The Duratus Mind - Martin Jones - Human Performance expert

The Duratus Mind - A podcast exploring all things mindset and motivation.  Gaz, a former Special Forces Sergeant Major but now performance and leadership consultant, opens up his network to try and understand what motivates some to risk so much, why some are so driven, and what it really takes to achieve success in any sector.

In this episode Gaz talks to Dr Martin I. Jones who is an expert on human performance.  His deep understanding of sleep, resilience and burnout can help us all.

Martin has more than 20 years of experience supporting athletes, coaches, performance directors, businesses, and military personnel. Martin currently works in the defence sector researching the methods to maximise human performance through sleep, resilience, and training. Martin supports several human performance initiatives in the UK and is well connected with international human performance research and practitioners.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

So the Duratus Mind Podcast, Dr. Martin Jones, welcome. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to have you here. It's been you've been someone that I've been keen to get on to the podcast for uh quite some time now. Or we met in part through my former organization. Really looking forward to this. And I know it's a lot of things that will help an awful lot of people listening, Martin. So uh so yeah, looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Sorry. So do you mind giving people a bit of an overview, a bit of a background of uh who you are and how you ended up um doing what you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah, sure thing. So yeah, um name's Martin. I'm a sport and exercise psychologist. Um, spent the past 22 years, I think it's coming up to uh sort of working in high performance settings. Uh, started off working in in sport and exercise psychology, um, did a uh PhD at Loughborough uh quite a few years ago now, then moved out to Canada for a little while, worked at a university out in uh the frozen north in in Edmonton, Alberta, um, and then worked in universities as a lecturer, senior lecturer, doing research, teaching. And through through that period, spent a lot of time working with high performers, so athletes, uh coaches, performance directors, um, some parents, some parents of athletes, a few businesses, in a alongside uh doing my own research into sport and exercise psychology and I said and teaching. And around about three-ish years ago, I made the move away from academia and started to work in defense, um, which is where I currently currently work um again in that sort of human performance realm.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, brilliant. Um, appreciate all that. So human performance is a really deep topic in itself. You know, I've I've always been fascinated by it. Um I think more and more so as I as I kind of work with people and organizations that are just trying to optimize what they do, I see the benefits of of kind of having a much broader understanding of it. Clearly, it's a subject you have spent a lot of time in, but also done a lot of research and continued research in that domain. What are the what are the some of the topics that you've more recently, if you don't mind, sort of spent some time leading research on?

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Yeah, so I've I've got quite a very varied background. So my my PhD was looking at um sort of adolescent development um and how how you can transfer um skills from the sports field into the boardroom, or you know, how do you how do you how can we learn from uh elite performers in sport and help people outside of sports? So that's where that's where I started. So I did a lot of work in things like talent development, talent identification, and this broadly what broadly what's called positive youth development, how to how to develop people uh effectively. Um then moved into other areas. I did quite a lot of work in in mental toughness and resilience, trying to understand why is it that some people can navigate stress in a productive way, that they get a they they are able to do specific tasks really well when they're under immense pressure. Um, why is it that some people can do it at some times, but not at other times? And what are those individual differences that that enable people to perform when they when they really need to? And that that then took me down the route to looking at things like fatigue and pain and how those experiences can influence how well you can you can manage that stress. And then most recently, and the thing that I'm I'm really, really interested in at the moment is looking at sleep and how the quality and the quantity of your sleep, and more importantly, the things that we do during the daytime when we're not asleep, what that does that to influence the quality of that the time we spend um asleep at nighttime, and what are the consequences of both getting really good sleep and more often than not, what are the consequences when we don't get really good sleep?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, and and there's some topics there that we're gonna dive deep on. Um, first question I'm gonna throw you a hand grenade here. Um there won't be many of these, but in 60 seconds or less, why is it that some people can deal with the stress of uh things in front of them and some people are are less less uh skilled at doing so?

