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How Functional Breathing Enhances Your Leadership with Laura Gutierrez · Smart Business Growth with Nicky Miklós

• 0:04
  Nicky: Welcome to the Smart Business Growth Podcast with Nicky and Ness.
• 0:11
  Ness: We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country, the Turrbal and Bunurong people of Brisbane and Melbourne respectively, where Nicky and I both work and live both work and live.
• 0:31
  Nicky: The quality of your breath impacts the quality of your experiences and the quality of your life.
• 0:34
  Nicky: When was the last time you really considered if you were breathing in a functional, healthy way or if you were just breathing for survival and getting through the day?
• 0:44
  Nicky: What about considering the impact that your breath and your functional breathing style has on being a high-performing leader?
• 0:53
  Nicky: Well, today we are talking to Laura Gutierrez, a breathwork facilitator, emotional fitness coach and vibrational healing practitioner.
• 1:03
  Nicky: Laura has been working in the field of vibrational medicine and coaching for over a decade and she's all about supporting busy people to improve the quality of their relationship with change, stress and non-clinical anxiety and depression.
• 1:18
  Nicky: Now we took the conversation with Lauda today really, in terms of how does it affect peak performance and how does it affect you in your day-to-day role.
• 1:29
  Nicky: Strap yourselves in, because we get pretty practical.
• 1:33
  Nicky: We do some hands-on breathing exercises which we really invite you to get involved in and have a wonderful conversation around the different perceptions that breathwork can have for you and your team and, most importantly, the positive impact in terms of yourself, your people and the results of the business.
• 1:53
  Nicky: So enjoy, make sure you go in with an open mind and see what you can take out of this episode to really apply to your everyday life.
• 2:02
  Nicky: Laura, we talk a lot on this podcast and behind the scenes, when the mic's not on, about peak performance, people leadership to get peak performance in business, and we believe that it is one of the backbones of smart business growth and a really successful business.
• 2:17
  Nicky: And so it was a no brainer for us to talk to you, because you are in our world, you're the breath guru.
• 2:23
  Nicky: I don't know, I just made that up in the moment.
• 2:26
  Nicky: I don't know how you feel about that, but that's how I see you.
• 2:28
  Nicky: So thank you again for joining us today, and I'd love to kick off the conversation by picking your brain and getting your thoughts.
• 2:37
  Nicky: You know, really, how does breathing, which is such a fundamental thing that we do, how does breathing affect our ability to perform in our job, in our roles?
• 2:49
  Laura Gutierrez: Well, let's start with the fact that if we or you are not breathing well, then it's going to be very hard to be present.
• 2:56
  Laura Gutierrez: It's going to be very hard to be aware of what you're feeling, what you're thinking, the quality of your thoughts, the quality of your communication, the quality of the decisions that you're making.
• 3:06
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, when you are either over breathing or not breathing at all, then your brain is actually not getting all that blood flow or that oxygen, the nutrients.
• 3:16
  Laura Gutierrez: You know all that it's needed for physically being able to live.
• 3:21
  Laura Gutierrez: You know being able to be present, being able to run a business, being able to you know being able to be present, being able to run a business, being able to you know, like do so many different things.
• 3:30
  Laura Gutierrez: So breathing is key for everything, but if we're talking about leadership and performance, it's such an important part of it.
• 3:35
  Laura Gutierrez: You know like we need our brain to work well, to be able to be present, to make decisions, better decisions.
• 3:43
  Ness: One of the things that I noticed when we were working together, lauda, is the picking up on.
• 3:49
  Ness: You know how sometimes we can just take those really short breaths, and it's that you know thinking and breathing, the way that we're breathing.
• 3:57
  Ness: And when you just talk about breathing perhaps coming back to what do you mean?
• 4:02
  Ness: When you talk, because everyone's going, I breathe all day what are what are you talking about?
• 4:05
  Ness: Like, of course I'm present because I'm breathing, but when you are in your world for more than you know five minutes and you get to hear what you have to say and experience how you train people to breathe what I notice in myself previously, but also you know, in day-to-day situations where you're under pressure or you're about to go into meetings and you're feeling nervous and all this kind of stuff it's sort of like really shallow breathing or gasping for breath, almost.
• 4:34
  Ness: So let's start on a mutual understanding definition around what do you call breathing?
• 4:39
  Laura Gutierrez: Fantastic, great question and great start, because, definitely, we all breathe.
• 4:44
  Laura Gutierrez: If we I mean, I think the record for not breathing is around 40 minutes by a free diver Wow, I mean, that's huge, that's massive.
• 4:54
  Laura Gutierrez: But we all breathe, we have to breathe, and it's the quality of the breath that changes the quality of our life, of our experience.
• 5:00
  Laura Gutierrez: And so when we talk about breathing right now, we're talking about functional breathing, we're talking about good breathing, you know, breathing that actually supports our wellbeing, supports our brain, supports our body.
