Being mindful in chaos – Suzanne Jewell [Interview]

About Suzanne Jewell

Suzanne is a global expert and proven strategic marketing and communications lead on strategic initiatives for corporations, start-ups, non-profits, and the community. Suzanne’s most recent project is Mindful Mornings Miami, the hottest new one-hour talk show on independent JoltRadio. With a reach of over 200,000, the show focuses on what it means to wake up and live in the world today.

Aishwarya Jain

We have the pleasure of welcoming Suzanne Jewell today to our interview series. I’m Aishwarya Jain from the peopleHum team. Before we begin, just a quick intro of peopleHum. PeopleHum is an end-to-end, one-view, integrated human capital management automation platform, the winner of the 2019 global Codie Award for HCM that is specifically built for crafted employee experiences and the future of work with AI and automation technologies. We run the PeopleHum blog and video channel which receives upwards of 15,000 visitors a month and publish around 8 interviews with well-known names globally, every month.

Aishwarya

We’re thrilled to have you on our series.

Suzanne

Awesome to be here and welcome to everyone, and my first wish is that everyone is awake, aware and well, today!

Aishwarya

Thank you so much for that.

So let me begin with the first question I have for you, Suzanne. You have worked extensively in media, satellite television, brand marketing, communications, so what is it that attracted you to mindfulness as an enabler in organizations?

Suzanne

You know, my experience of living in one place and working on pretty much every other continent on the planet really made me aware that I was always in, kind of autopilot. I was always on. The media tends to do that, both in the way that it bombards us.

And I find that I personally was really being the same way, and so, in that regard for me, mindfulness became a way to really get present to what was going on wherever I happen to be on the planet for my GPS location, but also where my head and my mind and my body is located. “The most recent Harvard study actually shows that 47% of the time that we’re out of bed and awakened vertical, our mind and our body are actually not in the same place.”

“The most recent Harvard study actually shows that 47% of the time that we’re out of bed and awakened vertical, our mind and our body are actually not in the same place.”

We spend more than 50% of our time thinking about the past, ruminating about what happened, what happened, what happened, or projecting into the future. And when we project into the future, we create anxiety. And when we ruminate about the past, we create and experience depression.

We are not particularly attuned as human beings to be present right where we are right now. And I experienced in my global work that I was doing, I experienced a series of panic attacks because I was anxiety-ridden and I was kind of anxiety-driven.

And I started to realize that if I didn’t have a practice like this, I was not gonna be present in my life and truthfully told, I might not even be here if I had not learned how to slow my roll.

Aishwarya

Oh, I see that it’s quite insightful. It’s very interesting to understand how people actually think about more of the past than of the future. And thank you for that.

If you could just, speak a little more about the work you’re doing with organizations and what do they typically struggle with?

Suzanne

So what I’m noting is kind of, I’m gonna call it pre Coronavirus answer to that question. So instead of B.C and A.D, I’m gonna call it PC, pre and post.

I’m noting that before Coronavirus showed up as a global pandemic and impacted how we work, a lot of really forward-thinking companies were starting to notice that their own staff was feeling a lot of overwhelm. People were feeling like they’re up here with expectations.

Before Coronavirus companies were putting productivity at the top of the hierarchy of what they expected from employees. Now it seems that post and during Coronavirus that the well being of employees have taken at least an equal measure to productivity, and I’m gonna project that post Coronavirus wellbeing is going to literally end up being the most important aspect at work. In terms of the clients I work with, a lot of them were making very bold decisions to care for mental health and the focus and attention skills of their employees.

Aishwarya

I see. All right, So I think at least we know what’s going to be the single most important factor going forward after Coronaviruses is settled out. That is quite insightful.

So how do you believe the workplace is going to evolve in the future? And what will organizations need to focus on and what has been termed as the future work.

Suzanne

So I really think that this is my own belief system that “Being human at work actually works.”

“Being human at work actually works.”

