Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 389: The Power of the Pause

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Episode 389: The Power of the Pause · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  we talk about the people that are the best at what they do. We talk about the people that are the best for what they do and are able to sustain performance over long periods of time. They're able to have this harmony, this coexistence of being on and being off of engaging, as well as detaching.
• 0:19
  welcome back, everyone, to another episode on the Growth Project podcast, brought to you by amplifiers.
• 0:25
  I'm here today with my colleague Anthony, a Libra, and we will be talking today about the importance of silence and solitude.
• 0:37
  some people find this really challenging to, to just sit in silence and solitude.
• 0:42
  And others, you may be listening to this and be thinking, gosh, I love sitting in my silence in solitude. So we'll talk today kind of about the importance of it and the challenges associated with it.
• 0:54
  Anthony, for you, when you hear Silence of Solitude, what are your initial reactions? Discomfort? To be really honest with you.
• 1:03
  I it was funny before we started this podcast, we were talking about like, okay, like silence and solitude comes easier to some people than others, right? And I, for example, myself, like this is something that I struggle with. It's like, how do you just simply exist, right? What mindfulness practices are you engaging and where you are truly detaching from your day to day?
• 1:24
  And you're truly just existing and being at a specific point in time. And when I think about this, I'm like, how often am I just being. It's usually not that often. Usually I'm pretty. Go go go. I'm pretty focused on accomplishing some kind of task and accomplishing some kind of goal. So it's I know for me, I'm sure people in the audience can also relate this idea that we've you performance and silence and solitude and breaks as two separate entities.
• 1:53
  But really they're intertwined with it. And there's a certain amount of harmony that goes into that go, go, go that perform, that do as well as that, be as well as that. Appreciate the silence and solitude.
• 2:07
  Yeah. And we go back to the science of recovery. Right. And we know that recovery is so crucial for performance. And there's really two umbrellas of recovery.
• 2:17
  Right. There's the physical rest and recovery, which we all know well. It's getting eight hours of sleep allowing your your body to have physical break. But then we've talked about this a lot in the past the mental side of recovery. Right. And that's allowing yourself the time to detach, allowing yourself the time to relax and have some autonomy over, your life and break that cycle of just being go, go, go task oriented.
• 2:49
  But to your point, like, I think this can be very challenging for some people getting into,
• 2:55
  a comfortability with sitting in silence,
• 2:58
  getting comfortable doing nothing at all.
• 3:00
  and that's easier said than done.
• 3:02
  No it is. And to that end, like, there is such a vital importance of it, of course, for the rejuvenation aspect.
• 3:09
  Right. If you're go, go, go all the time, as you mentioned, the physical side as well as the mental side, like it's you'll probably find yourself in more of those brain files. You'll probably find yourself getting lost in the just going through the motions,
• 3:21
  that idea of taking those intentional pauses really sitting in the silence, sitting in the solitude as well, to to get some clarity to to take a step back and see the bigger picture and take on a new perspective on what you're doing and really why you're doing it to,
• 3:37
  yeah, the benefits to it are are endless, and that it really does allow you to come back,
• 3:44
  like you said, with that clarity, that ability to see things from a new lens,
• 3:48
  to alleviate maybe frustration when you're. I can I can think of times where I've been down into a project or a task, and I become almost tunnel vision on trying to solve the problem, but can't figure it out, and it becomes frustrating. I step away for five minutes, bathroom break, water break, whatever, come back and I'm like, okay, I feel better, right?
• 4:13
  I,
• 4:13
  I can now see a solution to the problem here.
• 4:16
  Having that clarity and just from a simple like five minute, let me step away from the screen.
• 4:21
  that ability to break,
• 4:22
  the engagement and, and allow yourself to, to reset is, is a skill in itself.
• 4:30
  what's the difference between, like, detachment and disengagement?
• 4:36
  I would say the detachment is a lot more intentional, right? So when you're when you're thinking about detachment, when you're thinking about, okay, like for your example was perfect, right? You you're lost in a task or you're going through the motions. You're so tunnel visioned on it. Disengagement is you're probably looking at it and there's just nothing behind the eyes.
