Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 552. How It's Built: A 400+ Person Mindfulness Community for 200 Feeding America Network Food Banks - Megan Whitney

Transcript

552. How It's Built: A 400+ Person Mindfulness Community for 200 Feeding America Network Food Banks - Megan Whitney · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi friends, welcome back to how it's Built, a series where we explore the intricate and often overlooked elements that go into crafting impactful change brought to you by our friends at Allegiance Group and Pursuant.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're fueling nonprofit missions with innovative solutions in digital ads, websites, technology analytics, direct mail and even digital fundraising too.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: If you need a partner in amplifying your brand, expanding your reach and fostering that unwavering donor loyalty.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Visit teamallegiancecom and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the good community.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So let's get started, Becky.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: We're not going business as usual today, are we?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We are not.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is not your grandma's podcast episode.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We're switching it up.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Listen, we're the first to want to just rush into the next thing, right, our schedules are so packed.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: But today's conversation is about mindfulness, it's about building community and, before we even introduce our guest, I just got to create space to set tone for how she entered the room today and we're like let's just rework this introduction, because the gift of this minute to arrive was given to us and I want to give that to you, listener, today as we walk into this.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So, megan, I'm going to skip your intro right away and pass it to you to take us into this space, and then we'll continue on as normal and pass it to you to take us into this space and then we'll continue on as normal.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Hey everybody, I am so delighted to be here with you all and couldn't be happier to treat you to A Minute to Arrive.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: We did this right before the podcast and we thought we could start it off now with intention, because the best way to know what the heck mindfulness is is to experience it.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: So I welcome you.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: If you are in a safe place, not driving, feel free to close your eyes or lower your gaze, and you're also welcome to do this practice with your eyes open wherever you are.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: With your eyes open wherever you are, I invite you to settle in and find your breath, your awareness, taking some slow, nurturing breaths, welcoming yourself into the present moment, feeling the sensations of your feet on the ground, sensing into the feeling of being truly grounded and held in this moment.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Notice what thoughts are here, notice what sensations are here in the body, allowing whatever sensations or emotions are here to be here exactly as they are.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: And I invite you, as we close, to set an intention what feels important now, taking a beautiful breath together as a community, and opening the eyes whenever you're ready.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, what a gift to take a pause, to have someone that's so leaned into this, that can show up with such care and does this in her organization, coming into our how it's built series.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Pursuant allegiance, for making this all possible, these kinds of conversations.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: But we wanted to ask Megan Whitney today, who you know works with this incredible organization feeding America right that is massive influence, massive connection in the food bank space that they have to channel a lot of mindfulness to our work because it's hard, it's day in and day out and it's tireless.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: But to center this practice in the very DNA of our organizations is disruptive.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Sadly, it's a reminder that just that pause at the start of this podcast felt disruptive to our day, and so I hope this conversation kind of catches you off guard a little bit from the flow and allows you to slow down with us and think about how do we bake this into our work, how do we bake this into our organizations, Because it's just so vital.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So I got to tell you a little bit about Megan Before we get started.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: She is on a mission to prevent burnout and this is coming from her own lived experience burning out more than a decade ago.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: She wants to help others not repeat that same exhaustion, even though working in nonprofit brings us about so readily and you've heard this.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: You've heard Becky's story on the podcast.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: You've heard so many come through our halls talking about this.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But she does this by leading a mindfulness community and she coaches change makers to build peaceful, healthy lives for themselves and others, not just in organizations outside.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: We're humans, right, we have all these dimensions that we're showing up for, and so at Feeding America, Megan has spent the last seven years fighting hunger as a fundraiser.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: She's a fundraising consultant and a meditation teacher.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, love that mashup of a title for you, my friend.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: She lives in beautiful Chicago, loves taking walks by Lake Michigan I can imagine you do that and you have so much processing time doing that and making fresh pasta with her niece that sounds like a riot and enjoying the city's stellar standup comedy scene.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: You got to round it out with a little joy.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Megan Whitney, what an honor to have you in this house.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the we Are For Good podcast.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Wow, friends, I am so delighted to be here with you all and really appreciate that kind intro and the way that both of you just rolled in with doing Minute to Arrive.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Well, of course we would.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: It was like you walked us through that and all of a sudden I felt like my somatic energy was low.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I felt grounded in what we were about to talk about, and we don't pause enough to just talk about these things.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And so we're just so excited that you're here and we want to get to know you a little bit.