And I’m gonna share a little philosophy that I believe. When the industrial revolution began and basically put human beings into a cog in a wheel, an upper level of productivity that according to Milton Friedman, economists existed purely and only for the sole purpose of investments and ROI (Return On Investment) and that it was only and wholly responsible to its shareholders.

I believe that this experience we’re in is going to break apart a lot of what that structure is and reason of being is about and why work matters and also how work fits into the human experience. And I do believe that that shift of yes, companies are still gonna have to make a profit.

But if you look at the cutting edge research and management styles that are coming out of Harvard school and Stanford and other varying institutions like the Wellbeing center at the London School of Economics. So some of the most leading institutions on the planet you’re noting, that well-being health is becoming a priority.

You take a look at Deland. And for the first time in human history, you actually understand they’ve put the well being of people at the top of their economic focus over necessarily GDP. And so I do believe we’re living in a very interesting time that the topic of the future of work is going to fit into being human.

It’s gonna fit into life at home. It’s gonna fit into how we are well enough to be able to be productive with our wellness and productivity really being on equal measure.

And I also think this topic of what we’re doing now, too, is going to because, past the pandemic, we’re going to figure out really much more conscious ways of connecting with each other because we have to socially distance. “Human beings are wired in our minds and in our bodies to be with one another.”

“Human beings are wired in our minds and in our bodies to be with one another.”

So we’re going to develop a real hunger to want to be in the presence of other beings. And I think that even that part of work will be about being able to have social connections.

Research shows that loneliness and isolation kills. So work may end up being a part of the element that provides the connection when we’re all able to be back in the same physical space with one another, and we, as human beings need it, we literally need to be connected, if you look at some of the living wisdom that is out there, For example, Thich Nhat Hahn, the

Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, he talks about the fact that Not only are we interconnected, but he also calls it to intervene.

And if you look at ancient wisdom such as the ubuntu philosophy in South Africa, Ubuntu when translated means “I am a person because of other people, I am because you are.”

“I am a person because of other people, I am because you are.”

So the belief becomes, what happened to someone in China impacts me in Miami, and so much of what this is breaking through is our sensations of separation and separateness. And we’re really realizing Wow, how well you are, Aishwarya, in India matters to me because it maps. So I really think that the future of work is gonna tuck me tied very directly to being human at work and allowing people to say I have a sick child I need to care for or I’m not well, so how to work with me. But sharing that, I really do believe that this time, in unprecedented times of human history, that we’re going to find out that “Being well and being human is gonna be the Future of work.”

“Being well and being human is gonna be the Future of work.”

And I really believe that that future will be put as a priority. Not only am I well enough to work, but that my work is gonna work with me to be able to be at work. And so I think that we are watching, um, a great shift to take place right now about the future of work.

Aishwarya

I absolutely agree. So the shift is from business centricity to actual people centricity, and in the end, we’re all social beings. Humans are social beings.

So it’s important that you talk about the well being of the core of any organization, right?

Suzanne

Yes. I mean, they even talk about it. If anyone’s familiar here in your listenership with what’s called human-centered design.

So in the startup space we use human-centered design as a way to solve a problem because you put the human at the middle of the problem, you don’t create a product and then push it out into the marketplace and tell us why they have a need, instead, you flipped the script and you put the human at the center of the problem.

You ask, what is it that they actually are seeking and design the solution around the human with the challenge?

Aishwarya

Wow! that is that’s great thinking and that is revolutionary in a sense, and it will change a lot in the coming future.

So the next question I have is how doesn’t employee experience design needs to change to include aspects of mindfulness?

Suzanne

So I’m gonna give you what I call good news, the geek that I am, cause I absolutely love mindfulness. It really, it saved my life, to be honest. Sharing with you that the news I received because I’m getting my master’s degree right now in mindfulness. Who knew you could? But I am. I’m nine months away from completing my degree in mindfulness at the Greater Good Science Center at U C. Berkeley.