• 4:54
  They're right. You're looking at it and your your thoughts kind of mindlessly go to a a ton of different places versus the detachment is a lot more intentional where you are stepping away. I'm looking at the downtown Greenville behind you. It looks like it's a pretty nice day. It's pretty rainy here in Nashville, so you're probably going for a bit of a walk and you're appreciating some fresh air.
• 5:12
  Maybe you're grabbing a cup of coffee, maybe you're grabbing a snack or something to revitalize rejuvenate a bit. That's that's the detachment aspect that we're talking about. That's the aspect of there's intentionality behind. Okay, let me step away from this so I can view it with fresh eyes. That way, instead of honing in on one singular piece of the puzzle, I can see the puzzle for all that it actually is.
• 5:33
  So that that level of intentionality that you're approaching it with would be the being distinguisher between disengagement versus detachment.
• 5:41
  The intention really is what separates the two and that understanding that I am detaching with purpose, whereas disengaging is I just don't care. Apathetic towards this task towards, to, you know, showing up for my job whereas detaching is I'm doing this so that I can perform better.
• 6:03
  And we're really good at prioritizing again, our to do list. We're really good at prioritizing. Well, most of the time, we're good at prioritizing our physical rest. Right?
• 6:14
  I don't know anybody who's pulling all nighters five days a week.
• 6:17
  They, you know, to prioritize getting sleep.
• 6:20
  But prioritizing and being intentional with detaching is less common.
• 6:27
  Especially with high performers, right?
• 6:29
  yeah. And it's hard to it's hard to turn it off. Right. It's very, very difficult to do, especially when you have that ambition, when you have those lofty standards that you set either for yourself or that the environment organization is setting for you. So like that idea of it's hard to sometimes play with that voice in your head to be like, hey, if I turn off right now, if I step away from this is somebody else outpacing me?
• 6:54
  Is another competitor outpacing me? Am I gonna allow myself, am I, am I doing enough,
• 6:59
  If I allow this, turn it off. And it's a it's a bit of a battle internally of like, okay, what's the benefit of this versus of what's the drawback of this?
• 7:06
  I remember when I was doing my dissertation,
• 7:11
  on the you know, premise of mental rest and detaching with a big component of that.
• 7:16
  And I remember this graphic that my advisor showed me, of a brain with a light switch on it and it really is like just switching that light switch off,
• 7:25
  that ability to just shut down for a few minutes and then turn the light back on and go back to, like in our household, especially, or big on when you leave a room, you turn the light switch off.
• 7:36
  Right when you enter the room, you can turn it back on. But even if I leave the room for two minutes and I know I'm coming right back in there, I still turn that light switch off, come back and turn it back on.
• 7:46
  And that's kind of the analogy we're going for, is when you are able to walk away from something,
• 7:52
  hit that light switch and you're in your mind and, and shut off from it, and then come back and flip it back on.
• 7:58
  That light switch isn't going anywhere.
• 8:00
  that's a great visual for it too, right? Because if we think about it, if the lights are always on, then one that electricity bill is going to suck. But but two right at the lights are always on. But this is where you have this this energy drain, right? This is where we see and especially on the other side of the analogy, when we talk about the person always leaving the lights on, this is where you see the burnout, right?
• 8:20
  This is where you see this exhaustion over time and again we always talk about burnout. It gets beyond physical exhaustion. It's a lot of like the mental and emotional exhaustion to where you have this sort of a numbness. You have this this fog where you just can't think straight anymore. There's the there's a stress component. And then at the end of the day, once you're so caught up in the lights, you're always on.
• 8:42
  This is a question that lingers in your head of why am I doing this? Like, what's the what's the point of this anymore? And that's where you see the disengagement, and that's where you also see that reduced motivation over time. Who cares about this anymore? Like, why am I going to these ends to meet these demands?
• 8:58
  And you just hit the nail on the head like the the predictors of burnout are exhaustion, right.
• 9:03
  That emotional, physical exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, feeling like you're just not able to to get things done.
• 9:12
  And evaluation. Right. Like, I, I'm so stressed and overwhelmed that I don't even value the work that I'm doing anymore.
• 9:22
  yeah, going back to that analogy, you leave the light on all day long. That light bulb is going to burn out very quickly.
• 9:29
  Well, not lasted long. Same thing for the longevity of our our careers. The if you're, you know, an athlete, the sport that you play, we we see it all the time. Like you've got to be able to create that silence and solitude.
