Dr Steven McGregor: a kind of well-known myth in in Argentinian society of El Diario, El Diario de Irigoyen, which means the the daily newspaper of Irigoyen, that they basically, they printed a newspaper just for him with fictitious events, with just good news, right? Which you get it even today, that in Argentina, it's like, okay, what's going on? Don't give me Irigoyen's daily, just give me the facts.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life. I love a nudge and I love a framework. It really appeals to my analytical mind and as someone who loves checklists, finding a book with short daily nudges toward improved mindset, performance and purpose was absolute gold. Author of The Daily Reset is Dr Steven McGregor, who's on the podcast today. He's an honorary professor of health and wellbeing at the Glasgow School of Art and an external advisor for McKinsey and Company. He's helped improve the workplace health and sustainable leadership of tens of thousands of professionals worldwide at organisations such as Salesforce, Santander and Telefonica. Workplace wellbeing might seem like a bit of a soft term or a tick box exercise for corporates, but I think in the context of shifting workplace environments as a result of the pandemic, and the fact that we spend at least a third of our week at work, it's really important to discuss this on the podcast. And today, we talk about the difference between workplace wellness and wellbeing, what we can learn from athletes about daily habits, the importance of having chief wellbeing officers and design thinking, how we encourage shower thoughts, embracing boredom, something that I'm actively trying to do, as well as a few concepts that I picked up from the book that I find fascinating. So, the Stockdale paradox, we'll explain exactly what that means and why that's relevant. Dopamine fasting, something that I inadvertently did when I went on a social media fast. Irigoyen's daily, I'm saying that completely wrong, but it's a very well-known Argentinian phrase. Again, something I had no idea about, but we talk about it on the podcast today. The stress equation and why stress can actually be something good, but what it requires is a perceptual shift about the stress that you're experiencing and why we need to embrace boredom. You can download the Doctor's Kitchen app, don't forget, for free to access all of our recipes. There's a 14-day free trial as well. Android users, I'm working very hard on that, so please bear with me. And do check out every week's eat, listen, read newsletter, something that you can subscribe to for free on the website, thedoctorskitchen.com, and I will give you a recipe for the week and something mindfully curated, something to read, something to listen to that will help you have a happier week. I think you really like that and we've got some great reviews from the newsletter and I try to respond to all the feedback that I can. For now, please do enjoy my conversation about the daily reset with Dr Steven McGregor. Thanks so much for for jumping on the podcast. It's been great to sort of do a bit of background research on you and I've watched a couple of your videos on YouTube, your own podcast, obviously, and this, just as I was saying before, I think it's a it's a brilliant resource for a lot of people for whom this sort of health and wellness industry might seem a bit foreign, a bit intimidating, a bit sort of unrealistic. And I think it will guide a lot of people, particularly from the corporate environment perhaps, into sort of like daily habits that will help their wellbeing. But I thought we'd start by asking you a bit about your background because I haven't heard of a duathlete before. And I've always been put off the idea of a triathlete because like yourself, as you said, I'm a terrible swimmer. So I wonder if we could start there.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah. Um, so I I I was a runner from a from a very early age and in in many ways that then saved me. I started running at school when I was like 13 and slipped into a lot of kind of later teenage bad habits. Um, but that kind of origin of running really saved me in my in my subsequent kind of university years. So I went on, joined the cross country team and and captained the the the cross country team and and then I joined it with cycling. So I I moved to the Basque country. I I've been living in Spain, Rupy, for over almost actually 20 years. And so I've lost all my Scottish accent as you can hear, right? But I first moved to I first moved to the Basque country. Actually, what I say to people is I've lost half of it. Imagine what it was like 20 years ago, right? Um, but I first moved to the Basque country, beautiful city, San Sebastian, and it's got a really strong culture of athletics and particularly cycling. And I started cycling and I I combined running and cycling and I became a duathlete. So as I say in the book, it's triathlon for bad swimmers. And I have done triathlons over the years, but it was um, it it was great. I mean, I I started then training with Tour de France um, cyclists when I lived in Girona, came to Catalonia and and learned so much. I mean, it was great for me just to keep fit, but I learned a lot about let's say the art of of training, the science of training and how you can then take that into kind of normal life, right? If you're if you're not an elite athlete, you know, and a lot of people find kind of elite athletics kind of threatening, but the concept is so valuable for everyone. So I've learned so much over the years just from running and riding my bike.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, and that's a really good point, I think, you know, a lot of people might think the lifestyle of an elite athlete is quite foreign to most people's day-to-day, but I think there are definitely parallels in how one would train for an exceptional feat and and actually how we um, treat ourselves on a on a daily basis and and the habits that we want to instill to improve performance in whatever environment that might be. Um, and actually, I think that's probably a good place to start in terms of uh, how we should really be treating ourselves a bit like athletes uh, in in sort of the business world and the entrepreneurship world because right now, and I think it's still the case, whenever I speak to other entrepreneurs, I'll talk a bit about my sort of entrepreneurial journey. I'm still sort of getting used to the the idea of calling myself an entrepreneur or a business owner. Um, but from from talking to colleagues, it seems as if the same paradigm is uh, in place right now where uh, an institutional VC is sort of like just flogging an entrepreneur to like grind every single day and squeeze out every inch of them. Whereas really, we should be treating them like elite athletes and getting them to sleep well and to practice mindfulness so they can actually enhance their productivity and therefore, you know, the revenue and and the actual the traditional KPIs of a of a business.