So it’s a very fascinating program based on neuroscience and F.M.R.I results and E E Gs. So all of that kind of brainiac kind of physiology-based science. I really believe that what China just announced, what I’ve heard through the grapevine is they’re recommending mindfulness meditation practices to all Chinese citizens because when you learn the practices of how to slow your roll, you actually build immunity into your immune system and one of the biggest things that no one has done, whether it’s at work or whether it’s in your personal life. No one’s handed us a little instruction manual that says, ‘Hey, this means to be human.’

Did you know, for example, that you have five basic emotions as a human and you can express them in 500 different ways? Did you know that when you aren’t breathing properly, you actually send your body into an experience of called, fight, flight, or freeze? Did you know that if I take my elbow and I have you do this with me.

So put your hand up and do this with me, Aishwarya. This is my adrenal glands. This is at the top of your kidneys. This is your spine. Okay? Fold your thumb into your palm. This is the medulla back here. It’s the oldest part of your brain. It’s called the primal part of the brain. It’s called the reptilian part of the brain.

Fold your fingers over the front. This is the prefrontal cortex, the most evolved mammalian part of the brain. When you’re not breathing well or you’re in an adrenaline-addicted mind or you’re in one of those Oh, my God. I’m so nervous. I can’t think straight, go like this. You just flipped your lid.

And when you flip your lid, you lose all of your executive, logical, rational function, like how to make a good work under deadline. How to make sure you are making a pivot in a business decision that you’ve lost money in a market, you need to decide.

Aishwarya

Wow,

Suzanne

So what happens? What happens if you learn mindfulness with science? One of the ways you learn how to bring yourself back on line is called the anti-anxiety breath.

So you take a dignified seat, sit very calmly in your seat, drop your shoulders back a little, lift the heart cage just a little. Breathe in through the nose for a count of six. Hold for one. Push out like a straw for a count of eight. Take the turn and breathe in again through on a count of six to the nose. Hold for one. Push out like a straw. Do another one on your own. In for six. Hold for one. Push out like a straw. It flipped your lid, I just helped you start to bring your prefrontal cortex back on line.

What I just did by teaching you the anti-anxiety breath is that your nervous system has two parts, one is called the ‘sympathetic’. The other part is called ‘Parasympathetic’. Your sympathetic nervous system doesn’t have sympathy for you. It’s actually all your autonomic functions, your breathing, your digestion. Save you, if the car’s about to run you over. It will send you into fight-flight-freeze. “Your parasympathetic will actually instead calm you down.”

“Your parasympathetic will actually instead calm you down.”

And what that does is what we just did is like a parachute, and it brings you back down to Earth and it takes that activated system, curls all of that, and you come right here back on line.

Interestingly enough, nobody gave you an instruction manual. Nobody’s taught you how to be Human. We’re in this really interesting moment that the techniques and the tips of mindfulness that not only can help us at work can help us be more human and help us work through major difficulties because here is, for example, an interesting experience.

The three of us that are on this call right now are in two places that are hot spots on the planet. We could be really activated in this state of nervousness, but in this small call right now having done that breath, we’re actually okay.

And Mark Twain said something, The American author said something really interesting, ‘My life has been full of difficult moments, most of them which never happened because most of them happened up here.’ Most of them don’t really happen.

And they are mostly made up in our mind that, you know, and I’m not trying to at all minimize the people who have lost someone and by no means trying to delude anyone that these are very sobering times.

But when we know how to be able to create a practice to slow ourselves, we can actually just at least help ourselves be calmer through whatever storm or however big the wave is that we might be experiencing.

Aishwarya

Wow, that is very fascinating. It’s amazing how human biology actually works. And you can leverage that to your benefit. And it’s true. You know, most of the difficult times are actually psychological, and they’re actually in your brain and not really happening.

So, how important of a role will technology and digital make in the inclusive workplace of the future?

That’s NOT all, folks! To continue reading this awe-inspiring blog, click here: https://s.peoplehum.com/103hh