absolutely is balance, you guys. Our our body's reflective of balance, it desires balance, it's called homeostasis. And the reason why I mentioned that, you guys, there's going to be triggers at work, and it's always trying to create safety for itself and even a boss. So, how can you do it together? And it doesn't mean you have to share everything on your arm, and it doesn't mean the employer has to be a jerk. You know, it means, like I just said, this collaboration of what do I feel comfortable vulnerably sharing that can be supportive for me and vice versa to create balance and environment because balance is something we want in a culture that creates impact from a space, and balance is something our body needs. You guys just always throughout the day, we have autonomic systems going on throughout the entire day that we're not even thinking about, that are constantly trying to regulate our systems. And if we're constantly getting triggered at work and we want to be resilient because now, you know, our boss has given us 20 extra things to do, that's not gonna happen. You guys, I have a great story. When I first started my PT practice and I hired staff, and I mean, I was making them work like hardcore, and I pulsed it and I was like, you know what? I need to back off a little bit. And I started doing these things, and I'm going into kind of some of my things I teach, but on flow stating how I stopped making work eight hours a day. I started having work four hours a day. I gave them four weeks of vacation instead of two. I'm not kidding you guys. And this was my first year, and they started actually responding. They took days off to rejuvenate their mental and emotional health. They started coming back to work more rejuvenated. I started being more vulnerable with me when I made days off. We started connecting and everything started flowing, and I was doing opposite of what people would expect a leader to do. I was like, work less, share with me what's going on. And I'm not saying it where we're making a again a kumbaya session, but where we're being honest where we're at and where we need to go. I started giving more time off, and it worked, you guys. And I would encourage them during that time. Do things outside, do things to increase your capacity resilience. I was teaching this framework even before I actually made up the framework and the proprietary method that I have now to actually increase capacity, and that's one of them. Work less more potent, take more breaks, get out in the sun. You know, I was on another podcast, ladies, and I remember it was for a Sherm event, and he asked me, he's like, What is the number one thing you wish that most businesses would take or get rid of that you still see? I'm like, get rid of the two weeks vacation. No human can survive off that. They need more than that. They just do, you guys, for minimum, I think, in our country. We need to look at Europeans. And then number two, working nine to five. I have no idea why we do that. You guys, farmers back in Laura Ingles Wilder Day, they worked like three hours in the morning and they took like a two, three hour siesta in the middle of the day and went to the local post office and hung out, then they worked at night. Like, you guys, we need more breaks. We need a less a little bit less longer days and more potent days. Like, there's things you can do. You guys, we don't, there's ways of increasing capacity, which I want to give you guys some tools today. Absolutely. But I'm gonna say there's things you can do during your day in real time. Take breaks during your day, don't work as much, get more vacation time, work nine to twelve. I'm telling you right now, most of your employees don't work nine to five anyway. They've done research where they're monitoring their computers and they're scrolling through the internet for like two to three hours, you guys. So the irony is you're like, they have to work in life, they're not working nine to five, you guys, guaranteed. So we might as well just have a reality. But the truth is, you guys, we don't work well working eight hours straight. So there's a lot of science behind performance state. I teach, there's a lot of science that we're not teaching for resilience that we need to be teaching in schools, in public schools, and there's so much we can go with here. But you guys, performance and resilience starts with you understanding the science here. If you don't know it, get someone like me coming in, love to help you. But in the meantime, get a pulse on your people and pause for seven seconds. Your body wants to tell you what's going on out there. Jennifer, I'm not intuitive, I'm not emotionally intelligent. That's okay. If you pause long enough, you will start getting more emotionally intelligent, you guys. I'm telling you, it works. I've seen people that say that and they just start getting on the mat and practicing, and that's what it takes for you to start getting with your team and they're gonna love you and never want to leave you.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

You yourself have to give yourself time, right? To be in there to give that pause. You have to give yourself that space as well.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Jennifer, how do you coach companies? Because we have a lot more now than we did pre-pandemic, that are most of their people are virtual. How do you coach a leader to be emotional intelligent and get that connection with those people that you don't have that physical connection with because they're around the country, different time zones, blah, all the things?