Dr Steven McGregor: Totally. I mean, you get this hustle culture that became the kind of the main model over the years. Um, but that doesn't take into account the kind of performance case like an athlete, right? So there's a thing called executive function that if you take care of your sleep and if you exercise, you improve executive function tasks. And this isn't just for executives, it's like my kid is seven years old and every day he's improving in his executive function, which is in terms of creativity, dealing with dilemmas, judgment, and these are the things we need as an entrepreneur. Um, and even on a basic level in terms of uh, an athlete's view of performance, rest is so important. You know, I just touched on sleep and there's so much research on the importance of sleep. Um, and and we don't, we're not good at doing nothing, let's say, and especially entrepreneurs. And so just, you know, recognizing the importance of of rest, how that aids performance is is critically important, right? There's actually a nudge in the book which says, um, it takes the case of an entrepreneur and this entrepreneur has a family commitments, is running a business, uh, and she was interviewed and she said, exercise is the most important thing in my life. And I break it down. I say, that might sound strange, but she then details that if I don't exercise, I don't feel energized, I can't give my best to my family, I don't have the energy to drive my business forward. So that's the thing that makes everything else tick, right? And and and that's the kind of keystone habit, let's say. Um, and so I think we need to change our mindset a little bit, right?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. In terms of like your experience over the last couple of decades, um, being in this space, uh, how have you found the reception to the idea of a a chief wellbeing officer has changed? Um, and and I guess how did you fall into it as well? I know we touched on sort of your athletic um, history, but but how did what was there a turning point for you?
Dr Steven McGregor: You know, it's I guess a lot of people that work in wellbeing, there's an epiphany at some stage and a lot of kind of common profiles is that people suffer from some burnout after being in corporate life and recognizing it's not the most healthy thing. Um, but no, I I kind of I built it up kind of grassroots in a way. I I was um, I was doing my PhD. I'm an engineer by background. I was doing my PhD in the States, um, and I was very lucky to to be a visiting researcher at Stanford. And you know, I I I that was my kind of epiphany. A lot of my friends uh, went on to get jobs and yeah, I remained the poor student, let's say, but I was so much more fulfilled, right? I mean, they were being squeezed and I just felt there must be a better way whereby you're fulfilled, um, you're learning, um, you know, your wellbeing is soaring, um, and look, if you can get a good salary at the same time, then that that's awesome. And I just started to really look at that time into the culture of the workplace. And my my PhD, my background is in design thinking, Rupy. So design is about basic human needs. And I thought, forget about innovating for, you know, a marketing campaign or some product or service. You know, how can you innovate the experience for people in the workplace? And how can you make the experience of work more joyful? How can they be more happy? And and if they're going to be more happy, they're going to be more engaged. And again, it comes back to that performance case, right? So I started to think, you know, wellbeing is great, you can be happier and healthier, but also you're going to be a better performer in the workplace and then the company's going to gain from that as well. So all of that kind of then um, brought me into this term of of chief wellbeing officer, which was actually the book before the daily reset, published back in 2018. And look, if companies have a chief wellbeing officer in in their organisation, fantastic. But it's still very few and far between. The the key point that I tried to make was that wellbeing is viewed as a very soft term. And the two most serious terms in business are chief and officer. So let's put them together and see what happens. But then since then, there has been organisations that have implemented that that role. Um, but it's still very early, but there's a lot of potential, I think.
Dr Rupy: And do you do you see a like a direct correlation? I'm assuming there is, but you see a direct correlation between uh, reported measures of happiness and contentment in the workplace with increased um, KPIs that perhaps shareholders or the owners of a business would be interested in, i.e. revenues, uh, profit margins, um, you know, innovations in the marketplace.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah. Look, it it's still very early. A lot of the research on a kind of holistic sense, um, we're looking here at ROI, return on investment, you know, what is the the kind of business case, let's say, of wellbeing, right? We I don't think we're quite there on just looking at the overall business case across an organisation, but you've got discrete studies that make up little pieces of the jigsaw, let's say, Rupy, right? So we know that when people are more engaged, they're higher performing. We know that when they're well rested and sleeping better, they are more inspiring with their teams. They are more creative, they have better ideas. So all of these little discrete measures, which make up, you know, a more thriving business, absolutely, without a doubt, they are there. Whether you can say on an organisational sense for this couple of thousand people in an organisation, they are happier, therefore we're kicking ass in the in the marketplace, we're not quite there yet, but all the pieces of the puzzle are there, absolutely.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And from your experience of going to these different companies, because I I over the last couple of years, I think spawned by by the pandemic, I'm being asked to do a lot of wellbeing talks to big corporates, you know, from accounting firms to uh, telephone communication firms to like you name it, the builders, that there are a number of companies that are really investing small amounts into the wellbeing or at least trying to um, portray the optics of being invested in their employees' wellbeing. Where do you think companies could have the maximum ROI? I know you've just said that there isn't clear evidence for uh, the ROIs at the moment. But where do you think there is a hunch that, you know what, if companies focused on this with their employees, that would give them the biggest bang for the buck?
