Latest / Linen Suit & Plastic Tie / Rewind - Why are Botox Sales Going Up? ft. a Cognitive Neuroscientist (Dr. Sahar Yousef)

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Rewind - Why are Botox Sales Going Up? ft. a Cognitive Neuroscientist (Dr. Sahar Yousef) · Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

0:04
Welcome. Welcome to this special episode
0:06
of the linen suit in plastic tie podcast.
0:10
This is the park as we work to unlock the amazing.
0:13
This is spend this the Epic power of Storytelling in your
0:16
business career, as an everyday lives, I'm going on Kevin Kevin
0:22
could be in a closet. And while I have my travel Mike,
0:27
I'm missing the adapter. So I'm going old school and
0:30
using my Ear Pod mic to record this because we are doing
0:34
something a little unique, our last episode, as some of, you
0:38
know was the final episode of season 2 of the linen suit and
0:41
pass the time. We've been doing two years of
0:45
the show so far, 40 First episodes dozens of amazing
0:50
guests and we just closed on a second season.
0:55
Pretty exciting, right? Exactly.
0:58
It's pretty incredible. The amount has conversation that
1:01
were able to have around storytelling.
1:03
We're so appreciative, of course, of all the people who
1:07
have come to our show, to share their stories, and in size.
1:10
And of course, all of you listen, yeah, our lessons.
1:14
We love you guys, we love that. You joined this story with us.
1:17
We are very excited to announce that we are working on season 3.
1:22
That season 3 is going to be amazing.
1:24
Better than ever. So, if you've been with us, this
1:27
is asked to years. If you're brand-new to the show,
1:30
get excited because season 3 is on the way with a whole new host
1:33
of experts storytellers, whole new field, and maybe even some
1:37
new episode types. Head, are you excited?
1:40
Oh, I am definitely excited. We have so much more in store
1:45
for you for this exciting upcoming season, but as is in
1:52
the spirit of the holiday season, we would like to release
1:56
something special for all of you, which is why we're doing
1:59
this episode today. Yeah, I mean, Kevin, I were
2:02
talking a lot about as you from paying for season 3 as we were
2:06
just think about how amazing all of y'all were we like, okay,
2:09
what what should we do? If you like, we should release
2:12
something. So something we thought would be
2:14
fun, was to pull out a season one episode.
2:16
And we release it and we listen to it and see how the lessons
2:21
from this episode touches. How we can gain a deep
2:26
understanding now that we cavity fun same.
2:28
So it's also, it's fun, just to call it a season.
2:31
One episode that we really enjoy doing and giving it to you guys
2:34
again, especially right now the holiday season have any thoughts
2:39
about there can be a lot of stress during the season though
2:43
and we want to pull up one of the guests that help us push.
2:46
Studs to expand what this podcast meant to us.
2:49
That helped us say this is not just about the stories we tell
2:52
others. But Stories, We Tell ourselves.
2:54
So, Kevin, who's episode are we bringing back in service?
2:58
Well, for this bonus episode. We are bringing back our
3:03
fascinating conversation with dr.
3:05
Sahar Yusuf, she is a cognitive neuroscientist at UC Berkeley.
3:12
She is known for her work in helping people, especially
3:21
Business Leaders, understand stress.
3:25
Handle stress better and in her own terms, making superhumans.
3:31
But that is not meant for you to, you know, stress yourself
3:34
out more. That's all we're doing here.
3:37
We bring this conversation to you to become better at handling
3:41
stress and of course make ourselves feel better by
3:46
understanding how to properly tell stories are about ourselves
3:52
to ourselves all those voices. Has and narratives that you have
3:56
going 24/7 in your own heads. Let's break that down.
4:00
And let's understand how they work.
4:02
And let's actually harness that power.
4:06
Instead of letting it work against you and you know, we've
4:11
taught in our anniversary episode about how sometimes Rob
4:17
and I as the host and creators we get self-conscious about
4:21
listening back your own content but this was Definitely one of
4:25
the episodes where we do listen back to over and over ourselves.
4:31
So we thought it'd be great if we republish it so that we can
4:37
make a surface for more of you so that you guys, can we listen
4:42
to that conversation or listen to it for the first time if you
4:46
have it. So let's all take a breath.
4:52
And let's travel back to 2021, to season one of the nanotubes
4:57
and pacified podcast with the amazing Gustav.
5:01
So, how I use it today? We are so glad to be joined by
5:08
dr. Zahar yusov.
5:10
Who is a superhuman? And we'll get into the meaning
5:14
of that in just a bit. I would tell you her story, but
5:18
I should really leave it up to her.
5:19
Her to tell her own story. So, so hard to start us off.
5:24
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
5:26
What is your story will do? And I don't know if I can really
5:32
own up to being a superhuman, but a human I will do.
5:35
I will take, I will take that. So at my name is Sahar Yousef.
