Mindfulness Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Shirzad, welcome!

Shirzad Chamine
Pleasure to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be talking about your body of work with regard to positive intelligence. Can you tell us what do you mean by that? And what’s a particularly fascinating discovery you’ve made about us humans as you’ve delved into this research?

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, what we mean by that is that your mind is very often sabotaging you. So, you spend a lot of your time in self-sabotage mode without realizing it. So positive intelligence is about how much your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. The higher your positive intelligence, the more you’re spending your time in the positive part of the brain, which serves you, as opposed to the negative part of the brain where you’re sabotaging yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now that’s an interesting distinction right off the get-go. Positive means serving you, negative means sabotaging, as opposed to positive means pleasant and enjoyable. Is that fair to say, we could be served by something that’s painful and unpleasant?

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, definitely, serving you goes beyond just pleasant. Stanford kids I’ve lectured on positive intelligence, they call this work Jedi mind training. So, the reason they call it that is because they basically say what this work is about is the battle inside your mind between your inner Darth Vader versus inner Jedi. And so, we have both of those voices in our head. The question is, “How strong is one or the other?”

And we can talk about all the emotional experiences you would have if you’re in your inner Jedi mode, which are all positive experiences. Now the emotions can be empathy, curiosity, joy of creativity, being connected to meaning and purpose, being in calm, clear-headed, laser-focused, fearless action. All of those are modes of the sage where your mind is serving you.

As opposed to when you’re in inner Darth Vader, which we call the saboteur, part of your brain when you’re sabotaging yourself, you’re going to be experiencing negative emotions like stress, anxiety, frustration, anger, shame, guilt, disappointment, self-doubt, and all of those things. Your mind is not serving you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I mean, it sounds delightful to have some Jedi mind powers and to be less of a Darth Vader inside. Could you maybe share with us a story of someone who made a transformation and sort of what’s at stake and what could be possible for us if we get some great control over our mind and our inner saboteurs?

Shirzad Chamine
Well, I can tell you my own personal story, one of the most transformational days of my life. I actually started the software company that was venture-backed and I had attracted some of the luminaries of Silicon Valley to be my investors, board members.

Our first client was Hewlett-Packard. Everything was positive. Everything was awesome. I was a visionary leader starting a company. And then two years into this, the product was late, the customer was unhappy, a lot of our plans were not working, and so I was under a lot of stress.

And one day during lunch, I went out there and got my lunch, came back to our offices, went upstairs and where our offices was, and my heart sank because what I saw was the chairman of my board was sitting in the boardroom along with my president and my top VPs.

Basically, this was a palace coup. My president and top VCs had gone to the board and said, “We cannot work for Shirzad anymore. Under stress, he has become such a controlling, micromanaging, judging leader. We can’t stand working for him anymore. It’s either him or us. And he’s killing his own vision.”

So that was the most transformational day of my life, professional day of my life, and also the most painful because I had to figure out, “So, what’s happening here? Who am I? Am I that positive visionary leader that attracted all these people and investors to me to start the company? Or am I this negative micromanaging, controlling, judging leader that nobody wants to work for?”

And it just turns out, and it started my whole body of research here, and it turns out that I’m both of those. I have the Darth Vader inside, I have the inner Jedi inside, and the question is, “What conditions bring out my inner Jedi? What conditions bring out my Darth Vader? And how do I, instead of just letting it happen, how do I take command of that and make sure that my inner Jedi is running the show rather than the Darth Vader?”

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that is high stakes, and thank you for sharing that. And I think you’ve already said it in terms of a lot of us, that is our experience in terms of the Darth Vader show up in a high-stress situation, either we’re just hungry and sleep-deprived, just very kind of biological, or the environment is full of stresses, expectations, pressure, too much stuff, and failures, disappointments, things just rock in our world. And so, in the midst of that, yes, indeed, what is to be done?

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, so what we discovered, I mean, we have done a ton of research. My book is very research-based because I have more of a science, engineering background. And we did factor analysis with about 500,000 people from across 100 different countries. And we asked the question, “At the root of it all, what sabotages or what optimizes our well-being or performance?”

And from that research, we discovered there are 10 ways we self-sabotage. It seems like there are a hundred ways or a thousand ways we self-sabotage and screw ourselves up, but actually there are only 10 ways. And these are the Darth Vader’s. We call them the saboteurs, the ones that sabotage you. And they have names like the judge, the controller, the stickler, the victim, the avoider, the restless, the pleaser, and so on.

And most people have a few. Most people don’t have to worry about all 10, but so we do a saboteur assessment that, in five minutes, shows you how you self-sabotage. And these saboteurs go on hyper mode under stress. And so, stress brings, really fuels the saboteurs. So, if you have a controller, you become more controlling under stress.

If you have the avoider, you become more avoiding under stress and so on. And as you do that, these saboteurs actually generate more stress. So, they get us into a vicious cycle of deepening saboteur activation. And they have us generate some results, but we pay a huge price in negativity and loss of mental and emotional energy.

And, on the other hand, on the positive side, the Jedi side, we show you that you actually, your inner Jedi lives in an entirely different region of your brain. And we can help you energize that part of your brain, so instead of feeling stressed, you’re feeling empathy and curiosity and caring and love and creativity and all those wonderful things, you’d perform better and you feel better at the same time.

We can help you actually energize that part of your brain, build up your inner Jedi and quiet the saboteur region of the brain. It’s literally about brain rewiring.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, so you’ve got 10 flavors of saboteur, and I did take that, your fun little assessment and it was quick. Avoider was my top. But I guess I’m curious to know is, we talk about brain regions, first of all, let’s just hear what are the names of the brain regions associated with sabotage and with the good part?

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, there are lot of different components that go into the region of the brain that I call the saboteur brain. In my book, there’s an entire chapter on it. There’s a neuroscience, 20-page neuroscience white paper on our website on it. So, there’s not a quick answer to it. But what I can say is that the saboteur mind is generally a little bit more left-brained, where also your thinking mind lives, as opposed to the inner Jedi, the sage mind, which we call the sage, that’s a little bit more right brain.

And so, we have ways, we have 10-second techniques where we quiet the saboteur region and where a lot of your fear, stress originates, and energize the sage brain region. And we can practice some of those together.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. So left brain, right brain. Sabotage is more right brain. And so, is that right? Is that correct?

Shirzad Chamine
The saboteurs are a little more left-brain, so they coexist with the part of the brain that the rational mind lives, which is one of the interesting reasons why, when you’re feeling stressed, you can’t think your way out of stress. The harder you think, the more you kind of dig a hole for yourself. So, the way out of a lot of this is not by thinking harder, but actually quieting the hard-thinking mind because your wisdom lives in a different part of your brain.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, rational left brain. More, I guess, creative stuff, right brain. So, I guess maybe if I were to conjure up some images here, the saboteur is more like hard-charging executive, and the Jedi is more like artist, dancer, creator.

Shirzad Chamine
No, actually, so the saboteurs are quite different in their character. So, the controller is hard-charging, but the avoiders almost the exact opposite of the hard-charging controller. The pleaser is very different. So, there are 10 ways of self-sabotage. They have very, very different flavors to them.

And on the positive side, what our factor analysis research showed is that there are five Jedi superpowers, five-stage superpowers at the root of it all. The five core superpowers are: empathize, which is the ability to really feel empathy, love, and compassion for yourself and others; explore, which is about being in beginner’s mind, to truly explore what’s really going on with things, deep curiosity, beginner’s mind curiosity.

Innovate, which is the ability to really tap into that obvious out-of-box innovative thinking. Navigate, which is being connected to a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, having an inner compass of what truly brings meaning and purpose to your life. And activate, which is calm, clear-headed, fearless action. And as you can see, these are very different flavors of the sage.

And what we show you is that, depending on the challenge in front of you, you may need empathy or you may need curiosity, or the explore power, or you may need activate – calm, clear-headed, laser-focused action. If the house is on fire, you don’t want to empathize with anybody. You just want to run and take action.

Pete Mockaitis
“That sounds really hard. Your house is burning down right now. That’s a tough spot.” Okay. Well, so you say 10 seconds, that’s pretty cool. So, you’re saying that there are 10-second techniques we can use to tap into each of these five sage modes.

Shirzad Chamine
Yes, we can try one right now. Let’s practice this together. Hopefully, everybody in our audience is going to do that. So please take two fingertips and gently rub two fingertips against each other with so much attention that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers. So gently rub two fingertips against each other with such attention that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers.

Now, this was about a 10-second, what we call a PQ rep. And each of these reps, if you had your head under a functional MRI machine, you would have noticed that what we just did ever so slightly quieted the saboteur region of your brain where all your stress and negativity lives and all your saboteurs live, and ever so slightly energized the inner Jedi, the sage part of your brain, but all of these, where you have deeper access to all of these five sage powers that I just told you about.

And so, one 10-second thing doesn’t change your life, but what if you did a lot of it? And what Harvard-affiliated neuroscientists have shown is that, with our body of practice that we show people, within eight weeks of practice, you will have rewired your brain so much that, in MRI imaging, you can see decreased gray matter in the saboteur region of your brain, increased gray matter in the sage region of the brain.

So, you literally are rewiring your brain so you have stronger Jedi and weaker inner Darth Vader’s, weaker saboteurs.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds delightful. And you’re reminding me of some of the studies on mindfulness meditation, I think, share similar-ish kinds of things in terms of there’s a rewiring of the brain and different regions look different. But I think a lot of people would have a much harder time doing the quiet breath meditation than they would feeling the ridges on their fingertips. So, I like having another tool in the tool belt here.

Shirzad Chamine
It’s exactly right. We even had a CFO of a company, a pretty well-known company, he actually taught, he’s a lifelong meditator, he used to teach meditation every weekend in his city and as a hobby.

And as he went through our training, he ended up saying it was life-changing and one of the reasons was, he said, “I’d learned to energize the positive part of my brain when I was meditating with closed eyes and mantra and music in my meditation room, all that stuff. But when I came to work, work was work. Work was stressful. I couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t do any of that stuff. So, I just didn’t know how to shift my brain activation where it counted the most, which is in the middle of meeting the challenges of my work.”

And what we have taught people is these 10-second exercises, and I just showed you one, there are many others. I can’t tell you how many CEOs, and I’ve been a CEO coach for many years, how many CEOs are sitting in boardrooms around the world and under the table, they’re gently rubbing their two fingertips against each other to make sure they keep cool and do well on a board meeting so they are very effective.

A vast majority of people who start meditation and mindfulness, a vast majority of them quit. They just don’t know how to sustain it. Nobody who has ever learned these 10-second techniques has told us they can’t do it. They continue doing it because it’s so easy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Shirzad, your fingerprints on the world, your legacy, that’s lovely. Well, lay some more of these on us, these 10-second techniques. I mean, I’m loving it. It’s quick, it’s effective. I can even feel it in myself in terms of, you know, we’re chatting, but there’s a little piece of my brain, which is like, “Oh, shucks, this is getting to the end of the day and there’s still a lot of stuff I got to get done.” You know, just a little bit of that, a little bit of that, you know, stress energy hanging out.

