Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Most leaders have no idea that their frayed nerves can leave people feeling anxious. They understand the pressure they feel, but they miss the connection. The way that they feel was in attention and the way that it radiates out. Today we're going to be discussing how to learn to lead your nervous system. And my guest today is Molly McNamee. Molly, welcome to the show. I am so happy and thrilled to have you on here today.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Thanks for having me on, Andrew. I've been really looking forward to this conversation. It's going to be a fun one.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: It certainly will. How. How are things with you, Molly? What's going on in your world? What's new? Give me the tea, give me the deets. Give me it all. What's going on?
[00:01:02] Speaker C: Things have been good. I recently released this new email course about stress hormones and it's been really fun to see people's response to that because, as you said, we're going to talk all about stress and the nervous system today. So it's a topic I'm really passionate about, so that's been fun. And then I also really recently visited my family, which is always nice. I have lots of nephews and a niece, so it's fun to see those little ones, but also exhausting.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: No kidding.
And because you live in different time zones, when you see them, you're probably kind of like, oh, my God, like, they change, like so fast and they're just so different from the last visit.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, they absolutely do. It was really fun to see, like, their personalities developing. They're all under 7 years old, so they're all like at that time where they are changing a lot every time I see them. So that's.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And full of energy, too. Like they are doing something and then 15 minutes later they decide that they want to do something different. So you have to have lots of energy.
[00:01:58] Speaker C: Yep, you do. It was exhausting, but it was fun.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: I'm glad to hear that you were able to get away and spend some time with family. It's super important and much needed, for sure. So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today, Molly?
[00:02:16] Speaker C: I Am as ready as I will ever be.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: So my question for you today is, if you were a fruit, which one would you be and why?
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, my instant thought was just my favorite fruit, which is apples. I love apples. So I guess maybe I'd be an apple, but I have no idea why.
That's just my natural instinct to be like, oh, I think I would be my favorite fruit because it somehow describes my personality. But, yeah, I would say I would be a fruit that is an apple. And there are lots of different, like, things you can do with an apple.
Yeah, that's a really good question. What fruit would you do you know why you would be a certain fruit?
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Well, I. Obviously they go by personalities. Right. So I love your answer when you said it's your favorite fruit. So for me, you're choosing nada because it makes you feel good. It's something that you look forward to having.
So that would be a good choice for me. I mean, we always want to pick the things that we enjoy eating because they make us happy.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: So I like your answer. I think that totally, totally makes sense. For sure.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Yeah. What fruit would you be?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: I would probably be an orange because it's got the tang with the. With the sweet. But it's also fun to. To peel it, and then once you peel it, you're eating just the different slices, and sometimes it's kind of neat to get. Like, one slice could be, like, really, really sweet, and then the next one might be a little bit. Got a little bit tart. So I would say orange for myself.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: Yeah. It's a diverse fruit. You have to, like, dig in there to get to know it. So that's. That's definitely a good fruit to choose.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it should be. The exact word that you use is probably the perfect way to describe it. It's a very diverse fruit, for sure.
[00:04:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. The more you think about it, the more I'm like, oh, yeah, apples, like, pair well with things like, I'm definitely. I'm a person who can adapt to any situation that I'm in, so. So it is tr. Really start thinking about the fruit and what it means. It can really tell you a lot about a person.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: It certainly can. Well, thanks for having fun with me, Molly. I totally appreciate that. Why don't we get this conversation going and let's start off with you telling us a little about yourself and your why.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So I am the founder of M Fit Workouts, which is an online fitness platform where we do workouts and lifestyle Coaching. And as a coach, I specialize in exercise for the nervous system and hormonal balance. But I didn't always specialize in that, so it was probably fitness. Five or six years ago, I really reached a rough place with my own health, both my mental health and my physical health. So at that time, my anxiety was out of control. I was having several panic attacks a day, and I really didn't know why, because my life wasn't really anxiety inducing at the time. I just felt really anxious, so that was super confusing to me. And then I was also dealing with some pretty severe bloating and insomnia and fatigue, and I was just sick all of the time. And then the cherry on top of that was that my weight was super unpredictable, so I could gain, like, £20 in a month without changing anything about my lifestyle or my diet. And that was really confusing to me because I've been working in the fitness industry for over a decade now. So at the time, I was a health and fitness coach. So I really couldn't figure out why I was having such a difficult time maintaining my weight when I was eating super healthy and exercising a lot and doing all of the healthy habits that I know. And all of those problems kind of got worse and worse over the course of a few years, until, like I said, I reached out rock bottom, and I just needed to know what was going on. And that's when I discovered that the reason I was experiencing all of that was because my nervous system was dysregulated and I had hormonal imbalances. And once I realized that, I kind of went into Detective Molly mode. I was like, well, why did this happen? How do I fix it? How do I prevent it from happening again? And I was able to heal my body, and now I'm sharing my methodology with the world because I don't want anyone else to have to experience what I went through. And my story is really not that unique. A lot of people have these same problems. They're struggling weight, they're struggling with mental health, and they don't realize that their nervous system is such a big part of that conversation. And also your nervous system is a big part of, you know, your energy and how you're acting at work and your productivity, which I know we'll talk about a lot of that stuff today. But your nervous system just can impact so many things. So now I'm super passionate about sharing my knowledge and my methods with the world so that people can take control over their health.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, listen, I love your Story.
