[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore, how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] And I am Pia Lee. How are you Mr. Hammond? 

[00:00:18] I am very well, thank you, I must say. I'm currently in Italy, which is always a great pleasure, so personally doing well because we have the, the world continues to deliver quite a lot of potential anxiety for some doozies. Oh my word, we literally just think that we've got, um, got the pandemic sort of starting to fade away into maybe a state of permanence or normality or something. And then, um, and then boy, we get hit with, uh, well, I suppose first, really all that sort of cost of cost of living shooting up. And then just on top of that, the all Ukrainians and the, uh, the war there and all, it just seems to be giving us an overall, the water level of our stress seems to be just generally high. If you'll pardon the expression. I know you've been suffering from water levels, physically yourself, but it just seems that it's it's high even before anything else happens to us.

[00:01:12] it is. It's a bit of a doozerthon, one, this is, it is good all along time. And so It really does make you think, okay. But we, we've got to look after ourselves here because this could wear you down one thing after the other type feeling. And you've got to, you got to get sharper knowing like, okay what are the areas that I need to work on? 

[00:01:33] Yeah, definitely.

[00:01:34] And ha and, and how do I get that information, which actually leads quite nicely into this week's guest I do believe. What a lovely segue. 

[00:01:42] Thank you so much. Almost didn't have to do any work myself. So, um, the, uh, yes, our guest is going to be absolutely fantastic, I think for helping us, and as members of teams to help those teams to really look after ourselves in these tough times and any other, any other tough times, we come across everyday life. So we're going to be talking to Simon shepherd. He's the CEO of optimal life, and he spends his life looking at people's physiology and getting some good data to back that up. So, let's go over and hear him now. 

[00:02:13] Simon welcome to We Not Me. Thank you so much for being with us.

[00:02:21] Thank you for inviting me. 

[00:02:22] It's an absolute pleasure. So, so I mean, before we hear a little bit about you as you know, we torture our guests with a, with the card exercise. So I have three packs of cards here, just to get to know you a little bit. A red one, tricky questions, orange one, not bad green, one slightly more easy. So w from which pack would you like a card?

[00:02:41] Let's get the hard stuff out of the way. First. Let's go read 

[00:02:45] You think, okay, here's your question? one thing that really annoys me is 

[00:02:53] my favorite question, that 

[00:02:55] This is the pinnacle question. I think.

[00:02:58] I love it. 

[00:02:59] I've told we've only got half an hour on this as well. Actually I tell you what really annoys me. And it's been really annoying me recently, as people who drive in the middle lane of a motorway and don't pull in honesty. I am, I must have got to a certain age in my life because I find myself at using language that is very juvenile and ranting and 

[00:03:16] Get over, Get over to the 

[00:03:19] Yes Yes yes 

[00:03:21] reminds me of that old joke about the day that the dad has to drive the kids into school and the mom says, oh, how was it? Oh, it was great. Mommy. We didn't see any tosses. it It's a little bit like that. So a good, I think we can all share that exact exasperations Simon, definitely. So thank you for that little insight, but why don't we go a little bit deeper. Tell us about you, Simon. What do you what are you doing now and how did you get here?

[00:03:45] Well, I read it on the clock. I'm a physiotherapist by background. I spent the last three decades overseeing sort play health, wellbeing, and performance in sports science at Lord's cricket ground. So, I guess that's my foundation stone in my, in the working world. And then for the last 15 years, I've been wiring people like with monitors for a whole host of different backgrounds and trying to understand their physiology and mapping it against their behaviors and their actions and their thoughts and their feelings, and using that as a basis for coaching, both individuals and teams on what I call the human and humane side of performance 

[00:04:19] So, I've had the pleasure of this experience as has done. We will pray, tell a little bit more later, so just for the benefit of our listeners, just tell us a bit of the science about what it's actually measuring and what it actually even looks like and what you do with it.