SPEAKER_02 5:05

In 60 seconds, that is the hand grenade. So there's a lot, there's there's there's there's loads of re there's resources. Basically, you develop your resources. The more resources you have, the better you are at dealing with it. So basically, what is stress? It's an imbalance between what the situation demands and the resources that you have. So in any given situation, the the resources that you have at your disposal need to be in balance with the with the environment, the situation, or you need more demands. So those resources are so varied. It can be your personality, can be you know what you were your genes, how you, you know, how you're born, it can be the people around you, your teammates, the the organizational structure, leadership. The more of those resources that you have at your disposal in that situation means that that balance between demand and resources in your favor. Yeah, it changes. That that's the thing which with resilience, stress, uh, mental toughness. I think one of the things that I've consistently found is it's not one thing that you always have or do not have. As the situation changes, so do the resources that you have at your disposal and the resources, resources that you can use. Is that 60 seconds?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Uh no, I was about to get my air horn out. It was a little bit longer, but no, that's that's great. There's there's so much, there's so many questions born out of that. But uh we'll we'll unpick that as we go. I know it's a it's a topic close to my heart, and one of the things that I speak with uh senior C-suite execs about and their culture, environments all the time with their businesses. So um, yeah, keen to unpick that as we go along. Um, but what was it, Martin, that compelled you to do what it is you do? Like what's what's your why?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Yeah, sure. I think I think I mean I've I've listened, I've listened to you talk a few times, Gaz, and we've got a fairly similar story in that growing up, spent played a lot of sports, had an older sister, competitive, and I was never good enough. Like I was never, I always wanted to, I always wanted to play at Wimbledon. That was always my dream, never got there. But played a lot of sport, loved loved sport, and always thought uh when I was going through school, I was I was kind of that philosophy of just do the things that you enjoy. And and so that pushed me into a degree in in sport and exercise, that with a with a long-term aim of being a teacher. I always thought I'd be a teacher. Um, from a very young age, I I remember as a tennis player, you know, playing playing tennis as you know, 10 or 11 years old, the coach asking you asking me to take over and run the run the warm-up. And I and it got to a point I was like, you know, that that was ended up being my favorite part of the lesson when I was running the warm-up and doing that. And I did various coaching courses and that kind of stuff, and just really liked teaching, really liked being a a coach and educator. So I thought I love I love sport, I like, I love teaching. So I thought, well, I'll be a P teacher. So that that was always the plan. Um, going through university, I was exposed to this area called sport psychology, which I'd done a little bit, I'd read a little bit, you know, I did my during my A levels, I was exposed to some of this stuff. Um, you know, at that time, 18, 19, I was I was I liked strength and conditioning and and nutrition. It wasn't until I got to university where I was exposed to to this concept of psychology and had a few lecturers who were were just inspiring teachers. Um taught me loads about how the mind influences your performance, your well-being, you know, your enjoyment of the sport. And it got to the end of my degree, and I kind of thought, well, you know, what now? I think you know, this is probably like you know, early part of the in the 2000s. And the one of my lecturers at the time suggested, well, why not do a master's degree? So I thought, you know, why not? Not not there was no strategy in it. There was it was just I enjoyed learning. I think that's that's a fundamental. Like I've just always enjoyed learning, I enjoy teaching, but I've always enjoyed learning. I I'd always have, and I think I would probably will. So I thought, yeah, why not? Let's go and do a master's degree. Went to Loughborough, um, did that, did that for a year, and then it's the same sort of thing. Why not? Someone again, someone's just saying, well, why not? Why not do a PhD? I was like, Yeah, cool, and then I'll do that too. So I ended up doing a PhD. Get just really loved it. Love love having that opportunity to spend a significant amount of time studying something that I found fascinating, applying it. So that you know, alongside my studies, I got all the registrations so I could actually be a practitioner and actually do psychology. And yeah, never never look back. It was just it was always that desire to help people, that help, that desire to educate. Um I I think I think my my my parents instilled that in me. I think they they they were they they're not educated. My mum's an educator, and she she instilled that in me. Um, and I think I think that that was the why, just that it that I derive enjoyment from helping people and um and learning. And and academia, academia did that for me.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, no, I I see that. And I know have it knowing you, you know, that that is that comes across in spades. Um, you know, I think right in saying that teaching is a way is a doorway to learning, though, isn't it? Because you know, there's that saying unless you until until you can teach somebody it, then you you don't really know it well enough yourself.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

It's yeah, yeah. I don't know, I don't know how well I always do that. But yeah, I think uh I can't remember who said it, but you know, if you can't explain a concept to a five-year-old, you don't really understand the concept. And I think that there is an element of truth to that, but I think there's I mean there has been loads of occasions where I've been throwing that that assignment, teach this course and be like, oh, I've no idea what you know, start start again learning. And I think, yeah, it for it's certainly helped me understand the psychology of human performance by having to teach it to to undergraduate students, to athletes, to to business leaders, it, you know, having to having to translate complex science into something that is understandable. Um, you know, that that that's something I I like to do. That I guess that is my why. When when I see when I see someone grasp a concept and and actually then be able to put that into their life, that's where I think, yeah, that that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

There's nothing more complex than the human mind that I'm aware of on this planet. And trying to understand again, I had a very brief, well, I did A levels in in psychology and and sport before sports psychology was a thing. Um, and had a place at Loughborough University. Um, I maybe would have been an alumini of of Loughborough's sports wing if they'd have one, I guess they do. But uh that wasn't the route I chose. And but I've always been fascinated and viewed my career through that. But I think you know, I'm trying to like fascinated by human behavior and why people do the things they do, it's it's always something that's triggered me. Um with psychology being and again, I think it's an under misunderstood, massively misunderstood, a science. And with that, so like I go to lots of uh elite sports clubs teams, um, or elite sport clubs in particular, they there'll be an abundance, there'll be numbers of uh strength and conditioning coaches, and then maybe one psychologist. Now it's that's always struck me as a strange imbalance because you speak to any of these teams, the coaches and the players, the ones at the very top all say it's it's this, and they point to their heads, their minds that uh and their mindset that's the most important thing. So why why do you think that is it is that um that's the case in uh certainly elite sport to begin with, but yeah, it's true, it's true.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Yeah, absolutely bang on. There is a definite um misbalance, or uh, you know, it's not it, there's not as many sports likes in in in elite sport for sure. And I think there's lots of reasons, but I think uh my my my take on it is that if you look at something like an SC coach or or or any coach, the outcome of what they do is is observable, it's very tangible. So you can see, you can measure how high someone jumps, and you can put them through a program of strength training, you can see that changes. The thing with is so we think what is psychology? Well, psychology is really concerned with broadly speaking, and there's there's more than this, but broadly speaking, what how we think or what we think, our emotions and our behavior. And and we can see emotion on people's face, express facial expressions, but a lot of a lot of what we focus on in terms of that mindset, how to to generate productive think thinking or how to reduce um unproductive thinking, you don't see it, it it occurs inside the person. And uh going back to to kind of what I was talking about with adolescent development, we if we talk about like you know positive development of a young person, yeah, we might see that all of a sudden your 12-year-old, 13-year-old son or daughter, without having to ask them, they'll take the plates off the table or they'll go and tie their room. And it's like this, you see a behavior. Not my children, by the way. Yeah, mine either. But but you you might see these positive behaviors. But in reality, that process of development, the way that they've they've they've changed their thinking, that decision to do that kind of thing, they're they're developing their attitude, their identity, that happens over years inside their head that you never see. You just see that behavior at the end, and you think, wow, they're a good kid, they're they're you know, they're doing that good thing. And we see the same thing with sports people is that we we see these behaviors, the person who hits the drop goal when it matters, the person who can hit a um who can hit an ace when they break point down. We we don't see that process of how they got there, that development, and it's not that tangible because it's in the it's happening in the mind. So, so that I think that is the thing is that we can readily see the benefit of getting a strength and conditioning coach because you see that benefit in weeks, whereas sports psychology, you often don't see the benefit, uh, maybe for a long, long time, if ever. Um, so it's yeah, it's much harder to make that business case that it's something that as a as a performance director, you should invest all this money in when you've probably got a coach saying, Yeah, but for one psych, I can get one SNC or a physio, and and I get those tangible benefits now. So I think I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