5:40
I am a cognitive neuroscientist by training and I am a faculty
5:44
member at UC Berkeley's Haas, School of Business and my
5:48
background is in Singing brains. I study how humans work and
5:53
spend my obsession and my passion, for a very, very great
5:58
number of years now. And my work currently is focused
6:02
on the study of productivity and performance so I study basic
6:09
biology, I study how the brain actually operates and works and
6:13
I apply that to how people get work done.
6:17
So I apply that to how we work at the team in.
6:19
Organizational level and also how we live our lives and how we
6:24
kind of optimize our, our work lives.
6:27
So I study really the science of how you can get more done in
6:31
less time with less stress. That is always the goal for my
6:35
lab. And I the work that I do as been
6:39
colloquially called The Becoming superhuman lab or research team.
6:43
And there's a reason there's a there's a little bit of and I
6:46
know you all love storytelling. So I will tell a story.
6:50
Out the name becoming superhuman because I would never I cannot
6:54
take credit for that name. So, that has marketing lit
6:57
written all over it. And I've had the distinct
6:58
pleasure of having a lot of students that are far more
7:00
creative than I am, who have helped give a cooler name to
7:04
the, to the lab, so the becoming becoming superhuman lab.
7:07
First and foremost, let's unpack superhuman.
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My belief is that in accepting and embracing all of the ways in
7:14
which we are human, can we really actually become
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superhuman? There's no actual superhuman.
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It is working in line with our basic biology.
7:26
It's knowing how our brains, and our bodies work, best and
7:30
leveraging that to the best of our abilities.
7:33
It's leveraging what we already have our unique talents and
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working again in line with our basic biology as opposed to
7:42
against it. You're writing our waves, as
7:44
opposed to kind of crashing against them, so that's the
7:48
Superhuman piece. And the, the the word becoming
7:54
is truly about most important here because we do not become
7:57
superhuman, we don't check that box, we don't check that box and
8:01
move on, we don't say, okay, great, I've achieved whatever it
8:04
is, I'm trying to achieve in this pursuit of being the best
8:09
version of myself. And now, I am the best version
8:12
of myself and I'm done now and I get to walk away.
8:16
This is a lifelong Pursuit, it's a mindset and it's a mindset.
8:20
I like to encourage all of my students to employ for the rest
8:22
of their lives. And that mindset is very much,
8:24
something very close to. I would say that the hosp
8:26
ripples as well questioning the status quo Questioning the
8:31
status quo always asking ourselves.
8:35
Why, how can I go beyond myself? How can I be a better version of
8:41
myself, is a constant stoic challenge, to continue to
8:47
question, learn and evolve. So, there's a that word becoming
8:52
was very, very important to myself to my colleagues as well.
8:56
And that this is really, again, this mindset shift.
9:00
Becoming superhuman is a way of life and it's very individual
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and it has absolutely nothing to do with checking boxes and it is
9:08
absolutely nothing to do with actually being superhuman.
9:12
We talked a little bit before about the questions we are
9:14
coming up with for you about how every single one can be its own
9:17
podcast and I'm trying not to dive into stoicism right now but
9:22
Hugh brought up a lot of interesting points and something
9:24
that I loved was this idea of getting more done with less
9:29
stress. I'm a person who's an avid
9:32
believe in mindfulness and meditation.
9:34
It's actually where I first started seeing your content
9:36
because I'm a daily use of headspace and I'm obsessed with
9:39
the app. So and something that I learned
9:43
a lot through meditation. Something that we talked a lot
9:45
about on this show is getting trapped in our own story lines
9:48
and trapped in our own stories and I would love to kind of dive
9:51
deep, right off the bat with you on that through what you're
9:55
talking about. But getting more done with less
9:57
stress and it's why it's so important that we designate with
10:00
less stress. Oh, I love that.
10:03
And I'm so happy to hear that you're an avid headspace user
10:06
and in general, I mean, being a practitioner of mindfulness and
10:10
meditation and having that be an integrated part of your life is
10:14
has been shown to be, of course, wildly helpful, in the pursuit
10:17
of becoming superhuman. So just happy to hear that
10:20
overall. Let's dive into that.
10:25
Let's dive into that. And I want to start off with,
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I'm going to talk about a term that we talked about frequently
10:31
in the class that I teach. So my students will be familiar
10:34
with this topic, but I called them identity-based beliefs,
10:39
identity-based, beliefs are beliefs that run in the
10:44
background so much of our human behavior.
10:48
Identity-based. Beliefs are narratives that we
10:51
believe about ourselves things that we say about, who we are as
10:57
people that dictate so much of our behavior on a daily basis.
11:04
Some of these identity-based beliefs in my experience,
11:07
working with folks, especially in the past couple of years
11:11
could be. I'm really busy all the time.
11:15
I struggle with being stressed. I struggle with being stressed.