[00:04:36] Look and feel. So we monitor on your chest, first of all. So it's a bit, it's very small. It's I could have say a 50 Pence piece or a it's about that big. Top right to bottom left is fits a bit like a defibrillator, but obviously much smaller and it doesn't do quite what a defibrillator does. And what that measures, it looks at movement. It looks at your heart rate. But the thing that I got very excited about looks at something called heart rate variability.

[00:05:00] So it's probably sense, but if it, if I just give a little 32nd physiology lesson on why that's useful, and then we can talk potentially about some of the data. So heart rate variability is a product of our autonomic nervous system and our autonomic nervous system controls all the things we don't think about, like our breathing and our sweating and our digestion of blood pressure. And there are two main branches. There's a sympathetic branch that's activated when we're stressed, when alert or we're loaded or excited. And during those times we tend to release adrenaline and potentially cortisol and our blood pressure rises, but our heart will start to be like a metronome. So you can have a heart rate of 60, but it would literally be one beat every second with great monotony. And then the other branch is called the parasympathetic branch. That'll kick in when we're trying to recover and relax, we start to release our hormones that help our body and restore and refresh it. And what happens there is we could still have a heart rate of 60, but our heart will be quickly for five or 10 seconds and study for five or 10. Quickly for five or 10, then slowly. So identical heart rates, but two totally different patterns. And by understanding those subtle checks, We can make inferences of whether the body, how the body is responding to certain situations of life. 

[00:06:19] So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reveal a little bit. I had it on for 40, I think it was 48 hours, I think it was. And so the reports I got back had green and red in it. Tell us what the green is and tell us what the red is. 

[00:06:34] So the monitor collects all these numbers, and then we Chuck the numbers into a computer and it produces this report. And on the report that you're referring to, we that the red color will indicate when a person's in the state of sympathetic dominance, minimal heart rate variability, potentially releasing, adrenaline and cortisol. And the green color was indicate when you're in the parasympathetic status. And there's a third color there, which is blue. So we'll also look at physical load or exercise, sometimes sometimes informal, like commuting to work. But we'll have physical load non-physical load. And then how you're recovering. We piece that together and over 24 hour period, we can almost make some reference to how well your batteries have recharged after demands of busy day

[00:07:18] Which is fascinating. So I got two great insights. One was, I don't seem to, when I did it, and this was quite a few years ago and I had my children were much younger. Wasn't guessing a loss of recovery in the weekend. So you're running down your batteries and then you were racing around after a young family. So you didn't get that recovery except for a cheeky hour on a Saturday afternoon, which is actually when I had a little snooze and everything, just, I got a power nap, and that was really interesting to see the impact on the next few days. So that actually was really valuable.

[00:07:55] And then the second one was alcohol. So one night with one night without, and the impact on my quality of sleep. Unbelievable. I thought that was so interesting. So it wasn't positive, but it wasn't a lot, but it had an impact on that quality. Why is that? What happens there, Simon?

[00:08:17] Well, Yeah, it's interesting what you're saying. Many people get quite surprised at the impact of outcome because for many people are cold sends you to sleep and you think that's quite good to be asleep, but the quality of the sleep is really poor. And the reason for that is our cause or toxic substance. And I should also put my hands up straight away inside drink. So this isn't say never drink again folks. I'm quite selective when I do and how much. But, um, so we've got this toxic substance in our body that we need to process, and that is work. And typically we will see about an hour's worth of quality sleep will be lost for every unit of alcohol taken on board. That like everything in life, they'll always be some outliers to this, but it's quite an interesting thing for people to see and really good of you Pia to run the experiment for yourself. Sacrifice yourself for one. I say by having alcohol, but maybe the sacrifice was by not having alcohol. So good experience 

[00:09:06] I had the same and I actually I can visualize it now because you debrief me Simon on it And I was having a nice night's sleep And then I had this red bar and you said did you drink that evening I said yes And he said that's it there it's almost like the red wine and the red bar sort of and I so we went together from an oversimplified but I still see that in my mind's eye So yeah it's pretty powerful stuff. 