• 5:14
  Laura Gutierrez: And so nowadays, we could say that 90% of the population breathes dysfunctionally, you know.
• 5:22
  Laura Gutierrez: So we have become over-breathers.
• 5:24
  Laura Gutierrez: For example, you know, breathing, as you were saying, shallow, like breathing shallow means that we are taking a lot more air than we need, or breathing through the mouth as well, and we are losing a lot of CO2, which is carbon dioxide and a very important gas when it comes to oxygenation of the body.
• 5:41
  Laura Gutierrez: And so, right now, we're talking about learning to breathe functionally, learning to breathe well, learning to use the diaphragm you know, that very important muscle involved in respiration learning to breathe through the nose.
• 5:53
  Laura Gutierrez: Again, you know, the nose was made for breathing.
• 5:55
  Laura Gutierrez: It's by learning in it, actually, and you both have experienced that by learning just a few simple things and retraining your breath, you feel different, you think differently, you act differently.
• 6:09
  Laura Gutierrez: So this is what we mean.
• 6:12
  Laura Gutierrez: This is what we're talking about Learning to breathe well, learning to breathe how nature actually intended.
• 6:17
  Nicky: It's so fascinating to me that breath is such a I mean, it's an unconscious thing that we're doing to survive, to be alive, to be here, and yet we can breathe well, or we can.
• 6:28
  Nicky: You know that functional breathing and the fact that over 90% of people are breathing dysfunctional, dysfunctional breathing I mean that's crazy, right?
• 6:36
  Nicky: I mean, how did this become and this might be a rhetorical question, but how did this become the norm in society, the fact that we're not breathing well?
• 6:44
  Nicky: Do you actually know the answer to that?
• 6:46
  Nicky: That is an unfair question, if not, I mean that's just a big question.
• 6:50
  Nicky: But how the heck did we get here as humans?
• 6:52
  Nicky: And it's probably the stress, the social expectations.
• 6:56
  Nicky: Do you know how we got here?
• 6:58
  Laura Gutierrez: Well, we actually wouldn't be able to say well, everything started in this moment, yeah, yeah.
• 7:04
  Laura Gutierrez: But what we do know is that our, you know, our habits have changed throughout the years.
• 7:09
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, we went from being beings that were in nature.
• 7:13
  Laura Gutierrez: We were attuned to the cycles.
• 7:15
  Laura Gutierrez: The rhythm, like the breath, is a cycle, right?
• 7:18
  Laura Gutierrez: Inhale, exhale.
• 7:20
  Laura Gutierrez: Inhale is to live and exhale is to die.
• 7:24
  Laura Gutierrez: You know day and night.
• 7:24
  Laura Gutierrez: You know all these cycles that were natural, all the circadian rhythm, all of this.
• 7:28
  Laura Gutierrez: But as we got more, let's say, industrialized, then we started losing that connection to nature, we started losing connection with our own body.
• 7:36
  Laura Gutierrez: This is why, for example and Vanessa, you experienced the exercise like you had the experience of breath awareness.
• 7:43
  Laura Gutierrez: You know awareness and breath awareness is literally just sitting, watching your breath, and it's such a simple thing.
• 7:52
  Laura Gutierrez: Yet we don't do it in our day-to-day.
• 7:56
  Laura Gutierrez: We just do not observe our breath, we just take it for granted.
• 7:59
  Laura Gutierrez: It's something that is there, it's like we don't need to think about it, right?
• 8:04
  Nicky: and also we're too busy.
• 8:05
  Nicky: I mean, that's got to play a part in this, because you know particularly our listeners busy business owners, busy leaders, busy parents, busy people the B word.
• 8:14
  Nicky: So it almost, I think that it would feel and it's certainly at times I've felt like this, and it's a practice that I'm working on changing but that it's a waste of time.
• 8:23
  Nicky: Oh, I'm going to sit there and observe my breath.
• 8:25
  Nicky: What a waste of time, you know, it's that creating space to do nothing.
• 8:29
  Nicky: Observing our breath is a similar thing, and yet there's so many benefits Like I love what you said at the beginning around being more present, but also the quality of our thinking, the quality of our decisions that we're making.
• 8:42
  Nicky: So I want our listeners to actually think about.
• 8:44
  Nicky: Imagine if you could improve even just by 5%, even 1%, the quality of the decisions that you're making, perhaps the feeling of certainty about the decisions you're making, being 1% more present with your family or with your team.
• 8:58
  Nicky: What would that look like for you?
• 9:00
  Nicky: What would that feel like for you?
• 9:02
  Nicky: Because what Lauda is saying here is that the breath is the bridge to be able to do that is the shortest distance.
• 9:08
  Nicky: I also love that you said the quality of our breath is the quality of our experiences, is the quality of our life.
• 9:16
  Nicky: We're already breathing, so it can't be that hard to make it a little bit more functional.
• 9:20
  Nicky: That hard to make it a little bit more functional, could it, can we do this?