And just doing the fingertip stuff, there’s less of that. It’s like, “Oh, well, I will think about those matters later when I’m done speaking with Shirzad.” So that’s awesome. Let’s hear some more.

Shirzad Chamine
Okay. So, you have 10 beautiful toes, and try to find as many of your toes as you can. You may need to wiggle your toes a little to try to find as many of your toes as you can. So become really aware of your toes. Wiggle them if you need to. Try to find and feel as many of them as you can. You may not find and feel all of them, but as many of them as you can would be fine.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s so weird is that some toes really are much easier to find or have awareness of than others.

Shirzad Chamine
I know exactly, right? Some of them hide well.

Pete Mockaitis
Like the big toes are easy-peasy, but those middle guys have some trickiness.

Shirzad Chamine
Exactly. Some hide well. But one thing you can do, so you have been listening to our voices right now, so our listeners have been listening to our voices, and now if you become aware of any ambient sounds in the room. So, you’ve been in whatever environment you’ve been in, but listening to our voices.

Now become really aware of all the other sounds that you can hear. So become aware of all the other sounds that you can hear while you’re also, of course, listening to us. And you’ll notice there are some sounds you have not been hearing, even though they have been all around you.

And now this becomes intentional attention. And, once again, it’s energizing the positive region of your brain and quieting the saboteur region of your brain.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I like that a lot in terms of you’ve given me three exercises, and intentional attention does, indeed, seem to be the thematic link across all three of them, and I guess it’s making sense. As opposed to our inner mental thought spiral of, “Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do about the situation? And this person could be really upset with me for these reasons.”

Shirzad Chamine
Exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis
So, we turn the volume down on all of that and turn the volume up on finger ridges or toes or whatnot.

Shirzad Chamine
Exactly right. And what you’re doing in all three of them, the reason we don’t use meditation mindfulness language is because who knows what meditation mindfulness is. So, the way we talk about this is for 10 seconds, you just took command of your mind. This is what we are building. This is what we are practicing.

Your mind is a dangerous and crazy place and it’s producing between 10,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Depending on which researcher you follow. That’s a lot of craziness because, I mean, think about how many of those thoughts are actually useful. A lot of them are a waste of energy and some of them are quite harmful.

So, the main thing we are doing here is saying, “Your mind is a crazy dangerous place, lots of stuff is happening there that are automatic and not really serving you. And it’s a very critical thing for you to learn how to command your own mind.”

So, when you command your mind to notice your fingertip ridges for 10 seconds, instead of thinking about yesterday and tomorrow, all the stuff that right now is not helping you, you’re becoming a commander of your mind and a commander of your life. And it is a literal muscle. It starts with the prefrontal cortex in the brain and then some other regions of the brain.

You’re actually energizing a part of brain and quieting others. You’re becoming commander of your mind and rewiring your brain to learn to be more and more in command in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Let’s hear some more 10-second exercises.

Shirzad Chamine
This one you can do with people, and so I use this all the time in interaction with people. Remember, these techniques we want to do in the middle of our life rather than when we are in a quiet meditation room.

So, you and I are talking right now, we are seeing each other on video, and so you and I can do this now. As you are looking at me, you have been looking at me, but now pay attention to something you haven’t really noticed in my face, so some real detail you haven’t noticed. Look at me, really look at me, and bring as much of your attention to looking. And in that you’re going to discover details you hadn’t noticed until now.

And as you do that, you are again energizing the positive region of your brain and getting more connected to me, getting more present and connected with me, which means we can have a better interaction. Now notice you can do this in the middle of having a tough conversation with someone. And you can quiet your angry mind or stressed mind by actually really, really looking at some detail in their face. What did you notice, by the way, Pete, that you hadn’t noticed until you started saying this?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I bet you’ve been through this many times, so you won’t be offended by anything I say. Well, I was noticing your beard has some darker portions and some lighter portions.

Shirzad Chamine
Aha. Okay, good.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, whether, what is it, the “Just For Men” or the “Touch of Gray” commercials. The dark says youth and energy, and the light says wisdom and experience. So, you got that going for you.

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, not offended at all. I love it. Awesome. So, you observed something that was…and now as you’re doing it, you were able to still hear me, be connected with me, but you were even more connected because more of your attention was present and connected with me. So, anybody can do this at any time.

And for those who are not in front of somebody to look at, what I would say is, right now, just look at something in front of you, whatever is in front of you, and see details in it that you hadn’t noticed until now. So, whether it’s your phone you’re looking at, your computer screen you’re looking at, the wall you’re looking at, whatever, just really look at some detail you hadn’t noticed until now. And notice what it feels like to be truly looking at things rather than kind of looking at things.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, what’s sort of fun about that is the word epiphany seems too strong, but there’s an emotional sense of surprise and novelty of discovery that somehow feels potent.

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah. Pete, I love how much of a lifelong learner you are. I love that you delight in this. So, let’s go further. Take a look at the palm of your hand right now. And so, everybody in the audience, please take a look at the palm of your hand, and look at it as if it’s the first time you’re looking at the palm of your hand.

And begin to notice all of the lines in the palm of your hand, small lines and longer lines, all the ways they cross-connect and cross sections. Notice that the palm of your hand is not of one color, but many, many shades. Just look at all the shades of the lighting and coloration of the palm of your hand. Notice it’s clearly not flat, but it has all sorts of hills and valleys.

And, very slowly, begin to close down the palm of your hand and see how many muscles get involved as you slowly close down the palm of your hand. This is an absolutely exquisite, exquisite, unbelievable, marvelous thing, creation that you’re carrying with you, the palm of your own hand, with endless beauty and fascination, and we just started really looking at it.

And imagine if there is this much more to discover and be fascinated by in the palm of your own hand, what else is there available to you if you really pay attention as you go through your day every day with yourself, with others, with events and life itself?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, what’s really interesting, Shirzad, as I do this is, it is amazing, the nuances of the hand. And then it’s so funny, is that my brain can almost, by autopilot, go into, “It is amazing. That’s probably why the Tesla people have such a hard time making that Tesla robot, that Tesla Optimus robot. I wonder how they’re doing with that? And I mean, some people say they’re just going to take over the world with these Tesla.”

And so, it’s like, I’m just, it’s a totally different vibe, imagining what’s going to happen with the Tesla Optimus robots as compared to looking at your hand. And to the point about 10,000 plus thoughts a day, I think many of those thoughts are just kind of superfluous and they’re a little bit agitated, you know, like, I’m not worried about the robots taking us over, but it’s like ping pong, pinball bouncing all over-y, and that creates a little bit of a – anxiety is a strong word – but less of a calm, settled, centered, present vibe.

Shirzad Chamine
There actually is a bit of anxiety to it because there is no solidity to it, because it’s all over the place, because it is so random and so all over the place. And we kind of, this is the opposite of feeling centered, opposite of grounded, of that stability that comes with a real presence in the thing that you want.

And I noticed, by the way, you had shared with me right before we started, you said one of your saboteurs was the hyperrational. And the hyperrational, and we just experienced your hyperrational, which is the rational mind is a really, really wonderful tool that you have. You have been partially successful because you have a good rational mind, the rational mind is very helpful.

And yet, in the moment where you’re looking at the palm of your hand in search of the beauty and discovery of this magnificent thing in the palm of your hand, the rational mind of, “I wonder what Tesla is doing with this?” is not really helping. It is the wrong time to use the rational mind. It’s just distracting.

And of course, the bigger challenge with the hyperrational is when it comes to relationships and when it comes to conflict, people with a hyperrational too often think, “Okay, we are having a disagreement here. Okay, I understand, here are the three ways we can fix the problem.”

And the hyperrational goes into rational solution creation for issues of conflict with another human being, paying not as much attention to what truly matters in conflict, which is how the other person is feeling, and really having them feel heard and acknowledged and cared for.

And in that, the hyperrational is trying to solve the problem, and the other person feels that they’re not being cared for, heard, and that there is an intellectual arrogance that’s coming across saying, “I have the answers. Let me tell you.” And it’s all unintended, right? We think, “A rational mind is a good thing. Let’s use it,” but it’s not the right tool at all times, and especially not in relationships and conflicts.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and that is one of the themes inside each of your saboteur profiles is an overused strength.

Shirzad Chamine
Exactly. So the overused strength in the hyperrational is the rational mind being overused and abused. That’s what makes it a saboteur. Another saboteur you shared with me was your pleaser saboteur, which I share with you. I have that, too.

Now the strength that I can guarantee you, if I hear somebody like you has the pleaser saboteur, I can just tell you what I believe is one of your greatest natural strengths. I believe you were born with the predisposition to be very sensitive and kind and giving and empathic. Those are wonderful, wonderful qualities. And those are some of my natural qualities, too.

When taken too far, and overused and abused, they become the pleaser saboteur. When we give and give and give and have a hard time saying no, having a hard time asking, having a hard time setting boundaries, and have a need to be liked as we are giving and to please others, which, of course, again, it costs us and it costs the relationship. So, the overuse of that empathy strength becomes the pleaser. And we can talk about every saboteur in that context.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m curious, with these 10-second exercises and your eight-week program, you mentioned rep, and so I immediately think about strength training, and there’s all kinds of studies about sets and reps and sessions and for maximizing growth or strength or endurance. And so, I’m curious, what’s sort of the volume, if you will, of reps that really makes an impact in reshaping our brains?

Shirzad Chamine
Yeah, what we have learned is that we need about six weeks of practice. In the book, I write about, you know, we have all heard about 21 days in a row of doing a new thing, begins to build enough neural pathways so that the new thing becomes a little bit more automatic, the old thing begins to take a backseat.

But that’s theoretically correct, but in practice what we find is that most people who start getting into a new practice, they have good days and bad days. So, they usually don’t go 21 days in a row doing the new thing and not doing the old thing. It’s a mix, back and forth. And so, what we find is we need you for six weeks of practice.

And during those six weeks, we need you to do about 10 to 15 minutes a day of these exercises of intercepting your saboteur, energizing your sage brain, and choosing more of a sage response. And then the positive ways of your brain have some fighting chance against the negative side because you’re laying neural pathways, building up muscles.

And this brings up the topic of, you know, we call our work mental fitness. And the reason we call it mental fitness is that we really want people to wake up to the fact that a lie you have probably told yourself all your life is that transformation, significant personal transformation, is mostly about insight, “If I do that, read that next book, do that next workshop, listen to that next podcast, and get the aha, I’m done. I’m transformed. I’m much better.”