[00:09:28] So it's time to dive a little bit into your work now what does this look like when you're working with people you've probably worked with broad range of people what does that actually look like and what are they getting out of it?

[00:09:39] So I guess I have a basic philosophy that I call mainframe, so M for measure and analyze, and that will come through the data the understanding. I for inspire, because data is actually pretty useless unless you use it or help people understand themselves or make some change or reinforcement in their life. And then I guess the key is the N which is for nurture. How do you actually make conversation last a little bit longer? So it isn't a here today and gone tomorrow? 

[00:10:07] So what I typically do is I will work with groups of people, and I do work with individuals, but I think my sweet spot in the area I really enjoy is working with groups of people in teams and. One help them understand themselves and individual level a little bit better, and to help them understand each other and therefore maybe place some support for each other and open up those conversations that allow you to be a really closely knit team. And thirdly, in, particularly in the lead ship sector, encourage the leaders to think, how do I become a multiplier for this across my organization? Because you will learn as an interview. But actually isn't it great. If you then teach a few other people or mentor a few other people to open up those conversations with a few other people, Because if your people are functioning well, your job comes in a lot eaiser. 

[00:10:59] The question I really want to ask Simon is this thinking about teams people the joy of teams and the challenge of teams is that people the individuals impact upon each other What have you seen about the body's response of an individual being in that team, how individuals affect each other How what is what actually happens in those little groups that we call teams?

[00:11:20] Well, I think it's a really good question. Of course, lots of different things can happen to lots of different people and lots different situations. And I think it's having that understanding that we're very adaptive and the world's very adaptive around us. 

[00:11:34] But just to give you a few examples, I remember working with a group and I was coaching the chairman of that, it was a big property company and we went in and we looked at his data and he was, it was a working day. And in the morning he had green ready all the morning and, cause he wasn't napping in the middle of the morning and that sort of thing. And he what was going on there? And he because he just put meeting in his diary and these diary sit on the report, which you put meetings so meant nothing. He said actually I was preparing for a pitch and then we went and did the pitch and it was really good and it was really enjoyed it. I loved that stuff. And I always listen out for the adjectives and adverbs when people describe what's going on in that day, because that's such a set meeting means nothing, but, exciting or really effective though Those, the words that give it away. And then the afternoon there was this really high bar red. And it just looks at his diary and went, oh, yes, I remember that. He said none of my team has done any preparation whatsoever for a meeting. biggest waste of time and I was just so frustrated with it all. 

[00:12:39] So you had this big pitch for a massive piece of work in the city of London on property, where actually this person was totally in the sweet spot in that green area. And then the internal meeting. And maybe actually this will resonate with her, a few people, external meetings, we have to do a lot of prep for internal meetings, do we give our colleagues the respect they deserve by doing the prep, by engaging with things as well as we could do. Certainly in that case it hadn't happened. 

[00:13:07] So in teams working together, how does this information support them to either be more efficient or build the dynamic of the team? What are you seeing there? 

[00:13:20] Well, I think once you've done the individual feedback, you then get the team back into a group and you actually encouraged them to tell their stories, you know, what, what really allowed you to fly and what really got underneath your skin? And then we can help the group understand that there might be differences in behaviors and cultures that allow people to flourish and potentially put a bit of a roadblock in the way.

[00:13:44] And the more teams can understand themselves around that. Then hopefully you become acceptant. And you allow people to play to their strengths, as opposed to people playing to one person's strength, which is often the leader's. 

[00:13:57] I think that would be really valuable. I would imagine too. I mean, D do you have individuals that actually get stressed by the team environment?

[00:14:05] Yeah, totally. Absolutely. And I often when I go and work with a company and they were talking about things that the setup, one of the things. Do warn them is that I would suggest that once every month someone will decide to leave their job on the back of the data 

[00:14:21] Wow.

[00:14:22] and probably once every six months, someone will seriously consider their relationship status away from work. 