• 9:44
  absolutely. And and there's an important distinction to with, with this idea that if you're doing nothing physically, you're recovering, right.
• 9:54
  Like if you're doing nothing physically, if you're sitting there vegging out and what my wife and I are bingeing Sons of Anarchy right now. So that's the clearest example of a show that we're doing where, okay, I'm doing nothing physically. But to that end, mentally you can still be on right? Mentally you can still be thinking about your day to day.
• 10:12
  You're constantly replaying the day to day, whatever presentations you had that they would have a podcast that you recorded. Maybe you had an individual client, maybe you had a client call or whatever it may be. Right? So for example, that again, you're just going to keep beating the dead horse or this analogy here, right? If the lights are always on, even if you're outside of the room, it still lingers, right?
• 10:33
  That bulb is still prone to that burning out because even though you're physically doing nothing, your mind is still going. You're beginning to replay those things. You're ruminating, if you will, on a lot of those things. So the the constant meeting making and the constant looping of just returning over and over and over again means, yeah, maybe you worked a 9 to 5 or an 8 to 4, but your mind probably worked a 7 to 10 or a 7 to 11.
• 11:03
  And I think that's something every you know, I would say high performer, but then just almost every human being resonate to it. Right. Like not being able to create that separation,
• 11:14
  from the demands of your job and the demands of,
• 11:19
  your personal life as well. And so that they kind of bleed over into each other and you never get that that true detachment.
• 11:26
  I can think of this weekend, my fiance and I were driving back,
• 11:30
  we took a road trip, and we loaded up the car and loaded up the three dogs like it was a lot of stimulus, a lot going on,
• 11:38
  making sure we had everything we get in the car, we get on the road, and,
• 11:42
  if you want to go.
• 11:42
  And so you want to turn on some music or, you know, a podcast. And I was like, no, that's. Now I just want to sit in silence for like 5 to 10 minutes and then we can, you know, jam out or turn, turn on a podcast or whatever. But you really do feel it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one where after a lot of input, you're like, I just need nothing.
• 12:08
  Yeah,
• 12:08
  especially in the, in the tech age, right? There's so many inputs, whether it's a podcast, whether it's an album, whether it's outlook, teams, slack, whatever or whatever, platform you or you're using or operating on the idea of there's always something going off, there's always a little red badge, if you will, whether it's on your desktop, whether it's on your phone, whether it's in your mind to that constant on that constant engagement.
• 12:32
  And I want to ask you is, is the mental resting recovery expert, within Apple is here.
• 12:38
  as someone who candidly struggles with silence and solitude and would be the first person on that road chip to go, let's listen to a podcast or let's listen to an album here. Why do you think this is so important? Why does this
• 12:48
  silence and solitude matter?
• 12:50
  I think the clearest answer I can give on this is similar to, to what we're saying in regards to inputs and stimulants, like, if our brains are constantly processing information,
• 13:02
  we only have a certain capacity, right? Every single day, a certain level of energy.
• 13:06
  And and so it drains us. So the more inputs you're giving your brain, the quicker your energy is going to be drained.
• 13:14
  you have to be, especially in this day and age, very selective with your inputs when they are like or when you're turning on podcast, when you're opening your email, when you're,
• 13:25
  engaging with your colleagues,
• 13:26
  it's so important because there are such a limited opportunities for it and it's so easy to get overwhelmed with the inputs.
• 13:34
  So the silence piece is being intentional with removing that external stimulation, allowing yourself to have no inputs or very limited inputs for a set period of time.
• 13:49
  To give your brain that moment to not process as much information right.
• 13:55
  And then the solitude piece and I think this is maybe what people struggle with a little bit more,
• 14:03
  is being alone with themselves and just alone with your own, your own thoughts.
• 14:09
  And that scares a lot of people. But it is it is needed. You need that solitude to remove the pressure you feel and the expectations you feel due to the roles that you play, whether that be as a manager, whether that be as, a parent, as a spouse, like a every person you interact with, there is some role you play.
• 14:33
  So allowing yourself to just sit in solitude, alleviate two of that for a few minutes.