• 9:29
  Laura Gutierrez: Is it accessible, it's with us all the time, right, and so it is about.
• 9:38
  Laura Gutierrez: I find it very interesting that, in terms of leadership, you know a leader that is not self-aware won't be able to lead, so true, self-aware won't be able to live, so true.
• 9:50
  Laura Gutierrez: And the I would say, and I would say that the first way to become self-aware is to become aware of how you're breathing.
• 9:53
  Laura Gutierrez: And when you become aware of how you're breathing, you become aware of whether you're stressed out or not, what's worrying you, what's in your to-do list, what's in your mind.
• 10:04
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, like your breath just shows you exactly where you are at.
• 10:09
  Laura Gutierrez: And the ripple effect when you connect with your breath, when you sit for even 30 seconds to just breathe, you immediately can attune to somebody else's breath.
• 10:21
  Laura Gutierrez: You can see and feel and sense what other people are doing.
• 10:29
  Laura Gutierrez: So for a leader, that is key.
• 10:33
  Laura Gutierrez: I imagine that I actually recently had a group, a small team, coming to an experience with me and it was just very interesting to see them first at the beginning.
• 10:45
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, like all different, you know they were different, breathing differently.
• 10:48
  Laura Gutierrez: Some were obviously more tense, some were more relaxed, but their leader, their boss, he had come to see me a few times before.
• 10:57
  Laura Gutierrez: So he knew what he was doing, he knew how to regulate, how to breathe and he actually changed the way people were breathing.
• 11:04
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, he was able to connect with them at a different level and he brought them to me as an experience, more like as a bonding experience, but he had, he was leading them, he had the lead and that was beautiful to see, you know.
• 11:21
  Ness: I think about sorry when you say that.
• 11:23
  Ness: I think there are so many ways that we can apply this If you have a business that's going through a lot of change so some of the larger businesses that we work with there's a lot of change happening, there's a lot of stress around that.
• 11:35
  Ness: A lot of people are changing jobs or maybe being made redundant or the fear of the structure changes and what that could have.
• 11:42
  Ness: Imagine if you're bringing your team together and you just spent the first five minutes, even 10 minutes, of a workshop or a meeting to all like just to be fully present, to let go of some of that stress and pressure, to think differently, to have a different way of contributing to the discussion.
• 12:03
  Ness: That is so powerful that you'd be crazy not to take advantage of that.
• 12:10
  Ness: And what comes up for me then is there'll be some people out there going well, that sounds great, but I don't know what to do because I haven't been around you, laura, I haven't learned it.
• 12:19
  Ness: So I wonder if now would be a great time for you to share with us something that if we did have a team and it was a stressful time or even a one-on-one.
• 12:29
  Ness: We often coach clients and they do coach their team.
• 12:33
  Ness: We help them to do that.
• 12:34
  Ness: If you've got a person coming into a one-on-one with you and they're stressed and you're noticing your breathing and their breathing, what's a technique that is easy for anyone to be able to remember, to be able to do for themselves, to be able to say to someone else Because I'm imagining that the first step is let's just take a moment to notice our current breathing and then so what's the next step, laura?
• 12:59
  Laura Gutierrez: So, before I share that, vanessa, I actually would like to add something to this conversation, and it's that things like meditation, for example, have become very popular, and because they are awesome.
• 13:10
  Laura Gutierrez: But one thing that we are missing is that stress for many people, especially business owners.
• 13:17
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, leaders, ceos, cfos all of these roles have so much pressure.
• 13:22
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, people are piling stress on top of stress, you know, and it's like oh, there's some stress today, and some tomorrow, and some the day after, and there is no release of that tension.
• 13:34
  Laura Gutierrez: And so some people try to meditate and they can't Because guess what I mean?
• 13:42
  Laura Gutierrez: Like the tension is so pent up, it's just there.
• 13:45
  Laura Gutierrez: You know, they try to go to yoga, they try to go for a run, they try to do all these things, and stress just keeps piling up.
• 13:51
  Laura Gutierrez: So one thing that is super key, and especially when it comes to running a business, is to be able to learn how to release that accumulated tension, and this is when things like hyperventilation or superventilation exercise would be great, because it works as a pattern.
• 14:10
  Laura Gutierrez: Interrupt of that it's like a shaking of the body.
• 14:13
  Laura Gutierrez: So I just wanted to bring this to mind, because sometimes we talk about stress as being bad, and I mean chronic stress is definitely not ideal, you know, but sometimes we do need a little bit of that push of stress to kick us out of the, let's say, habit or routine of stressing a little bit today and a little bit more tomorrow, you know.
• 14:34
  Laura Gutierrez: So we need a little bit of extra stress to release that pressure cooker, yeah, and brings us down to, you know, to come back to homeostasis, to balance, to harmony.
• 14:47
  Laura Gutierrez: So, bringing that into account or taking that into account, sorry then we could say that one exercise that I particularly love is super easy to do, super quick.