I love the fact that you did research. I've been someone who has gone into more research myself as a podcaster and as, you know, leadership and HR individual. I'm always researching something, and you can always find the answers to stuff. But what I find it is the things that intrigue you and the things that interest you and the things you think that are important are the things that you're going to really be interested in researching. It's not cool that you went through what you went through, but it's cool that you decided, okay, I need to figure this out and to be proactive. So you were proactive with yourself, with your health and your situation, and you decided that you wanted to find a way to. To fix it, and now you're able to help others. I never will tell somebody how they should feel, and I expect people to do the same for me. So I'm sure that you never tell anybody how they should feel because it's different. However, you're a little bit more empathetic and sympathetic to their situations, so you're able to kind of be a guide and be a good listening companion for them.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I often say that, like, our bodies are always telling us stuff, and sometimes people just need someone to help translate the language their body is speaking to them. So I try to be that for people, if it seems like their body is trying to tell them something's going on, I try to help them figure out what their body is saying to them. But I never tell them how they're supposed to feel, just maybe what their body is indicating that it needs.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: So that's a good segue to enter our conversation here. Molly, I'd like you to explain to us what the nervous system is, because some people may or may not understand it in full detail, and how it relates to leadership or the workplace.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Yeah, so it relates to leadership in the workplace in a lot of different ways. But first, your initial question. What is the nervous system? So I always like to explain things in a really simple way. Like, I could go into lots of science, but no one really cares about that. So I'm just going to highlight how it matters for you. So in simple terms, we have a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. And that sympathetic nervous system is what activates during stress. So people often refer to something called your body's fight or flight response. When you're feeling that, that is your sympathetic nervous system. Activating your parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite job. So it's Helping your body rest and digest. And what happens for a lot of people is if they're living in a chronically stressed out state, that sympathetic nervous system is activating far more than the parasympathetic nervous system is. And that's when things can start to become dysregulated. And that's what absolutely happened to me. My body was kind of stuck in fight or flight, so it was living in survival mode. It was like, okay, we can't sleep, we can't digest, we can't lose body fat. We need all of this. So that's what's happening for a lot of people. So your nervous system impacts you in everything you do. And it can absolutely impact you in the workplace for many reasons. The first being, if you're experiencing some of those physical symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system, like bloating or trouble sleeping, then you're already going to be starting off every day kind of on the wrong foot, because you can't give 100% of yourself at work if you're not feeling 100% your best self. So if you're feeling uncomfortable in your body because of weight gain or bloating, or if you're feeling really tired because you're not sleeping well, then you're going to find that you're working slower and you're not as productive and you're not as focused and it's just taking you longer, and it's harder to motivate yourself to do things at work. And you're going to find that that's really frustrating and you're not sure why you're having such a difficult time in the workspace. Also, a dysregulated nervous system can cause some brain fog or it can cause some poor decision making, and it can definitely leave you feeling more stressed. So if you're feeling stressed in the workplace and super overwhelmed, it's going to be tough for you to lead your peers or even lead yourself through the day. And then also, a dysregulated nervous system weakens your immune system so you could get sick more frequently. And that's going to present its own unique set of issues. This actually happened to a client of mine that I was working with. He was getting sick every other week or every few weeks, and he was the boss, so he couldn't be at work. And that slowed down a lot of things. And that meant every time he went back into work, he had a lot of stuff to do which would stress him out and cause him to get sick again. So these things can really be a big vicious cycle where sometimes the symptoms you're experiencing because your body is stressed out can lead to more things being issues. So it can really just disrupt your life and your work and it can make it really hard for you to feel and perform the way that you want to.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: So many things I want to pack in here, so. So first off, I love your 3 thoughts on the nerve on the sympathetic sympathy nervous system. I've had somebody as well who was a leader and they had similar issues to what you were describing for from your client. And what was happening was people were starting to have negative thoughts about the individual because they were saying, we're not sure what to do, we need him to lead us. Does he even want to be here? But we could. We should never have ideas what's going on with somebody.