• 14:41
  Yeah. Literally as you were talking about the solitude piece, I felt like the discomfort, like the like the icky feeling because it it's almost to the point where when we don't have stimulation, we don't have something occupying our mind, whether it's a phone in my hand or whether it's a computer in front of me, whether it's watching a TV, watching the World Cup run right now, right,
• 15:02
  to sit with the idea of sitting alone with your thoughts, like, I sit there and I'm like, what do I what can I be doing, right?
• 15:11
  What should I be doing right now to occupy myself? Clearly, I'm not being productive. Clearly I'm not doing something that I should be doing. And it's again, like, it's it's such, a contrast in your head to be okay with it, to sit alone not only with the silence, but with the aloneness and just truly reflecting on whatever is going on in your mind that's coming naturally, the being,
• 15:33
  I'm here to like, that solitude and that silence elicits feelings of guilt or shame. Right. It's like, oh, I should be doing this. And because I'm not, I feel bad.
• 15:45
  even that disrupts the process of being able to, detach and and actually use that time in solitude to benefit you now have become.
• 15:57
  Yeah, more of a drain.
• 15:59
  it is hard. But then you've also got the flip of this, and I think we're, you know, good example of each side because you're one who, when you hear that solitude sitting alone with yourself, it brings up that discomfort. Someone when I hear that, I'm like, oh, thank God.
• 16:17
  Like, oh my gosh. Finally. Hey,
• 16:20
  I've always been a little bit more of an introvert. I've always been someone,
• 16:25
  who likes the quiet time. And then my research being fully in the realm of of detachment, I think is something I've gotten really good at, which is also a danger, because I can easily sit there and think about nothing at all.
• 16:41
  And then time gets away from me and I'm like, oh man, it's been 30 minutes. I need to lock back in.
• 16:46
  But to this, to this end, it's interesting to see the individual differences and to know that it is a skill that can be developed over time.
• 16:54
  it is such a skill. And I'll be candid, it's something I've been trying to be better at.
• 17:00
  But it is it, it's absolutely like it's as much of a personal skill as much of like, how can you affect systems in place to help you with that silence and solitude. Right. And like a great example of that, going back to the technology example is okay, what does it truly mean to shut down? What does it truly mean to turn off?
• 17:19
  I actually I had a client engagement last week and we were talking about burnout. And when we talked about detachment, it's it's you can have everything in the right place, right? Like where you you shut the lights off,
• 17:29
  You leave work whether you work for remotely or whether you work in an office environment. But at the end of the day, if you get that outlook notification, if you get that team's notification, you get something that cues your mind to back into work mode.
• 17:43
  You you'll reset it, right? You'll you'll immediately go back into it. So being very intentional with the systems that you have in place okay, this is my silence and solitude time. How am I protecting it? I know there's like screen blocking apps. I know on iPhone there's like focus settings as one. I'm sure it exists for Android too, but making sure those schedules are in place and actually enforced to hold the accountability aspect is something crucial and something thankfully I have encountered over the last couple of months because like you said, right, like that sounds a solid two time.
• 18:15
  It's easy to for you. You 30 minutes go by like, wow, it's been 30 minutes for me. Two minutes go by and it's like, where am I? What's happening here? So that intentionality is is absolutely crucial, especially with the technology age that we live in.
• 18:29
  Yeah, I, I could not agree more. And it's interesting seeing the advancements within technology to, to actually help with this.
• 18:36
  Right. Like being able to access notifications. I know even in outlook now on our calendar, if we can go in and block out like focus time.
• 18:45
  it is something that it's becoming more and more of a priority. I think people are starting to realize the importance because of, you know, that the detriments that can have on your sleep, your motivation, your,
• 18:58
  overall performance,
• 18:59
  and relationships as well.
• 19:01
  there are so many tools in place to help people with this, but it's utilizing those and having, like you said, a system and process for it.
• 19:09
  So we've talked about it being a skill, right. Like this ability to detach or engage in silence and solitude like it is a skill. What can you tell our listeners about, a process or a system for getting better at this?
• 19:26
  I mean, I think it just starts with awareness, right? It starts with awareness about what is the skill of pausing actually look like. And you can seek out athletic domains, you can seek out corporate domains. You can seek out military domains or parenting domains. It's really it's not exclusive to your line of work. It's it's it's it's all encompassing of who we are in today's day and age.