11:20
I'm just an anxious person. I have a hard time with sleep.
11:27
These are some of the identity-based beliefs that I
11:29
have heard circulating in my classroom and across campus off
11:34
campus Etc, over the past couple of years.
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When we say things about who we are the type of person we are we
11:43
limit ourselves almost automatically This can either be
11:48
leveraged and used to our advantage or it can be hurtful
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and it could limit us and actually create illusory,
11:55
boundaries in the ways in which we actually show up as people
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and I'll talk about a positive example, and a negative example,
12:02
if it's all right, we'll just dive into this.
12:04
Yes. Yeah.
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A positive example of this might be, I'll take my own
12:10
relationship with meditation. I believe.
12:16
In my bones, that I am a meditator.
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I have not meditated today that doesn't change the fact that I'm
12:24
a meditator I could have skipped my meditation all week.
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Heck, all month, that does not mean that I am not a meditator I
12:34
believe in my bones that I am a meditator.
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Do I need to have a daily Habit to be a meditator?
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Nope, not my book. But that also means that I am
12:43
more likely a month from now, in a moment of weakness, when I
12:48
need it, the most to turn to meditation because I am a
12:51
meditator, it is just a part of who I am.
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I know that. and I believe that about myself, I do not need to
12:59
keep up with it every single day to turn to it when I need it.
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On the flip, I might tell myself that I struggle with stress.
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I'm just an anxious person when I say that over and over and
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over again, this comes up in conversation with friends.
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Friends will ask me. Hey, Sahar, how are you?
13:20
How have you been doing the night?
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And I consistently respond. Oh, busy life is just been
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crazy. I've just been busy.
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Then I'm feeding this belief about myself about my identity
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that no matter what's going on, no matter how many things change
13:36
in the world around me, I remain an anxious person.
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I remain a busy anxious stressed out person.
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So I'm feeding this narrative this belief about myself the
13:47
story about myself. And the more I feed the story,
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The more robust it becomes, even in my own mind and the more
13:56
robust, it becomes in my own mind, the harder it is for me to
14:00
be anything besides that. I am a busy person.
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I can't not be. It's just who I am.
14:09
I keep telling myself that people tell me that they say oh
14:11
so hard, she's always busy. So if there's if there are
14:15
narratives to whoever is listening that you all recognize
14:21
that you're holding on to that you think are not serving you.
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I would push you all to discard them as soon as possible.
14:30
And one of the best weapons you have in this fight against
14:35
identity-based beliefs, that do not serve you.
14:39
Our beliefs that are orthogonal to the beliefs, you're trying to
14:43
fight. If you believe right now that
14:49
you are just an anxious person. This is just the way I am.
14:54
This is just my personality. First of all, there's no such
14:56
thing as a personality. I can tell you that as a
14:58
neuroscientist, you can come to my lab.
15:00
I will give you a pill in 15 minutes, you will be behaving
15:02
and believing and feeling things that you would have never
15:05
imagined you would feel think behave.
15:09
Are constructs of who we are, are very flimsy, they're
15:12
malleable. They're not real which is again
15:18
AB lifting and exciting because it means there's no such thing
15:22
as Kevin. There's no such thing as gaurav,
15:25
there's no such thing as Sahar. We are not real.
15:29
We are as we design ourselves to be, we are who we choose to be,
15:35
but it does mean that the implicit Stories that we tell
15:40
ourselves about who we are are really powerful.
15:45
The beliefs that we hold the narratives, the stories that we
15:48
hold onto about who we are and the behaviors with which we
15:52
exhibit those are so deeply powerful and they need to be
15:57
audited. So pausing as many times as you
16:00
can throughout your life and asking yourself, do I, what are
16:05
my beliefs about me? What are my beliefs about the
16:08
world around me are my beliefs serving me are my stories that
16:13
I'm holding on You are they serving me or can I tell a
16:17
different story and my recommendation to everyone
16:21
listening is? If there aren't that many
16:24
stories about yourself that you love fake it till you make it
16:29
make it up. Tell yourself The Narrative
16:33
about how you don't believe in being busy.
16:38
You want to push back on being just a quote-unquote busy
16:41
person, you want to push back on.
16:44
Being an anxious individual or struggling with stress, guess
16:48
what you should hold the belief about yourself that you don't
16:52
believe in busy. Tell yourself that every single
16:57
day I don't believe in this whole busy culture.
17:00
I don't believe in this whole hashtag Rise & Grind culture,
17:04
that's being perpetuated in the 21st century.
17:07
It's bullshit. I don't believe in it.
17:10
I consider myself a hyper prioritize, ER tell yourself the
17:14
beliefs inject the stories and craft them every single day,
17:19
into your life and give those an opportunity to grow water them
17:23
just like you would plants in a garden.