• 14:57
  Laura Gutierrez: It's called 20 connected breaths, and it's a short exercise of hyperventilation that anyone can do.
• 15:03
  Laura Gutierrez: But I do have to say, if someone is pregnant or someone has been suffering from epilepsy or seizures, then it's just better not to do this exercise.
• 15:12
  Laura Gutierrez: There are other things that can be done.
• 15:14
  Laura Gutierrez: Okay, so this exercise it's basically was created by a guy called Leonard Orr, who was the founder or the creator of rebirthing breathwork, and so this was a while ago.
• 15:25
  Laura Gutierrez: I learned this with a guy that I studied with.
• 15:27
  Laura Gutierrez: His name is Dan Brule, and so this exercise is we count 20 times 20 breaths, and you can do this either breathing through the nose or breathing through the mouth, or nose and mouth, whichever way is easier for you, and you can do it at different rhythms.
• 15:43
  Laura Gutierrez: You can do it very fast or you can do it slow.
• 15:45
  Laura Gutierrez: The important thing is that it's uninterrupted.
• 15:48
  Laura Gutierrez: And on the 20th breath you do it a little bit longer, like a double the size, let's say double the inhalation, double the exhalation, and I like to do at least three rounds, so it will take you like a minute to do this.
• 15:59
  Laura Gutierrez: So I'm going to demonstrate and see what happens.
• 16:02
  Nicky: Yeah, would you like to do it?
• 16:03
  Nicky: Yeah, okay, okay, and if you're watching or listening, stop driving your car, pull over somewhere safe and let's all do it together.
• 16:11
  Nicky: I love it.
• 16:12
  Laura Gutierrez: Yes, I'm actually going to change my sound so that you can hear me breathing actually.
• 16:18
  Laura Gutierrez: Okay.
• 16:19
  Laura Gutierrez: So we're going to start, we're going to count, we're going to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and we're going to do it quite quick.
• 16:25
  Laura Gutierrez: So please look at my fingers.
• 16:28
  Laura Gutierrez: Okay, you know how many times I've been breathing.
• 16:30
  Laura Gutierrez: Okay, we're going to start in 3, 2, 1.
• 16:43
  Laura Gutierrez: And again Again, last one, and now.
• 17:20
  Laura Gutierrez: Just allow your breath to return to normal breathing, only through the nose, and simply let your breath guide you, just let your breath take you to where you're meant to go.
• 17:25
  Laura Gutierrez: If you have the time, you can close your eyes in this moment and simply allow your energy to shift.
• 17:33
  Laura Gutierrez: You're going to be noticing that your energy has shifted.
• 17:37
  Laura Gutierrez: You feel sharper, perhaps lighter.
• 17:42
  Laura Gutierrez: So after we've done the hyperventilation or superventilation, then the parasympathetic or the relaxation response will kick in.
• 17:52
  Laura Gutierrez: The parasympathetic or the relaxation response will kick in, have created space energetically.
• 18:02
  Laura Gutierrez: We're talking about it's a moment of emptying the vessel, really, you know, emptying the mind, creating space.
• 18:05
  Laura Gutierrez: So it's in that moment, after doing that, that you can bring in, for example, some thoughts of some positive or high frequencyfrequency thoughts, you know, like maybe some affirmations if you would like, or, for example, your to-do list what's next in the day?
• 18:20
  Laura Gutierrez: You can do this on a one-on-one, you can do it on your own, you can do it with a team, yes, wow.
• 18:26
  Ness: Yes, what was the experience like for you, nick?
• 18:29
  Nicky: Yeah, I feel I'm actually curious to listen back to hear how my voice has changed, because I feel really quite definitely like open.
• 18:38
  Nicky: I feel like I can breathe better as well.
• 18:40
  Nicky: I feel like I can breathe better in through my nose.
• 18:44
  Nicky: My mind feels like it's opened and my body feels more grounded.
• 18:48
  Nicky: So I definitely can see how, doing this, if I was overwhelmed because that whole thought of okay, I'm a bit overwhelmed.
• 18:56
  Nicky: Just take a moment, do this breathing and then look at my list, what's next or what's the most important thing, or even setting an intention for the day, or before, maybe, a meeting, who do I want to show up as for my team, or before a pitch, like you could go into the toilet, I guess, and do this, which might sound a bit weird if someone's.
• 19:13
  Ness: Even so, what I mean, you know, I don't know what's going on behind the cubicle.
• 19:18
  Nicky: Who knows?
• 19:19
  Nicky: But I think that's an important point around.
• 19:21
  Nicky: It can feel a bit silly at first if you've not done this, but it's kind of just getting over yourself because I love that Ness.
• 19:28
  Nicky: What about for you?
• 19:29
  Nicky: How do you feel?
• 19:29
  Ness: now, yeah it, it was really interesting.
• 19:31
  Ness: I've done this a few times with you, um, louder, and it's the, um, the light.
• 19:36
  Ness: It's light-headed to start with, you know.