• 19:49
  And
• 19:50
  we talk about the people that are the best at what they do. We talk about the people that are the best for what they do and are able to sustain performance over long periods of time. They're able to have this harmony, this coexistence of being on and being off of engaging, as well as detaching.
• 20:07
  So we can use this almost pause reset return cycle as a means of how do we detach in real time.
• 20:15
  Right. So the perfect example that you had at the beginning of this podcast of you're in the middle of something and it's looking like hieroglyphs in front of you at this point. Right? You're looking at it and it's like, I don't even know what I'm looking at on this screen anymore. Whatever task that I'm doing, that's your cue to pause, right?
• 20:32
  Like that automatic engagement really probably disengagement at this point where you're just looking at it to look at it being very intentional. Okay. Like I'm going to take a pause here. And what does that pause actually look like? Right. Is it going on your phone and looking at reels. It's probably not the most effective pause. Or is it appreciating the Greenville weather and taking a walk outside, getting some of that fresh air?
• 20:53
  Because that's where you get some of that reset component, right? That's where you get some of the reduction in mental input. Maybe
• 21:00
  You take your phone, you put it over to the side, okay. Like I'm not going to have my phone on me during this walk. I'm not going to have the idea or the capacity to respond to notifications during this part, because I really want to get my mind fresh.
• 21:14
  I want to get my eyes fresh. I want to be able to approach this with a fresh perspective. Now, if you knew all of that correctly, that's where you get that return aspect, right, where you're able to truly compartmentalize all of the notifications, all of the distractions, all the stimuli, as you said, and then reenter with clarity, not just reactivity, not just mindless, less engagement, but true clarity about okay, now I can re approach this because I've given myself the capacity and the energy to do this.
• 21:45
  If there's there's a very clear beginning and end to this pause reset return cycle, it's there's a starting point where it is initiated by some cue, whether that's feelings of I'm looking at hieroglyphs or jazz, I'm starting to feel a little tired. My eyes are burning a little bit, you know, let me pause. That's your start. But then you've got to have that set stop as well, right?
• 22:12
  Like, a set return time. I'm taking five minutes or I'm taking, you know, ten minutes, whatever that is.
• 22:19
  danger is that it leads to procrastination, right?
• 22:21
  And not some people have the tendency to when they take that break, you're like, okay, well, now it's the weather's beautiful. I'm really enjoying this.
• 22:30
  I'm going to extend my ten minute walk to a 20 minute walk,
• 22:33
  or, you know, I'm going to grab a coffee while I'm on this walk and, and you kind of get lost in there often. The thoughts, if you will. Right. If you don't have that hard stop.
• 22:45
  that is a big part of this skill of us having a beginning and an end.
• 22:49
  The accountability piece,
• 22:51
  for returning and reengaging.
• 22:55
  couldn't agree more with you, Riley. There's a it's a fine line that we that you'll dance on, that you'll that you'll walk,
• 23:00
  as you engage in these pauses, as you are using the skill of pausing it again.
• 23:05
  There is a skill on both sides of it. A you have to take you have to take advantage of the skill and actually pause. But you can't let the pause turn into a complete.
• 23:16
  Disengagement or a complete just procrastination opportunity, as you said. But you have to. You have to have those heart stops. We have to have those systems in place. So we talk about these systems, I guess, for the audience. Gabby like what? How do we make this practical? How do we, how do we make this go? Hey, how can you plug these into your day to day?
• 23:35
  it's a great question. And that's always where we want to kind of guide our, our listeners into is okay, well here's here's the science behind it. Here's what we know, but here's what you do with it. Right. And we can kind of ping pong back and forth on these. But I would say the first is
• 23:49
  starting small, right.
• 23:51
  Start with your transition periods throughout your day when you have, you know, maybe you have a meeting at 10 a.m. from 10 to 1030, and then you have an 11 a.m., you have a 30 minute gap right there. Right? Maybe you need 15 minutes of that gap to prep for your next meeting.
• 24:08
  Five minutes, to run to the restroom.
• 24:10
  They have ten minutes right to to detach, right detach, engage in some form of relaxation and then get your mind ready to switch back on,
• 24:20
  to this transition periods are a naturally built in way of of applying this pause, reset and return approach.
• 24:32
  I'm not always the best at making the use of those between meeting times and like, okay, I've got back to back meetings all day.