Dr Steven McGregor: Totally. Look, I think a lot of it comes down to culture. Um, is it a culture that, you know, makes people feel safe? So a lot of the work on psychological safety in the last couple of years has been very important. And especially when levels of anxiety and stress have skyrocketed during the the pandemic. So people want to feel that they're going to the workplace and they feel that there's a big sense of belonging. So, you know, there's a lot of connections here with a lot of the diversity and inclusion stuff, a lot of the belonging at work, psychological safety, so that people go to work and they feel that they can be themselves. They feel that they can make mistakes. And that comes down to culture. So culture is hugely important. It's very difficult to change, but the biggest lever for changing culture is leadership behaviour. So how can you change the behaviours of the leaders within an organisation? And it doesn't matter about fancy policies or, you know, this is what we're going to do with wellbeing in terms of initiatives or programs or webinars or talks. The leaders have to kind of walk that talk, right? And and that is often difficult because the leaders are usually from a previous generation, Rupy, who have suffered through corporate life for a long time. And they haven't had a lot of wellbeing growing through their organisation and growing through their career. So they know the way that they've done things, which has been about suffering, it's been about hard work, it's a kind of previous way of working, let's say. The workplace has changed, but they're still exhibiting these kind of legacy behaviours. So I think that's the biggest lever. You you you talk to the leaders and you say, look, there's a better way of doing things. You're going to enjoy yourself more as well. You're going to give your teams a break and you're going to see their engagement, you're going to see their performance fly. And that's going to be the best, the the biggest lever for success, I think.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I'm glad you talked about culture because that that actually brings on to something I was thinking about after reading your book about how you instill those cultural values that will allow employees to thrive. Um, I don't know about you, but I've been watching a lot of um, Drive to Survive on Netflix. I don't know if you're an F1 fan. I wasn't an F1 fan before I started watching this show. And one of the things I noticed about the show was a lot of the team's performance is really down to the principles and how they treat their members. So you've got all these different characters, Toto Wolff, who's in charge of Mercedes, who's just really sort of like down to business, very uh, sort of abrupt, but there is a little like flexibility in terms of his humour, but it comes out very rarely. And you've got someone like Gunther, who's in charge of, I think it's the the Haas F1 team. And like, he's very jovial, but like he loses his rag like multiple times. And I think that obviously like instills down to the team, but they have a culture within their team and that everyone goes who goes to Haas stays there. There's like rarely sort of any sort of conveyor about and that's why their drivers were there for like eight years until they they they both got the sack. Um, I I I wonder how sort of like uh, other other um, uh companies in different industries can instill that culture. Is it always down to the leader or are there other things that we can do to instill that?
Dr Steven McGregor: Leaders are, you know, the leadership behaviours is a big thing, right? Because often that they are role models for everyone else in the organisation. So often the behaviours that they exhibit, other people will copy them. You know, as human beings, we copy. You know, Jim Rohn said, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, right? And and I think that's often true. Our friends and family, right? Our actions, the way we behave, the things that we say is often a mirror of other people. So I think the leaders within an organisation hugely important for role modeling. And then there's other things like the artifacts, it's like, you know, the branding, you know, the the the office space, um, all of these different things that all builds towards that culture. And I think that was a big thing in the pandemic, Rupy, that we were all working from home. So previously the experience of work was, you know, you think about it, it was your commute to work that day. It was the the the lunch that you had in the the company restaurant. It was your office, it was all the conversations you had in the hallway. And then all of a sudden during the pandemic, it was the conversations you had through video conferencing with your boss and your team and that was it. So that's how that was that was why a lot of the kind of problems came around. A lot of that social capital was was eroding. So the physical really does matter. You've got the role modeling of leadership, you've got the physical aspects and then you've got a lot of the, let's say the prestige or the history. So I'm sure with these organisations in F1, there's a lot of that kind of cachet of the brand and people want to stay, right? Even though and we're motivated by different things. I think that's another thing as well, right? That that culture, you know, it's about fit. So do you fit within a certain organisation? And if you don't, maybe you just look for another organisation where you feel that you you belong. And again, it comes back to that issue of belonging, right?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I'm going to use this as a shameless exercise to sort of instill some cultural values in our small team as we're as we're growing. So a bit of background to to us, like everything Doctor's Kitchen related spawned from a passion project. I was in my kitchen in the middle of Sydney. I was working in ITU at the time. And uh, I decided to share recipes based on my own uh, experience of improving my health with nutritional medicine and lifestyle. And that sort of um, led to a snowball effect where I started doing books and TV shows and corporate gigs and podcasts, obviously, that this came out of writing the first book uh, four years ago. Um, and now we're in a position where we're making active um, steps towards creating a like a a tech company. So we launched our app in 2000 or at the start of this year, 2022. Um, we're creating like the head space for healthy eating. Uh, and it's basically a library of recipes that you can choose according to your health goals, as well as future features that will include meal planning, integration with supermarkets. So it's essentially like a digital meal kit at the price of a normal supermarket shop with the added value of we've done all the research behind the ingredients and diets that align with certain health goals that you might have. Now, we're currently using an agency to build the the tech products, but we uh, have increased our our team by uh, three from one just this year alone. And one of the things and I'm I'm conscious that one of our uh, new employees is on the call right now and she she always listens to the the podcast anyway and it's part of her her remit as the researcher. But uh, one of the things that I'm very conscious to do is to instill some cultural values. Um, and we can write them all down, you know, uh, a good moral compass, excitement when you come to work, contentment, feeling like you're part of a family as well as a team, uh, high performance, as well as the a shared sort of mission and and and goal. Those are things that are quite easy to sort of pinpoint and pick out. But considering we're in an environment where we don't have an office, we don't have a physical space, we do a lot of things exactly how we're doing right now. How do how would a small nimble company start the foundation for those values, uh, considering we don't have the traditional sort of um, facets of of a business of an established corporate that you you might be uh, used to dealing with?