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Like how in the world did you get into this work, megan Whitney, and tell us about all the things growing up?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've always worked in the nonprofit sector.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: I've been working in nonprofits for 17 years and, like many folks who got into this work, it started in the church, with volunteering, being involved in soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I was raised by a family who really valued serving others.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: I know, becky, you're Enneagram 2, like myself right yeah, bringing it on.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So is Julie so is Abby so is Andy.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: We have so much Enneagram too.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of two Right.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness too.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: So my parents lovingly raised my sister and I to be of service to others, to be the hostess with the mostess, and I'm so grateful for that because that's how I got into the social justice work as a career.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: And I'll say the burnout happened partly because I think at the time this was 10 years ago I didn't know how to take care of myself.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't know how to recognize my own emotions or what to do with them other than push them down or Netflix them away.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, feel that.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: But I just wasn't taught these basic skills and I think most of us weren't really taught how to work with our mind, to understand that our body is constantly giving us signals of like, hey, what's up, you need to slow down, we need to go for a walk and get some movement in here.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: So when I burned out, I really thought it was not about me at all.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: I don't think I understood.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I say that with compassion for myself and for you and all that have burned out I know more than 50% of folks in the nonprofit world have experienced burnout and it's probably higher.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: So it's systemic.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I want to really be clear about that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: It's thanks to capitalism, racism, nonprofit grind, culture, back-to-back meetings, underworking and overpaying, overpaying, underpaying staff.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's serious.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: But, like when I reflect on what was it that really caused me to burn out, that I had agency over, it was reacting to the stressors on autopilot and not actually managing the stress itself.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: So you know I'd come home at the end of a workday and maybe had a stressful experience with a co-worker.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: That certainly happened and I would vent to my husband at the time and I would, you know, get on Instagram and just Just try to get through it and go to bed and just think like, well, the workday is over, right, so the stress is over.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: But no, the body doesn't know the difference between me sitting at my office and me being at home.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: It still is in a flight fight, freeze response and is going to pump those stress cortisol hormones, right.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: So, anyway, I just feel like that was the first crisis in my life.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: The second crisis was going through a divorce four years later, and that's when I found my mindfulness coach and therapist, who is an incredible person I still work with today, and she was the one that taught me these skills of meditating every day for 10 minutes, practicing self-awareness and name it to tame it, to be able to work with emotions rather than push them down.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: And I remember just feeling like so alive when I started practicing mindfulness, which, for folks who aren't aware, it's really just paying attention.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: It's not like sitting on a mountain in lotus posture, necessarily which is awesome.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I love a lotus.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I'm a yogi, but we can practice mindfulness.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Right now, as I'm chatting with you, I'm noticing like, oh, my feet are a little sweaty.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: That's interesting and my heartbeat is racing and I'm feeling so excited and also nervous.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: So that's what mindfulness is, and that allows us to show up and choose how we want to be with intention, to live into relationship and love, rather than reactivity and fear.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: So then, when COVID happened, I was at Feeding America.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: We became the frontline responders, the food banks.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: We're a network of 200 food banks, the largest nonprofit in the country.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: I'm at the national organization, so I was not a frontline responder, but I was the one beating the drum like, hey, what about the people doing the work?
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: We are all so stressed and many of us working from home, isolated.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: What are we doing to support the humans doing this work?
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: And, of course, there were things that were happening, but I'm like an assertive Aries, I was just like I'm going to do something myself and caregiver so you've got all that going on.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Organize.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: And I just knew at that time I had three years of mindfulness under my belt and it was very much a personal practice.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: So at the beginning of COVID I took a program called Search Inside Yourself, which is a mindfulness and emotional intelligence-based leadership program, and it started at Google and I remember writing in the envisioning exercise what I wanted to be doing in five years and I found myself writing that I'm going to be a meditation teacher and I'm going to teach this program, and then things just like flowed from there.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: They gave us a toolkit, which I'm happy to share with this community, of how to start a mindfulness group.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I started it at Feeding America.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: We can dig into how to do that in a bit Magically for the first time.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: The program was like we've started an organizational teacher training.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Do you want to teach this program to food banks?