You're never going to find a full picture because of confidentiality. But have a little bit of sympathy and empathy for the individual because you just never know what's going on in, in their life and what's happening. And so just to understand, I think they may not be able to tell you everything, but they can, they can communicate a little bit to say, hey listen, I do have some personal things going on right now, so I'm just asking that you guys have a little bit of more understanding for what I could possibly be going through. And I'm going to be try to be more communicative of what's going on with me. And when I'm here I will try to fix stuff as much as I can, but will be sometimes where I can't come in or I'm not able to be in and I just needing your understanding and compassion. I think if they hear that you might get them to be a little bit more understanding to the situation.
[00:12:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean communication is so helpful. But what's difficult is if someone is experiencing like some of those problems with stress, they may have a difficult time communicating that and that can obviously then trickle down and cause employees to feel stressed. And then they have those same issues that you're experiencing and it can really like blow up a small community. If someone is, you know, letting stress rule their life.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: No, absolutely. I totally, I agree with you 100%. It is very difficult and it can be difficult and somebody who you don't know what to say or what have you. So I think there is some sort of way to do it. Maybe not a full capacity of information, but just something even if you can't see it. Maybe just send out an Email something just to kind of let people know that you're not just skipping out of work and hanging out with your family or taking your kids to the amusement park. Like there's actually something personal going on and you're, you're doing everything that you can to rectify the situation.
And as it gets more rectified, you'll be in a little bit more, but again, just a little bit of understanding. So I do get your point though. It's hard.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's tough. It's more like I'm saying that that is the unideal situation is someone who's like now frozen and they can't express what's happening. But obviously the most ideal situation is if you can express that this is happening, or even better, is take steps to start healing so that you can do all of the things that you need and want to do.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: So I'm going to kind of switch it up a little bit on you here. So do you think that leaders understand the signs of this dysregulated nervous system?
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Think, no, I think most of the time, unfortunately, people don't know. And that's because we can wave a lot of things off as being normal. Like, we can all say, oh, it's normal to have sleep issues. Oh, it's normal to feel a little unmotivated sometimes. It's normal to experience brain fog. We can just brush a lot of things off for quite a long time until it becomes a bigger problem.
Also, we all get used to living like in our circumstances. So if you're living in a constantly stressed out, like world, you're just going to get kind of used to that and that's going to become your normal, which is unfortunate, but we're very adaptable people, so we're going to eventually just be like, this is normal. This is how I live. Until it then becomes a problem that then starts to affect those around you and your health. So identifying it in yourself, I find is often very difficult, unless, like, you've heard conversations like the one we're having right now, or if you know, to look out for very specific symptoms. But I think it's hard to identify in yourself. And I would say if you are a manager and you're looking at, you know, your employees or the people underneath you, I would say you may be able to identify that something's off, but you may not really know what or why. Or it can often look like, like laziness or like, why is this person so lazy now? Or why are they so tired on the job. It may not look like there's a problem going on internally for them. They may not be able to identify what's going on, but you would probably realize, oh, they're not really acting like themselves. So hopefully a good leader will be like, hey, just want to make sure everything's good with you and not just wave it off as, like, this person is now not a very good employee. But it may also, like, come off as that. Like, oh, they're always sleepy and they're, like, working real slow and they're not communicating stuff, what's going on. So it's tough. It's tough to identify unless you are looking for it.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: I love what you said. This is how I live. I've worked with a lot of people in my career who are going through all kinds of different things.