[00:14:29] Do you get much hate mail? 

[00:14:30] Do you know I don't and actually, cause I think this is a real win-win because person doesn't want to be. And you can help them. You almost give them permission to make that decision, it's a win for the individual. And if you've got people who want to be within the team and wants to be within the organization, that's gotta be a win for the organization.

[00:14:51] Zooming out a bit Simon, you must have a big old dataset there about how things you know well about the world of work I guess primarily but about life in general. What what light can you shed for us on non how we sort of our mortal coil, how we how we how we live and work in today's world 

[00:15:12] I was really chuckling when pier was telling us about her data. And she said that a weekends, things were quite tough because we actually looked at the first 10,000 days of data we collected in UK PLC. I think one of the interesting observations was toughest day of the week was Saturday, closely followed by Sunday. So we always think that work is the baddie in this work-life balance discussion relationship, but actually work can sometimes be that they're the anchor stone, it could be really important to people. And life away from work is tough for many people. And there's this emotional multiplier that sits in life at home that might not be present in life at work. 

[00:15:52] So, so if I have someone and they talk about, I feel really overwhelmed at the moment and they almost the wood from the trees, one of the things I've I get in to do is do what I call a mini stress audit. And I just get into write down everything in the last week that's got under their skin or is worrying them. And then I just asked them to score it out of three. How big a worry was this? Where three is a really massive pain in the butt and one is a trivial irritation. And then we do another column, and I just say, what's the emotional impact of that? And then if you multiply those two numbers together, it often allows you to really see what is the main problem.

[00:16:29] So, to give you an example, I was working with an A&E consultant just leading up to Christmas 2020, pretty lively time in the pandemic over And um, he said I just feel really overwhelmed, he did the exercise. And it was just clear, working the Christmas shift to school three, that was a one for that. It was a minor irritation, but I've done it before, two yes I've got to break the news to the family and they're not going to be happy. But then we saw this nine, a three and a three, and that three was my father's fallen over, has been admitted to hospital and he lives a long way away. So this an unusual problem, which had a significant emotional impact. And that's the thing that needed to be sorted out or needed to get their head around quickly. 

[00:17:17] I was also reminded of our conversation last week with Martin Bromiley talking about critical teams, when you mentioned the A&E consultant, and how in times of emergency we tend to Actually do exactly the opposite of what the emergency calls for. We get fixated on the problem There are a number of things that happen. What's the connection between what you're seeing, the parasympathetic response and that working of the mind does is there a connection there that you've seen?

[00:17:45] I think if you have ownership of a problem you tend to be in a better place don't have ownership or your reliance on a lots of other bits of a jigsaw, and those bits could be moving parts, then actually we see some people in a really tough place. And amongst a lot of people who work in the NHS over the last couple of years, I think experience is also really interesting thing here. So same people in the same environment, but if you're experienced, you're probably going to be in a better place than if you're not. So monitoring junior doctors, they were really struggling. Monitoring the consultants, yeah it was tough and I'm not pretending it wasn't, they tended to be in a better place, and potentially it had more anchors away from work as well. That just neutralize things a little bit.

[00:18:36] Another example would be we, we did some work a few years ago with an ambulance service and we had some monitors on people on the front line. And then we had some monitors on people who were taking the calls in the call centers, and of course people think that the most stressed are going to be the people defibrillating or cutting people out of cars, et cetera. And that was actually totally incorrect. That the much higher levels of stress were seen in the call centers who lost ownership of a situation might've taken a very stressful call, but then lost ownership of that, and, then were almost forgotten about.

[00:19:10] And Is that then having a direct impact on how people are interacting with that workflow? I mean, how do you adjust the stress levels for that person, given that situation? Because I think we've all come from a generation, which is, stiff upper lip and just keep going, but then we just keel over really at the end of the day. So this is really insightful. And certainly I would say that the results that I had met with fundamentally changed some of the practices that I make in my own life. And some of the things that I intuitively knew helped me, it ratified it through the data.