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Here's a scholarship.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So I ended up teaching the program to 80 food bankers who absolutely loved it, virtually with the executive director of Search Inside Yourself.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, it's just grown from there.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like I've talked a lot, so I'll pause.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Well, don't mind us loving your story.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your vulnerability of taking us back to your journey.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I mean so many pieces of it.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I know everyone listening feels related to you in some way, you know.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So thank you for taking us there.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of ways I want to go with this convo.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I'll try to keep us with this idea of of what this unlocked.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: You know, as you stepped into mindfulness, you're talking about your own personal journey.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Then you bring it to this organization.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize it's the country's largest nonprofit organization.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: That's interesting.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And what perfect timing Do you remember, like when we are all thinking back to those like lines, the food bank lines of people trying, and I just think about, on the back end, the people trying to serve it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: How stressful that must be too.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So what perfect timing.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, we all can relate to how hard it is to figure out what to make for dinner, but you're thinking about for communities everywhere, like at all levels, 24 seven.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So like talk to us about what that impact looked like, because you bring this program in.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: How did it help change?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: What were the some of those shifts that happened as a result of this and defeating America?
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: First, I want to acknowledge too that while I shared my story, I didn't get a chance to really bring in the entire community that worked alongside me in making this possible.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: So shout them out my first manager on network fundraising services, amy Barrows.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: You were such an inspiration for me and an encourager to start this community, and you were the one that gave me permission even though that's not what I was hired for to start a community at Feeding America, and you encouraged me to lead a general session on how to practice mindfulness for food bankers at our virtual fundraising conference, when I totally had imposter syndrome and was like who am I to teach this?
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: At that time I wasn't quote unquote certified, not that it matters, but that was her doing.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: As far as the impact, too, to speak to Amy for a little bit more, I brought mindfulness into our team and she really embraced us doing Minute to Arrive, which, again, you all experienced, so I don't need to explain it as much.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: It's starting your meetings with one minute of breathing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: As far as the impact, though, this has rippled out not only to food banks across our network starting their own mindfulness communities.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: North Texas Food Bank started Drop and Give Me Zen, which is incredible.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: It extends to families.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Once we learn these human skills of awareness, of presence, it doesn't stop when we're at work.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: We still take care of ourselves before and after 5 o'clock, so I want to shout out to Laura Juergens at Feeding America's HR team, who I started the mindfulness community myself with a handful of folks in our equity, diversity and inclusion team and then, when I led the general session on mindfulness, a food bank person asked me if they could join and at the time it was just for the national organization and without hesitation Laura was like, yeah, all 200 food banks invite them all.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: So the fact that the leadership really was so welcoming of it and it wasn't really that hard to make the case for it during the height of COVID either, I think folks were down to just try anything.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: So we started meeting with mindfulness community.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe 10 people or so it's now I'll say the meetings themselves is probably around 10 people that actually show up.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: The community on Yammer who subscribes to our emails, who comes to special events, is more than 400 now and what I hear from folks is that because this is a Feeding America initiative, it gives them the permission to create space for a half hour twice a week to come and breathe and be in community.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: When I started it I was sort of unclear like what could the future be for this?