With that in mind, yeah, with that in mind, I agree. With that in mind, it's really hard to see, isn't it? And that's that's often uh one of the reasons. What like so where are the benefits then? So why so I I'm speaking to, let's say I'm speaking to um a big corporate organization, and you're a you're a uh doctor of psychology, like what is the business case of to get those behaviors changed over over this longer period of time, which most businesses would say that's a great opportunity. Look, we're happy with the bit uh behavior changes, but it's going to take longer. What is the what is the argument there?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, it's um it's a tough sell. I mean, you think you think that that that idea, you know, mindset is that important, it's a bit of a throwaway comment. You know, you hear it all the time, you know, sport's a mental game and it's 99% mental, you know. Those are kind of throwaway comments, but but what we what we do know is I mean, just take we can go back to the example of of sport, you know, you've got an essence, uh, a strength and conditioning coach, but the motivation to do the training is a psychological variable. Like how to the the choices that people make. Do you choose to do the full set? Do you choose to just back off and not do the full set, or do you choose to do more than you're told? You know, that that's psychology there, it's understanding the reasons why people are doing things. So if we go into the corporate world and you say, let's look at your team, what are you doing on a daily basis? We can start asking those why questions that you know, what what's driving that person to do that behavior, or equally, what's what's the obstacle that's that's preventing them from doing that behavior? And it might be a physical obstacle, it might literally be like, I cannot get from room one to room two because it's always booked. I mean, that's that's a physical, that's a that's an obstacle. But but a lot of the time we can when you've got some knowledge of of performance psychology, you can play detective, you can look at people's performance and you can start to break things down and say, well, that's something that you thought was a physical antecedent, but actually there's a big psychological component to it. And if we tweak that, you'll see the physical stuff get better. And so the the irony is it that we don't psychologists don't work in in isolation, it's about understanding how we work together with with other services, with physios, with with sales teams, with with whatever. It it's being able to tweak different aspects of it by understanding how people um think, feel, behave, and how we can we can we can do these little tweaks to improve that.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, no, and and that's that's a great answer. With regards to organizations, so there are a lot of throwaway uh comments. And again, just for my my own throwaway comment on that, you know, when I when I was in the the lead recruitment or talent identification role in my former organization, um, I had to deeply think about well, what what was it that got me to this seat and how do we reproduce that? Uh not that I'm the gold standard far from it, but it was this is my one path, and what are other people's paths? But then I I surveyed the whole organization um, you know, with great great feedback. And um one thing that what showed itself was that belief that you know is the selection process this incredibly tough challenge, arguably one of the toughest military challenges in the world. Um, every military organization thinks theirs is the toughest, but again, um I'm not I'm not getting into that argument, but arguably one of the uh the most tough that there is out there. And the weight of whether that's a mental or a uh physical challenge was about 80-20, this magic 80-20 rule, this uh Pareto's law. That uh Google it for those that don't know that. That the uh 80% of the challenge was in the mind. And and actually, although everyone focuses on the physical preparation, um that was that was much less. You know, what again, why do you do you think we have at the at the top of performance this kind of lean towards mindset being the primary?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

So yeah, it so that I I've heard I've heard that being said a few times, so you know that that it's so much meant more mental. So again, I think there's a lot of mis misunderstanding or misperception in terms of trainability, that this it's this idea that you are like you can't train that, you're either tough or you're not, like you can't learn this. And there's I I completely disagree with that statement. I think that some people learn quicker, some people take on, some people are much more adaptable. That might be something that's just inheritable and the more flexible. Some people might might say they might take on these concepts quicker, but every I think everyone can learn how to think differently. And I think that that's that that's psychology in it or performance psychology in a nutshell is what we're trying to do is identify ways of thinking that maybe aren't getting you to where you want to be, and how can we change them? How can we recognize when they're happening? How can we stop them? And how can we replace them with something that and and let's not we don't work in in guarantees here, but let that will probably improve your chances of getting to where you want to be. So we're working in that that sort of we're not black and white, if you do this, you get better. It's if you if we look at your way of thinking, your chances of getting better improve. That and that's psychology.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, no, absolutely. Whereas I guess therein lies one of the differences with conditioning and strength and conditioning, the overload principle, provided you stick to this formula, this program, you will get stronger if you apply yourself in the right way.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Well, I'd I'd throw it, I'd throw that back at you and say there's uh there's evidence to say that's not even true. That um, you know, we've got physical responders and non responders. You know, some people will um, you know, me and you could go in the gym and lift the same thing, do it for six weeks, and you might just inflate like Arnold Schwarzenegger and I might end up with type two diabetes because of it. But there are individual responses. But I think strength and conditioning a lot of people don't like to like don't like to think about that. They they they just assume that yeah it is if you do six six sets five reps three times a week you get stronger. Most people will but there is variability in that response.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