[00:19:47] So what happens if your work is stressful, elements are how to, how to teams adjust to that? 

[00:19:53] I think there's some short-term adjustments and there's some what I'm going to call slightly longer term adjustments. So just think of a short term adjustment. I call it this concept of reset. And I often use the analogy of a formula one car. Every 15 laps or so it pulls into the pit it's. It gets a new tires, and it might have something done to the chassis, but it stops, and the reason it stops is because it wants to win the race, what a human beings do. So we just keep on going and keep on going until often the race beats us. And I think one of the things I like to encourage teams to do is think how do you create those moments of reset and nutritional, which is going and having a bite to eat at lunch and there's physical getting up and moving around, but how do you create that intellectual, and that emotional moment of reset during your working day? 

[00:20:42] So going back to the junior doctors, one of the things that we introduced, which was really simple when you think about it was when you left a cubicle, you had to count to 10, you have to take three deep breaths before you went to the next cubicle. And that's all you did. But it almost became the cancer 10 mantra, and you've got people shouting across departments count to ten, count to ten, and supporting their colleagues to create that moment of just reset. I've got to clear my mind from the last case, I've got to remember who I am. I've gotta remember what I got to do, and I go through my process, my clinical and medical processes again, when I walk into the next cubicle 

[00:21:19] And that's quite a simple, simple practise but. could be life-saving in some respect. 

[00:21:24] And for both parties. Again, you talk so my medical colleagues and sometimes, they say, do you know what if I actually think too hard about what I do, I'll be terrified. But they have to have some sort of processing. Cause if they don't think at all, they are going to become dangerous to their patients. 

[00:21:44] So that gives a very simple example of a short-term strategy and then longer term. I think it's encouraging people about the coping mechanisms that are going to allow them to recharge their batteries which effect is good sleep and good quality sleep. And when you do have that moment, that the weekend, if you've had a really tough week and you've got a really tough week next week, is that the moment to go out and party and drink two of a bottle of wine, which isn't much, but what's that four or five units? That's take out four or of quality sleep. 

[00:22:18] you're going see a ball on your chart I can tell you that even with less than.

[00:22:23] Another one affecting sleep that was interesting for me was devices, but actually it was this was a big device. So one night was a chat with my partner and the second night was watching. And the green of the conversation was phenomenal, luckily, but we're arguing. it was all going really well. But what was interesting just, and this is what she was quite long, some time ago, watching TV, it had a phenomenal impact because that, and I wasn't even close to it. And I actually even think, gosh, I spend a lot of time in front of a laptop. What impact does that actually have on my sleep? 

[00:23:03] I think that's two sides there so we can get so physiological and go, that is a blue lights coming out. And even with a blue light filter, there'll be some blue light that comes out of the device, that caused the release of dopamine. And dopamine is a hormone that makes us feel alert. So not the best sort of thing to do just before you go to sleep. But for me, the bigger issue is the content of what comes out of the device.

[00:23:23] So, if you switch on to the news or you just decided to check in on some work emails two minutes before you go to sleep, that's going almost definitely trigger this thing. And again, it's another thing that I often talk to people about is how do you switch your brain off? Most people are quite good at switching their bodies off when they go to bed, their head hits that pillow. A lot of people fall asleep pretty quickly, but this thing's still ticking away in the background, that we need to get better at switching our brains off, not just our bodies.

[00:23:52] So if I going through a really busy period of my life, I have a blank book. I about 45 minutes before I go to bed, I draw a line down the middle of the page on the left-hand side I just jot down what I've done today. I normally feel a little bit better about life on the right-hand side, I'll write down what needs to be done tomorrow. I look at the book, I slowly close it, five deep breaths. It's almost a bit of a ritual. This is me switching my brain off. And, I tell people that and they often say, I'm pretty good. I've got pen and paper by the side of my bed. So when I wake up at four, I can write things down and I nod and I go, that's really good. And I said, wouldn't it be better to write them down before we go to sleep rather than four in the morning? And I guess it's that proactive against reactive, you know, attitude to life, and hopefully that first method is a little bit more practive.