But the thing is we all have experienced life-changing books, life-changing workshops, life-changing talks, where we say, “Oh, my God, this was life-changing.” Two months later, we are back to the same old behavior. Why? Because our old habits, which are the saboteur habits, they are automatic habits because they have been repeated enough so that they live in the brain in the form of neural pathways that automatically generates those reactions.

You can’t fight the muscle, and those are neural pathways. I call them the muscles and the mental muscles. So, your saboteurs have mental muscles. You don’t fight the muscles of your saboteurs with insight of your sage. You need to fight the muscle of your saboteur with new muscle of your sage. So, you need to build the muscles of your inner sage, inner Jedi.

And what we find is about a minimum of six weeks, about 10 to 15 minutes of practice for you to begin to feel the automaticity of the sage way of doing things against the saboteurs.

Pete Mockaitis
And are these 10 to 15 contiguous minutes or 10 to 15 interspersed throughout the day?

Shirzad Chamine
No, they can be interspersed. We created, when we found out most people can’t do it on their own because there are different things to do, and most people just can’t quite put it all together. So, we have created an app that a lot of organizations like Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, and others are giving to their employees.

The app guides the daily practice. So, we spend a whole week on doing these 10-second exercises, a whole week on focusing, a couple of weeks on focusing on our top saboteurs, and a few weeks of exercising our sage powers, each of the five sage powers, so that it all builds up into the new pathways. So that program ends up lasting six weeks.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Shirzad Chamine
Well, I would love everybody to know that there’s a free saboteur assessment, in five minutes, you can get your saboteur assessment results, see how you self-sabotage, and that’s on PositiveIntelligence.com/assessment. And then if you want to go further, there’s a six-week app-guided program that also is on our website, PositiveIntelligence.com.

And the main thing that I’d love for people to just take out of this is that there’s bad news and good news in the work that we do with you as you get into this, and whether you read the book, or do the saboteur assessment, or do our app-guided program.

The bad news is that, as you get into this, you’ll discover that your saboteurs are far more destructive and damaging to you, to your well-being, and to your performance than you had any clue. That was one of my discoveries, devastating impact. That’s what was happening in the day that I, in the palace coup in my boardroom, my saboteurs were basically destroying my career and they almost destroyed my marriage.

Now the good news is much better than, much stronger than the bad news. The good news is, once you tap into your sage powers, your inner Jedi, you realize you are far more magnificent than you had any clue you are. You really are far more magnificent than you had any clue you are. Your saboteurs have talked you into believing a lot lesser of yourself than you truly are.

So, part of our work is to help you remember who you truly are and who you truly are is far more magnificent than you can remember.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Shirzad Chamine
“All that is not given is lost.”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And a favorite book?

Shirzad Chamine
I think The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle was one that oriented me towards these ways of thinking early on in my practice.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a sound bite or a nugget you share that seems to get repeated a lot and retweeted, and folks are quoting back to you often?

Shirzad Chamine
“Take your hand off the hot stove.” And what we mean by that is that the pain is helpful for you for a second, a split second, because if you put your hand on the hot stove and you don’t feel pain, you’ll keep your hand there and it’ll burn to the bone. So, therefore, pain is very good for you.

Similarly, negative emotions are really, really, really helpful for you. Anger, shame, guilt, disappointment, stress, frustration, all these are very helpful to you as an alert signal that says, “Hey buddy, pay attention.” But if you continue feeling those feelings after that alert is delivered, you’re keeping your hand on the hot stove and wondering why life is so hard.

So, take your hand off the hot stove, feel those negative emotions, learn from the alert signal they’re delivering, then begin to do these 10-second exercises. Shift your brain activation so you shift to the positive part of the brain to figure out how to deal with the thing that’s causing you stress, upset, frustration, guilt, shame, whatever. Take your hand off the hot stove.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Shirzad Chamine
PositiveIntelligence.com and then PositiveIntelligence.com/assessment for the saboteur assessment. And then you can also, in PositiveIntelligence.com, see our app-guided program where you can actually build and rewire your brain.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Shirzad Chamine
You spend every day in some habits that you just assume that they are important for you. They are hygiene habits. You brush your teeth. You brush your teeth, hopefully. Take a shower occasionally. Do physical exercise. There are a lot of things we do, we spend time and effort on. And it is astonishing that we do not spend any concentrated daily practice on mental fitness. We do physical fitness, physical hygiene, but we don’t do mental fitness.

And it’s the big missing, it’s the big thing that we are bringing in. So, I’d love for you to just ask yourself, “How willing are you to actually invest in daily practices that build your mental fitness?” Because from our research, what we are showing is that your mental fitness is foundational to you optimizing, both your well-being and performance and healthy relationships.

Are you willing to invest 10-15 minutes a day? Not just for a day, or for a week, for 6 weeks, but for six years for the rest of your life because that’s what it takes to significantly elevate yourself to a whole new level of mastery and activating your actual potential. That’s what I do every day. It’s in my calendar. I am going to do mental fitness as much as I’m also going to do physical fitness or even these other habits.

So, my challenge to the audience is really look at yourself and say, how much do you want significant shift and transformation? If so, are you willing to build and maintain the mental muscles it takes? Are you willing to commit to mental fitness?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Shirzad, thank you.

Shirzad Chamine
All right, Pete. This has been a pleasure. Wonderful questions. I really enjoyed this.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, welcome!

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about your area of expertise. Your book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, has just taken off tremendously. Congratulations.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
And the title is so good. It’s so funny, Amazon auto-completes if you type, “Don’t believe everything you think.” It’s like, “Nice.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great advertisement, I guess, and a great slogan just to have all over Amazon. It’s what it should be, instead of all the stuff that we don’t need to be buying.

Pete Mockaitis
Don’t buy many other things here.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so can you take us through the journey a little bit of how you and your relationship to thought and the insights that you discovered came to be in your own personal lived existence?

Joseph Nguyen
A lot of what I’ve come to realize comes from, this is not new information. This has been here for eons, thousands of years, from everyone and so many different countries, cultures. I mean, I draw influence from Western philosophy, Eastern philosophies, Zen Buddhism, Christianity. So much cognitive behavioral therapy. Like, you name it, there’s probably some sort of influence there.

But I think the only time that I was able to actually integrate it into my life was when I sort of hit a rock-bottom moment where, after I really tried as much as I possibly could all the options that were available to me, like, I mean, there’s therapy, there’s acupuncture, acupressure, there’s going vegan. I did all these things and it didn’t really quite work until it forced me to look internally.

I was trying to do everything to change everything outside of me, so changing people’s behaviors, how they viewed me, how they judged me, wanting and trying to earn other people’s approval, love, all these sorts of things, all these attempts at finding what could only be found within. So, I think the moment where I kind of hit rock bottom, which was a point in my life where, I mean, I had a business that was growing. It was going great. I accomplished a lot of the goals that I had, but at the cost of my own mental health.

So, every single day, I was just so chronically anxious, borderline depressed. I was probably depressed. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself that that was it. And I just didn’t know when the next client was coming from. I didn’t know if we’re going to have enough money, food. My partner, now wife, she had a lot of physiological illnesses.

So, she had gastroparesis, and so she couldn’t eat, got a feeding tube, hospitalized multiple times. All of that was happening concurrently with, basically, my business falling apart. Then my business partner and I split. I went 50,000 into debt at around 21, 22 years old. And so, all of that happened within a span of about a year.

And so, that was probably the rock-bottom moment that I hit, where I thought, after accomplishing everything that I wanted, that it would give me this internal peace and joy, but it did the exact opposite. And that was because I didn’t realize where peace comes from, and it doesn’t come from manipulating the environment or other people or the world to whatever I think it needs to be. It comes from releasing that desire, that need to change everything outside of me except myself.

So, rock bottom, I think pain is a great motivator and catalyst for change. Most people, like myself, probably wouldn’t change if it wasn’t absurdly painful. So, I’m actually very grateful for those experiences, but it’s quite difficult to go through it. But that was the genesis of the turning point for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, thank you for sharing that. That’s heavy, and it’s a lot. And I think what you’re articulating dead on, we just chatted with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who discussed the arrival fallacy, this notion, “Ah, yes, when this happens, then it’ll be smooth sailing. I’ll be happy. I’ll be free. I’ll be at peace. All my problems will be solved.”

And it just doesn’t work out that way. And sometimes we don’t believe it until, as you’ve said, we experience that pain. We have arrived and go, “Uh-oh, shoot, these feelings are still there, that lack of peace is still there.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So, what then? What happened next?

Joseph Nguyen
So, it basically forced me to look inside, because I was trying all these modalities to help, and they did help to a certain extent, but it didn’t really change that much. And it puzzled me, because I thought to myself, “I surely can’t be the only one going through this. So that’s when I started looking for a lot of different solutions.

And then I started questioning my own experiences, and other people’s experiences too, which is I think most people, if not every single human, goes through extremely difficult and challenging events and times or even traumas.

And so, I started to ask myself and run thought experiments, where it was like, “If two people, have similar traumas, how is it possible that one person can spiral downwards and fall into a deep depression and isn’t really able to get out of it, while another person who has gone through something similar is able to make amends and make peace with the past and become okay with what happened?”

And not only that, but become empowered by what happened and go on to want to help other people not experience the same thing. How is that possible if we can’t go back and change the past? So, neither one of them went back to alter the events in any single way, which means it’s not the events that was changed, but their own thinking about what happened to them.

And so, that sparked an epiphany, which was, our emotions don’t come from external events, they come from our own thinking about the events, which is our own judgments, our own opinions, our own criticisms about the event, or even ourselves and our own thoughts about whatever happened. And so, that was what kind of made a giant light bulb moment for me, which is like, “Oh, my gosh, there’s no way to change the past, but I can always change the way that I’m viewing it. Is this helpful or hurtful? This sort of incessant nonstop negative judgment of life, of myself, of other people?”

And so, that spawned a whole slew of new questions for myself, which was like, “Why do I do that? Why do I constantly wish things were different? Why do I constantly tell myself that I’m not enough, not good enough, not smart enough, not whatever it is, and repeating these stories to myself?” And I never stopped to ask myself, “Is that actually helpful? When has overthinking helped me?”

And so, I realized then that overthinking doesn’t solve problems, it creates them and exacerbates them. And I just didn’t understand that I could just not judge, negatively judge, the things that are happening in my life or myself. That was an extremely liberating moment for me. And, I mean, most of the thoughts that we have, we have over 60,000 thoughts in a single day. How is it possible that every single one of those thoughts is true? There’s no way, right?

And if it were true that we are our thoughts, what happens to the thought that just passed our minds, that just left? We’re still here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d disappear.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re still here, right? So, that means we are something beyond our thoughts. Same thing with emotions. If we are our emotions, if I am depressed, or if I am anxious, if I am those things, or I am happy, what happens when those things pass, anxiety or happiness? I’m still here. How is that possible?