There's a whole load of people listening now going that's why I'm I I look like I do because I'm a I'm a not I'm a less responsive than most people.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah yeah yeah so but the same thing same thing same thing with psychology so the individual variability like that we are we're so different. I mean if you if you think it we but we call it a developmental trajectory like what causes you to develop in the way you have from when you were a kid to where you are now and if you try and kind of think of it as a mathematical equation you keep adding in well what how does it how do I get to where I am there's billions of of choices and experiences that they've created you that make you unique. And it's those that that's individual variability. There's so much of it and then and I think that that's what that's one of the things that really interests me and like you go back to your study that that you talked about now there's a concept that we that in in um is is what's called a cognitive bias. It's called selection bias. Yep and effectively one of the things that I'd be interested in is go to go to the hundreds of people that didn't get selected go to the hundred people that dropped out that um got got got withdrawn for whatever reason they didn't make it or equal the ones that never even went on the course and see what they've got. Because if you see they've got this this robust mindset which is actually exactly the same as you the people in your organization then is it that mindset that's caused them to be there if if there's people who didn't get selected have the same skills and we don't know this. We don't we don't really study we we have a selection bias because we study the successful people. I mean that's just that's just one of the the quirks of research but there could be there could be things that we I mean and this is this is what excites me is like the there's stuff that we don't we haven't thought about yet that that might be important to help people perform to their potential like their you know how do we how do we get people to the absolute maxima maximum of their potential and that's what that's what keeps me fascinated is finding out new things to say right no one's ever thought about this let's try it.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah no I get that you know and and again I can make comparisons but between the military and uh elite teams in in business now with regards to you know my story you know I spent time in the marines and I ended up in uh a recce troop which again as far as the marines is concerned was is considered a place where if you really want to learn to soldier you go and spend some time in recce troop because you'll get more you get more exposure to more opportunities to learn these skills and the those skills will will benefit you if you want to be a you know a better soldier versus no disrespect to the Royal Marines and the chefs branch for example but your soldiering skills whilst you're chefing in the Royal Marines and again I think the that that Rome's been taken away now anyway but that was a a genuine skill that they trained some people in it as we just you know that was so far from what I wanted to do. Whereas you know and so from the special forces recruitment side of things to go and recruit people to try and build relationships and trust with people that have got a high higher probability chance of success um then those rich talent pools were in the recce troops of the the parachute regiment and the the Royal Marines. Now I see this exactly the same thing now where people go to the rich talent pools you know the the best business schools best business universities your Whartons, your Cambridges, etc. You know, to go and recruit people for your business from those organizations you would more often than not say well you're getting someone that is you know because to get into those universities you've had to work harder that's a good discipline. You're not getting into those universities on the whole on talent alone sorry on uh uh yeah on on talent alone you've you've grafted to get there and you've shown the disciplines required to get in there but that doesn't always translate to uh a good person that you want on your team in a certain organization and that I could say that from special forces and recruiting from these rich talent pools in in the military but also the rich talent pools in in business and understanding the complexities I I also find that fascinating but it is just an endless hole you can go into right and so we have to focus and refine that and surely to go to these the answer is to go to these rich talent pools and and do our best with that because the breadth of people that you could be selecting from almost so inefficient.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that that ramble yeah yeah you you've got a balance of investment that you know you could you you you could spread your net far and wide but you know the balance of investment is it's you probably if you spend more time looking at population X you you're gonna find the people you might miss out some talent but yeah it is that is a balance of investment and we and everyone has to make that choice there's I think that that that's the thing that there's no right way there's there's lots of ways of of of helping people perform and helping organizations perform and you know it's a case of trying to to to to find the most efficient way for that particular group I think that that's the that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

But so that's for the the business or the company and when I was in the um recruitment or talent identification role you know reverse engineer that you know to the the the person in one of these whether it's in Wharton business school um over in Philadelphia or or whether it's um a young marine in satin reccupin four five whatever you know they want to optimize what they do what's what's the best what's the best thing for them to do human performance is is really complex.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

So for for one there's no such thing as as just performance it's not just a one thing it it you you put you can break it down into individual tasks or individual performances. And I think the the most important question is to really understand the the why of why people are doing things because you've heard it thousands of times and I'll probably misquote but you know a man who has a why can overcome any how so you know that that that sort of principle man or woman but you know that that when you if you if your if your driver is strong if you've got a real strong motive that's one of those resources that I started off with that's a really strong resource. So you know trying to understand people in terms of their why their their motivation what and we and motivation is to if we think about motivation is like what is driving your behavior like it's that intensity and effort of action. Why are you giving this much effort how much intensity but what is driving that what is the reason behind it and if we can start to to tap into to that and again recognize that it's different for different tasks it changes. It's not like you can't I think it's a it's a fallacy to to say look at look at you say Gaz, you are motivated like because then but what I'd argue is yes you are it we clearly see you're motivated in these different situations these these these realms of your life but I'm sure you you would admit to saying there are some realms of your life where you're not particularly motivated where you you then switch on the areas that you are motivated in. You know you might say go and do the dishes actually or you know I'd I'd prefer to go to the I'm going to go to the gym you know go and cook dinner tonight actually I've I've got this thing I need to do instead you know so you you often you're you're not motivated to do everything and we need to understand that and we can once we start to understand that that driver we can we can facilitate that sort of internalization of that motivation so it makes it it it's am I doing this for more superficial reasons like I'm I'm I'm interested in this particular task at hand because I think it's going to bring me lots of Instagram likes it you know that a transient you know you're trying to get status or is it I'm interested in this task because I love this task. I'm interested in this task because this is who I am it's my identity. And I think when you look at things like selection that you talked about I I'd be interested to see like that driver you know are people doing it because are people entering selection because they're just thinking about the status and they're looking at themselves 10 years down the line being picked up by channel four and going on a television show or are they talking about the the driver to to do the course because it their I they are their identity is intertwined with the fact that they are a soldier a marine or you know a sailor whatever that that's who they are or I mean I don't know if this is ever true because I've never done it but people just love being cold wet and tired but you know I know I know a few people that certainly seemed appear to yeah um no I I I I get that and that's what we're talking ultimately about so it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