• 24:39
  Some of them I only have a ten minute gap in between. And I just feel like even in that ten minutes, I'm just scrambled, right, for being intentional.
• 24:49
  Even if it's just sitting in your office, closing your eyes for a minute, taking a couple of deep breaths and then jumping back into it.
• 24:56
  it's those little tiny points throughout the day that make a big difference.
• 25:00
  Yeah. It actually, as you were talking about that, I worked with an executive a couple months back and, this is one of the topics we talked about was, so all over the place because my calendar is so staff, the 10 to 11, the 11 to 12 to 12, but one and one thing we what I was working with her with, I was like, okay, like what do we what do these transitions look like for you.
• 25:20
  And oftentimes like, and I'm sure many people can relate to this. It was you log off at 11 and you log back on to the next teams meeting or a zoom meeting. I 11 on the dot and you do it maybe 1159 comes around. You have seconds and then you're just trying to like quickly catch up to speed and look at the agenda like, okay, where is my mind have to be.
• 25:38
  Yeah. And that that context switching, that task switching takes a lot out of you. So one thing we did was talking about, okay, like how do we build a system where she plugged things into her calendar like blocks, like 5 or 10 minute blocks. And I would just be like a private appointment, whatever, where she could truly reset, where she could truly have that transition.
• 25:59
  And one thing we decided was, okay, what's going to prevent her from reengaging to use that ten minutes to just get to the next thing? What she'd like to clean her desk up in that time so she would close the door to her office because she was a big fan of the open door policy, and then she would literally just begin cleaning things on her desk because she knew it was enough mental occupation to keep her mind focused before the next thing, and having some of that silence and solitude there.
• 26:23
  So one example of what it can look like,
• 26:27
  it's a great example and, and a great example of how it doesn't necessarily have to be doing nothing at all. All right. Like, it can be doing something just unrelated to the demands of your job, unrelated to the task that you're about to engage with. Right.
• 26:44
  So what else? What's another practical,
• 26:47
  application?
• 26:48
  as great as it sounds to plug in ten minute breaks after every meeting, it might not be the most feasible, given the demands of your schedule. So we can almost engage in these micro resets or these micro pauses, if you will. So maybe you do have two minutes engaging in some deliberate breathing during that two minutes can be a very effective way to hopefully calm the line.
• 27:08
  Right. We we've had several podcast episodes in which we talked about the gratitude practices. Right. Like just even finding one thing in your day, maybe in your week more broadly to to switch to relive that and to put your mind in a different place, as you said, to truly
• 27:22
  detach there. That way when you go to that next thing, when you go to that next meeting presentation, whatever it may be, you even had a two minute, maybe one minute, maybe even 30s at which you had some of that solitude in which you had some, some capacity to refill the tank,
• 27:40
  Yeah, there's micro breaks,
• 27:42
  when you're not able to block out those ten minute breaks. Right. Like our hour in and of itself, a good starting point. And then I would I would add to this, another application would be limiting the inputs. Right. And again, in our day and age this has to be an intentional effort because we have stimulus coming from every direction.
• 28:05
  But removing your notifications when possible, silencing them.
• 28:11
  Putting your phone.
• 28:12
  Face down even,
• 28:13
  so that you don't see the screen light up.
• 28:16
  you know, maybe when you take that micro break or that ten minute break in between meetings, close your laptop, shut it like, don't shut it down. That takes forever to restart, but just shut the screen.
• 28:29
  And that is that physical detachment from it.
• 28:33
  But yeah, limiting inputs on purpose.
• 28:36
  to piggyback right off of that. Right. And the anecdotal evidence comes back again, the if this is something that's uncomfortable for you, if this is something that you listen to this and you're like, like, I like the idea of it more than I like the actual application of it.
• 28:51
  And you can, it's a skill, right? It's something to, to gain comfortability with. So if you can just create these windows, create these practice opportunities and maybe they are five, ten minutes at a time, maybe they're very, very small gaps. Maybe it isn't for long sensory deprivation where you're sitting alone for an hour or two. That might be a lot for some people, including me.