So, we are not our thoughts and we are not our emotions then. We are something greater than that. And that is the feeling and the space that I sink back into to finally find some peace because I realize that everything in life is transient, including our thoughts. And if we are the common denominator that is still here, then those fleeting things can’t be possibly us. That was the eye-opener for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Wow, there’s so much good stuff here, and I’m just drawing all kinds of connections. I recall I was in a therapy session once, and I posed the same question, and it’s like, “So, is it true that, like Nietzsche or Kelly Clarkson says, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Or, is it the opposite experience in which, “No, I had a bad thing happen to me and I’m somehow less strong, weaker, not as capable as a result of the experience”?

So, it’s like, “So which is it? And under what circumstances, and why, and what’s the distinction?” And he didn’t give me the easy answer, “That’s one of the greatest questions of therapy.”

Joseph Nguyen

He was amping you up, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, I mean, and that is one of the assertions, I believe, of cognitive behavioral therapy or of Shakespeare. There’s nothing good or bad, but rather thinking makes it so, and our cognitive distortions or our thoughts about things and judgments shape the emotional reactions and experiences we have. And we had a Navy Seal Alden Mills sharing some similar notions, like, “Hey, is this thought helpful or hurtful? All right. Well, then let’s bring some energy to the helpful thoughts.”

And we got some real wisdom there. It’s, like, we cannot be our thoughts, we cannot be our emotions, because our thoughts and our emotions are ever shifting and changing. And that sounds wise and familiar. Is this coming from a wisdom tradition? Or is this a Joseph original?

Joseph Nguyen
Oh, no, nothing is original from me. Creativity is just a blend of a lot of different parts and combining it into something seemingly new. But it’s all from Eastern philosophy, some Western, right, some Stoicism, Zen, Buddhism, in that there’s tons of psychology in there, right? Like cognitive behavioral therapy uses so much of this in terms of questioning our own thoughts, our own emotions, trying to figure out the root cause of all this. So, all of that, I definitely stand on the shoulders of many, many giants from centuries or millennia.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you put a stake in the ground, and it seems like you’ve got some real conviction here, that it is, indeed, our thoughts and judgments and overthinking, over-thoughts, about a situation that is the source of our depression, anxiety. And I’m thinking, is it the only source, the primary source? Are we sure about this? It sounds true-ish, but what’s our best evidence for it?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, in terms of emotions, there’s no way to really prevent “negative emotions.” Those will always come and go. What I propose in the book is less about preventing them, but to reduce the time spent experiencing those emotions. Because a lot of times, we are replaying and ruminating on memories of the past, and bringing them into the present moment and reliving that experience from a certain vantage point of it, which may or may not be true, I don’t know.

But if it makes us feel a lot of anxiety or depression or resentment, is that possible for us to change? And if so, then how? And so, in the book, I started to realize, like, let’s say there’s a lot of people in veteran hospitals or recovering in Alcoholics Anonymous or tons of people who have been through so many different things. How is it possible that there’s people that have gone through something similar, but then have different results?

So, it’s like, “What are they changing? They’re not going back in the past to do that, so they’re changing something now in the present moment to alter their experience.” And so, that’s where the book is coming from, which is like, “What can we do now that things have happened, and becoming more resilient, right?”

This is building and training emotional regulation and resilience rather than a prevention of emotions in totality, because a lot of times, sometimes emotions are very helpful. They help to protect us. They help give us signs. All emotions are messengers to help us and to show us what we need to pay attention to. That’s all emotions are.

But if we believe them to be the only source of truth and an ultimate conclusion about ourselves, then that’s where we run into trouble. And, let’s say, if we’re really depressed, then we might think about ourselves, and say, “We’re not enough. We’re not lovable. We’ll never find love.” These sorts of beliefs about ourselves, which is what I call “thinking” or “negative judgments,” those things are not necessarily that helpful and they harm us more than help us.

And so, is it possible to let those things go? And if so, how? So, for me, why I use the word “thinking” in particular is because it’s the best word I could find to explain the phenomena of just ruminating negatively on something. So I make a distinction in the book, thoughts versus thinking. A thought is a neutral observation or intuitive prompting about an event that happened.

Pete Mockaitis

“I would like to eat some food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that is a thought.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, that’s a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that could be a desire.

Pete Mockaitis
A thought and a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and then thinking, on the other hand, is a negative judgment about an event or your own thoughts. So, let’s take a scenario.

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m overweight. I shouldn’t eat all this food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Right. See, “should” is a great indicator that we’re thinking, right? That’s usually a preliminary word that we use before we judge ourselves. And so, an example of this is, let’s say it’s raining outside. A thought is, “It’s raining.” That’s a neutral observation. Thinking, on the other hand, would be something like, “Why is this happening? Why does this always happen to me? This rain completely ruined my day. I’m always unlucky like this.”

All of this thinking about the thought of it raining is not as helpful to us and is the source of all this suffering. So, let’s say we did have something planned and it rained and it ruined our day, that’s unfortunate, right? Like, we had plans, we planned for it, but is it possible to not let it ruin our entire day? Is it possible to let go of this emotional suffering within a few minutes?

And so, that’s why I say that’s the thinking part of whatever is going on. And although we can’t change the event or even our initial thought of it, we can always let go of the thinking or judgment about whatever is going on, and that’s where the power lies. For example, thoughts have no power over us unless we believe them to be true, right? So, the belief in the judgment is what causes this suffering and is the difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, now, as you use the word “thinking,” I am wondering if we could have other, do some other thinking, or judging about the rain in a positive fashion, in terms of, “At last, the crops will be nourished by this rain,” or, “You know what, let’s just frolic like a child.”

And so, in your definition, would you still call that thinking even though it has maybe a positive vibe or feeling associated with it?

Joseph Nguyen
I think there’s two different categories of what we can call positive thinking. On one hand, it could just be an intuitive prompting. An example of that would just be, “It’s raining. Let’s go outside and play in the rain.” It doesn’t necessarily have to skew towards, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened in the entire world.”

See, like where we can over-exaggerate positive thinking is equally where we can fall short of it because who’s to say it is the best thing in the entire world? Because if it’s raining here, it might flood somewhere else. So, it’s very difficult to just, ultimately and conclusively, say if this is good or bad. And so, if we are overly positive about something, then it opens us up for, “Well, what if that might not be the case?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, so it might feel good, but we’re not necessarily getting closer to truth or accurate representation of reality.

Joseph Nguyen
Correct, yeah. And we can skew both ways, and that’s when positive thinking can then open us up all sorts of cans of worms. But that’s not to say that positive thinking doesn’t work, and I don’t want to say that at all. It certainly does work, but the question is, “Is it sustainable? And is it based in reality?” So, if we observe the rain, and we’re like, “Oh, look, it’s like nourishing the crops,” like that’s a neutral and true observation, like it is feeding the plants and all that stuff, and we can feel good about that.

But what I also observed as well was, once we let go of the negative judgment about things, we are naturally at peace. We are naturally more joyful. We skew towards that way. And if you look at children that are a couple years old, they skew towards happiness. They’re smiling, they’re happy, unless they’re like hungry or like something is physiologically wrong. They’re generally just very positive, very happy, laughing all the time.

And that’s our natural state as well if we don’t negatively judge whatever situation is going on. If we let go of worrying about the future or ruminating and resenting the past, that is our default state. So, you don’t necessarily have to try to be positive. And other examples I love giving is, think about or recall a time where it’s like you were very anxious, or stressed, or overwhelmed. Like, how much thinking is going on?

Pete Mockaitis
Plenty.

Joseph Nguyen
Too much, right? But then if we flip and invert the question, recall a time when you were your happiest, in a total state of flow, and you lost track of time, how much thinking was going on then?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s, I guess per your definition of thinking, like, very little. Although, if you’re in a flow and doing a thing, you naturally have to—

Joseph Nguyen
You’re having thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you’re having thoughts, but you’re not thinking in the Joseph-sense of the word.

Joseph Nguyen
Right, you’re not negatively judging the thoughts or experience that you’re having. You’re just in it, you’re fully immersed. That’s when you lose a sense of self, actually, and that’s when we are no longer psychologically suffering. And some people in the spiritual community will call this like the death of the ego. It’s when you just dissolve and you feel at one with everything. That’s what flow is and why a lot of times people will say like that’s this ideal state for humans to be in.

Athletes experience this very often when they’re in and playing a game during a competition. They’re not so much thinking about what’s going on. They are just intuitively responding and being there. And that’s like our ideal state that we’re in. Actually, the times that athletes think too much, they tend to miss the shots, or think too much about something and overanalyze, and that’s when they freeze and choke when they could have definitely done something different.

The same thing is true for our own lives. The more that we constantly just ruminate, judge, and criticize ourselves, other people, events, we tend to freeze, and go into fight-or-flight mode, and act as if our life really is in danger, and operate from a place of fear rather than love and expansion and joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Joseph, we’re getting near a zone I’ve been pondering for a while, which is, you talk about when we feel a sense of peace or joy and flow, contentment. And I’ve been reflecting on the distinction between contentment and boredom. Because, in terms of an external view of the situation, they’re almost the same.

It’s like, “Nothing’s really happening right now.” And yet, when we feel bored, we’re restless, agitated, and, I guess, negatively judging, “I don’t like that nothing’s going on right now,” versus when we are content, it’s like, “Ah, nothing’s going on right now.” And that feels restful, rejuvenating, restorative, and we like and appreciate the space that we find ourselves in.

So, I guess that is perhaps one of many examples of the judgment we bring to a situation, shaping it, but I’d love your pro tip. If we find ourselves bored and would rather be content, what should we do?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, great question. So, boredom is not necessarily a bad thing. Boredom, a lot of times, is the birth of creation, new things, new hobbies, new thoughts, new ideas. If we’re not bored a lot of the time or sometimes, then we’re actually just recycling a lot of the same material from the past and constantly going and we feel like we’re in the hamster wheel. So, boredom is not necessarily bad. And when you see kids get bored, what do they do? They invent.

Pete Mockaitis
They invent some games.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly. That’s what humans do. When we’re bored, we create, and so it acts as a great motivator. But where things can go a little bit south is when we say, “Oh, instead of being content with what’s happening right now,” let’s say we’re on vacation, “I should be working. If I’m working these hours, I could make so much more money or I have all these emails I need to get to.”

You’re not able to actually enjoy yourself in the present moment, and you’re constantly thinking about the future and all these things you need to get done, that’s when the “boredom” or what we would call that in that case, that’s when it robs our peace and takes it away from us is when we think we need to be doing something else other than what we’re currently doing or experiencing.

So, in that case, what I love recommending to do is just to schedule those things and just, like, if you’re on vacation, like that’s the boundary you need to draw for yourself. But if we don’t draw boundaries, it will creep in. All of these beliefs that we have, all these negative judgments that we have about ourselves or what we should and shouldn’t be doing, they will come in unless we set that boundary for ourselves.