Dr Steven McGregor: Look, I I think a lot of it is about just openly sharing kind of who we are and and and having that vulnerability, right? And I think often role modeling also applies to things like vulnerability, right? So the leader of an organisation, the founder, in this case yourself, right? You you kind of role model that vulnerability and then you get you get people together and you get you get to know each other, right? On on a deeper level. And look, cultural fit or alignment is important in terms of values. So there could be values that everyone subscribes to in terms of the organisation, but neither do we want everyone to be carbon copies, right? We we want to have diversity within an organisation as well. And I think we want to get push back from from others. So I think it's just having that open sharing, recognizing where we have commonalities and and and appreciating the differences of of us all as well as a team. And high performance and teams often comes through those differences as well, right? There's a little bit of fit, but there's overlap and we can all contribute in different ways.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's a bit of a paradox, isn't it? Because whilst you want alignment and you want fit, you also want diversity, uh, diversity in opinions, diversity in backgrounds, diversity, uh, in in elements that will allow you to progress. I mean, it's it's um, it reminds me of that book by uh, I forget his surname now, Matthew something, it's called Rebel Ideas. I'm sure you've probably come across it, but uh, in that book, he describes why diversity was so important in the CIA and why that led to uh, a huge sort of um, uh, oversight when it came to um, terrorism because everyone was sort of a carbon copy of each other within that organisation.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah, group think is a dangerous thing, right? And and and that could be anywhere. That could be in different environments in our families and in our organisations, in our teams, if we all have, you know, we've got blind spots. So if we're all thinking the same thing, and the more dangerous thing as well is that everyone if they agree with the leader, right? Because sometimes there's a culture of fear whereby, you know, especially a more junior member of an organisation, they don't want to disagree with the more senior person, but we need to encourage that. We need to encourage that debate. Um, and I think um, in Google they had a concept, it was they talked about intellectual humility and they said it doesn't matter where the best ideas come from. We're just interested in the best ideas, right? We have that democratization of of moving forward. It's not about the hippos, right? The highest paid person in the room, right? It's about embracing. Um, and and another thing that we talk about in a lot of our wellbeing work is in terms of how we getting back to these leadership behaviours is not the concept of the hero leader. You know, servant leadership is a concept from over half a century ago, but it is absolutely perfect for today's world, right? So the leader is a servant, the leader recognizing that it's not about themselves, it's about how they develop other people. So you've got things like humility, recognizing that no matter who we are, we don't have all the answers in today's world because it's too fast and it's too complex. Um, and recognizing that, you know, even if we are the most senior person with the greatest level of experience, we can be wrong and we have to admit mistakes and that's how we move forward as a team.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And so all of that for me, Rupy, is is is a is a culture of performance, but it's also a culture of wellbeing. And a lot of my work over the years has been to say wellbeing isn't something soft that's at the margins of an organisation, but it really does help make an organisation thrive. And so that even though the numbers aren't quite there because it's a very complex thing, that is the business case for me.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Well, I I guess you could draw a parallel between um, uh, wellbeing and happiness. And and certainly increased happiness levels as it pertains to countries tend to have, you know, better social cohesion, uh, better uh, GDP margins, better um, equality across um, the uh, the income across different households. Um, actually, I was going to ask you about this because uh, one of the points in the daily reset that I came across, I've got a few to to talk through, uh, was the difference between wellness and wellbeing. Um, I'll be honest, like, I haven't really thought about the difference between workplace wellbeing and workplace wellness. So I wonder if you could talk a bit about what what those two different terms mean.
Dr Steven McGregor: Sure. Yeah, I mean, look, for me it's um, yeah, it's an opinion, but I think it's a qualified opinion. And and look, I I don't shoot people down if they if they they use both terms. You know, it's often used interchangeably, but I think they are different and and I think they should be treated differently. Um, the wellness industry is a hugely important industry. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. It's very important. But I think a lot of the way that we've perceived wellness traditionally is uh, as in a fixing mode. So we escape normal life and we have some element of wellness to fix ourselves, right? Wellbeing is different. I think that's part of your daily lived experience. So I think a lot of the traditional approach to wellbeing, stroke wellness, is that because we are viewing those things as not a part of daily life. We go to work Monday to Friday. On the weekend, we treat ourselves because we're knackered, right? We invest in wellness activities to feel better, to feel happier. What I've tried to do over the years is integrate wellbeing within an organisation, but more than that, integrate wellbeing in our normal daily lives. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep and of course, also when we sleep, how do we have wellbeing as a constant presence? Uh, and so I think that's different from wellness. Wellbeing is part of our daily lived experience as a human being and wellness is what we do to fix ourselves after the damage that we've done in our normal lives. And I think that's the distinction that I try, I try and draw out also to say trust the process. Don't just invest in a vacation or a retreat or something that's going to make you feel better every now and then, do it every day, but just do a little touch. You don't need a lot of time. Trust the process and you'll get that, you'll get that impact in in a short space of time. So I think that's the value of the distinction for me is about how we can implement it in our daily lives.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that really resonates with me. Um, and I I I guess to say it in a slightly different way is wellness is more of an intervention that you you utilize, whereas wellbeing is something that you do as a default. Uh, and it it lends itself to me to this sort of salutogenic approach where um, you know, you you have things inbuilt in your daily routine that perhaps you've instilled, but also might be part of a company's design thinking when it comes to the building that you go to. There's a reason why there is so much light coming in through the building that uh, you know, lends itself to being in the cafe environment, for example, so you can actually get that dose of sunlight even though you might not have time to leave the building for whatever reason. So those little elements, I guess, uh, coalesce to to become part of the wellbeing environment rather than just a wellness intervention, which might be a doctor coming to work and giving an hour talk for one week in the year.
Dr Steven McGregor: Totally. I mean, even if you look at it in terms of your own background in terms of approach to medicine, right? I would imagine that, you know, a lot of medicine over the years has looked at kind of reactive approaches and and and kind of fixing. And and obviously, you know, a lot of drug delivery and a lot of kind of even GP um, uh, prescriptions nowadays is is is it's just the starting point, but it's it's actually looking at lifestyle factors, right? It's actually saying, okay, before you maybe come to this, how can you invest in exercise? And I know that in terms of there's other apps in terms of sleeping apps that have just been recently approved by the NHS. So it's much more of a proactive approach rather than waiting until something is wrong with us, right? And hopefully that's going to take us forward and addressing a lot of the sickness that we have in society.
Dr Rupy: I wanted to ask a specific question. I don't know if you can answer this, but uh, how do how do we encourage shower thoughts? So first, perhaps we should define exactly what we mean by by shower thoughts, but what I what I guess I'm asking is, you know, how how we enhance sort of an environment where we can think more creatively and and and out the box.