• 19:38
  Ness: So, look, I find it quite challenging to breathe like that.
• 19:41
  Ness: And then you're sort of like oh, I've missed a breath and now I'm going to catch up.
• 19:44
  Ness: So I'm trying to get right, which is crazy, right, but the at the end of it, the, the light-headedness, and then, once we drop into just regular breathing, it just feels so much easier to breathe.
• 19:57
  Ness: I know that sounds crazy, but please do it Do it, do, it do it.
• 20:01
  Ness: I don't know what I'm talking about.
• 20:02
  Ness: And then I really connect with what you said around that that sort of it's almost like this, this clarity, the cloud that's of everything that's going on and all the things you've got to be thinking about and planning for, and not just at work.
• 20:15
  Ness: But tonight I've got to, you know, drop that off on the way home and I've got to pick up dinner and then I've got those people coming over on the weekend.
• 20:20
  Ness: You know we're in that hectic space but after doing that, which took like what?
• 20:26
  Ness: one, two minutes, yeah, it's this lightness and just clarity of space.
• 20:29
  Ness: I this lightness and just clarity of space.
• 20:33
  Ness: I don't even know whether I'm describing that well.
• 20:36
  Nicky: No, I think you are, because that's exactly, and I think when you do it you know exactly what you're talking about.
• 20:42
  Nicky: That's right.
• 20:43
  Ness: And so imagine if we brought that to, if you could go in and have a difficult conversation with someone and you just take that moment to go, because often and we know as coaches that you can to build rapport with someone it's about like matching and then helping them come back into.
• 21:00
  Ness: So if you're matching and mirroring them, we've got to then lead them into the next space, because if they're walking intense, stressed, you know, sort of doing that shallow breathing, how can we be the person that's feeling centered and you know, and open and then willing to share with them this crazy you know, crazy simple thing to do that people might feel uncomfortable about.
• 21:24
  Ness: So I think there probably would be a little bit of setting up and asking permission before we move into hey, I'm just going to get you to hyperventilate for a minute and she's like this is crazy.
• 21:35
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• 21:37
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• 21:44
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• 21:58
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• 22:02
  Nicky: I'm curious actually, larda, to get your thoughts on this because I even wonder calling it hyperventilating.
• 22:07
  Nicky: So I know before I did some work with you in November, hyperventilation has been a part of my life since I was a kid Actually, not since I did your breath workshop in November.
• 22:17
  Nicky: Still there's not been one time I have not had a panic attack or hyperventilated and I'm sharing a little bit of personal stuff now, but that was a pretty normal part.
• 22:27
  Nicky: It wasn't all the time, but it was a pretty normal part of my life and it hasn't happened since.
• 22:30
  Nicky: But if I would have walked into a coaching session and a coach said to me, or a leader said, we're going to do a hyperventilation breathing technique, no thanks, because my experience of hyperventilation was very bad and it's like I understand it now because of our workshop.
• 22:45
  Nicky: You've taught me and you know I think about that whole stress where there is healthy stress and there's unhealthy stress.
• 22:51
  Nicky: When we look at things like you know, ness and I read the book about fasting and I've played around with that it's the same thing.
• 22:57
  Nicky: It's not a bad thing for our body to go into a stress state as long as it's a functional, healthy stress and it's not and it doesn't turn into chronic.
• 23:05
  Nicky: But what's your thoughts Like how do we bring first I would say, play around with yourself this yourself first, as a leader, do it yourself and experience it before you introduce it to anybody?
• 23:14
  Nicky: But what's your thoughts around that louder, because I you know we want people to be open to it and we don't want people to hyperventilate in a bad way.
• 23:22
  Nicky: Is that a hyperventilation meditation?
• 23:24
  Nicky: How do we set it up?
• 23:25
  Nicky: If we're going to do it with our team?
• 23:35
  Laura Gutierrez: Because I just would be like see you later.
• 23:35
  Laura Gutierrez: I'm out of here, not what I signed up for, what?
• 23:36
  Laura Gutierrez: Well, actually, this exercise is called 20 Connected Breaths, and so we're about connecting the breath, not allowing space, let's say, in between inhalation and exhalation.
• 23:44
  Laura Gutierrez: Funnily enough, we are I would say many of the population are constantly hyperventilating, you know, naturally breathing over breathing, breathing more than they need to, yeah, so let's start with that.
• 23:57
  Laura Gutierrez: So, yeah, it's about pre-framing it.
• 23:58
  Laura Gutierrez: It's not about we're just gonna go into hyperventilation, but it could be framed more as uh, this is a stress release exercise, because that's exactly what it does yeah, and even yeah, maybe counterintuitive, even for people who suffer from anxiety or panic.
• 24:16
  Laura Gutierrez: This exercise is really good because, once again, what we are doing is just kind of like gently pushing or upping, let's say, a little bit of that stress response, but in a conscious way, so that then the relaxation response kicks in.
• 24:32
  Nicky: And I wonder as well, because when I hear you say that it's discomfort, so the stress response another way of saying that is discomfort.