Like, “If I’m on vacation, my phone is off,” or, “I’m not taking emails or whatever it is.” But without those, they will creep in and they will start to fester and become uncontrollable at that point. And this is really a practice of presence more than anything else. Are we able to do and give our full attention to what is happening right now in front of us? Or, are we distracted and thinking about something else in the meantime?

Peace comes from being present. It is a natural byproduct of doing so. The more that we are able to do that, that’s the happier we will be, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m reminded of the Scientific Journal article, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind,” which, I think it was Kahneman and company looked at just that in terms of empirically checking with people and, “Hey, what are you doing? What are you thinking about?” and seeing the results. So, that’s that there. When you say boundaries, my first thought is sort of external things, like, “I will not be picking up my smartphone,” “I will not be answering emails on vacation.” Do you have some thoughts for boundaries we have, like with ourselves and our own thoughts or experiences?

Joseph Nguyen
Those are the most important boundaries because we can change everything external but if we don’t change anything internally then we’re still going to suffer a lot emotionally. So, some of the most important internal boundaries that you so aptly alluded to are the judgments that we’re making that is really at the core of our emotional suffering, of our resentment towards others, to ourselves.

If we don’t draw that boundary, and say, like, “We will no longer judge ourselves in this light,” then we’re going to keep doing it. And we do this mostly because we’re not even aware that there’s an option out, that, “Oh, we can just not judge everything that’s going on? Like, there’s a way that, as I go about my life, I don’t have to constantly narrate and say this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong, this should be happening, this shouldn’t be happening?”

We just aren’t taught that. Most people just don’t know, and I wasn’t aware of that until I was basically smacked in the face with it and had to hit rock bottom to find it. But that is probably the most important boundary to set, which is, “Can we let go of the judgments that we’re having about ourselves, the world, whatever’s happening? Are we able to enjoy it as it is?”

When we go about life, most of the time we judge everything, “This person’s good,” “This person’s bad,” “This person’s evil,” “This person’s not,” “This is beautiful or ugly.” Like, there are so many things that happen. But when we walk in nature, like how many of us are saying, “This flower is ugly. This flower is like beautiful,” or, like, “This tree is crooked or what”?

Like, we just observe and enjoy nature as it is rather than constantly pick apart every single thing that we think is wrong with this tree. As soon as we do that, that’s when we suffer. So, nature is a great way to reset because of that and it brings us back to our true nature, ironically, of just being aware and giving our full attention to someone without judging them. That’s what the basis of love is, unconditional love, which is to fully accept someone as they are without wanting to change them, without wanting them just to be something different.

Full acceptance of that is where peace comes from. This not only goes for people, but for situations, anything. That is the root of unconditional love. And use that thought experiment for yourself. Like, when do you feel most loved by someone? When they’re constantly judging you, nagging you, saying you should do this, saying you should be different, you should be better, you should be doing any of these things, or when they fully accept you as you are without judging? That is the goal of everything.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. My children would say, when we do hugs and kisses in flying blanket mode.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
But it falls into a subcategory of what you’re describing. I like that notion about the narration that we’re just doing it all the time, and it might not even seem too intense, like, “I’m such a stupid idiot.” But even just like, “Oh, oh, oh, the sun is kind of in my eyes. Oh, it’s kind of hot. Like, oh, I’m getting tired.”

Like, there you are in nature, you might not be condemning the tree for being crooked, but we are narrating and judging – well, I am often – experiences they’re in, in terms of like the air temperature or the illumination that is not perfectly aligned to the preferences I have in that moment.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and that’s where all the suffering comes from, is just what we wish would happen, what we want the world to be. But peace comes from letting go of what we wish everything would be and accept it for how it actually is. And, yes, same goes for anything in life, people, even ourselves. In AA, like one of the first steps is acceptance. The five stages of grief, acceptance is what you’re trying to go for.

And in CBT, acceptance of whatever emotions we’re feeling is also a core component of the whole process. So, at the end of it all, like all these different modalities are pointing to the same thing, which is, “Can I let go of the judgment that I’m having of whatever is happening and going on?” Once we’re able to let go of that thinking mind, the fear-based mind and the judgmental mind, then we’re able to find a little peace.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you said that we have the option to stop the narration, and I am a frequent Audible listener who likes to pause my audiobooks. And I understand you’ve got a little acronym you can walk us through.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes, exactly. So, this acronym, I tried to make it as actionable as possible in terms of, I mean, what we’re doing is letting go of the judgments. That’s the whole purpose of this. And so, this makes the act of letting go a little bit more tangible. So, the first letter in the acronym is P, which is pause. So, pause and take deep breaths, and you don’t need to get fancy with it. Just take five deep breaths. There’s no specific way you need to do it.

But it’s been scientifically proven that taking deep breaths allows us to lower our heart rate, to regulate our emotions, and to come back to center. So, just do that in the beginning of anything, because it’s really hard to regulate or do anything or make decisions or come back to yourself when we’re in a fight or flight mode. Next is A, which is ask ourselves, “Is this thinking useful?” Just like the other psychologists you mentioned before, like, “Is this thinking making me feel the way that I want?” If not, the next step is U, which is understand that you have the ability to let that thinking or judgment go. We always have that power. We may not be able to control our thoughts, but we can always control our thinking about the thoughts, and therein lies our entire power to change our experience of life.

S is, say and repeat the mantra, “Thinking is the root cause of suffering.” You can use any mantra in this matter. Another one, for example, would be, “I let go and choose peace.” Any mantra rooted in truth will work, and it needs to be short and memorable. What mantras do is that it’s very difficult to think of two things simultaneously.

So, what it does is it focuses your attention on this one thing, which means you can’t be thinking about the future or ruminating about the past. So, it forces focus and attention on something that is true. So, repeating that for maybe 30 seconds to a minute is really all you need, and that will slow the thinking mind. It will calm things down significantly.

That’s the basis of Transcendental Meditation as well, what a lot of the Tibetan monks use to go beyond the mind and to achieve oneness with the universe. But we take it here and you’re able to use it in real time.

Then E, the last step is to experience your emotions fully without resistance. So, we’re not trying to bypass the emotions by just not thinking about it. We’re actually removing the judgment of the emotions because what we resist persists. So, if we are resisting the anxiety, it usually gets worse, which is why a lot of times, when someone has a panic attack, they’re much more prone to more panic attacks simply because that’s how, it’s just like self-fulfilling, so to speak.

It’s like once we experience something and don’t want it to happen, we just put up a wall and just constantly resist it. But in physics, an object in motion will stay in motion, right? But also, for every force, there’s an equal and opposite force happening. So, if you have this force of an emotion and you’re resisting the emotion, that emotion is going to constantly be there and it’s going to stay stuck unless it passes through your system.

Anything that is stuck creates a significant amount of suffering. So, for a slightly more comical and light-hearted example is, like, if you eat a lot of food and it doesn’t pass through your system, what happens? Like, a week, a month passes, it’s going to be very painful and it’s going to cause all sorts of issues.

The same thing is true for our thoughts and emotions. The more that we hold on to our thoughts and don’t let them pass through, the more it’s going to cause us a lot of emotional suffering. Thoughts, emotions, all these things are transient and meant to pass through us, just like water flowing through a river.

As soon as a river is dammed up, that’s when wildlife begins to dwindle, fish begin to die, all these things start to happen. But as soon as the river is able to flow, that’s when life begins to flourish. That is the same thing for our own lives. So, letting thoughts and emotions pass through us without resistance. So, the way to do that is to create space within ourselves, to honor and hold the emotions, and to not judge them.

See them as another entity, like our inner child, or even one of our own children, and to hold them within our hearts, and to give them space to be there, without judging them, without saying, “You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here again?” That’s what we say to these emotions a lot of times, like, “Why are you still here, anger?” And we’re angry at the anger, and so it just compounds.

But as soon as we say, “Oh, you’re welcome here. You’re not an enemy. It’s okay.” As soon as you give children space, time, and attention, things begin to settle and we’re able to regulate. The same thing is true for all of our emotions and it passes so much more quickly when we’re doing this rather than kind of putting up a wall. So that’s the whole entire process.

Pause, take deep breaths. A, ask yourself, “Is this thinking helpful or useful?” U, which is understand you have the ability to let that thinking go. S, which is say and repeat the mantra. And E, which is experience your emotions fully without resistance.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. And if I may put some numbers into this, so you had a mantra, I counted, it was about seven words. Is that around the length that we’re thinking about? Like, if you push it to 20, it’s outside mantra zone?

Joseph Nguyen
Probably. It just creates so much more thinking and you’re probably going to have to try to remember, “Am I saying it right? Did I forget a word?” And you’re trying to make it as simple as possible so that you don’t have to overthink it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then with experience, I think when I’ve resisted, historically, it’s been almost out of a fear that, “If I begin to experience this sadness, this sorrow, this grieving at this deeply unfortunate thing that has occurred, then will it swallow me? Will it persist for a long time and impact the things I need to do this day, this week, this month?”

And so, I can sometimes push away. But you say with the water flowing situation, and that which we resist persists, we are better off experiencing it fully. I mean, Joseph, for those fellow aversive pushers, away-ers…

Joseph Nguyen
Master push-up-ers, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
…how long are we in for a rough emotional experience if we allow it to hang out?

Joseph Nguyen
I will say shorter than if you’re resisting it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Joseph Nguyen
So, the irony in it is that, when we’re pushing it away, we think that we’re not dealing with it but we’re still suffering. We’re constantly thinking about it, we’re wishing it were different, we’re ruminating on it constantly, but what we don’t understand is that when we just allow it to be there, that it passes so much more quickly.

I think neuroscience is saying now that it takes about 90 seconds for an emotion to be regulated in our bodies. The only reason why it’s prolonged most of the time is that we begin ruminating on the event or judging the situation that happened, and it resets that time period. So, we’ll go 90 seconds, and right before that, we think about it again, we’ll judge it again, and it keeps prolonging the cycle.

And so, it only takes a few minutes to do this and to let go, and it’s not like the entire emotion will go away, but the intensity of the emotion will be drastically reduced than what it was when we were resisting. And, over time, as you build the muscle of emotional resiliency and emotional regulation, it becomes a little bit easier to do every single time. And the threshold in which we become overwhelmed is significantly expanded, so we can take on a lot more in life.

We’re able to do a lot more. We’re able to endure a lot of these events with a lot more grace and a lot more love. But, yeah, it’s definitely scary to kind of allow these emotions to come in because we think that we might not be able to handle it. We might crumble under the emotion. But you have to ask yourself, like we were saying before, like, “Am I my thoughts? Am I this emotion?”

And think about all the difficult times and trauma that you’ve been through, and all the trauma, like, you’re still here. So, I mean, you’re greater than every single emotion that you’ve ever experienced. And the same is true now and it will ever, and it will be true forever because those things are not us.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful stuff. Could you share any final thoughts before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, I would run micro-experiments with yourself. Like, you actually don’t have to believe anything that I’m saying, ironically, like the book title. Test it out for yourself. See if it’s true, if thinking is the root cause of your emotional suffering. And the way that you can test this out is to try to suspend judgment, negative judgment about yourself, your own thoughts, your own emotions, external things, people, circumstances.