And you ask them, how are things going? What's new, how you feeling? And they say, it is what it is. This is how I live. And it must be hard for them to just come to that realization that, you know, there's nothing that I can do. This is my life. This is the way that I'm going to live. It's very, very hard. It's very difficult for. For that person to. To deal with.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I find a lot of people that I work with as well, like, are either saying that or they're constantly waiting for a break. They're like, okay, things should slow down in a few months, and then I can start to take care of myself but not accept it. Like, yes, this is accepting, like, okay, this is my life. There's always going to be stress around me. Yeah, there is some of that acceptance, but also there are things that you can do to help your body and to help you feel less stressed and overwhelmed. Even if you can't change, like, your life and your circumstances, there are things you can do to support yourself. But I find a lot of people are, like, waiting for a break so that they can start to work on their health or work on their mental or physical health. So I think that is a mistake a lot of people make of, like, oh, I'm gonna wait till things calm down. Like, start helping yourself right now. Because things probably won't calm down. So having that acceptance can be helpful in healing.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: And I find a lot of people wait till, like, the last second where it's gotten worse. I'm sure you talk to some people or it's gotten to the max, and you're like, oh, my God, how did I get here? As I was going to get better now it's gotten totally worse and it's made a huge impact on my life. Now I have no choice to do something.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that most people do need to reach rock bottom before they ask for help. And that can be applied to anything in your life. Like, anything where it's like, okay, I officially am feeling hopeless now. I need help. If only we could, you know, start getting that help before we reach that point. Things would never actually get that bad. But it is the unfortunate nature of life. But hopefully that can start to change.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: So what advice would you give leaders that are listening today to help them regulate their nervous systems or even try and help a team member regulate their nervous systems?
[00:18:37] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. So I'll start with the first one. Like, if you are trying to heal yourself, my motto in life and in my business is less is more. So I think a lot of health or fitness coaches would probably say, like, oh, yeah, start doing all of these things, like start meditating, start journaling, start going for walks. Like, add a bunch to your life. But I think that's actually not the best place to start because that could stress you out more. Like, trying to throw a bunch more things on your plate could be overwhelming and defeat the purpose of trying to relieve stress. So what I really think is amazing is just finding small things that you can do in your day, like fix your posture whenever you get a text on your phone. Like, just fix your posture regularly. That's not really an additional thing that's going to take up a lot of time in your day. It's just something you can be more aware of. You can try to drink more water throughout the day. You can try to get more fresh air, which may be like opening up a window, like when weather permits. Just think of really small things that you can do and really small lifestyle shifts that you can make. Don't try to add bunch to your life initially, but just try to start introducing healthy things to help your body feel calm. Even things like just taking a deep breath before every phone call you make. Like, just take one or two really deep breaths before you pick up the phone or before you hop on a zoom call or take a couple deep breaths before every meal you eat. Like, these things should really only take 30 seconds, but they will have a big impact on your nervous system because as I said, like, your nervous system is stuck in fight or flight potentially, and it's feeling unsafe. So if you can just have little pockets of time in your day where you let it know that it is Safe. That can be really helpful. And I would say, if you are trying to support other people in your workplace, like, plug those things into the day. Like, encourage them to make those habits as well. Like, maybe there is a specific time each day where you have everyone just, like, do some deep breathing or just, like, encourage them to build those habits as well. Well, that's how I would, like, prefer to be encouraged to work on my own health. I. I would. I know my personality. I would hate if someone, like, sat me down and was like, okay, I think something's going on. Can we talk about it? And I'd be like, no. But I would love for someone to just discreetly help me. And I don't even realize it's happening. So I would say, how can you encourage healthy habits in your workplace for yourself and all of those around you? And they don't have to be big things. It doesn't have to be like, okay, we're all gonna do 30 minutes of journaling at the start of the day. It can literally just be like, okay, we're gonna go outside for, you know, 10 seconds. We're gonna walk around a bit again, do some deep breathing, fix our posture. I think that those, like, really good places to start, water breathing posture are, like, three great places to start, because they don't have to, like, seem like a big thing.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: I love that you sing more. It's less. Like, a couple weeks ago said, okay, once a week, I'm gonna go for a nice, long walk. I've been doing that for a couple weeks now, and I've loved it. I've come back in, and the fresh air has just done wonders for me. I'm feeling so relaxed. And the days that I have done that, by the time my head hits the pillow, I'm out like a light. So that fresh air had a lot to do with it. And the other thing that you mentioned is making new habits. I remember working for a company, and I did have a leader who would come a couple times in a day, he just say, okay, guys, we're just gonna do some stretching. Take a break. You've all been working really, really hard on this project. Let's take about 5, 10 minutes, just stand up. Let's do some stretching. Do whatever kind of stretching you want, but let's just move around, loosen up. Stretching and taking it easy. And I would. That really did was. It got us up, and we were doing it as a team as well. I think that was super important. Throughout the time he was there, he kind of did that he tried to do it probably a couple times a day, but he at least did it at least once a day.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Yeah. That's amazing. I love that that was a thing. And I think small things like that are the best way to approach, like helping your team feel calmer.