• 24:38
  Nicky: So when we did that three rounds, it certainly wasn't comfortable.
• 24:41
  Nicky: It wasn't like the most enjoyable thing.
• 24:43
  Nicky: My nose was burning a bit.
• 24:44
  Nicky: I'm like whoa, I haven't had this much fresh air up there, and you know.
• 24:47
  Nicky: So actually, what I'm hearing in that is the discomfort.
• 24:53
  Nicky: It's because we went through the discomfort of those three rounds and look, it's not, it's so quick.
• 24:57
  Nicky: But then we were able to enjoy.
• 25:00
  Nicky: It's like when we go to the gym or when we're doing some kind of exercise and it's like, ah, one more rep or whatever that might be, one more jump in dance class, don't stop in the cardio.
• 25:11
  Nicky: But then afterwards we feel so good, it's like we're on a high.
• 25:14
  Nicky: So that's it's not.
• 25:16
  Nicky: You know, if anybody's a bit hesitant, it's not.
• 25:18
  Nicky: We're creating a stressful environment.
• 25:20
  Nicky: Yes, we want to create some discomfort so people can grow.
• 25:23
  Nicky: That's the same in coaching.
• 25:24
  Nicky: We ask questions that might be a bit uncomfortable.
• 25:27
  Nicky: We don't save them because that's in the discomfort, that's where they grow.
• 25:32
  Nicky: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:32
  Laura Gutierrez: Absolutely, I would add, is conscious discomfort.
• 25:36
  Nicky: Conscious discomfort.
• 25:37
  Nicky: Oh, I love that.
• 25:38
  Nicky: Yes, do we have time for you to run through?
• 25:41
  Nicky: And I know I'm not the timekeeper today.
• 25:42
  Nicky: You're all lucky listeners.
• 25:44
  Nicky: Sorry, leah, producing our podcast and thank you in advance, but do we have time, because I love it so much, to run through the perfect breath?
• 25:53
  Laura Gutierrez: Yes, if you would like.
• 25:54
  Laura Gutierrez: Yes, yes, yes.
• 25:55
  Ness: You can't set that up and say no Okay, because what I'm going to say I'm going to.
• 25:59
  Nicky: I'm also going to share a super quick and I promise it'll be quick story here about the perfect breath saved my life.
• 26:08
  Nicky: Okay, that might be a bit dramatic.
• 26:09
  Nicky: I shut my finger in a door after the workshop I did with Lauda in November.
• 26:11
  Nicky: I shut my finger in a car door and the driver my sister walked away and it wasn't a beep, beep door.
• 26:17
  Nicky: So she walked away to paper parking and my finger was stuck in the car door.
• 26:20
  Nicky: I did perfect breathing and everybody.
• 26:24
  Nicky: She eventually came back and set me free.
• 26:26
  Nicky: Yay, but the response?
• 26:27
  Nicky: The people around me said Nicky, how were you so calm?
• 26:31
  Nicky: How were you?
• 26:31
  Nicky: I would have been so panicked if it was me and the answer was I had just learned, three days earlier, thank goodness, the perfect breath.
• 26:40
  Nicky: So if it can help me in that situation, it can help you, I think, in a variety of situations.
• 26:45
  Nicky: So it's worth the time.
• 26:46
  Nicky: What is the perfect breath?
• 26:48
  Laura Gutierrez: Totally.
• 26:49
  Laura Gutierrez: Yeah Well, the perfect breath is basically learning to breathe in a rate of six breaths per minute, which in this case it would be four seconds or four counts in the inhalation and six counts in the exhalation, breathing through the nose.
• 27:04
  Laura Gutierrez: So, once again, there are a few things right.
• 27:07
  Laura Gutierrez: So if you cannot breathe through your nose, by all means you can breathe through your mouth, but just make sure that you're breathing with pursed lips, like because the idea is not to take in too much air.
• 27:16
  Laura Gutierrez: Now let's just briefly touch on the fact that breathing through the nose is super important.
• 27:21
  Laura Gutierrez: So if the nose is not working well, it's important to look at that, you know, and you can look at that with a breath coach or going to something you know, to a specialist, just making sure that the nose works well.
• 27:32
  Laura Gutierrez: So, breathing in and out.
• 27:35
  Laura Gutierrez: And the beauty of the perfect breath is that it really brings you to that moment of coherence between your brain and your heart.
• 27:41
  Laura Gutierrez: It's like if you could imagine that there's like a line or a thread of connection of light or whatever.
• 27:48
  Laura Gutierrez: You want to imagine that as between your brain and your heart.
• 27:51
  Laura Gutierrez: That's what it's doing.
• 27:51
  Laura Gutierrez: It's just bringing all of your systems, all of your being into a moment of harmony, and so that's why it works so well, yeah.
• 28:00
  Ness: I've done this quite often and it's actually much easier than what we just did the 20 connected breaths because it is something you can sort of just sit and do.