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I'm a consultant who travels to food banks 40% of my job, like how is this going to continue?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: But it just kept going.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And then, once I started traveling again, more people stepped up to lead with me and we've consistently been offering this for four years, twice a week, and meditation is life-changing.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I love so much about this series and just we pitched it into the ether.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: It was like we want to know how to build a thing.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: What have you all built that's cool out there?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: What have you built that's transformational?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And you expect to get campaigns, you expect to get donor journeys, you expect to get some of these systematic things that are strategies and tactics for the industry.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: But when you pitched to us and said I want to teach people how to be whole, how to be mindful, how to be well, how to start working and fighting for their healing and for their peace, that was the easiest.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, I felt like we had out of all of our pitches for the how it's Built series, and the fact that you have integrated it into the culture is going to give different energy into Feeding America.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: If all of us are buzzing because we are in those back-to-back meetings, because we are not taking time to breathe or have a moment of respite in any of this, that is going to come out in the way that we talk and the way we move through our to-do list, in the way we are just buzzing as we're sitting there, and I think you've created this hard stop, not just for Feeding America, but a people that are listening right now, that say, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Like that first one minute, you know, or five minutes, could be the most important thing that we do as we get centered in what we're about to do, and so I'm not at all surprised that this has had just a rippling effect in your community, and I think I also want to make sure that nobody missed what you said about it doesn't just benefit the mission, it doesn't just benefit you in the work right now, today, when you go home, every time you have an interaction with anyone in your day, they're going to be a part of that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So let's get into how the heck you do this thing, and so we want you to sort of go through the playbook of this, how you built this mindfulness community, and we'd love to know, like, how people can start to integrate it into their own culture.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So take it away, my friend.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: As you were talking, Becky, the quote came up for me of Deepa Ayers, who's a social justice activist.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, we love Deepa.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she's been on the podcast.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: So she says how we do the work is just as important as what the work is, and I saw her at the Wellbeing Summit in Omega Institute and that is just something I say constantly to people as we bring meditation and mindfulness into our fundraising trainings with food bankers.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: So, as far as how to start it, the driving idea for me here, as you create this mindfulness community for friends or for your coworkers, is now not how, is now not how?
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: There's no wrong way to do this.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: We just get started and experiment.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: So what I'll offer is what we've done at Feeding America, and I always believe that you are your own best teacher and every culture is different.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: So find out what works for you and you let me know if you have questions or want to brainstorm, because I could talk about this all day and even an email that could help you say hey, friends, I'm thinking of starting a mindfulness community to help people build a mindfulness practice and spend time with each other.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: If you're interested, let me know and we can meet and talk more about it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: So that's basically what I did.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I really believe in the intersection of mindfulness and social justice, and so I started it, primarily with friends, in our equity, diversity and inclusion team because it's a tool of resistance, as John alluded to.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: This is revolutionary, and we can't just start speaking our truth responsibly or deeply listening or experiencing discomfort and saying the thing anyway if we don't have the muscle of mindfulness to like pause and recognize that something needs to be said or that we've caused a moment of harm.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: So I encourage you to start small.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: You could do this with a few of your friends at work.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: You can do it with your family, your coworkers, friends, and just have that first meeting and understand when would be a good time for people to meet.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I would suggest a half hour is a nice time.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: You can meet virtually as we do with Feeding America or like Drop and Give Me Zen I love their name Does at North Texas Food Bank.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: They do it in person in their beautiful wellness room, and so really it's important to make it as inclusive as possible the creation stage, to understand what do people want to get out of this, and then set that time and as far as running it I can, I can go into like exactly what we do.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: This is the playbook, right?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: We want to go deep and do it, cause I mean, honestly, this is parallel with impact up and I'm I can't help but think of, like, how we're organizing in different cities.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I think there's power in, there's a few guiding principles, but, like, what is this community in front of you need?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: What do you need in this space and contour it.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So I think, knowing it's not just a copy paste, but this is just like an inspiration to get you to a different place, is so much of a healthier place to go about this Right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, taking the risks that I have had with mindfulness community have helped me just be totally on board for Impact Up, because I'm like we'll figure it out and it's just about bringing the people together and creating that container, setting the time and seeing what magic happens when we're there, totally.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: So what do we do when we get to the mindfulness community, or whatever you all decide to call it, mindfulness practice group?