See if you can suspend judgment for about seven days. That’s it. You don’t have to do a month. You don’t have to do a year. Just see if you can let go of the judgments that your mind is creating, for seven days and see how you feel afterwards. If it significantly improves your emotional well-being, awesome! Continue doing it.

And if it doesn’t, that’s completely okay, and you can find another modality that might work for you. But at the very least, try it and see what happens. And it is only through our own lived experience that you know what truth is, rather than just taking someone’s word for it. So, that’s what I would encourage everyone to do, and just see for yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Joseph Nguyen
One of my favorite quotes is actually in the book, which is from Jonathan Safran Foer, which is, “I think, I think, I think. I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, very good. Very good. Thank you. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Joseph Nguyen
The neuroscience study that I was alluding to before, I don’t know exactly what experiment it was.

But they were studying about how long it takes for our emotions to actually pass through our systems, and it was about 90 seconds, which was mind-boggling to me because I thought it would take, you know, like multiple minutes or at least like, I don’t know, 10 minutes, for like, if you’re angry of something, like it feels like it takes way longer than 90 seconds.

So, that was a profound shift in me to realize that, “Oh, my gosh, like it is possible to let go of a lot of these emotions quite quickly.” And it’s actually important to follow this. You don’t have to follow this process, specifically, but you can follow any process, but it’s really important to do it in real time as you’re going about your day.

So, this process is, if you’re experiencing something in traffic, or your boss says something, or your parents say something, or your friends says something that creates a negative emotional reaction within you, it’s important to use the process then rather than only use it in the morning or in the evening like meditating, right?

That way you are actually strengthening your emotional resiliency throughout the entire day. It’s a little bit easier to find peace when you’re alone in your room and it’s dark, your blindfolds are on, there’s like Zen music, right? It’s like a little bit easier to find peace there, but the true test is, “Are you able to find peace while also, like let’s say your boss is screaming at your face, or making fun of you, or your friends are doing something that you don’t really approve of, or your parents are criticizing you in front of other family members?

That’s the time that you’re truly tested for, if you’re able to find peace. And this is something that you can use during those times rather than you need to bust out like a 30-minute meditation just to find a little bit of alleviation. So, that’s one other thing I would do, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And a favorite book?

Joseph Nguyen
This one’s very interesting, maybe slightly controversial, but it currently is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Joseph Nguyen
I like to use this particular framework on just when I’m doing work because I have issues, a lot of times. Just like procrastinating like most people or just putting off things that I know I need to be doing. And one of the most effective things that I’ve done is to follow the SPA methodology, which is just, if I’m overwhelmed by something, just take the next smallest possible action, so SPA, and doing that.

So, if it’s, “I need to write another book,” that’s a pretty big task, pretty scary, daunting, and it’s like, “Am I able to bust out a whole book in this one session?” Now, that’s typically what the mind thinks of. But if I break it down to the smallest possible action, like, “Am I able to just open the Word document? Can I just do that?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I can definitely click on Notion and open it up. I can definitely do that.” And if I still can’t do that, “Can I just sit at the computer desk?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Joseph Nguyen
So just keep breaking it down.

Pete Mockaitis
“Sit up from the couch.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, right? Sometimes it’s really hard. And so, it’s okay if we need to break it down into those baby steps, but that works wonders for me. So, it’s like, “Can I write one sentence?” And when I write one sentence, I’m going to want to write another sentence, like I’m just going to go.

And, lo and behold, there’s like a couple dozen sentences, a couple hundred words pass, and that was way more progress than if I force myself sit down and write my book. That’s a big task. So, smallest possible action is what I like to default to when I am frozen in procrastination or analysis paralysis.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, you hear it quoted back to you often?

Joseph Nguyen
Our emotions don’t come from external events, but from our own thinking about those events. That is something that people just didn’t really realize, and so it’s like a massive epiphany moment for them. Other ones are just like, “I didn’t realize that I could just stop judging. I had no idea I could just not listen to that incessant negative critic in the back of our minds, and that I could just be and just be present. I don’t have to be thinking about something else or doing something else. I can let go of whatever that incessant chatter is, and to finally find a little bit of peace.”

Yeah, that big epiphany was like, oh, yeah, during the times that we are happiest, like we’re not really thinking about anything else, or ruminating on anything. We’re just there, fully engrossed by the moment. And so, those are probably like some of the biggest nuggets that people have gotten.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to get in touch or learn more, where would you point them?

Joseph Nguyen
Probably, I would say my website and newsletter, so JosephNguyen.org, J-O-S-E-P-H N-G-U-Y-E-N.org. You’ll be able to find like my newsletter there, sign up for it. I do have a YouTube channel. I don’t post that often but a lot of the content there is evergreen. All my socials are just itsjosephnguyen, I-T-S and then Joseph Nguyen. Those are probably the best places to find me, but email is where you’ll be able to be up-to-date on any new projects I’m working on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Joseph Nguyen
Let go of the fear of being judged. The more that we’re afraid of being ourselves, to be awesome at our jobs, the less effective we’ll be. And sometimes being ourselves will ruffle a few feathers. People will judge us one way or the other, even if we’re playing conservatively and not really showing that much at work.

People are still judging us anyway. So, we might as well be judged and criticized for being who we truly are rather than masquerading ourselves behind something else. And the more that you’re able to be yourself, the more awesome you’re going to be at your job, the more that you’re able to lean into your own gifts, your own talents, your abilities. All of that is usually held back if we’re afraid of what other people are thinking.

So, stand up for yourself, do what you believe is best for the work that you’re doing, and definitely defend it, and to not just let it be pushed over. Because at the end of the day, if you’re coming from a place of love, generosity, true selflessness, and wanting to do the best that you possibly can, there’s no shame in that at all. So, if you’re going to be criticized, definitely be criticized for doing what you believe is right, rather than hiding behind and playing it small.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful. Thank you.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been such a pleasure and so much fun with you. I love your energy.

Pete Mockaitis
Francesca, welcome.

Francesca Sipma
Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to chat through your book and your discoveries around Unblock Your Purpose: Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State. Could you maybe share with us for starters your journey, the short version, with regard to how did you stumble upon this protocol? And what’s it doing for people?

Francesca Sipma
Yes. So, a little bit about my background is I actually come from advertising and marketing in Manhattan, and sort of hit a lot of my goals, and found myself at the peak of the mountaintop, so to say, and just felt quite empty and unfulfilled. And that really took me on a quest to rediscover my values and to sort of pivot my career into something that would bring me more fulfillment.

And that’s when I discovered breathwork and was completely fascinated by this practice. It took me really deep into my subconscious, and was extremely revealing of things that needed to heal in order to tap into my highest clarity and intuition. And the breathwork really helped me discover my life’s purpose, which gave me a lot of meaning and fulfillment. And now it’s my quest to share that with others.

Pete Mockaitis
How does breathing help us get to our purpose?

Francesca Sipma
So, breathwork reveals sort of your subconscious motivations and anything that’s unhealed in past relationships, and also a bit how your identity has been formed. So, in order for you to discover your purpose, which my definition of purpose is really the convergence of your skills, your experiences, obstacles you’ve overcome, and how you turned that outwards to be of service, you have to get to know yourself a bit.

You have to go through the defense mechanisms, the ego, any protective strategies that have been built. And breathwork has this really unique and profound ability to cut through the conscious mind, and it allows us to go deeper into emotions that have been repressed, and the exhale really allows us to clear out any sadness or guilt, subconscious limitations, and it just reveals more truth. It reveals our authenticity.

And when we do that consistently, the dots start to connect between the things that really light us up and how we can contribute to the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Francesca, help me out. I’ve been breathing for a long time but I don’t think breathing has ever done that for me. Am I doing it wrong? Or what’s the missing link here?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, it’s a very specific style that we do. Breathwork has really become an umbrella term, and there’s a lot of different practices and processes, and most of it has really been for calming and for anxiety and stress relief. But the style of breathwork that we work on is called HypnoBreathwork. And so, the breath is really more of an experiential therapy. It’s very intense to inhale one exhale for about 20 minutes, and that really starts to disrupt your conscious mind and those habitual thought loops.

And then we bring in hypnotic suggestions, which are vocal cues that allow you to really focus and concentrate your brain on very specific prompts, and that might reveal what you wanted to be when you were younger, or how your skills can connect into something that you’re passionate about. And then we have visioning, which we really bring at the end of a session so that people can mentally rehearse their goals.

They can see the highest version of themselves. They can get clear action steps on what they want to create in the future. And it’s a hyper-efficient and effective 22-minute process, and each session sort of has a theme or a topic of things that we move and get clarity on. And when you do that daily, you can make a lot of progress in your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that’s really intriguing. Well, so we’ve had Marc Shoen on the show, who is a clinical psychologist who does hypnosis, and that was cool. And then we had Dr. Sam Rader share about some of the, I don’t know if I want to say metaphysical, but she’s in the wellness space, talking about some of this stuff. And so, for those who are skeptical, reluctant, think that sounds a little, I don’t know, out there woo-woo, whatever term du jour, could you share any evidence, or science, or goodness that says, “No, for real, this really does stuff”?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, I totally get that perspective. I was extremely skeptical as well when I went to Bali and discovered breathwork. I was pretty self-righteous, to be honest. I had been in therapy and read a lot of self-help books, and thought it was going to be some form of meditation or yoga. But through my experience, I found it was much more deeper than that, and it was very cathartic, and it was very healing.

And then I went to study it around the world. I went to India, I went to Peru, I went to Thailand, I went to every workshop and training, and read every breath book that I could find, and I came to understand that what’s happening in our bodies, physiologically, is we are changing the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

And when you do that, your blood becomes more alkaline, and you start to shut down the prefrontal cortex. And that’s the default mode network, that’s the overanalytical mind, that’s doing things from past experience, that’s expectations of how things have been done before, and you start to activate and you start to stimulate different regions and areas of your brain. And it’s a bit like microdosing.

When you start to activate old memories and information and knowledge and infinite intelligence, all of a sudden, you get this expansive worldview. You get more perspective. So, I actually use breathwork for peak performance. I use it to get into flow state for my business to be sharper, clearer, more articulate, problem-solving, decision-making.

And what I find is it allows me to be more creative because it’s connecting more dots. Because everything that you’ve ever studied, or been inspired by, or read, or listened to, it all lives in your subconscious mind, which is the record holder of your experiences and your emotions. And when you can breathe past that default mode network, and you can start to stimulate these different regions, all of a sudden, those different elements will connect in you in creative ways.