A Final Story And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah, that's such a great question. You know, it's funny. I did a lot of virtual speaking even during COVID, and there's certain nuances to engage people and connect with them in different ways. So that's like a I'll be honest, that's a whole nother like podcast of how do you connect with people online? However, I'm gonna say this to everyone. I'm gonna say still pausing and looking at like the screen. You guys, you know, like the little hole on your computer there, like looking. Like, Pamela, you can tell I'm looking at you right now. I'm looking at you. Pausing more because people, it takes a while for them to catch it when they're not in a real environment. Pausing more, saying less, having screens if you're doing a PowerPoint with a lot less on a screen, getting them engaged where you're asking questions probably every two minutes. Am I kidding you guys? Where they're engaging, you're asking them to type in the message box so they have to engage. You guys, I do this even as a speaker, still, where I ask if I'm doing a virtual of my keynote, I'm asking more questions early on, I'm having them stand up. We're dancing and moving. I encourage most of the people when I'm in a team meeting to stand so they can move a little bit. That keeps them a little woke up. Does that make sense, you guys? So standing and moving, asking more questions, pausing, looking at if you're talking to someone and asking a question, hey Pamela, what's your question? I'm looking at you. People feel that energy. There's a lot of nuances to that. And I'm gonna say this any company that I've worked with that they're 100% virtual, most of them are moving now toward at least some type of hybrid. Even if it's 75% virtual, 25% where they're doing retreats or meeting once a quarter somewhere, because even that for a weekend or a half day does a lot for people so they can handle more of these engagements on Zoom. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge and invite most business owners, even with big companies, maybe at least even if they have like, you know, I've worked with companies that have 500 people. I get that. Maybe, maybe you have different divisions that get together, you know, on some retreats. There's ways around that, you guys, but I'm gonna say a hybrid is probably the best approach for mental health in general. Connection is real for people, pausing, slowing down, getting the pulse on people. And there's again some shifts I can give you guys as far as things they can do individually. Remember, this is also about ownership. Leaders need to have ownership, but also the employee needs to have ownership. I had to be honest. When I had mental health, you know, depression, anxiety, I wasn't sharing it. I was doing this and I was wondering why it wasn't getting better and getting upset, people weren't getting it. I'm like, okay, so I'm expecting the mind read. And I had to like question myself. And when I actually took the step, is when I started healing. And you know, there's a lot of beauty to that, and and people can get the right help, but you can't unless you ask, right? And you tell, how are you today? Okay, I'm gonna be honest with my employer. You know, I'm not doing great. Hmm, interesting. Like when you say great, exploring that, huh? How serious is this? You know, and that's when we can look at more support, you know. And I'm telling you guys, like when you do that, like honestly, and I haven't done this, like you guys, I've done this for years. I I have literally, I have a really quick story. I literally had a woman, I'm gonna cry crying on this, you know. This is 20 years later, this was about a couple years ago, who I hired for front desk for physical therapy, and her first week was rough. She was dealing with some things I could tell, and she was struggling. And remember, I brought her into my office like on Thursday night, and she seemed really stressed, and she came into my office and I sat her down, she seemed really nervous, and I just looked at her, looked at her, and I said, How are you? How are you? And you know what she said to me? She just kind of threw up a little bit and cried. She's like, I thought you were bringing me in here to fire me. And she just purged a few things, some personal things were going on. And I said, You know what? Why don't you take a day off? I gave her, you know, a connection to a counselor or something. I'm like, why don't you take Friday off? Let's just do a long weekend and let's try again next week. How about that? You guys, at the time I didn't even have frameworks. I didn't have frameworks. I was like, I don't know how to help this woman, but I really like her. That's why I hired her. You guys, she took off. I came and tell you all the things that she's done in her life. And she came back to me on Facebook. I didn't remember myself doing that. And she said, I remember my first week when you did that, Jennifer. I use your story all the time. Sometimes it's just giving a day off. Maybe it's not fixing. You remember leaders again? You don't have to be counselors. It's just, you know what? I've been there where I'm like, I'm having a hard week. And I was just honest, I'm like, you're having a hard week. Yep, that's pretty obvious, you know. So it's being a leader, being honest, and she had to own that, but it's that empathy, right? And I paused. I could have tried to fix it, like, what's going on? I was a little stressed because I'm like, man, she's not, she's really struggling. But I felt intuitively, I'm like, something's up here. And I'm like, what's going on? And then I prayed for her. And to this day, I mean, when I got that Facebook to I barely remembered that story, and it just out of anything I could have done, that's what she remembered. And we did so well, and we had so many amazing memories and a great successful business. It was awesome. And that's what she remembers, you guys. And honestly, at the end of the day, she became more resilient just because I cared. Nothing else. And at the end of my life, if people are talking about me like that, that's what I care about. Not about the KPIs, not about all and most of my leaders, honestly, that I work with want that too. But it requires us to slow down and decide like, am I willing to listen to someone first and go from there? But there's ways, you guys, there's so many tools now. We live in a country that we have so many tools over other countries, and from you know, nutrition to diet to modalities, I used half of them and that I used with my clients. And we have those resources and things that are some are more expensive than others, but definitely a lot of things that we can do to shift things. And I believe that this is the time we need to do it. We need healed leaders, we need healed employees, we need healed people because otherwise we end up just our five-year-old self throwing up on the other five-year-old self. And we're not doing things to help really move things forward. And we we can't waste time. There's a lot of junk going on out there, and we want to make sure that we're moving powerfully ourselves in a really cool way.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.