17:25
No. And start to deprive water for
17:30
plants that honestly, just do not serve you and they're
17:33
creating more stress and more anxiety in your life than you
17:36
need to give yourself. Get that you want to give space
17:38
to, you know, you brought it so many interesting points right
17:43
there. A part of me feels like we
17:45
should be clapping so many things, I want to jump in from
17:49
there. It's just off the top of my
17:51
head. This idea of busyness is really
17:53
fascinated by us and was for college, you know.
17:56
There's that Dia with a competition of who's sleeping
17:59
less, so, who's doing this, and it is a crazy mentality and
18:04
something that I did try to Pivot myself pretty early on was
18:08
to stop saying that I'm busy and saying not that I was too busy
18:12
for this, but it wasn't a priority.
18:14
It wasn't my most priority and that subtle mind shift really
18:17
affected me as well because I know something that I struggle
18:20
with is kind of all or nothing thinking.
18:24
That idea that if I if it's not the perfect moment, if I can't
18:30
do every, if I can't start running for two hours every day,
18:35
if I can't change my life completely that I procrastinate
18:39
and push it back. So yeah, that's definitely
18:42
something that's affecting me. We have lien something.
18:43
We talk a lot about here is that idea that storylines push us and
18:48
confine us and it's why it's so important that we understand the
18:51
running narratives in the wedding story time.
18:54
Aspects. We are telling ourselves.
18:57
I completely agree, right? It's a what you're really
18:59
saying. What I'm hearing you say, is
19:01
audit question. Those storylines question, them
19:05
become aware of them. And is that the story that you
19:08
want to tell about yourself, if it's not serving you, get it
19:11
out, get it out of your head, get it out of your life and
19:14
inject something that does serve you.
19:16
And even if it's aspirational, this is what I, this is what I
19:20
really want to make sure that we're highlighting here, even if
19:23
you're making it up. In the beginning, you will
19:26
Aspire. You will Aspire and rise to the
19:29
occasion of living, your life in line with that belief and in
19:34
that narrative just give it time, right?
19:37
I'd love that what you're saying here is that idea that it's
19:39
you're not saying get rid of all your story lines.
19:42
They're making their limiting your purse.
19:44
Now you're saying look at the storylines that serve you as
19:47
with any tool as if any skill there are good and there's bad
19:51
aspects of it. You can use it properly, you can
19:54
It incorrectly. Absolutely absolutely.
19:57
And making up good stories about yourself and the world is I
20:02
think an underutilized technique for Success.
20:06
Let's keep digging into this. Whole concept of story briefly
20:10
for a second. There is a researcher out of
20:13
Stanford that studies stress for a living and something that she
20:20
came across in her research. Is that adopting a mindset?
20:24
Of quote-unquote stress helps can do wonders for mitigating
20:30
and avoiding some of the negative side effects of high
20:32
stress. So let's let's let's unpack this
20:35
briefly for a second together. This means that in the face of
20:39
stress, a stressful life, I've got deadlines, I've got projects
20:44
their urgent, I have a million and one personal
20:47
responsibilities I need to get to that.
20:49
I'm also juggling in the face of all of these things that are
20:53
objectively. Really stressful.
20:55
What if stress wasn't bad? What if I viewed stress as a
21:00
good thing? Because guess what, what is
21:03
stress really physiologically? Speaking stress physiologically
21:08
is a set of mechanisms neurochemical and other that
21:14
gives my brain and body, the energy that I so desperately
21:18
need to fight to flee or to do stuff in my life.
21:24
That is all that stress is. It's a little bit of cortisol.
21:28
Some adrenaline, it's good stuff I need stress.
21:32
Stress is an indication that I care.
21:35
Stress is an indication that I care about this thing in front
21:38
of me and that my brain and my body are working.
21:41
Thank goodness and their give it's giving me the energy that I
21:44
need to do stuff with it and if I next time, I start to feel
21:49
stressed out, I go. Oh wonderful, whoo, I can feel
21:53
the stress in my body. D stress helps.
21:56
I'm so glad that I'm feeling this nice boost of cortisol.
22:00
I'm so glad that I'm feeling this so that I can actually rise
22:03
to the occasion and deal with the stuff in my life that I need
22:05
to deal with adopting, the mindset of stress helps has been
22:09
shown to actually decrease the negative side effects of stress.
22:15
That I remember happening upon that research really changed my
22:18
mind. My own personal mind about my
22:21
relationship with stress stress is not bad.
22:24
We need stress by the way. Also stresses good for your
22:26
immune system. I would never wish a life of no
22:28
stress on anyone. It would be terrible,
22:31
especially, not right now, during a pandemic stress is good
22:34
for your immune system. You need stress.
22:37
The piece about stress, that is not good.
22:39
Is that? It shouldn't be chronic?
22:41
Meaning I should not be stressed out forever.
22:45
Little thing, all of the time, you should be stressed and then
22:50
not stressed stressed, and then not stressed and in this nice
22:53
little cycle. It's that rumination, right?