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: And I think it's important to keep in mind too, your team's culture, your organization.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: So for me, with the Search Inside Yourself program, it's really about incorporating mindfulness into the workplace and explaining the neuroscience behind it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: And while I do want to acknowledge that these practices started in Asia over 2,500 years ago with Hindus and Buddhism and yoga, these are not new things.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: We can do them in school systems, in workplaces, because they don't need to be religious.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: They can just be a place to breathe and practice focusing and practice a sense of calm.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: So what we do with these at Feeding America is folks hop on, zoom and we say hello to each other and I invite folks to share in the chat or unmute and just share a word of intention.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: So oftentimes words that come up are calm, relax, focus, community, you know.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: So it just gets everybody's voices in the space and helps us understand the different places people are coming from.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Then I will lead a minute to arrive.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I will usually guide it myself, kind of like we did today, and, as I mentioned, we have four other leaders and so many times they'll go into the Calm app or Insight Timer app and just hit that minute timer.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Go into the Calm app or Insight Timer app and just hit that minute timer.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Everyone usually goes off camera, since we're virtual and we really invite folks to be comfortable and also to engage as much or as little as they want.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: So I think it's important for folks to feel like I can come and listen and be off camera and just absorb the love and community, and I can come late if I want or leave early, could pop on for 15 minutes and that's okay as long as it's done quietly.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: So we do have some group norms as well and you'll see those in the toolkit, but we really encourage folks to take this time for them and after we do minute to arrive, I'll then guide or play a practice on Insight Timer or Calm.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: There's so many apps out there.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have meditations on the Insight Timer app myself, which is pretty fun, so I often go to that one because it's free and it's an incredible tool for anyone new to meditation and it's an incredible tool for anyone new to meditation.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: So it's important as well to cultivate a variety of meditations from diverse teachers and to white woman, and we need multiple perspectives and we need opportunities for people to really see this calm, this focus, or whatever you've cultivated during the meditation, to listening to others and to optionally sharing what that experience was like for you, how you're doing, really like how are you doing?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: So we just have folks share and then pick someone to go next and kind of pass the mic, and if folks don't want to share and want to listen, they can write that in the chat and they're happy campers that way.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And yeah, that's it, my friends, that's mindfulness community.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Literally it y'all.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just think you've broken it down so simply and I think the practice You've broken it down so simply and I think the practice, the repetition of this, is really what's going to set the culture apart, and I am really amazed at the simplicity of what you're saying and how it doesn't have to be a 32-page dusty document that we put on the shelf and then we get out.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: You know, for the it truly is this simplistic, human, one-to-one approach of just peacefulness, gratitude, centering, joy, like I really am seeing the power in it.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I mean the safety.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: You know that's creating like these safe places for community to really happen, for people to feel seen as as where they're at for that day, and so I want to talk about.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: You know, I still think there's a barrier to entry, you know, for someone to come into this space, and so I love that you have ideas for how can you integrate mindfulness into meetings, you know, like into spaces that maybe they don't.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: It doesn't take as much friction to walk through the door or to join that zoom room to not know what to expect, but how can we start in, just like an everyday meeting as a leader or wherever we're showing up in our personal time?
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: It's a great question, and I I do think it's true that to start a practice group, it is important to have some sense of a mindfulness practice yourself, although it's not required but it's just kind of helpful.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So, for the Minute to Arrive practice, I think one thing that was key to our success is that the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute generously granted scholarships to hundreds of food bankers and Feeding America staff to take the program, and so that sort of helped set us up with a shared understanding of the why behind the practice, because I think if you have not ever meditated in the workplace before, it's understandable to roll those eyes.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: You just wonder, like how does this even have anything to do with the agenda?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It has everything to do with the agenda Meditate.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: You're right, though I can hear my husband in the background, like at his law firm, going we're not going to do this kind of crap.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: This is going to slow us down and it's like dude, this is the thing that's going to get you through this case.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: You know with your sanity.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: So I believe you.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and to add context to this, I want to shout out Fred Wozniak, who's the CEO of Food Bank of South Jersey.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: He is someone who is a Search Inside Yourself, alum and brought in Minute to Arrive to his food bank.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: It was the first thing he did at his first meeting as the new leader and he was just sharing about this on a webinar we did for HR professionals, for the network, on how to create a mindful workplace, and he talked about we actually played this video.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Have you ever seen?