• 29:11
  But to that end, even if you can just begin to make it a practice and okay, what do I want this, this polish to look like? What do I want this to reflection look like? What am I going to walk away from this pause feeling, thinking wise, right. Like that's taking even a couple minutes at a time to begin to incorporate this allows you to get better at it and allows you to hopefully go about your days and weeks with a little bit more refreshment, a little bit more rejuvenation.
• 29:38
  this becomes increasingly challenging though, when you have people who you believe are counting on you, right?
• 29:44
  You know, whether that be your team members who come to you for solutions or, guidance on, challenges that they're encountering within work, whether that be your kids, whether that be your spouse.
• 29:58
  I think sometimes we start to think, well, if I fully detach, if I shut down the notifications, the world is going to crash and burn.
• 30:06
  If somebody can't get Ahold of me for five minutes. Right. And that's nine times out of ten, not the case.
• 30:13
  getting comfortable with realizing that if I silence my notifications for two minutes.
• 30:19
  Nothing wrong is going to you're nothing's going to go wrong.
• 30:23
  So getting comfortable with that is a gradual process. But again, start small. Don't force yourself to silence those notifications and not look at, you know, or be alone.
• 30:34
  For an hour, start with a couple minutes and build up right?
• 30:39
  you know, to to further challenge that because it's so easy to let ourselves off the hook and be like, okay, I'm going to, you know, go back to my phone, make sure I didn't miss anything. Think about the people in your life, think about whether it's work related to family related, whether it's a spouse parent, maybe it's a child that you have.
• 30:55
  Did they deserve you at 60% of your best where you're always on? Where do they deserve you at maybe 90, 95% of your best, right? It's probably hard to always be at 100%, but if you can be more intentional with this, with this rejuvenation, with this silence and solitude, they're getting a better version of you. They're getting a more complete present version of you as well.
• 31:16
  And and one of the best practical strategies for implementing this, especially in the early beginning stages, is to anchor it within your day at the beginning and end. All right, so start today with five minutes of solitude and silence and enjoy your day with five minutes of solitude in silence. And that even if you're not able to incorporate it yet throughout your day, maybe that's daunting.
• 31:36
  Maybe that's too hard at this stage. Start at the beginning, an end. Look at that and say, okay, first thing when I wake up, I'm not looking at my phone for the first 5 to 10 minutes. I'm going to enjoy my cup of coffee, sit in silence, hopefully before you know the rest of the house wakes up, the dog start bothering me, or the kids start begging for food.
• 31:57
  and just sit in silence for five minutes. And then same thing at the end of the day.
• 32:03
  And that's a great way to start making this, a regular practice.
• 32:08
  absolutely. Well, I know we're we're getting close to time here, so I want to kind of bring us to a close.
• 32:16
  And I think you kind of hit this on the head a moment ago, but what we're trying to emphasize to our listeners is that this skill of engaging in silence and solitude is to make you more present and make you better for the people that you are engaging with throughout your day.
• 32:36
  Right. And it's to allow you to show up at 95% rather than 60%. And,
• 32:44
  and it really does have such a great impact on productivity. It has such a great impact on your motivation.
• 32:51
  And so many benefits to, to prevent burnout as well. So, Anthony, on your end, what are your kind of final thoughts? Or pieces for our listeners to take away with them from today?
• 33:04
  Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it comes to challenging some of your own core beliefs on
• 33:09
  where you stand with the true recovery and detachment practices. Right. And coming to terms with this idea that they aren't separate being. Are you always on or off? Right. It's not an Or, it's when are you on?
• 33:22
  When are you off? What does that complimentary. What does that harmony look like between those two things? It allows you and empowers you to be at 90 to 95% of your best over sustained periods of time.
• 33:35
  couldn't have said it better. That's a great, great summary there. And I'll just leave our listeners with this. You know, we always like to leave you a little bit of reflection point, raise your awareness and then start shifting into action and accountability.
• 33:49
  But ask yourselves, where in your day could you start stepping away and start engaging in some of that silence in solitude and harmony with engaging with the task of your day?
• 34:03
  put it into practice and, and hopefully you'll start to see some of the, the benefits and, and find that harmony between between the two. So thank you all for your time.
• 34:13
  We really enjoyed this episode and hope you all found it helpful. Please remember to like, subscribe, comment with any questions or thoughts you have. We love hearing from you all and we look forward to the next episode. Thanks everyone!