22:57
It's it's that getting sucked into one thing and ruminating
23:00
and feeling that stress and taking it on, too much that I
23:03
feel like that affects me most is that is that kind of what
23:06
you're saying? So the chronic stress is
23:09
actually defined as stress that you experience too long and too
23:14
often without Closing it out. So, if we take a step back, and
23:18
we say, evolutionarily human beings, by the way, are designed
23:21
to experience stress in what are called short, and complete
23:27
Cycles, short and complete cycles.
23:29
That means an emergency happens. Let's say, for example, a lion
23:35
walks into your office and you go, uh, it's a lion crap.
23:39
And in that moment you get a spike in cortisol and
23:42
adrenaline, right? Your body kicks into your body a
23:45
little again. It's giving you the energy that
23:47
you need to do stuff. So it's giving you good
23:50
hormones, nice glucocorticoid, stress hormones.
23:52
So that you can do stuff, protect yourself, hide fight,
23:56
fully do something in the face of this dresser.
24:00
Evolutionarily, at some point, you do run away from the lion.
24:03
You're able to successfully hide.
24:06
Probably not fight, let's be honest.
24:07
So let's just say you successfully hide and then that
24:10
stress goes away, you've completed that stress cycle
24:15
something stressed, you out. So you get this uptick in stress
24:19
and then the stressor goes away. So you get this nice
24:21
down-regulation short and complete cycles, that is what
24:25
stress is supposed to be in our brains and bodies ideally But
24:29
what about the 21st century? What does our day look?
24:32
Like, I wake up in the morning, I check my email and I see 50
24:38
emails that have already come in while I've been sleeping.
24:42
And before I have an opportunity to deal with those emails, I
24:44
need to jump into my first meeting.
24:46
I need to jump into a class, I need to do this, I need to do
24:48
that and I don't even have time to deal with all those emails
24:51
that have come in and what am I doing in between all of my
24:53
meetings classes and so on and so forth.
24:55
I'm checking my email again and I'm seeing this massive to do
24:59
list a crew. So I see on top, we see all of
25:03
these stressors. All of these stressors, continue
25:05
to accrue one on top of the other one on top of the other.
25:07
So I see this uptick in cortisol, then I jump to a
25:10
different task and I see another Taking cortisol and I never
25:13
really closing anything out. I never complete these stress
25:16
Cycles. So instead of having stress be
25:19
again, a short and complete cycle.
25:21
As in, I got an email that just came in that stressful.
25:24
Let me sit down and deal with it immediately, you sit down, you
25:28
deal with it, you send it off. Take a deep breath and I'm done
25:32
move on, move on to the next thing.
25:34
That's not what life looks like. I see the email and I don't even
25:37
time to respond to it. And I moved on to a different
25:39
thing. I have to come back to it later.
25:42
So instead of having stress being dealt with in what are
25:45
these shorts and complete Cycles, they become this, it
25:49
becomes this infinite Loop. So it's death by a thousand
25:52
paper cuts. It's these tiny little upticks
25:55
in cortisol. That never get closed out.
25:59
And then you get chronic stress, that's what chronic stress is.
26:03
It's stress that I never really finish dealing with.
26:06
I'm always prepared. Truly a little bit stressed out.
26:09
Constantly navigating these tiny little stressors while I'm
26:13
navigating my life, I've gotten two missed calls, 15 unread text
26:17
messages. I haven't even read the news
26:18
yet. It's all of these things that I
26:20
hope to do that. I want to do and I just simply
26:22
don't seem to have the time or the bandwidth to do them.
26:26
So I get these tiny little upticks in cortisol and quite
26:28
frankly, I feel Shit. That's when you start to get
26:31
burnout, that's when you get the negative side effects of chronic
26:35
stress. So what I would suggest pushing
26:38
back against is again, this will first of all perfection in them
26:43
need to go out the window and more importantly, finding time
26:47
every single day to close out and completely stress Cycles,
26:51
have a ritual at the end of your day, no matter how crazy your
26:54
day is for you to actually close out and ground yourself every
26:58
single day. Once a day, I would recommend at
27:00
the end of your day to just sit down, reflect and closeout feel
27:04
like visualize yourself, grounding like an actual like an
27:08
electrical circuit just into the ground that you are releasing.
27:12
All of that anxiety, you're releasing all of that stress.
27:15
So that we have a Fighting Chance one and changing those
27:19
beliefs. Again, about about stress,
27:21
stress is not bad, stress is good.
27:24
Stress makes a strong stress. Helps these are the beliefs.
27:27
Write the stories that we tell ourselves stress.
27:30
Helps I'm not a stressed out person.
27:32
These little things. Don't just giving me energy.
27:35
Stress, isn't bad? I welcome stress.
27:38
Say that to yourself for once. I welcome stress, why?