• 28:09
  Ness: It doesn't matter who's around you.
• 28:11
  Ness: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Ness: And it's like just in for four, out for six, and it's a beautiful thing and that is such an amazing story, nick, around what happened to you.
• 28:27
  Ness: And I think one of the things that really stands out for me, lauda, is that you shared and Nicky's probably covered this in your bio, but you shared about why you got into breathwork, and why you got into this was because you had panic attacks and had a lot of anxiety, and I just know that post-COVID particularly, there's so much awareness out there around the impact that period of time has had on mental health that the you know there's legislation changes around how we look after our team members when it comes to mental health and the duty of care that we have for them.
• 28:55
  Ness: There's a lot of anxiety out there in the world and to think that if we can help one of our team by teaching them a technique that they can then take home and in life in general, be able to apply, you know, since we've done this work together, there's just so many circumstances that I've been able to help and see other people like my daughter or, you know, family friend it's.
• 29:18
  Ness: It's something that's shareable because it's so simple, it doesn't cost us money.
• 29:21
  Ness: It's, you know it can't really stuff it up, it's just breathing.
• 29:26
  Ness: But the impact when we think about the impact that this has and the link between breathing and peak performance and not just peak performance for the business let's get real.
• 29:37
  Ness: It's about how people can overcome some of the really challenging moments in their world yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
• 29:45
  Laura Gutierrez: Like I just hearing you talk, it just gave me like goosebumps because that ripple effect, if we think about how our breath affects our nervous system, and if we think of our nervous system as this network of energy that not only is within us, but that it actually impacts the outside, you know we are impacting tons of people and if you are leading a team or a company, you know you're impacting every single one of them just by changing your breath.
• 30:15
  Laura Gutierrez: And in the case of the perfect breath, all it takes is that you just pay attention for five minutes, or even less.
• 30:21
  Laura Gutierrez: I love it, so shall we do it, yes, the perfect breath.
• 30:23
  Laura Gutierrez: All it takes is that you just pay attention for five minutes or even less.
• 30:26
  Ness: I love it, so shall we do it?
• 30:28
  Ness: Yes, okay, Actually, I reckon we're going to, because we do have to wrap up, even though we can talk about this all day.
• 30:30
  Ness: But this people we normally say throw to our guest and say what's an actionable action someone can take in the next 24 hours?
• 30:36
  Ness: I'm going to jump straight in and say this is your actionable action, Play along now.
• 30:44
  Ness: Or if you are in a situation where you can't, I don't even know what that would be, but yeah, because you literally can do this Even if you're driving.
• 30:52
  Nicky: Even if you're driving.
• 30:53
  Nicky: Yeah, that's what I love about this.
• 30:55
  Nicky: Even if you've got your fingers stuck in a car door's all good.
• 30:59
  Nicky: Just do the perfect breath and you will live.
• 31:01
  Laura Gutierrez: You will survive actually before we we practice it.
• 31:05
  Laura Gutierrez: Nika, I wanted to ask you when that happened to you, when you had your finger stuck there, where, where was your attention?
• 31:12
  Nicky: on my breath.
• 31:12
  Nicky: So I so I looked at my finger and my brain went lots of potential swear words that I can't say here.
• 31:20
  Nicky: And then I went, come back to my perfect breath and I focused on the four.
• 31:23
  Nicky: What is it?
• 31:24
  Nicky: Yeah, four in, six out, and I just I even put my head down a little bit and just focused on my solar plexus and just focused on my breath, just focused on my breath.
• 31:32
  Nicky: That was it.
• 31:33
  Nicky: Yeah, it was.
• 31:34
  Nicky: It was actually incredible how it helped me and it would have been a very different experience had I not have had that tool.
• 31:43
  Nicky: And you know the finger in the door is a metaphor for so many instances in our life.
• 31:50
  Nicky: We also talk about, you know, event plus response or reaction is what determines the outcome and the fact that you can do the perfect breath while you're talking to somebody almost you know drive, it doesn't matter where you are, what, what you're doing then it can really impact that outcome yeah, yeah, and and it's that self-responsibility right as well like just taking responsibility of the breath, of our breath, we are also taking responsibility of how we respond yes world.
• 32:21
  Nicky: Yes, yes, and and goodness knows, there's many moments as leaders, as humans, where we also might get frustrated with people.
• 32:28
  Nicky: So, do the perfect.
• 32:31
  Nicky: I know shocking, isn't it?
• 32:32
  Nicky: Uh, do the perfect, press, you know?
• 32:34
  Nicky: Yeah, let's do it all righty, okay.
• 32:37
  Laura Gutierrez: So whenever you are sitting or standing up or walking, I'm just going to invite you to simply first become very attuned to your breath, like become aware of your breath, close your mouth and just simply breathe.
• 32:48
  Laura Gutierrez: Take a few normal breaths in and out through your nose.