So the the quote you mentioned that's Victor Frankel isn't it who's a psychologist and he he for those that don't know great book a man's search for meaning definitely recommend it and it's up there on the bookshelf somewhere and um one of my favorite books because he he he had a real purpose to to get through what was the the concentration camps at the time and uh you know his his bias towards you know attaching this this meaning to what he was going to try and get through the end i mean the the the chances of surviving were were so low that he really had to attach this purpose at various different times uh of his life and i i think i think it's a i recommend that book to everybody that i speak to it's a a fantastic book now a lot a lot of my old students have got copies of that book in fact a lot of students have got my copies of that book is it yeah no no no one's no one's very uh very uh good of you to give it away i no one's getting my copy i love it it's a great book um but uh i recommend anyone else to get hold of it but uh but you you're talking really about goal setting aren't we that's the the the nub of the point so start with the end in mind you know what what is motivated that's the you know understanding that why really then lands us firmly in goal setting and you know i don't know being being completely open and honest you know i don't want people to see this as a as a as a pathway to our goal setting course clearly it's something that people will be familiar with that we've done together um you know but this is we we did that because we know I think that the the root of people's own success in business in if they wanted a military career if they wanted a sports career is really understanding this this why you're trying to achieve what you're trying to achieve what is it you know and if that is to be the next cristiano Ronaldo then fair play to you and and like get that goal out there work out that journey to it and start implementing taking action against it right that's ultimately what we're talking about here.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah and I think that in my experience I mean you you you call it goal setting and it and it is I think whenever I work with an athlete whenever whenever I um you know start working with a new athlete or a coach or or whatever whatever client the the there's always a reason why they're they've come to me there's a the there's um there's there's obviously something in that's happening in their life that they want to improve or they want to remove that it's often if it's you know so that that's reason why people come to me and what what what we often do is in and it you let's call it goal saying ultimately we are we I'm trying to understand this or I'm trying to create a discrepancy a process of saying this is where I am today this is where I want to be and there's often there's a gap there there's a discrepancy because the put the place or the well in fact the person that you want to be there's not and and I think that that's important to to to make that clear that if we can think of it in those terms like you know rather than just saying this is the job I want or this is the the car I want to buy it's like what's the kind of person you want to be that that makes it that that helps make it more of a robust system. But we're looking at that discrepancy this way you are this way you want to be and then we fill in the gap. I mean that that's the kind of like what we we try and work together to to try and minimize that discrepancy so that the person you are is that bit closer to the person you want to be and often the person you want to be includes a lot of those um material things that you're after but that's not the point it's about it's more about the identity the who you are and yeah that that we could we can call it goals say we can call whatever we want but basically that it's that process trying to understand how to minimize that that gap and part of it is understanding the why it's it's is building that robust um sense of why you are choosing this particular task at that particular time but I think it it it's also it's also about being able to to put the puzzle together and that that's that's probably the the art and the science the combination is when you're hit you you've got this discrepancy you you're today this is who you are in six months time this is the person you want to be where are the puzzle pieces and and so we can identify those puzzle pieces and then we need to start putting them together and that's that's again takes a lot of time and it's and it's complex and another reason why some people don't really engage with psychology is sometimes it's really uncomfortable. I think that's that's an un that's an a lot of times yeah you know we don't talk about the fact that actually working on yourself can can be quite an uncomfortable experience because you have to look at what you're doing and how you're thinking and and who you are especially if you identify who you want to be you have to say well this is these are parts of myself that I want to work on and it's not always it's not always pleasant.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yeah 100% like again we talk a lot about accountability with our our leadership uh cohorts and groups um you know looking yourself in the mirror and having that conversation of like this is my goal but that's really an admission that you're not where you want to be and so you first got to go to yourself well actually I do want to be better than where I am now and so I'm not being all I can be. You're having that acceptance that and that takes incredible humility to say look I can give more I can be more I want to be more so let's lay that out and go put a a flag in the ground there and go look there's things I want to improve and that is the hardest step by my you you mentioned again my former career um and this is exactly what I apply with with groups and clients that we work with now that you know the hardest challenge was that so the people in the parachute regiment the people in the Marines that would join the military to be special forces but actually to put your hand up and say this is what I want to do like without a doubt that's the hardest step. And because it takes accountability to say I'm not happy with just achieving what I've done so far, I want to do more. I find it I honestly that's understanding that dynamic which is why we focus and still focus today building relationship and trust it to enable people to have the the trust the confidence for them to step outside of what is their on the face of it high performing team and go, I want to do more I want to get better I want to be and see how far I can take this for me to be able to kind of be be have that feeling of fulfillment and everyone's seeking joy happiness but they they that comes on the journey but really that sense of fulfillment that I'm being everything that I can be for the people around me for my team for my family whatever that is for you I think that's that's the crux of what we're talking about here and and and I love I love helping people with that it's it's genuinely uh gets me up in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah I think there's one thing I just want to to throw in there and I think that this is this is I think sometimes it can be really important some people and I think what I think it's really important to to understand is human performance is not we're not talking about perfection like we're not in the realms of perfection. So if you're if that discrepancy process if you're saying this is where I am now and I want to be perfect you want to hide into nothing. I think that that idea you know the unrelenting pursuit pursuit of excellence that's that's achievable you can be excellent but but perfection we're not in the realms of perfectionism because perfectionism is gonna there's nothing good about being perfectionist. But I mean some people will argue that there's what we call adaptive perfectionism but I don't buy it. I think there is nothing good about perfectionism. I think striving to be to for excellence is is good it is positive for some people not for everyone um but not perfectionism and I think equally when we're doing that discrepancy creating um process you know you are that uncomfortable you know I don't like who I am now which is you know quite a quite a challenging statement to say to yourself I think it's important that we are compassionate as well because you know saying you saying you're here and you I don't like where I am have some self-compassion and you know there's there's I don't want to say it's not your fault a lot of the time especially some people who you know there are there are those those developmental trajectories have got you to where you are and there's the re there's a reason that you are at that place and some of that compassion is actually recognizing that the one of the truths of life is that things change they always change and that's where you know that's that's almost that that first step we've created that discrepancy process and it's that recognition that you're in it that you want to do things differently you want to improve whatever it is but that that first puzzle piece is really cementing the belief that change is possible and that there are things you can that change will happen whether you do anything or not that what the world around us will change. So having that sort of compassion and understanding that that you there are things that that are in your control that you can do to to get to where you want to be but that's that's again that's coming back to that belief it's your you know another term that gets thrown out all the time is growth mindset fixed mindset. I remember I remember studying that during my during my master's degree and long before it was a you know it was in a popular book by Carol Dweck but Carol Dweck's original work in that area is kind of these beliefs about intelligence and the belief system is whether you think your intelligence is fixed or whether it's in with what's called an incremental belief, which is now this kind of growth mindset. The really important thing is like what's the consequence of that belief. So if you believe you can change then you probably will do things that align with that belief. If you don't believe you can change you will do things that align with that belief. So we're trying to we we try and create a situation where people understand that change is possible that that psych that mental toughness is trainable that the psychology performance is learnable. If you don't believe that in the first place your behavior will reflect that belief.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yeah absolutely that that classic one um I'm just not good at maths you know as though your brain is wired in a way that and doesn't enable you to learn you know and we we hear this in in so many different things there's there's so much I want to say to what you've just spoken about that that unrelenting pursuit of excellence you know I think you know that yes we can aim at excellence and excellence is a is a great benchmark it's you know it's fantastic it's not perfection we're all imperfect you know the human psyche is is imperfect this is part of our nature and our makeup so accept that um but that the unrelenting pursuit of excellence for me the key thing is that unrelenting pursuit of that that's the the body of what we're trying to do and it's that desire to continually try to improve to adapt to the continually adapting environment that you're in you know you know you're right earlier you said you know I you know I think you said motivated you know I describe myself as disciplined in a normal in a number of things ill disciplined in other things it's not across the board that's you know that's that would be ridiculous although some people would assume I guess you know but my disciplined self that was that when I was leaving the military leaving the military is still one of the scariest things I ever did and you know I regularly speak to former colleagues or friends of mine that are still uh serving but thinking of leaving and the fear of leaving is is immense because they're very competent highly competent in this arena that they're in but then to transfer that to a new arena feels so different and uncomfortable and you can have all the discipline in the world and skills in the world in your domain outside of that you know you can feel so vulnerable. And I think helping people to understand that and to you know something we spoke about before around scaffolding and helping people build frameworks that uh you know lower their defenses and build trust in this process that they can apply to this incremental learning Is key. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So with that, Martin, you you know, there's there's we could we could kick that one around all day just alone and you know, uh happy for people to engage with us for for more of that. But um you work a lot now with uh particular high performing organizations in defense um to improve their performance. And a lot of what we've spoken about is that you know, that unrelenting pursuit of excellence, and you know, um, but really there's a lot of this which is about longevity. There's a lot of people, you know, that if you can just stay in the game, then continually habitually doing the things that are going to get you success is enough. And that is the win, you know, this longevity. I I was, you know, it's again my former career, it was impressive what the young guys could come in and do physically, um, you know, with regards to their fitness levels, their, you know, all their squats, etc. All that is really impressive. But the the people that really used to impress me were the people at the end of their career that were in their mid-40s, they're in their late 40s, that were still able to do their role, to do their job, they still had an enthusiasm, they still had a smile on their face. This longevity to the people in your organization. I honestly think that's um one of the biggest wins in both business, sport, and um elite military, whoever really, um, now is is is helping people to understand this how you play the long game. Everyone wants a quick win, but it like genuine success in your field, whatever that field is. Again, some people get it early, but all the the you know, let's use wealth, the richest people in the world have been in this game a while. Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, he's been in this game a while, right? He plays the long game, and most of these people have had incredible journeys over a long period of time. We don't see that. But but what are the kind of what firstly, what are the challenges to helping people play that long game, you know, that longevity model?