[00:24:38] That is definitely one for one of our listeners that I know very well, that'll be a tip say no more. Um uh Simon that's re that's incredibly pragmatic and it's really making certainly making me think about my switch off procedures And I've said I've never checked a work email In the middle of the night.

[00:24:55] But I was just on that subject though the work comes in but I it's this is a little bit of a question around my middle mid lane cruiser Actually one of the my pet peeves in the past has been how organizations have talked about resilience which to me I've always seen that and you can hear it in the messaging rather than, how can you keep going past the pit lane basically what's the but I can definitely see some change in that now I think people are organizations are becoming better at this but could you talk a little bit about resilience and the meaning of that and how how we can foster that for ourselves?

[00:25:31] Sure. So, I mean, I think the dictionary describes resilience as the ability to deal with difficulties quickly or challenges quickly. I think where companies sometimes got it wrong in the past was they thought that robustness equals resilience. And for me it doesn't. So robustness is this concept of continue going and going. And people might recognize this, auto it, not a problem, leave it there. And just there in tray gets higher and higher and higher and higher. And I often say, if that's you or you know someone who's like that and you just start to see the slightest little cracks in their behavior or their performance, encouraged them to do something because when their bus person breaks, they often break big and that break could be in their health, it could be in that performance or it could be a critical mistake. And then that influences the rest of the team. So I think we have a responsibility to look after both ourselves and our colleagues and watch out for that robust trait because it can be not great. 

[00:26:31] And what what I wanted to conclude on here was that some of the data that I got, I intuitively knew and it helped to reinforce, and others was a huge wake up call. So I had no idea really the impact that alcohol had. And I have to say. I have stopped drinking so that obviously wasn't, it took a long time for that, that feedback to, to fit in, but I've stopped drinking for a year now. And I've had very different sleep over a year as a result of it. So that's quite interesting, but other elements you really needed, yeah. You need the data to help to see things. 

[00:27:12] So what's your advice to team leaders and team members out there who, you know, some may get access to this, but some may not. So what can we learn from the data? What insights can we give them to help team members in really a pretty stressed environment that we all work in? 

[00:27:33] I always think you're quite fortunate if you're able to get monitored and you understand yourself a bit better and get the coaching around it. But of course not everyone will be able to do it. So I think the key is see if you can have the confidence to use the data to tell your story to your people and all you humanize yourself. And one of the things that I often I did quite a lot of keynotes and the last two years has been a bit tough to do face-to-face keynotes, but whenever I do a keynote to a company, one of the things I love doing is wiring up someone senior, ideally the CEO or the chairman, within the company beforehand, and then getting them up on stage in front of everyone else and coaching them live around their data. And the impact is so, so powerful, because all of a sudden the audience over there realized that this person is a human being and has one or two challenges, and this person doesn't have to pretend to be some super human that nothing ever impacts at all the secret's out, I have one in my life too.

[00:28:36] And it's just brilliant. Afterwards you see this sort of joining together and almost like, oh thank you for doing that. So I think as a leader, if you if you do have data like this ,yeah, great for you, but it could be really great for your people. If you allows you to tell story and humanize yourself.

[00:28:53] And I think that's a really good general tip that everyone can take away bringing that human into the workplace. Simon it's been well, an incredibly condensed and insightful session that we've had with you today. I think people will take away a great deal. And if they wish to get wider get the full treatment, they can find all your details in the show notes. I hope somewhat people will reach out to you because this is a yeah, it's a wonderful thing to do in life changing potentially. So thank you for your great work and thank you for wonderful interview today, Simon. Thanks for joining us.

[00:29:23] Pleasure, thank you for having me. 