Dr Steven McGregor: It's interesting, a lot of this the the my content in workshops over the years and also in the book has been about yeah, you know, things you do in the shower in terms of the importance of cold showers, right? And and and and how you get your best ideas in the shower and all these different things. It was even just very briefly, I remember reading something, it was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and he really believed in a lot of the studies that that said that you get your best ideas in the shower. So he installed a shower in his office. And one of his colleagues said to him, hey, dude, I don't know if you've got any better ideas recently, but you're hell of a clean, right? He was in there four or five times a day to try and to try and get the best ideas. Um, look, I I think a lot of it is is, you know, creativity comes from a mix of of structure and and chaos, right? So I think if we've got too much freedom and too much chaos, it doesn't work. But if we've got too much structure, it doesn't work either. And so it's it's it's allowing organisations and the teams that work in those organisations to have freedom, but to a certain extent, right? So they they know that there's certain things that they have to check in a day or a week, but they also have autonomy, they also have freedom, they also have a change in their environment, right? You know, often that I'm a big believer in even the physical space, you touched on it yourself in terms of natural light coming into an office space. And so a lot of these kind of compartments and silos, it doesn't encourage creative thinking, right? You're just going to get even that group think, you're going to get the same copy and paste type of work every single day. So I'm a big believer in the physical space. You know, a lot of great work is coming out from the architecture field in recent years, not just in terms of healthier buildings and a lot of biophilic design, but just spaces that allow people to kind of bump into each other, have these accidental encounters. Like, hey, Rupy, I haven't seen you for weeks, what you up to? And you you start to converse and you build the social capital that we need, but you also kind of combine those ideas, right? A lot of this came from initially the late 70s and called the water cooler effect. So I think the physical space is hugely important, but also what people are expected to do each day. You don't give them 100%, you know, you want to give them autonomy, but you don't just let them free and and they're maybe floundering depending on their personality or experience level. So you give them, you know, little little gates, little checks. Maybe they come together as a team at different points of the day and the week, but they still have that degree of freedom. So physical space, the way of working, and that balance that's just going to depend and it comes down to the leader's judgment, the balance between the right level of structure and freedom for people to explore. And I think you're going to get those shower ideas and that that creative thinking that's going to that's going to come from that, right?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I um, I speak to a lot of people who work in different work environments and there's a lot of differing opinions on like the the nouveau open space office plans. I mean, I personally can't work in a co-working space where there's like long desks and people are just there and chatting and having phone calls and that kind of stuff. Like for me, I need peace and quiet. I'm also the kind of person that can structure their day and I can just tick off things and I get like, you know, this little dopamine hit whenever I tick things off the list and it's probably a window into my personality there. Um, other people need a lot more structure. They need to have that checklist given to them. They need to have, you know, a routine instilled for them because they don't have that sort of ability to generate their own schedule. Um, I wonder how like, you know, we can tackle this particularly with large organisations that can span hundreds if not thousands of people.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah. Look, again, you know, you know, qualifying that that mix of of structure and freedom, it's providing options, right? And it's not always easy, but you it could be different personalities. Like I also need quiet space. Uh, you know, I don't like distraction. I find it hard to concentrate. Um, and so it could be preference or personality. It could also be at different times of the day, right? So often when we go through our day, we need to change our spaces to maintain focus and maintain productivity, right? So it could be in the morning that you do your hardest work, you want focus, um, and you want concentration, so you want quiet. And then maybe towards lunch, you you want that to be more social and you want to interact with your team a little bit more, right? Maybe in the afternoon, you just need a little bit more buzz. You're coming into your nap zone, you're feeling low on energy. So you you'll be energized with a little bit of noise and a little bit of kind of people around you and that buzz. So we need options, right? And and so a lot of organisations and a lot of that architectural work is providing those options. I always remember when Apple opened their um, new headquarters a few years ago, spaceship campus. You know, hugely expensive, but a lot of the engineers were complaining because it was too open plan. They didn't have that privacy, right? But neither do we want to be hidden in an office all day. So options, right? We've got a quiet space, we've got a meditation room, we've got a little games corner, we've got cabins. You know, I think a lot of architects now, you've got these little kind of phone booths that people can check in, they are noise insulated. You can get in there and work, you can get in there and have a phone call. Um, so providing options for different personalities, different preferences, but also how we navigate through our day, I think is the is is the ideal. Implementing that ideal as you say, when an organisation is very big, isn't maybe that easy, right? Maybe everyone's going wants to have one of these cabins for private working and they're all full. Um, right? So that's part of the chaos of work. But I think it comes down to the hybrid nature of work that we are moving more and more into that was forced upon us as part of the pandemic. But it's recognizing that we're all different, we all have different preferences and those preferences change depending on our context at that time. It's not a one size fits all and again, bringing it back to wellbeing, there isn't just one answer for our wellbeing. There isn't just one solution. We work that out. We work out our own answers and that changes through our life journeys, right? Um, and so that's why we also need to keep wellbeing as a constant presence in in our daily life because it always changes.