So, it’s like, “Oh, that one episode that I listened to on Pete’s podcast, if I did that for this passion project, and I monetize like this, and this is my acquisition strategy, and I sent this email out, and I was inspired by that social media billboard, and maybe those are the colors,” all of a sudden, you get hyper-creative, and it’s a very efficient and very effective process.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Francesca, that sounds awesome. I enjoy when my brain just makes all the connections from a lot of things. It’s a great feeling, like, “Aha,” when insights and things are unlocked, and when goodness flows.

Francesca Sipma
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And the research on hypnosis says kind of that same thing with regards to hypnosis is just kind of a state of mind in which we are more accepting or open to receiving suggestion. And so, sometimes that’s used in kooky stage hypnosis context, but it can actually be super useful in terms of practical life context for any number of things.

I think I found it best when it’s like there’s a thing that I know to be true, and yet it doesn’t feel true in terms of, like, my insides, how I’m operating, how I’m emotionally reacting naturally to things. And hypnosis can be handy for that with regard to, say, handling criticisms, like, “Oh, I know that someone is not the judge, jury, executioner, end all, be all with regard to their opinion of me or my performance on a thing.”

And yet, sometimes, it feels though like they are, like that is true, but, no, it’s not true. And then hypnosis seems to have a cool way of letting those suggestions really go deeper and hit home. And it sounds like what you’re saying is, with a particular breathing approach stacked on top of that, it’s like we’re getting even more deeper penetration.

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, you’re really hitting the nail on the head. I love hypnotherapy and all of the sessions that I had sort of gone through in my exploration, but what I found was, for a lot of the sessions, it would take 60 minutes to two and a half hours, and I just didn’t think that bringing that back to the States into modern audience, and especially with my New York friends and people in finance, that they would spend that much time on their personal development.

So, I started to experiment with an EEG headband and test my brainwaves. And theta brainwaves are where you want to get to an order for the suggestions to really stick, in order for you to access those deeper states where you’re less defensive, and you are more open to that suggestion.

And with the conscious connected breathing, when you do the two inhales and one exhale, what I found consistently was I could get into theta state within four minutes versus when I would do it in meditation, which it would be about 15 minutes and I was still oscillating between alpha and beta brainwaves, which means you can negate the suggestion.

Which means, if I say, “Get to the root of procrastination. And what would it look like to finish that task? And what would that confidence feel like in your body?” you’re much more likely to be able to go and see that version of yourself, see yourself on stage, feel the emotion like you already have it, and it can actually stick versus feeling like you’re fighting against the current.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you’re using the EEG headband and you’re saying the theta waves roughly corresponds in the app to the calm portion of that. And you’re saying that by doing this breathwork, you’re able to land to that calm zone way faster than just meditating.

Francesca Sipma
Yes, exactly. Precisely.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. And I saw a fun dorky blogpost about meditation tournament, and, the irony of it all, they called it March Mindfulness, and they talked about how it can be very easy to game those if you’re doing the calibration with your eyes open. So, tell us a little bit about that nuance. Is this all eyes closed? I even see in your videos people have eye masks on. Is that right?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, we like to place a really comfortable eye mask on, make sure that you are laying down, make sure that you’re very comfortable and cozy. A lot of people like to have a blanket with them during a breathwork session, or a box of tissues because it can be a very intense journey. But breathwork is very different than meditation. I want to be really clear in that distinction.

In meditation, you are taking more of a passive state. You’re maybe observing your thoughts, you’re maybe trying to focus on a mantra, you’re may be focusing on your breath and allowing things to pass or de-trigger yourself, where breathwork is extremely active. It is very intense. You will feel physical vibrations sort of moving through your body, especially for your first three sessions.

You might feel like your hands are clamping up. You’ll feel tingling around your face. You might feel emotions and energy moving through your chest or your stomach, and that’s really stress and emotion that’s been buried and have been stagnant that wants to remove and that wants to release. And the way that we position the HypnoBreathwork sessions, it’s really for you to become more self-aware and maybe observe those psychological patterns and expand your mind into a new way.

So, it’s very active, it’s very intense, it’s very physical. And I think that’s why people are so intrigued by the practice, and they can maybe stick with it longer than meditation. I get the same feedback all the time, “It’s so hard for me to meditate. I can’t calm down my mind. I’m constantly running my to-do list,” and people will give up on the meditation.

But with the breath, because it’s so physical, because at least you can tell that something is happening in your body, and at the end of it, you’ll at least, at the very, very minimum, feel so much lighter and so much clearer. It’s a better habit, I think, for people to start on their personal development journey because they’ll stick with it long enough to start to experience some results.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s paint a real clear picture here then. This sounds swell. So, we’re lying down, we’re comfy, we got a blanket or something, we got eye mask, so we got sort of nice visual stimuli all kind of blocked away, and then we’re doing this breathing, two inhale, one exhale. Could you give us a demo on that?

Francesca Sipma
Yes. So, it’s an inhale into your belly, inhale into your chest, and exhale. And your inhales are done through your nose, and your exhales through your mouth. So, it’s looks like inhale belly, inhale heart, exhale, inhale belly, inhale chest, exhale. And another key differentiator in the style of breathwork we teach is music is a really big part of it.

So, we might play more Shamanic beats if we’re doing a healing session from your past. We might play Adele or Celine Dion if we’re going through relationships and healing heartbreak. We might play more of like a Rufus Du Sol and ethereal, cinematic Braveheart Soundtrack type of tunes if we’re getting into your most powerful state or seeing your 2025 roadmap for your business. So, the music and the topics really shape the vocal cues and the journey. It’s very specific and it’s very customized.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, with that two inhales, one to the belly/diaphragm, one to the chest/heart, and then the exhale, is there a pace we’re aiming for?

Francesca Sipma
It’s a good question. I think that I try to let people go at a pace that they’re really comfortable with to start because I’d rather they stay for the whole journey and experience the benefits than push them too hard on the first one. I definitely work with a lot of athletes and peak performers who are pumping their breath extremely fast, and they’re feeling sort of an out-of-body experience really early on because they’re breathing in such an accelerated fashion.

But honestly, you can take it fairly slow, a place that feels good and feels comfortable, and you’ll still be able to access those deeper brainwaves states for the emotional breakthroughs and insights. So, this pacing is nice, with a medium pace, inhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale. That’s sort of an ideal middle.

Pete Mockaitis
And as you’re doing it, I imagine there’s probably some group effects in terms of the rhythmic groove, and you talk about these beats. Well, now you reminded me, a buddy of mine mentioned he did, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing these words right, holotropic breathwork and SOM. Is that the same thing as this or is that different than this?

Francesca Sipma
That’s sort of the OG, like that’s the grandfather of breathwork, so definitely huge respect to Leonard Orr and to Stan Grof, sort of the grandfathers of that practice. Stan Grof was a clinical psychologist who studied LSD in the ‘60s and then created holotropic breathwork as a psycho-spiritual way for people to do deep trauma healing and see childhood memories, and become higher versions of themselves, and really access those altered states of consciousness.

So, that’s the first breathwork that I ever experienced, and I did seven sessions in Bali at a private breathwork retreat, which is why I became so in love with the practice. But what we’ve done now is we’ve really modernized it. Holotropic breathwork can also last 60 to 90 music. Typically, the music doesn’t have any lyrics in it, and there’s also no vocal guidance or cues, and there’s sort of a signature effect of drawing a mandala after your experience to really help you integrate and sort of hold onto the internal events that had just taken place.

Pete Mockaitis
What is a mandala?

Francesca Sipma
It’s basically a visual representation. You use different either crayons or markers and a white sheet of paper to just create a visual to sort of cement or integrate the practice for you. When I had my first experience with that, I was writing words and trying to understand the different colors and the different memories that I had seen, and the teacher was like, “No, just draw, like, a visual representation of it.” And I was like, “I’m not an artist. I don’t know what that means. And I’m trying to understand my physical limit, my psychological limitations.”

And so, that’s when I really noticed that I had this ability and this desire to really connect the dots between an experience and truly changing your life, and that’s when hypnosis became also foundational in the practice, as well as visioning, or visualization.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it sounds like this is powerful for you and for many of the folks you’re working with. Do we have any juicy published science on this goodness?

Francesca Sipma
Well, Stanford Research just came out with a study recently through, I believe, at the beginning of 2024 with Andrew Huberman that said that breathwork is now scientifically proven to improve mood and sleep and reduce stress, and it’s more effective than meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, this was the paper with his physiological size relative to the other breathing practices or the mindfulness.

Francesca Sipma
And meditation, it was a comparison to meditation. The New York Times recently covered that a lot of clinicians and psychologists are bringing breathwork into their practices so that it’s not just intellectually and mentally processing, but people are also having a somatic release. And it’s still relatively new, it’s still relatively fresh, so I think we’re going to see more and more articles and sort of that research come out, very similar to what we’re seeing with, like, MDMA and ketamine.

So, stay tuned to this space because I think people are going to see that it’s a very profound and transformative practice. And what I like about it versus plant medicine is that it’s just your natural breath, and it’s so accessible.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And so, if we’re comparing it to plant medicine, I mean, that sounds pretty potent. Is this safe? Like, say, if someone hears this podcast, and says, “That sounds awesome. I’m going to get my blanket, I’m going to get my eyeshade, and I’m going to get my breath on and my music on, and some suggestions on for 22 minutes. Away I go,” are we cool? Are we safe? Any things to watch out for?

Francesca Sipma
Are we safe? So, I believe that breath is your lifeforce and it has medicinal properties, and we’re just now really tapping into how profound that can truly be for your healing. I think when you ask the question, “Are you safe?” for a lot of people, they don’t want to open Pandora’s box, they don’t want to go into some maybe memories or life events that have been painful for them. But I find it to be more unsafe to hold onto that emotion and allow it to shape the decisions that you make in your career, in your relationships, and in your health.

So, for me, while it may be intense, and while it may feel heavy at times, the breath is a natural mechanism for you to explore some of those emotions to heal and release them simultaneously in real time, and to gain that clarity and to gain that more peaceful state.

Now, we’ve developed Mastry, which is a platform that has these 80 different HypnoBreathwork sessions so that anybody can get whatever they need at any given time. And our intention is for you to breathe in this cadence for 20 minutes every single morning, and take your action step as that higher version of yourself.

Now, those sessions are more mild. So, the sessions on the app, because they’re audio-guided sessions and you’re doing them from the luxury of your own home, they are more about getting clarity, making a decision, hearing your intuition, feeling that self-love. When you’re doing the deeper more intense sessions that are maybe about processing grief or healing your inner child, those are sessions that I recommend that you do with a facilitator, and you have somebody there to hold that space for you, and to create that emotionally supportive environment if you’re dealing with heavier emotions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, it might be handy to have some support in play as a little bit of a safety backstop. But, generally speaking, are you free of fatalities and lawsuits?

Francesca Sipma
I have never had a fatality and I’ve never had a lawsuit to address.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Great. So, you got an app, Mastry. How do we get it?