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: It's like the lessons from the dancing guy video.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to find this.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: We will drop it in the show notes.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: It's this video of this shirtless guy dancing at a festival and dubbed over.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: It's somebody telling about the lessons of leadership from the dancing guy.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: And so they talk about the first person as the lone nut.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: And so he's just dancing his butt off doing his thing, and then someone comes up and joins him and that's how that person becomes a leader.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: And then, because there's more than one, it's no longer about the leader, and so then they just show this video of all these people getting into it.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: And it's really about this is how a movement is made.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: It is not about the leader, it's about the movement.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: And so Fred, incredible person, was willing to be the lone nut who came in and said I would like to introduce this practice, and he just started doing it and other folks started doing it on his team and they really transformed their culture in the time and were way more prepared for the government shutdown and COVID because they were all doing this minute to arrive practice, which then snowballed into mindfulness trainings and all kinds of cool stuff.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: So it's having that willingness to be the first person to say like hey, I heard this lady on a podcast at Feeding America talking about how they do Minute to Arrive and how it really helps with back-to-back meetings.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: You don't have to talk about me, but say whatever you want about why it feels important to you.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Hey, I just came from another meeting.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Could we take a breather for a minute?
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: It's not as important.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I've learned exactly what words you say.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: It's really your tenacity and willingness to put yourself out there and just say like, hey, this is a practice that helps me.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Can we breathe for a minute and just really treat it as like a pilot.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: I have worked with a food bank introducing this practice to their leadership team, and they did a little survey afterwards, after they did Minute to Arrive, to ask people do you want to keep doing this, do you not?
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And so then, I think the key really is making it optional.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Nobody really gets mad about just taking a minute to not work or think so.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: It's really just having the guts to do it.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: And I think it's important to note as well, since Feeding America is so huge, this can work at any size, nonprofit, and, like Becky said, we don't need to write up a strategic plan or invest a million dollars.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: It's all free.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: It's so simple, yet has a profound impact on how we show up and how we support ourselves and each other.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I just believe deeply in the fact that we have to rewire, re-engineer everything about the way that we approach our work.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And we are watching just this exodus from the sector of people not wanting to work in the sector, who are so burnt out, who need something different.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm not telling you that one minute of breathing is going to solve all your nonprofits issues or all your personal issues, but I sure as heck can tell you that it is so grounding in the way that we approach things and I'm starting to think about this like what if we did this before board meetings?
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: What if we did this before we started that gala committee meeting?
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: What if we started this before we kicked off this run or this luncheon?
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: It's like it has the ability to bring everybody into this centering belief that we can be whole, we can be still and we can be entirely present in what we do.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: So I love this, meg.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I love that you've just put your flag firmly in the ground on this.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I am so heartened to know that all of our Feeding America and so many of our food scarcity nonprofits are going to benefit, because it has been a long, hard road since COVID and continues to be for many of us.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: So I really want to take us back and ground us in story, and you know, you've listened to the podcast enough to know we value story as the heartbeat of connection.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: What's a story of generosity, of philanthropy that has stayed with you in your lifetime, whether in this work or personally?
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: We would love to hear that today.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I just had this happen yesterday, so it's a real fresh one, so good.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: I get these stories all the time.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I'm very fortunate to work with incredible humans who inspire me, and yesterday I had the pleasure of talking with a family who not only donates and volunteers to a food bank that I love in Columbia, Missouri.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Shout out to you, my friends.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Go.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Mizzou, but I talked to this 14-year-old her name is Laia and she is a 10th grader who has created a club called Heart to Heart and it's an afterschool club that she started for her friends.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: She started for her friends and she's created a curriculum for eight weeks where they learn about mindfulness and they have journaling prompts.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: They donate monthly to the food bank and volunteer at the food bank as a way to practice altruism and gratitude.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: And she just she blew me away.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I thought she was a college student, the way that she was talking about compassion, and her dad, who also was on the call with me, as well as her mom.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Her dad's a cardiologist and so he also does a lot around mindfulness to prevent heart disease and is incredible as well.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: And Laia just blew me away.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: I was asking her about kind of this low nut idea, like oh so what was it like for you to bring this to your friends?