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, on the context of wellbeing a constant presence, actually, um, this brings me nicely into some of the concepts in the daily reset, which I've heard you describe before as like the daily stoic but for health and wellbeing and using some more modern concepts within the book as well. Um, and it's brilliant. Like I said, I'm definitely going to be giving this to my partner who works in a corporate environment. Um, and also is like short on time because basically most of the entries that you have for every single day of the year are like half a page. And uh, I love the way you've also spaced them out month by month according to different themes. Um, like January's movement, it's typically when people sort of like decide to go to the gym uh, after the indulging uh, December. Um, but there's also purpose and ways of working and all that kind of jazz. So I wanted to ask a few things that I found super interesting. One of which I hadn't come across before, the Stockdale paradox. This is fascinating. I really, I really enjoyed uh, learning about this for the first time. I think this is particularly relevant considering um, the pandemic and and also our current scenario as well with regards to the economy. I wonder if you could describe a bit more about what the the Stockdale paradox uh, is because it's definitely something I'm going to be uh, talking about in my newsletter in the next couple of weeks.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah. So, you know, a classic kind of case, especially within the whole area of resilience in the last couple of years, uh, you know, there's been a lot of focus on resilience and and and the Stockdale paradox case has been brought up. So, uh, this is from the Vietnam War, uh, an American um, admiral, James Bond, actually, his full name, James Bond Stockdale, and he was a prisoner of war in uh, in Vietnam. And it was basically about his approach to that. So he was routinely tortured for several years, but he talked about how he never lost faith in the end of the story. Um, and he said, I didn't, I not only had faith that I would get out, but that I would turn the experience, that that that torture, that that hugely kind of uh, you know, difficult experience into the defining moment of my life. Um, and he was also asked, this this was an interview that actually came from Jim Collins in the book, Good to Great in the 1980s, I think. And he was asked about the people who didn't survive. And he said it was the optimists. And he said it was the people who thought, I'm going to get out in the next couple of months, we're going to be rescued and they were holding on to that false hope. And then the time would come and they saw that they were still prisoners and then they would lose all hope. So the paradox was to embrace the sheer terror and and and and and and the the the negativity of the present situation, but to have that overarching hope in the long term still at the same time. And so there's a couple of things I think for us all in our pandemic, right? In terms of when it was really bad, you know, maybe we look back on that and we think actually, you know, there's good in that trauma. That trauma, I learned something about myself. Um, through that trauma, I became stronger. Um, and if we even bring it back to some of the work on happiness, you know, we can look at happiness in two ways. We can look at in the moment emotion and we can look at life satisfaction. And I think, Rupy, when we often look back in our lives, the the moments in our life when we are most satisfied with in hindsight are often the most difficult moments, right? It isn't often the the hugely joyful moments in in, you know, in terms of emotion, but it's things that we found difficult, but that we overcame and we learned that we could do it. We we we, you know, fulfilled an objective, we we did something important and we got through the other side. So that's Stockdale paradox, I think for our society today, which is full of disruption, full of uncertainty, when we encounter something traumatic is to say, okay, I'm not going to sugar coat this. This is pretty bad, but what can I take from that? And I'm still going to take that long-term view that's going to say, this is going to be okay. And I think there's a lot of value in this Stockdale paradox.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I love that. And I think I don't know whether it's just me or whether it's humans are just attracted to paradoxes, but uh, I I I love a paradox. I I I love like learning about these as different frameworks that I can apply to my day-to-day. And and looking back in hindsight, it's something I think I've naturally had. So when I got ill uh, almost 15 years ago now, at the time it was, you know, terrible. I felt very unfairly treated, like, you know, I I what it was frustrating, why is this happening to an otherwise healthy 24 year old? Uh, but now, like looking back on it, I'm so grateful for that experience because it's led to everything I do currently. In a more superficial way, I remember uh, just as we were talking, you know, when I was doing my fourth year exams, they were some of the most difficult exams. I remember like every single day being at the library, 14 hours a day, just constantly reading, reading, work. Uh, but the benefit of that when I eventually passed those exams, that was that just made everything worth it. So, you know, two different sort of examples, one more superficial than the other, but I think it it it illustrates the the benefit of like having hope whilst also experiencing that that reality that can be quite hard. And that's very different to what I I see on social media quite a bit, which is this toxic positivity, um, you know, this, oh, everything's going to be hunky dory. Oh, the, you know, uh, just put a smile on it and, you know, turn turn lemons into lemonade and all the rest of it. And I think that's a very different sort of way of thinking about things and I think this is probably going to be uh, more effective and um, and relatable for a lot for a lot of other people. On the subject of social media, sorry, go on, go on, go ahead, Stephen.
Dr Steven McGregor: Please, please, please. No, no, no, go for it.
Dr Rupy: I was just going to say on the subject of social media, um, one of the other quotes that I came across in the book, uh, was one from um, William James, uh, specifically what you attend to in this moment becomes your reality. This is something I bang on about with so many people because your attention is being actively sought and stolen from multiple different uh, avenues, you know, the the one that always gets the blame is social media, but I think we're we're a lot more in control of our digital environment than we care to realize. And actually having been off socials for the last two weeks, I realized just how much space I created for myself. Um, so I I wonder sort of uh, if you can extrapolate on this idea of of being careful about what you you pay attention to.