27:42
Because I'm gonna have time at the end of my day today to close
27:45
all of my stressors out. My days are crazy, but I ground
27:51
myself at the end of every single day.
27:53
Let that be the story. We Tell ourselves.
27:55
Yeah, it's that idea of habit-forming and reframing
28:00
things, that it's so incredibly powerful and I've seen in my own
28:04
life and I think when it comes to Habit, something I struggle
28:07
with is going back to that all-or-nothing thinking what
28:09
it's like. But I do have a few days and I
28:11
miss a couple days and I'm like, well, what's the point, right?
28:14
So and that again, is the story that I'm telling myself when I'm
28:17
like Oh, didn't do any good because I missed one day, but
28:21
reclaiming it to see the power and we frame it to see that how
28:26
positive it can be just to come up and show up for yourself is
28:29
so important. I would definitely agree on the
28:32
topic of habit formation. I would add adopt as much as
28:37
possible. The mindset of a scientist and
28:42
what I mean by that except it is a part of the very fabric of
28:47
what it means. Means to be a scientist to fail.
28:51
It is by it is it is a part of the very fabric of the pursuit
28:55
of science to fail. It is a natural and welcomed
29:00
parts of this process. Every day we expect to fail.
29:06
If we are not failing then we are not doing it, right?
29:09
It's not a reflection of who you are.
29:12
It's just - data. You're learning about yourself
29:16
today. You didn't get to meditate, does
29:19
it mean you're not a meditator today?
29:21
You just happen to not do it, we can learn from it.
29:25
What was the missed opportunity? When did you think of doing it?
29:28
And why did you decide not to? It's just an opportunity to
29:31
learn. It's just data, it's all just
29:33
data, collect the data and move forward.
29:36
But it's not a reflection of who you are as a person.
29:39
I love that. That's awesome.
29:40
That's such a great reframing. It's such a great story to tell
29:44
yourself for sure. And going back to the idea of
29:50
stress and stress cycle for a bit, how do you seen the age of
29:55
Zoom affected, stress? Oh boy, let's dive into video
30:04
fatigue. Okay.
30:05
All right, I'll put a bit of research to share on this topic,
30:09
but I'll go over a couple of sort of high-level points here.
30:12
First, and foremost, video, fatigue is real.
30:16
So, if you haven't heard the new research that's come out in the
30:18
past year, I will be the first to tell you video.
30:20
Fatigue is real. It's measurable.
30:21
Okay. That means the same exact
30:23
conversation. The same people involved.
30:26
The same conversation over video Versus in person, the video is
30:31
more draining. It actually measurably takes the
30:34
brain and more effort and energy to pay attention to the same
30:37
meeting compared to its in-person counterpart.
30:40
So if you have been recently feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm
30:43
exhausted with all these Zoom calls.
30:45
You're not alone, you're not alone.
30:47
It is measurably more dream. Specifically, what is difference
30:51
in the brain video versus in person?
30:53
More beta waves. Beta waves are a marker of
30:57
alertness and attention. It's essentially a proxy for us
31:00
neuroscientist to study how much effort your brain is putting in
31:05
to focus on whatever is in front of you.
31:07
How much efforts do I need to put in to pay attention to Kevin
31:10
and what Kevin saying, for example and measurably the Brain
31:15
requires more beta, it uses more beta waves.
31:19
Herbs to pay attention to the same content over video compared
31:24
to in person. That means, if Kevin is calling
31:27
me on the telephone or I get to see Kevin for a cup of coffee in
31:30
person, it requires x amount of beta.
31:33
If all of a sudden, now we're on a zoom cold together.
31:35
It is requiring to X the amount of beta for me to listen to the
31:39
same exact thing that Kevin is saying.
31:41
So if you think about it from a financial standpoint, it is more
31:45
expensive to have the same conversation with Kevin over
31:48
video than Would be in person. Now, that's just the fact of the
31:53
matter. Let's talk about some of the the
31:55
the what about the video is making it so draining.
31:58
Okay. What about the video is making
32:00
it so draining. First and foremost, self-view,
32:06
this is a new phenomenon that so many of us have been
32:08
experiencing, I would say in silence, which is we're on these
32:12
video calls and if you can see yourself, you'll know what
32:16
you're doing, you're just staring yourself, you know.
32:19
You're in zoom and your Perpetual looking at yourself,
32:23
okay? You're not alone by the way,
32:25
you're not alone, and it has nothing to do with vanity.
32:27
In case. Anyone was wondering, it is
32:29
nothing to it. You're not, it's not about,
32:31
you're not just checking yourself out for the sake of it.
32:33
There's an area of the brain called the fusiform face area,
32:36
or the SFA for short in his brain area, has kind of one job
32:39
and one job only, and that is to process human faces.
32:43
You cannot turn it off. There's no off switch.
32:45
You are perpetually processing, everyone else's face but
32:48
especially Our own face if you have access to it.