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Yeah, I think you you you've you've hit on one already that it takes a long time and it's you know it's uh a long-term investment. Um, so yeah, that that's a big one. I think fundamentally, you you yeah, you kind of alluded to it that you you don't perform if you're broken. Like if you if there's something broken, it's very difficult to and and remember, we're talking about task performance. You know, I'm giving you a do this specific task. If we break it down into that, we can reduce human performance down to situations and tasks. You can't often do them if you've if there's something fundamentally broken. Then you you certainly can't string together a series of tasks if you're if there's something broken. And and ultimately that that's what human performance is. It's the ability to string together a series of tasks and do them well or optimally do them. So you we I think you've got to look at the you know the the the the foundations of of health, I think basically. You know, you get there's a lot, there's a lot to be said with getting the basics right first. And we're in a we're in a uh an influencer you know culture. We're you know, we we I've got god knows how many emails I get from supplement companies. Take this, you know, you'll that'll that'll you know um hack your muscle gains or whatever. Like we're in that sort of culture of of quick fixes. Um it is what it is, we're not gonna change that. But I think we need to we need to understand that the fundamentals are fundamental, you know, the that we have to make sure that we are focusing on getting people's nutrition. No, I don't want to say right, because there is no right nutrition, but but making sure that people are eating um foods that will make them healthy or healthier. We are focusing on good physical activity, and I'm not saying you need to go and be an Iron Man triathlete here. We're just going for walks and making sure your body is moving because that's what we've evolved to do. We've evolved to be moving organisms. We have to focus on clarity of thought and be able to recognize our own little self-destructive thought patterns because they have emotional consequences and behavioral consequences. So we can really focus on just getting um you know healthier ways of thinking and uh and good sleep. I think you know that they're they're fundamentals. I mean, I and I will I will caveat, you know, I am not a medical doctor, I am a researcher, so I'm just basing this on you know, a lot what a lot of the research tells us and the the the evidence-based or the evidence informed, you can call it either way, because sometimes there is there is a lack of evidence, but we can sort of um be informed by what evidence there is out there, and you work on those fundamentals and and and you do it over a long period of time, that pri that provides a foundation for then you to do the the more um challenging, extreme things. You know, if you've got a very good base level of physical fitness, you're not injured, you're getting good sleep, you are fueled with really good energy, really good food, then you are in a really good position to then do that that specialist training. So you can do the Iron Man. And equally, when you finish the Iron Man, you're in a really good position to come back to a really good foundation. And and I think you know, it's the same thing with with with with your good sleep, with good nutrition, good thinking, good exercise. Yeah, no, you're not lost by a lot of people, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