And as you were talking about, like your daily walks, I love that you are not daily walks, weekly walks. I love that you had it be a weekly goal instead of a daily goal. Because I find a lot of people will be like, oh, I want to start improving my health. I'm going to now walk 10,000 steps every single day. And they're going from like walking a thousand steps a day to 10,000 overnight every day. That's just unrealistic. So it's really those small changes that are going to be the most powerful for you. You could try to do something bigger and maybe you'll be able to do it for a couple of weeks, but then it will likely start to overwhelm you and you won't be able to keep up with it. So that smaller approach is definitely better and then you can build on that. Like, once you get used to those weekly walks, maybe you're like, okay, now it's going to be a twice a week thing, like slowly building on those things.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: But starting small is always, in my belief, the. The best move.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: So in closing, Molly, what is one takeaway that you want our audience to get from this episode today?
[00:23:36] Speaker C: I want to just kind of highlight again what we were just saying of start small. So I would love everyone to just kind of start building one habit. Even if you think you're not really stressed and like you're otherwise healthy. Like, what's one small habit that you can start building that will support. Support your nervous system and the stress in your body? Can you start going outside in the first hour of waking up just for some fresh air? Can you start each day with a glass of water? Like, what's one really small thing that you can start doing? I believe even the healthiest people can still build some habits that will support them more. But just start building those small habits and don't try to overhaul your life overnight. I feel like a lot of times when we reach that rock bottom place or when we're in a bad place and we feel unwell, mentally, physically, we can try to a lot to change that. So just do one small thing for yourself and see how that can trickle into something bigger. But don't try to change your life overnight. Start small and let it become a big, powerful thing.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: For you, I think it's super important to just pick one thing and, and go with it. And it's time management. I know some people that I make lists of stuff and they just panic. So I could see like in a work setting people, yeah, my God. Like I didn't get anything done today when you probably did. But you're just kind of, I think, just being a little hard on yourself.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: Yeah. I used to be one of those people that would have a really long to do list and I would do the same. I would be like, ah, I didn't get everything done. And then I switched from having a to do list to literally just timetabling my day. Being like, I'm gonna do this at 2:30, I'm gonna do this at 3. Like literally plugging things into my day, including self care. I'd be like, okay, at this time I am going to go for a.
Plugging those things into your day instead of just having a big long list and hoping you get, getting, get to it. Prioritizing that list and actually plugging it into a schedule can be really helpful. And then also like if you start working on your stress and start working on healing your nervous system, that's going to help with your productivity for sure. Like I often find people are. Scared is the wrong word, but it's the only word in my brain. Like scared to include self care in their schedule because they don't think they have time and they're like, I'm already so busy and so overwhelmed. Adding something to my to do list is going to be way too much. Adding something that helps your body feel calmer can make you more productive and make you move through your tasks faster and help clear your brain so that you can actually feel productive. So you may find adding something for you onto your list can save you time. In the end, I want to take.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: The time to thank you for coming on today. We just had such a great conversation and it's continued on since we, since we first connected. So I'm just so happy for our connection. I think it was strong, it's built strong and for me I just love the things that you're doing. I love the things that you say and you're just such a strong, inspirational individual and I just, I just admire the things that you do and I admire the way that you, you talk to people and the way that you, you're willing to help people out. For me it's amazing and I just admire that. So, so thank you again for coming on and thank you again for. For spending the time with me. And, and of course, thank you again for. For being a connection.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: Well, thank you. That. That's so kind of you to say. Like, I love what you're doing as well. I admire this podcast, especially how you're constantly having different conversations and bringing awareness to things. So thank you for having me on. I'm glad we were able to chat today.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: I am super happy that we're able to make it work today, too. On behalf of myself and my guest, Molly, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, Hit Subscribe.