32:51
So if you can see your own face in your own image, you will be
32:53
background processing. It, you cannot help it and you
32:56
cannot turn it off. This is the number one energy
32:59
drainer cognitively. Speaking in a video meeting my
33:02
number one recommendation. If you have zoom hover over your
33:05
own image, find your face in the zoom call hover over your own
33:08
image in the upper right hand corner of your own image.
33:11
You will see an ellipses, three dots, hit that button, and
33:13
you're going to see a drop down menu and you're going to see a
33:15
button called hide self-view. And no, I do not work for zoom.
33:19
You're going to take self-view, and then you can hit that there,
33:24
and then you won't see yourself other people can still see you.
33:27
I'm not saying turn your video off.
33:29
They can still see you. You just can't see yourself.
33:31
You know, kind of like a normal conversation.
33:34
Remember when we used to see each other in person and you
33:37
could see my face but I couldn't see my own face.
33:39
Yeah. That's kind of normal.
33:40
Don't you think? I've had so many students tell
33:45
me. What do you mean?
33:46
I don't want to what what it's make.
33:48
It makes me uncomfortable they can Me, but I can't see me.
33:51
What are you talking about? That's totally fine.
33:54
There is nothing. More biologically unnatural than
33:57
you to see your own face during a conversation.
34:00
There is nothing like, think about this like the animal
34:02
kingdom. Like in what world do you look
34:04
at your own image and reflection?
34:05
When you're sick talking to another person?
34:07
Can you imagine how silly it would be?
34:09
If I was on a date with somebody at a restaurant?
34:11
And then instead of focusing on my date across the table, I have
34:14
like a compact open and I'm just staring at my own face during
34:17
the entire conversation. I'm checking out my hair.
34:19
R. I'm like fixing my makeup like
34:21
doing Lord, knows what? Of course.
34:23
It's totally biologically unnatural for us to see
34:25
ourselves during a conversation with another human.
34:27
So my number one recommendation. Google meat has a new minimize
34:30
button, so if you use Google meet, you can do it there.
34:32
It's like the arrows that are pointing at each other figure
34:35
out, looking Google it. All right here, listening, where
34:39
you can figure this out but hide self-view.
34:42
It is by far the most biggest drain on our cognitive resources
34:47
during a video meeting compared to any other aspect of a video
34:50
mean. Yeah I'm going to start doing
34:53
that and just to provide one data point.
34:55
I see the the effect of so view on Zoom working his way back to
35:00
my in-person conversation at this point because I distinctly
35:03
remember having this having a conversation a couple of weeks
35:07
ago and then at the end of that I started thinking to myself.
35:11
How do I look Whose Veena in person face-to-face because I
35:16
was so used to being able to watch myself all the time on
35:20
zoo, but yeah, that I definitely, you know, relate to
35:25
that. And yeah, yeah.
35:31
Oh my goodness. And oh, by the way, here's a fun
35:33
little tidbit. Did you guys do you?
35:35
And you both know that Botox sales has been through the roof
35:37
since covid started? I did not know that.
35:40
Yeah. Wow.
35:43
Wow. Okay, it is all interconnected
35:45
people are horrified unfortunately with what they're
35:47
seeing and you shouldn't be. It's your face is everyone's
35:49
face. Look, it is what it is.
35:50
It is what it is guys. Focus on the knowledge, you
35:53
bring to the table, focus on how you show up at on the inside as
35:56
a human being. But Botox sales have been
35:57
through the roof since covered began and now we're starting to
36:00
see a lot of folks investing in a wide variety of different
36:02
things. They're looking into dental
36:03
work, cosmetic dentistry say, you know, it's starting to also,
36:07
shoot up. There's a lot of secondary and
36:10
tertiary effects of us forcing ourselves to look at Ourselves
36:14
throughout the course of the day.
36:15
So I would say, get a handle on it, get a jump on it early if
36:18
you can and get into and stop staring at yourself will do.
36:24
That's that's such an important message.
36:32
To wrap up our episode. We have this segment called
36:36
suspenders it. Works like this.
36:40
We ask you a random fun question.
36:42
That's totally unrelated to anything whatsoever and you will
36:45
give us any random fun as you feel like.
36:48
All right, so our question of the day is, if you are hired to
36:54
show tourist what life really is, like, where you live live,
37:00
what would you show them or what would you have them, do?
37:05
Oh, Kevin. This one is a heartbreaking one.
37:08
I for those who are listening and from the bay area in
37:12
California, So thanks San Francisco, Silicon Valley born
37:18
and raised actually. Here in the Bay Area, it is my
37:21
Village. I'm quite proud of it.
37:24
However, it has changed a lot over the years.
37:27
It is one of the most expensive expensive areas in the world and
37:30
we also have one of the largest homeless populations in the
37:33
entire world all in one. So I would show folks the
37:40
Bittersweet reality. That is a Hallmark.