So the the easy wins what I that I've kind of heard there is the right food, good food, good sleep, good exercise, um, and a good environment really of fostering all of those things uh with a community. I think that that you know, they these are like you say, the fundamental things. But when we then that's fundamental, so they're the easy wins, right? But then when we dig on any depth on any of those things, let's use sleep as an example. You know, my old organization, teams I work with now, or people don't value sleep. Let's say most people, you know, eight hours a night would be brilliant for them, right? But most people, the thought of you know, getting eight hours, it's like that's an unbelievable, that's an unachievable realm that that's just way beyond them now. So, you know, a like because they don't work with a lot of law firms and you know, get into bed at 12, 12:30 is an early night, um, and then they're up and again at six o'clock. So getting six hours is a good night's sleep, you know. So if the easy wins are these fundamental things, like what's gone wrong? What's going wrong?

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Yeah, yeah, that's where I make my millions if I could figure that out. Um, so I'd say the first thing is again, we're not talking perfectionism. So the human body is immensely adaptable. And if you get one night, well, let's put it this way um if you spend your life eating McDonald's, that we know because we've seen the film that that not that you the good things uh you know are not going to be happening to you on a regular basis. If you eat a McDonald's, don't worry about it. You know, it's fine. It's it's not some, these are the kind of things that we don't the the fundamentals are not saying you have to do this. It's that let's go. We we've talked about 80-20. If most of the time you are looking after yourself, it's fine to have a few days where you don't, because we're adaptable and it's not gonna, it's not gonna have for the most part, long-term negative health or performance effects. So that's a really important thing. We're not saying you must do this every day and you must post pictures of it on Instagram, otherwise you won't perform. It's recognizing that when we if we do things, if we get no sleep, if you get really poor sleep over a long period of time, there will be effects, there will be consequences, no doubt about it. If you get one or two nights of bad sleep, there probably won't be those that you know, you you your body adapts to it. So, in terms of if we talk about sleep, like where are we going wrong? Well, how long we got that we you know, we could we could talk about this for ages, but I think it comes down to the the the word that you threw out there is value, that people it's some people value their sleep, but the organization they're in doesn't value their sleep or the or the leaders don't value sleep. So there's this tension between um you know going to going to get a good night's sleep or doing their job. And I think that that where we're going wrong, I think is not really understanding the true value that that if in in this case that sleep has in terms of our health, our performance, our um our well-being. There's a reason, I mean, if we look at it, let's think about think about it evolutionarily. We have evolved to spend roughly a third of our life or a third of our day where we cannot, we don't, we don't, we don't really respond to the environment, we can't run away, we don't reproduce. So, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes absolutely no sense. We're at risk of predation. If we go back to you know, living on the savannah, that those nocturnal animals were at risk of being eaten by them because we don't see them, we don't hear them, we can't run away from them, we can't use tools because we we've we're non-responsive, and that's it, we are not creating offspring. So, from a from an evolutionary perspective, it makes absolutely no sense. So, but then you think, well, it has evolved, and not only is it evolved in humans, it's evolved in every species on the planet. And it we can go to microscopic, um like nematode worms who you know, 125 neurons, tiny, they have a period of um of effectively sleep, of a of a rest period that we identify as sleep. Fruit flies have it, all mammals have sleep, dolphins sleep with one half of the brain at a time. Some birds sleep with one half of the brain at a time, but they all everyone does it. So there's clearly a really important reason. We don't necessarily know why, we don't know the exact intricacies of why we sleep. There's loads of theories, and you know, in terms of memory, in terms of you repair, body repair, reducing energy consumption, there's loads of reasons we think it we sleep, but we don't really know. But it's it's clearly important. So that's the fundamental, it's really important. And if we can change the narrative around sleep, that's this that's where we that's a good start point. And you you can you go on Instagram and you might find certain um influence influences, influential influenzas, yeah. I'm not saying anything. Um I'm not gonna name names, but there's always one individual who uh not from this country, but from a similar background to yourself, posts a picture of his watch at 4:30 and says, I'm going to work out.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

And and what's that, what message is that? What's that telling people? That's saying it that physical exercise is more important than sleep. He's not saying what time we went to bed. Yeah, he's not saying, yeah, but I went to bed at six in the in the afternoon. Like I've got a circadian phase of misalignment disorder, which he might probably as if he's getting up at three in the morning every day. But um, that that message is saying that physical exercise is more important than sleep. Your boss emails you at two in the morning saying, I'm on I'm working on this case. That message is saying my work is is basically communicating my work is more important than sleep. So if we've got people around us and organizations that are that are providing that that message that your job is more important than your sleep, no one has evolved to work. Like evolution has not set us up to sit in an office at a computer. Evolution has set us up to sleep. It's clearly in terms of health, it's more it is more important.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Um it's a modern, it's a modern phenomenon. There's you know, there's ancient wisdom on this, isn't there? You know, that ultimately we need to rest. Uh, it's you know, that is a you know, it's always been around. It's the modern work environment that has allowed this to happen, and it's drifted to a point now where a lot of people work shifts, a lot of people uh are working for themselves, they're very they're very goal-driven, they want to be the best they can be uh in or their business to be, whatever it wants to be. And these senior leaders will literally burn the candle both ends to make sure that their business succeeds, and that just filters down through their workforce because they're purposefully driven against what they're doing, and they're you know, it they will literally just work and sleep. And this is this is the modern way, right? This is now like the corporate world doesn't stop.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