Francesca Sipma
So, it’s M-A-S-T-R-Y. It’s available on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. And as soon as you log onto the app, it gives you a demo of the breath technique, and then it allows you to choose from, again, 80 different sessions based on whatever you need on topics of health, love, peak performance, corporate.

And then, afterwards, the very last cue of every single HypnoBreathwork session is, “What is your one next intuitive action step?” So, we really try to take people through this journey where they see their highest selves, they shift their energy, and then they execute. They take action from that place so that it actually starts to move and shift and change their life. We have a digital action tracker that you will type that in after your session, and then you get a badge once you complete it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, that’s how that works. Let’s zoom in on the flow state. So, you got a book. It sounds like one of the ways to get to flow states is, “Hey, do this stuff.” Any other pro tips on getting more flow states more often and for longer?

Francesca Sipma
So, flow state is optimal consciousness. It’s when things are effortlessly flowing, you’re intrinsically motivated, disciplined, you’d surrender, you lose sense of time. My favorite way of defining it is when productivity meets alignment. That’s truly the sweet spot. And sort of how I shared before, your subconscious is this record holder of all the podcasts you listened to, conversations with mentors, investors, your bosses, your colleagues, the books that you read, all this stuff lives in your subconscious.

And what the breath does, especially if you have a good coach and he gives you a very specific cue in flow state breathwork or HypnoBreathwork, will say, “I want you to see the project. I want you to see the pitch. I want you to see yourself on that stage. I want you to see the campaign,” and then you’ll continue to breathe, you’ll start to stimulate more ideas, more creative connections will start to get made.

And then we might say something like, “How do you want your audience to feel? What are the benefits that you want to convey? See your impact in the world. What’s your next action step towards that?” And it’s a really profound way to create, in a way, that’s original to you, that’s very authentic, that’s innovative. I really believe that this is where more invention and nuance come from, and the breath is just a brilliant way to hack that state in 20 minutes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s talk about some of these suggestions. Can I hear some of your faves?

Francesca Sipma
Well, I customize them by industry. When I first started my coaching business, it was a really difficult transition from corporate and having that stability, and especially having that secure bi-weekly paycheck, to going off and becoming a breathwork coach. And the way I did it was I treated my bedroom like a war room, and I had physiological benefits, psychological benefits, spiritual benefits, content strategy, pillars, messaging, partnership ideas, and then I would breathe, and I would just say, “What’s the next step to scale my business?”

And, immediately, it would be like, “This topic with this contact, with this video, and then this email funnel,” and these things would connect, and I did that every single day to grow my business and to scale it, and it became quite successful in the first two years. And then I brought it to different industries. So, when I went back to advertising, I said, “I want you to see the strategy. I want you to see the campaign. What are the media channels? How do you want your audience to feel? What’s your next action step as a team? How can you collaborate?”

I would use very customized vocal cues, but if I was speaking to lawyers, “See yourself in the courtroom. What’s the energy you want to convey? What are your mannerisms? What’s the case? See the victory.” If I’m going to sports teams, it’s, “See yourself on the field.” It’s just very specific and very customized. So, I would do, like, a 5- to 10-minute debrief with you, Pete, on what it is you want to create in your business. Maybe it’s podcast growth. Maybe it’s your personal brand, I don’t know. And then I would then flip it into the vocal cues, match up the songs and take you on a journey to expand and grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it just sounds swell.

Francesca Sipma
It is.

Pete Mockaitis
I think everybody loves a little bespoke, custom, “just for me” kind of goodness when they’re contracting a service provider, so that sounds like a successful formula for a winning business.

Francesca Sipma
But you know what we found is that in order for me to sort of digitize this and scale the work, there are general cues that can be applicable for everyone. So, even if I say, “What’s your goal? What would it feel like to accomplish that goal? See the goal like you already have the outcome that you want. Step into that.” Now, it works for millions of people even though they’re having a different internal experience.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that. Well, Francesca, can we hear a couple of those general pieces? I know some outcomes our listeners are after often are confidence and the ability to focus. Any cues that seem to be winning on those dimensions?

Francesca Sipma
So, those are two very different sessions. For focus, I would say, “I want you to see the task at hand.” And once you’ve been breathing for about one to two songs, I would say, “What’s the priority task?” because your intuition is then going to not put the busy work in front but actually put the one that moves the needle the most, because breathwork really organizes thought streams.

So, “What’s the task at hand? What is it that you need to prioritize? What is distracting you?” and then I would have you breathe out the distractions. If you’re known to be a procrastinator, I would say, “What is at the root of the procrastination?” And there, we might be going a bit deeper because there might be a fear of success, there might be a fear of failure, there might be a fear of judgment.

I would have you wrap your breath around that, move it up to your chest, exhale, keep breathing out any discomfort, keep breathing out any resistance or tension. And then I would say, “See the task like it’s done, like it’s complete. How do you feel in your body? What would be the reaction around you? Feel that peace. Feel that freedom.” And then I would say, “What’s your next action step to completing the task?”

And it might be delegation, set the meeting, have the conversation, just check it off the list. There’s a different action step for everybody. So, that’s what I would do on focus, and we do have that on Mastry app where you can breathe for 20 minutes and you’ll get those cues in a more eloquent way with the music.

And then for confidence, confidence is an interesting one. Typically, if I’m guiding someone towards confidence, I would actually have them see the last time they felt confident so we can start to generate that emotion in their body. And then I would have them apply it to their present moment where they’re needing to feel a bit more empowered, a bit more liberated.

So, I might say, “See the word confidence. What does it bring up for you? Breathe our any insecurities. Now, visualize the last time you felt confident. And now bring that emotion to your present-day visualization, and see if they can anchor those two things.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Francesca, this is fun. As you described these states, you’re bringing me back to, wow, 2009, Walking on Hot Coals with Tony Robbins, not just me, there were thousands of people there. But he hit a nice little recipe for whipping up a state of mind-body emotion in terms of adjusting your physiology, like how you’re holding your body, your visualization, and what you were saying to yourself.

And there’s a lot of power moves, a lot of “Yes. Yes. Yes,” going on. How do you think about your approach to entering into states in comparing and contrasting with this kind of advice?

Francesca Sipma
I love Tony Robbins. I really do. He’s probably my greatest expander. I also really love Dr. Joe Dispenza, and I think that they both have incredible techniques that have changed millions of lives. For me, personally, I have to remove the subconscious block in order for me to really believe that power pose. I can’t just jump up and down to a song and feel like I’m energized and I feel clear. That doesn’t work for me. Maybe I have too much trauma. I’m not really sure.

But, like, when I’m on this entrepreneurial path, or if you’re an executive, a manager, employee, it doesn’t really matter, what your position is, but if someone is like, “Feel better. Don’t be anxious,” that doesn’t work for me, per se. I have to actually see where the root of that is coming from, “Why am I having impostor syndrome right now? Where is this self-doubt percolating from? Where is it living in my body? Does it have a color?”

And a lot of times, my conscious mind is very loud and my ego can be very loud, and I’ll think I know the answer but my subconscious is a lot deeper. It’ll take me to, like, age 7 or age 14, this event happened in high school. And I’ll need to breathe out those limitations and those sources of where the identity or the pattern formed.

So, that’s my experience and that’s my experience with a lot of my clients who have maybe been through more life events that have made them really create that self-doubt, and so that’s why we like the breath. We like going into the subconscious. We like taking it several layers deeper to really get to the root, and dissipate it from the source.

And then see the stage, see the scalability, see the exit, see your most powerful self. So, it’s just a little bit of a deeper psychological process that is more effective for me personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Beautiful. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention to folks looking to be awesome at their jobs before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Francesca Sipma
I have two things. First, Pete, I want to know what your biggest 2025 goal is.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d say one would be getting one of my businesses into a good spot with regard to regular growing client acquisition. It seems like it’s sort of like, “Oh, yeah, we get some referrals and we get some people come in,” but it’s like, I really like a repeatable predictable process by which we’re able to kind of turn on the “get customers” engine, whereas it’s been a little bit, “Hey, good months and bad months,” you know.

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, consistency. Consistent growth. Is it product? Service?

Pete Mockaitis
Service.

Francesca Sipma
Okay. So, what we would do in a session like that is we would do a creative brainstorm for 10 minutes, and we would talk marketing, we would talk funnels, “Is it content? Is it a different platform? Is it TikTok? Is it LinkedIn? Is it influencers?” We would do a little brainstorm, testimonials, video ideas, “Is it a webinar?” We would basically brainstorm a couple of things together.

And then I would take you into the breath, and I would say, “See your business. Where are the gaps? Where are the opportunities?” And you’re deeper now, you’re in theta, things are percolating, you’re starting to get ideas, you’re starting to get insights. You might see a blind spot, say, and then I’d say, “What is your biggest opportunity for growth?”

A couple ideas might come up in your subconscious. Then I would say, “Now, visualize your business having consistent growth. And how does that feel in your body?” And it might feel like ease. It might feel like freedom. It might feel like abundance. It might feel like joy. And then I would say, “Now, from that vibration, from that state, what’s your next action step to grow your business?”

And then the answer might be, “Hire a team, hire a social media manager, up your digital ad spend,” here’s all of these things that will come from all the information knowledge you have on that business but it’s just taking you on a little bit of a deeper journey that is a bit similar to microdosing, I would say.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay.

Francesca Sipma
So, I just want to throw that out there so that you could really understand what a customized flow state might look like for you. And then the last thing I would want to say to your listeners is that intuition is a superpower in your work. I think that we lean too heavy on strategy and systems and knowledge and information, and we don’t lean enough on our own inner intelligence, in our own inner wisdom.

And when you learn to trust yourself and you learn to trust this knowledge that you uniquely hold within, then your life can start to have a more original path. It can start to have more joy. You can start to attract more synchronicities and opportunities, and it can take unpredictable turns that your logical and linear mind wouldn’t have seen. So, I would invite everyone to listen more to your intuition and to fiercely execute on it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Francesca Sipma
“Act on your intuition.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Francesca Sipma
My favorite book is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Francesca Sipma
That every single person has a unique purpose in this life. And when we heal bits of the past, that will start to become clear, and your life will have more color and more joy and more peace.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Francesca Sipma
You can grab my book Unblock Your Purpose on Amazon, or find me on Instagram @francescasipma, or my website, FrancescaSipma.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Francesca Sipma
I think if you want to be awesome at your job, one article or two articles that I recently come by is this new sort of wave called “The Great Stay,” which is basically like we were in The Great Resignation, and now we’re in The Great Stay where people feel stuck at their jobs, and they feel immense burnout and resentment, and breathwork will rejuvenate this position for you. Breathwork will help you find the gratitude again. It’ll help you find your creativity again, and you might actually discover your purpose within your organization.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Francesca, this has been fun. Thank you. I wish you all the best.

Francesca Sipma
Thanks for having me.