37:44
The Bay Area, I would probably take them to an area that I
37:48
actually used to live in which is a tenderloin in San Francisco
37:50
and I would sit beneath one of the most amazing extraordinary
37:55
and expensive pieces of real estate in the entire world and I
38:01
would stand and take these tourists to that one location.
38:03
Telling them that a one-bedroom apartment can cost somebody over
38:08
a million dollars to buy USD and in this proximity Zima T.
38:14
I see folks that do not have enough money to feed themselves,
38:19
or their children, the economic disparity that we're
38:21
experiencing right now in the Bay Area is heartbreaking.
38:24
And I know that there is a folks like myself and a lot of other
38:27
organizations that are working tirelessly to try to decrease
38:31
this economic divide that we see in the area that people look
38:36
towards the Silicon Valley, and there are articles written about
38:41
it videos shows movies now right?
38:44
That depict The Innovation mindset, the futurism that
38:48
exists here where the modern-day Venice, but we are struggling to
38:53
make sure that all of our kids do not go hungry on a daily
38:56
basis, there is a dark side to it, and these and the dark side
38:59
is systemic. So I don't know.
39:02
That's a depressing answer to your question that you may not
39:05
have been expecting for that is where I would take, you know, I
39:08
mean, very important, very important in it.
39:11
Even ties his toy tiny little bit where you're talking about
39:13
the pitch. Kitchens of the Bay Area and
39:15
Silicon Valley in media. Because unless you're in it,
39:18
unless you see it every day, the stories that are told about it
39:21
is vastly different. And I spent some time in the
39:24
day, I completely understand what you're saying.
39:26
And it's so important in storytelling that we are showing
39:30
acted to pigeons for people who have never been because it
39:33
living in somewhere and visiting somewhere and seeing somewhere
39:37
on TV. It's just so different.
39:39
It's so important that we are telling stories in
39:42
representative inaccurate ways, Welcome back to 2022, bid adieu
39:58
like my little Ash sound effect to bring them back to present
40:02
time I saw you were doing your pre recording sound practice.
40:07
I was ready to cut out when I guess I'll have to leave that
40:10
in. There is nothing that is you
40:12
know, my queen recording ritual, it is.
40:15
Mashup of it is doing the High School.
40:17
Musical Sharpay vocal warm up to bond.
40:21
We found the very early on in season, one that I was doing
40:24
them wrong and is actually wages supposed to do that to warm up
40:27
your vocal cords and I was just had to do an emotion, but to
40:30
conversation another day, I think one of the main reasons we
40:33
want to reset the steps are that this time was not only to dive
40:36
deep in return to an amazing episode from season one and give
40:40
you guys a chance to we listen and see if on a second.
40:45
I'm you guys native anything differently and some of the
40:47
other episodes we did in to connect.
40:49
Well, with that or if this is your first time just getting a
40:53
chance to hear it again because we know sometimes finding all
40:56
the episodes can be a little Annoying.
40:59
There's also because this time is so stressful, even if you
41:03
swam the back Khalil of. So in that family I know
41:05
personally it can be quite stressful.
41:07
Know what stresses you out like your family.
41:10
Also, my birthday is around this time.
41:13
So is yours cab. So there's A lot of reflection
41:16
that comes like I'm my abilities on December 30th.
41:18
Kevin's is December 31st. There's always slouching that
41:21
comes during this time so it can be quite stressful, Christmas
41:27
birthday New Year. This a lot of time with your
41:30
family, a lot of time with people who know your big
41:33
insecurities and like the time for reflection.
41:36
So it's a time where the importance of healthy internal
41:41
storytelling is so crucial. And so they talked a lot about a
41:44
pea. Is the way we can't do it
41:47
ourselves. The conversation, we have about
41:48
ourselves, the inner voice, the internal storytelling.
41:52
So we really wanted we approach these at the time because we
41:54
wanted you to remember To be kind to yourself, remember that?
41:59
A lot of way, you view the world, the way you talk to other
42:02
people, the stress, you have, your world can be mitigated and
42:05
out with just by having Health Care.
42:07
In terms of Storytelling, let me tell you something, you are
42:10
doing great. It's never as bad as it seems,
42:13
and just because you got up, listen to this podcast.
42:16
You are making a commitment to yourself.
42:17
Become better and we love you for that embrace the holiday
42:22
season, embrace, the spirit celebrate resolved.
42:26
And the people you care about this has been another great
42:31
episode of the lettuce suit and plastic tie podcast.
42:35
If you like our content, make sure to subscribe and follow us
42:39
wherever you listen. Leave us a comment and review to
42:43
let us know what you're thinking.
42:44
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42:49
Let me see the plastic time and we will see you in 2023 for
42:53
season 3 of the linen suit, and pass the time.
42:56
A podcast. A podcast.