• 32:55
  Laura Gutierrez: And as you breathe through your nose, I'm also going to invite you to pay attention to your ribcage, to your ribcage.
• 32:58
  Laura Gutierrez: So make sure that your ribcage is moving, kind of like an accordion, opening and closing gently.
• 33:04
  Laura Gutierrez: You don't really need to change much, you're just paying attention right now and we're going to do two minutes of the perfect breath.
• 33:14
  Laura Gutierrez: So we're going to meet when I guide you and we're going to start breathing in through the nose and then out through the nose.
• 33:23
  Laura Gutierrez: We're going to meet in three, two, one breathing in four, five, six in two, three, four out two, three, four, five, six breathing in two, three, four out two breathing in three.
• 34:42
  Laura Gutierrez: Four out four, five, six.
• 34:46
  Laura Gutierrez: Breathing in four out five.
• 34:49
  Laura Gutierrez: Six.
• 34:50
  Laura Gutierrez: Breathing in out five, six.
• 34:59
  Laura Gutierrez: Breathing in out, breathing in out.
• 35:07
  Laura Gutierrez: Last, one In two, three, four Out two, three, four, five, six.
• 35:17
  Laura Gutierrez: Release this rhythm of breathing, just breathing in, and now through your nose.
• 35:25
  Laura Gutierrez: Just pay attention.
• 35:26
  Laura Gutierrez: What do you notice?
• 35:27
  Laura Gutierrez: That's, that's the most important bit now.
• 35:30
  Laura Gutierrez: What can you notice?
• 35:32
  Laura Gutierrez: Did you notice a difference?
• 35:34
  Nicky: yes, totally yes, definitely I, and I think that those two breathing techniques go quite well back to back as well.
• 35:44
  Nicky: Even you know that's sort of almost if you've got the time and the opportunity to do the first, because it the first one really feels like it clears your nasal passage.
• 35:51
  Nicky: For me it did anyway.
• 35:53
  Nicky: Yes, but again, like I was doing that some with my eyes open, looking out at nature, unless you had your eyes closed, like it's just so versatile.
• 36:03
  Nicky: And I think the other thing, just as a final reminder, if you find it a bit challenging at first, it's a bit uncomfortable, that's great, that's feedback, and I know I certainly did and still do sometimes.
• 36:16
  Nicky: So I want to.
• 36:17
  Nicky: The more I practice, the better we get at this.
• 36:19
  Nicky: So don't be put off if it's a little bit uncomfortable at first.
• 36:23
  Nicky: Like we say with so many other things in life, if it's a bit uncomfortable, that's probably feedback, that it's exactly what you need right now and what a gift you can give yourself and then therefore give to others.
• 36:35
  Ness: Yeah, amazing, thank you.
• 36:37
  Ness: It's always such a great way to just recenter become grounded again.
• 36:41
  Ness: My word for the year is grounded, so this breathing all the things you've taught us has been able to help achieve that.
• 36:48
  Ness: I believe this is an amazing place to finish on and it's just such a great takeaway for our listeners and viewers.
• 36:56
  Ness: But people will want to find out more about you, no doubt because we've experienced a couple of workshops that you've delivered over a longer period of time and it's been quite incredible to have that experience.
• 37:10
  Ness: And I know you do public workshops and you do private clients as well.
• 37:14
  Ness: So, please, where can people friendly, stalk you louder?
• 37:17
  Laura Gutierrez: Well, people can find me on my website, the love approach projectcom, or instagram at the love approach project, same with facebook linkedin, they can find me as laura gutierrez laura yeah, we'll put links in the show notes, absolutely amazing and I have a podcast as well, so it's great a love approach project and it's on Spotify Apple podcasts as well beautiful.
• 37:47
  Ness: Well, we will make sure all of that is in the show notes because, please, people, do yourself a favor and get in this woman's world.
• 37:52
  Ness: She's amazing, yeah, and I trust this has been a little bit different for our podcast listeners today.
• 37:58
  Ness: So I trust that you've found it really beneficial and, and if you've played it along, I know that you'll just be walking a little bit taller and a little bit calmer.
• 38:06
  Ness: So thank you so much for sharing your gift with us and, yeah, till next time.
• 38:11
  Ness: We'll say goodbye for now.
• 38:13
  Nicky: Thank you for having me.
• 38:13
  Nicky: Thanks so much, thanks, lara.
• 38:15
  Nicky: See everybody, bye.
• 38:19
  Ness: Thanks for listening to today's ep.
• 38:20
  Ness: If you what you heard, connect with us over on linkedin and let's continue the conversation over there.
• 38:26
  Ness: Did you hear?
• 38:27
  Ness: You can now buy our book healthy hustle the new blueprint to thrive in business and life at healthyhustlecomau.
• 38:36
  Ness: Want us to speak to your team or run a workshop on healthy hustle in your workplace?
• 38:41
  Ness: Send us an email or go old school and give us a call to discuss.
• 38:45
  Ness: Until next time, happy listening and here's to thriving in business and life.