Dr Steven McGregor: Yeah, I think it we're triggered in so many different ways. I mean, you you talked about the kind of dopamine hit earlier from your to-do list and checking that off. And of course, we've been hijacked in many ways with the big tech revolution. Um, it comes back to an evolutionary perspective, right? Is that when we sought out new information, it was tied to survival. So when there's something new, like a red bubble notification or or a noise or a vibration, you know, that's tied to to us maintaining survival, right? Because that was what we needed at that time. And we get that little surge of dopamine, it's the reward hormone. And so we get addicted to that, right? So, but what we and and many of us know that now, but in terms of what we consume, I think is that next level. And we often we have our likes and our preferences and we consume channels, right? But often we we're not also fully aware of of the effect that that's having on us. And what I often say to people is, you know, even follow things or look at different channels that maybe you don't affiliate with normally, right? Because it it can come back to this group think, this group think, right? That if you you have your affiliations, your football club, right? Or your uh, politics or your TV channel, you're getting one view of the world. And often that's triggering us in the way that they want that to they want us to be triggered. So often we want to have more of a holistic view of what's going on in the world. And often that means, hey, can you consume news from another source, right? And and and every source has a filter, right? I don't think any of sources have 100% truth. You know, what is truth anyway, right? And and and I think that's such a big factor in in today's world. We have so many sources, is it credible? Can we trust it? You know, everything has a filter. And so I often encourage people just have a broader view. Even if you think I don't believe in this, I don't agree with their values, just look at it from a different perspective and it's a much broader 360 view of what's going on in the world, right? Um, and and I think if we are and often I use that quote from William James in terms of the fear that we are creating in society. You know, if you watch and even if it's a great news channel, but if you're looking at that live news feed every day, for example, on the Ukraine war, and that's all you consume that day, then that's going to have a response in your in your body, right? You're going to increase levels of cortisol, you're going to feel more stressed. If you're going to consume Tik Tok all day, you're going to have a laugh, but maybe that's just giving you this kind of you're living in a bubble, right? So I often say to people, you know, between the alarmist live news feeds and Tik Tok, the balance is maybe in the middle for balanced mental health, right? Again, it's about balance and and just recognizing um, the effect that it's having on you. It's interesting that you said you've been off social media the last two weeks. I also have had the same. I I decided before I went on vacation just the other week, I was going to cut social media until after the summer, until early September. Um, especially as a you know, as a as a content creator, as we both are, Rupy, right? You're consuming, but you're also creating. And I felt I got to a point, I wasn't being energized by it. I was feeling exhausted and I needed a break. And as you say, it is amazing the space that comes back into your life and the energy that comes naturally, reconnecting with the physical world, with nature, the ideas that come in. And I'm hoping that when I get back into it on a more regular basis, uh, in September, I'm going to be more energized and do a better job of of creating that content, you know. But I just think awareness, it's a wellbeing skill among others. How do we consume? How do we retain control as you say? And how do we have that balance in a lot of that that social media that we are that we are connecting with, right?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, that that really does resonate with me a lot because um, I certainly found myself exhausted from having to constantly create uh, content. And the podcast for me is different because I find this quite energizing. It's on on, you know, a shared time scale. It's not something you have to do daily. And I think when you're on the treadmill of content creation on social media platforms, the game that you play is almost like a a prison that you've made for yourself. Um, and what I found, even though I don't like to admit it, is when I was off social media, I was uh, essentially uh, creating uh, actually a concept that's in your book, uh, a dopamine fast. Uh, because when you do scroll and you get those little hits, whether it's something you find funny or or a like or, you know, a positive comment or whatever, it is having that literal effect in your brain, uh, where you're you're being sort of um, uh, your your behaviour is being enhanced. Your behaviour is being reinforced. Uh, and actually having a break from that, even just for two weeks was noticeable. So like, you know, the the uh, the space I'd love to have to actually not do that for a period of time. Actually, it's going to be enforced for me because I'm I'm going to be getting married later on this year. So I'm going to have to take at least four weeks off because it's an Indian thing and I'm sure you're aware Indian weddings are are pretty big affairs with multiple uh, unnecessary parties and ceremonies and all the rest of it. So I'm going to have to take that off. So I'm probably going to be uh, replacing one stressor with the with another. So on the subject of stress, um, stress is a bit of a uh, a bad word, let's say, a word that has negative connotations. But I know in in one of the daily resets, you talk about reframing stress as uh, something that can be our friend. Um, and in particular, the the stress equation. Uh, I wonder if you can enlighten us on that.
Dr Steven McGregor: Sure. So, um, yeah, I mean, how can we make stress our friend? A lot of that is to do with perception. And and the research shows that it's not the stressor itself that has the negative health impact. It's how we perceive it. So if we perceive it a priori as something that is a negative thing, we often have that negative health impact. But if we look at it and we reframe it as something that, you know, what is this, right? You you look at it in a deeper level, it's not automatically negative. Maybe it's a challenge, maybe it's something that's going to prime you to perform, like an athlete, right? And you recognize those signals. So if we break it down also, you know, it's different from anxiety. Anxiety often is a feeling that we get, we don't know where it's coming from, we don't know what are the reasons for it. Stress is often uh, or it it, you know, accurately described as a as a biological or a physiological signal. So it could be increased heart rate, it could be a headache, it could be a knot in your stomach, it could be a sweaty palms or fingers. And so that is a signal for you to perform. And even recognizing that it is there is is key in itself. So a lot of research shows if you perceive it positively as a as a signal to perform, you won't get that negative health impact, that it helps with learning, it helps with memory. You know, even any stressful events in our lives, we remember them, right? Even if they were very much negative. And the second part on perception is that you control stress or you counteract it with recovery. And I often talk about the stress equation. And the stress equation is growth equals stress plus recovery. And this happens on a physical level, it happens on a mental level. If you have a a tough class at university, you often land the learning afterwards when you're reflecting or when you're in the shower, uh, or when you're going over your notes. If you go to the gym and you do weights, you're stressing the muscle fibers, you you tear the muscle fibers. If you go for a run, you cause micro damage to your heart, but in the recovery phase, then it grows back stronger, right? So we can't forget about that recovery. And so, uh, we make stress valuable through recovery. And if we view it as something that isn't necessarily negative, we can develop, we can become better versions of ourselves and we can use it to our advantage.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I uh, I totally agree with that. And I think I've actively been trying to remind myself of that. I mean, these are all skills that you need to hone, right? This especially when it comes down to perception. And when I'm having a stressful day, I know I'm having a stressful day because I'm usually having like email apnea episodes where I'm not breathing properly when I'm in front of my computer screen, which is a very well-known, well, very common phenomenon. Um, and I actively try and remind myself of like, you know, this is good stress. I'm going to be growing from it. I'm going to look back at this in six months time and I'm going to notice, you know, how much I've grown from it and what we've learned and actually we have, we'll probably have a bunch of new problems then, but this one will eventually go away at some point. Um, on the subject of boredom, this is the final thing I want to ask you about. So I'm just like peppering you with all these like stories from your book because there's so many. I mean, I'm I've had to cut a whole bunch because um, I wanted to talk about a bunch of them, but uh, the concept of Chronos and Kairos with with K. So these these uh, ancient Greek uh, uh, concepts. So what how we we're aware of Chronos, I the the actual um, uh, measures of time, but Kairos the experience. How how do we get more Kairos in our our life? This is a question that you pose in this particular day, but I wonder how you get more Kairos. Maybe you could explain the two terms. I've probably done a really bad job of it.