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: What did they think she was like?
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Well, they don't really like it at first, because I told them that they should try and delete social media from their phones for a week, I'm sure.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: And then, I had them write a paragraph about what the experience was like for them to not be on social media, and people were saying how they realized that they didn't have hobbies, and one of them talked about discovering that she loves art.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: And I feel like I'm going to tear up thinking about this young woman who not only is she teaching her fellow friends who, like their life, is probably on their phones and kind of standing out and putting herself out there and seeing how people are responding to this she's going to teach 20-something-year-old medical students in India.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: This program, oh wow, oh my gosh.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: How beautiful.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I just I love that that story and I so relate to it.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: As I said before, imposter syndrome can be real and it's common for the human brain to make up these fear stories of like, oh people are going to judge me or you know what if.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: But yeah, this is.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: This is the quote I want to share that I keep on my desk that very much relates to it from Reggie Hubbard, who is a yogi social activist who has worked with Barack Obama and training people in Congress on meditation.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: At the Wellbeing Summit he said how can I be the me the world needs, not the me I'm comfortable with?
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: So it's like for me, it just reminds me like we all need to just be ourselves, and this work requires discomfort and putting ourselves out there a bit, and that's okay, because what the world needs and peace and love are stronger than me feeling a little bit scared.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Because there's just so much that comes from slowing down and being reflective, and especially in this space where we are trying to solve some of the world's most complex interconnected issues, it needs our full attention, needs our full hearted attention and needs that brain power in that space.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: And I'm just still kind of shook of like we don't have hobbies outside of social media.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: That's so sad.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: It's like we don't want to die and say this was our hobby?
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Was social media right?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Like there's so much here.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: I want to be part of this revolution with you.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for bringing it to this podcast.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: It's such a beautiful story and something that all of us can apply in our life.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I got to kick it to you for a one good thing as we round out like what's a piece of advice, what's something that's bubbled up this conversation that you'd want to share with the community?
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: There's so many I could share, and I'll share the affirmation that I say all the time to myself that many of my colleagues say in practice that I learned Again, this is not a promo for Search Inside Yourself, yet they are incredible.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: So I got to shout out where I learned it from.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: So it's a one breath, it's called a micro practice and it's breathing in I do my best, breathing out I let go of the rest.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like Megan is like the queen of simplicity, it's like it doesn't have to be that complicated and I do think you're you're putting us back at center.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: And you know my therapist every single week is always like Becky.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: How do you find the real Becky in there?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: How do you find self?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And it's like when we can push these noises out, these triggers, the energy, like when I go back to, I think about the time I was losing my marbles, as I affectionately call it, where I was having my breakdown and it was like it was just so busy, it was so noisy and I couldn't even hear myself in that space.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And so do this as a practice for yourself 10 minutes every day, like start.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: There we talk about pilots.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the word pilot.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: This is a pilot, friends, and I believe in my heart of hearts because I have been transformed by it as well, and I also PS thought it was woo woo before I got into it.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: It's not woo woo y'all.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: This is science, but it can affect so much about how your day is going to go and if it, you feel changed by it.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Put that pilot into practice where you work, find a community.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not just work.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's in your you know spiritual group, maybe it's your knitter circle, maybe it's your book club, whatever it is like.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Start a practice of intention there.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: We want calm minds, energized hearts in this work, and we need you deeply.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: So, meg, people are going to want to connect with you.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Tell us how they can find you, where do you hang out online, and any more of these resources that we haven't already rolled up.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, before I share, I just want to add too that if you're hearing 10 minutes and freaking out, sometimes just starting with one minute and building up from there, that's huge as well.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: So we can take baby steps.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: The brain does respond to daily practice.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, where folks can find me?
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: I hang out a lot on LinkedIn and so you can find me just by my name, megan Whitney, and I also have guided meditations and lead live mindfulness community for change maker events for free.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: On the insight timer app for free.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you for doing that, my friend.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming to this house, for literally slowing us down and making us think.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Today, I feel like this conversation was so rich something for everybody.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: Just think the world.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Meg.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: This was such an honor.