[00:29:24] 

[00:29:27] You know, you and I, Dan spent a lot of time traveling and we loved it and it slightly intoxicating, but it's also exhausting. So it's, you know, over a long period of time at 20 years, that's be. Quite an impact. And what was really interesting about doing the heart rate variability exercise was I really understood how important sleep was and actually had compromised it for many years, in order to push through, you know, with jet lag in order to be at home in order to compensate for being away, in order to support clients in the evening, doing all that stuff. It was really interesting. I'd just taken it for granted.

[00:30:06] And then the other thing, and I, you know, I know this is it's grew since ship on these podcasts, but then let's mention the menopause then enters into your life at a certain age, which really screws up your sleep. And you could end up in a bit of a heap. So it was really valuable to know what made it. Worse. And what things could I start to take some control of, you know, and looking at screens before you go to sleep or drinking a couple of glasses of wine to help you go to sleep was suddenly data inputs that are not useful.

[00:30:38] And that was actually quite revolutionary. And I've I've treasured sleep, light water as being like a fundamental of keeping you on the straight and narrow and looking after yourself. 

[00:30:48] We underestimate it, don't we? And I know I was talking to, um, Rob Metcalf recently, our guest on the first show of, uh, of We Not Me. And he was saying that in his coaching now that's his foundational question is about sleep. And you realize that the other science backs that up and you're right, Pia. We would just sort of push on. And I think, I think Simon's distinction between resilience and robustness is really helpful. I think that for me, I felt like for a start, that I was robust, I could just push on and I can do this. But actually what I was doing was being robust, trying to be robust.

[00:31:23] And in reality, we can't go on, I think the quality of thinking that's required now is immense. We have to look after ourselves in order to look after our teammates and also to understand this crazy system that we're in. This really requires us to be on our game. And the pitstop analogy that Simon gave was perfect. Never took a pit stop at all. 

[00:31:47] And I think, I think our listener will also have something to some things to think about even without having to strap anything to themselves, to sort of get their heart rate variability, to, to think about, are they having those pit stops? And are they having the sleep they need?

[00:32:01] And it's not a sign of your technical wizardry or talent. And I think that's what we attributed to that ability to push on and be strong is an attribute of leadership and actually being able to sort of stop, take a breather, take the bigger picture and do the right thinking is probably a better attribute, but, but we have to monitor that we have to make those choices. 

[00:32:26] Yeah. And there is a narrative isn't there about the grind. I can see a sort of reaction to it now when linked, which I think is healthy. That's on people being very funny about it, actually. I got up at 6:00 AM this morning and went straight back to sleep, you know, that sort of thing, but you know, the grind, it's, it's a dangerous narrative for us to tell ourselves because we need to be smarter than that. So, Simon has the data to prove that, which is which is great. 

[00:32:51] So I would highly recommend anyone listening to this to give it a try because it's going to be your personal data. And it was life-changing for me because of the information that it gave and so insightful that, it could really help you to adjust and be in for the long game. And that's what we've all got to be in for the long game, not the short sprint.

[00:33:14] And there are a lot of consumer devices now, not as accurate as what Simon uses, but we can get a little read on this for ourselves, through a lot of devices or they're available. So, really exciting to see. And a real, I think it's exciting because I think we're moving into a new, a new realm where not the grind, but actually those pit stops and actually being truly resilient, being able to restore ourselves is something that'll be respected. So yeah, really exciting times ahead. We hope.

[00:33:44] Um, so Pia, what on the subject of exciting times, what do we have in our next week show?

[00:33:51] Yeah, next week's show we're talking to David Burns who's the CEO of Collective Leisure, and It's this beautiful nexus of community diversity and teamwork. And he's done some amazing work in that realm of, uh, how do, how do we maximize the community's talents and how do we bring diverse cultures together to be able to do that? So I think it's going to be a very interesting conversation with him.

[00:34:18] It's certainly well, really looking forward to it, but that's it for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at squadify.Net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please share the love and recommend it to your friends. Also, please do give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform.

[00:34:37] We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:34:42] And It's goodbye from me.