Dr Steven McGregor: No, no, that yeah, so Chronos is the the the measure of time and in the conventional way. So it's the seconds, the minutes, the the hours, the the days, the weeks, the years, right? And Kairos is the experience. It's the it's the qualitative side to the to the quantitative side of of of Chronos, right? So it it comes back to these these issues that we're discussing in terms of awareness, in terms of the richness and the depth of life. How do I get more Kairos? Um, I I think I just I I kind of have that that dialogue or or reflection with myself, right? In terms of journaling. And I think that's the other reason for the book. It's not just a book to read, but it's also a journal to write in, right? So every day, every nudge, we're saying to people, okay, there's a half a page of blank space so that you can add your own story to that. So I just want to give people a nudge to say, okay, think about that. How did your day go? So it becomes a part of it becomes a diary as well. And when I journal or when I have when I practice mindfulness, which I don't do all the time, but I come in and out of it, then I feel that I'm having that richness. I feel that I'm having that Kairos. And and some of the things that you talked about as well that you you you slow time down. You know, as as again, as we age, time goes by too fast. And if we're in that autopilot, it flies by. So if you notice, if you notice the ordinary, if you dive into that, then you're going to get that that Kairos, you're going to get that richness. Um, and it's just, you know, it it's taking those moments of of pause, of reflection and not always being in action mode, not always being in doing mode, right? Doing nothing. You know, when was the last, I often say that in my workshops to people, when was the last time you did nothing? And going to the bathroom doesn't count, right? You're busy there on social media, right? Just but just being still, right? Apart from sleeping at night, often in our daily life, it doesn't happen, but even five minutes, hugely valuable. Just sit, close your eyes maybe, breathe for five minutes. The impact that that has, especially on busy people, is incredible.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I I found myself uh, sort of leaning into this concept a lot more because I'm that kind of person that always is consuming information, whether it's via uh, a news feed, my computer, or in my ear. So AirPods, fantastic innovation, not so good for someone like me who constantly needs or feels the need to like utilize every minute of their day such that, you know, I'm consuming some information. It could be a podcast, an audio book, or whatever it might be. Um, and I've taken to doing something in my daily routine, which is going outside without my AirPods, taking my coffee and just standing in the sun and literally doing nothing. Uh, and embracing that boredom because I guess it's sort of like a shower thoughts, you know, like you kind of check in with your thoughts and it's not a a formal meditation practice, which I which I do, it's just more embracing boredom, which is a a foreign concept for a lot of people, you know? So, yeah, that's uh, that's definitely something I'm I'm doing more of.
Dr Steven McGregor: But you know, boredom just on that, I mean, there's also a nudge on boredom in there. And and I I I talk about when I was growing up, um, and and and I would say to my parents, I'm bored. And and they say to me, that's because you're boring, right? That was the response. I think that was the I think that was the standard response from parents a generation ago. But now you don't, you don't get kids never get bored, right? We we kill any available space. But but boredom serves a purpose, right? Boredom is is often the precursor to curiosity. Boredom is often the kind of the pre-condition for exploration, for finding new things. And I I shared that nudge quite recently on um, social media. And I said, could the cat in the hat be written today? So anyone if they don't know this classic from um, Dr. Seuss, it's it starts with two kids inside on a rainy day and they're bored and they're looking out the window and their imagination comes towards this cat and it's a whole fantastic story. But you couldn't write that today because they wouldn't be looking out the window on a rainy day being bored. They would be on their devices, they'd be networked with playing with other kids and it's like, you know, we've killed space. You know, we we used to go to bus stops, Rupy, or or or metro stops and there would be time waiting. And maybe you would talk to someone next to you now, right? Every time now everyone's in devices. We we're losing that connection. Anyway, I don't want to sound like an old granddad, right? Times were better back in the day. But I think this boredom thing, this space thing, and look, so many amazing advances in society, but as you say, in that practice for yourself, it's a couple of minutes. And especially for busy people that are always consuming, a little step back now and again. Wow. Amazing, amazing benefit for that, right?
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a really good sort of tip to to end the podcast with actually in terms of embracing boredom. And I'm trying to remind myself not to do that automatic reach. So it's almost like, you know, I'm a I'm a gunslinger in a Western movie whenever I'm in a queue, it's like, got my phone out. Um, so I'm I'm reminding myself to, you know, just put it back in the holster sort of thing, um, when I'm in a queue or waiting for a train or something and just like looking up and looking at the signs and just taking notice of like how other people are and people watching and, you know, just just embracing sort of that space. So I think it's a it's a it's a lovely skill to have in this uh, digital um, uh, generation we have. So, yeah, I think it's a that's a lovely place to end. Thank you so much for your time, Stephen. And the book is brilliant. We'll put links to it and everything. I think everyone would benefit from from reading this once a day. Um, so yeah, thank you for writing it. It's fab.
Dr Steven McGregor: Pleasure. Thank you so much, Rupy. Great to talk to you today.
Dr Rupy: Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Remember, you can find all the links to the daily reset on the doctorskitchen.com show notes page. You can find it in all good book stores. I highly recommend it. I think it's a brilliant book. And also, don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter, eat, listen, read. Every week, I send you something to eat, something to listen to, something to read. You can find the links to that in the podcast show notes, and I will see you here next time.