No, and that's the thing we can. I mean, for it, you know, the the obvious example. I mean, you can see it shining off the top of my head, the light bulb above me, that we have light, so that means that you can work at two in the morning because you are in a well-lit environment. Yeah, it doesn't mean we should.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

Well, um, just one thing, Martin. So you've said before, um, I've heard you speak uh about this on a number of times, and again, I'd like to kind of get into the crunchy bit with sleep. So you've you've described before as it's people see it as passive that uh sleep is a passive exercise, as in it's it's um things happen when when we get chance. Well, it isn't like that at all, is it? Sleep sleep is active recovery, where there's active processes that need to happen for us to survive. We will die if we don't sleep. That's right, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 58:54

Yeah, we think so. I mean, it's it's I won't like to go through the ethics committee where you try and do a research study to see if people will die. But we we've seen it in in animals. There are research studies where if you sleep deprive rodents um for a prolonged period, they die. They die. And there's there's there are sleep disorders um which are very rare, um, like fatal familial insomnia, where you get a it's a it's a it's a similar to like a um remember like mad cow disease, it's a very simple, it's a like what's a prion disease. And basically people just stop sleeping and they die. It kills them. So yeah, if you don't sleep, you are you're not gonna be in a good place. If you do it for a long time, your organs will just shut down you and and you'll die. So yeah, it's uh it it's not good. You you you definitely need to sleep 100%. And as I was saying before, we we're in an environment where you can you can work, you can do other things because we have lights, because we have the internet. Um, and it doesn't it doesn't mean that you should. And and it's it's recognizing that we need to understand that that it's valuable and and health enhancing. That's that's the core uh the core thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

What what are the what are the key things? People listening, I'm thinking of the listeners now. Well, what are the clear signs that you're getting it wrong? So again, we know, you know, you ask, and I've asked, I've literally asked thousands of people this in the workshops that we run, like what is it? What's the time? And everyone says eight hours. Everyone knows we should be getting eight hours. What are the clear signs? And then then some of us, and again, I used I definitely fell into this bracket of my former organization with my former organization. The organization at the time didn't care about sleep, the leaders didn't care about sleep, and we all thought genuinely that we were superhuman. Um, so we thought we could operate just as well on three, four hours. And in fact, there was QDOS for operating and working on on little sleep. So, what are the clear signs that we're we're getting it wrong for people listening? So go go back to again, not not perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

When you when you have the opportunity for good sleep, you should you should take it. Sometimes you don't have the opportunity, and when you can't, if you are you've got a high high stress task or your time limit task where you just you just or you're in a job, um, like your old your old place or police, fire service, I mean, you know, you know, where you you will get woken up. So we can almost separate those two. And I think that's really important that to say there's almost three groups of people. There's those groups of people who have a sleep disorder, which is stopping them from sleeping. And that's where you go to your doctor, and and they they could help. There is that group of people who don't sleep because their job demands it of them, and there's a there's an operational imperative that people are awake um because it's dangerous if they're not. And then there's a group of people who's probably the big group who cannibalize their sleep, who choose to reduce the duration or the quality of their sleep in place of something else. And you know, I've I do it, I I've I don't try not to do it, but I have experience just the other week. I got well into some Netflix show, and I was up until two in the morning because I was what I was got really engaged in it. And yeah, so but that was my choice to do that, and I reduced my sleep duration. So I think that that's it. Then we talk about these you mentioned eight hours, and I think that the eight hours, remember, it's a it's a population average, and what I've explained before that you've heard this story is think of it as shoe size. We could we could read that we could go out and measure everyone's shoes, and the population average might be a size eight. That means that a lot there are lots of people who are a size eight, but there's equally there's loads of people who are a size six and a size 10, that there's variability in the population. And just because the population average is a size eight, you wouldn't give somebody who is actually a size 10 a pair of size eight shoes. So it's the same thing with sleep. We think more in ranges. So we're trying to get between seven and nine hours for the vast majority of people. There will be some people who generally genuinely can get away with very limited sleep, four hours, or need loads of sleep, 12 hours-ish, but they are they are tiny, tiny proportions of a population, like less than one percent. In fact, I think in Matt Walker's book, he hits a nail on the head where he kind of says if you were to round up to a whole number, it would be zero. It's a tiny amount of people. So most people sit within that range of seven to nine hours. So, how do we know we're getting it wrong? Well, here's the here's the kind of the crux.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

It's just I don't want to skip your flow, Martin. Sorry, but this interest those those kind of ranges, everybody would recognize the times that they've had four and a half hours sleep, maybe. And and even though that might be just less than one percent of the population that that's good for and that can work, everybody recognizes well that I know of that can say that's a tie that's done that. Not many people could say, Oh, that night I got regularly get 13 hours sleep. You're like, Well, 13 hours, that's outrageous, you know. Like, who does that? You know, but we don't do it the same. Yeah, exactly. So I think we just we always skew to our weird, we we fall into the bracket of less. No one ever puts themselves in the back. I'm one of those people that needs 14 hours, it's just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Well, you know, you but it I don't know, I don't know if this is true because I've never never met the guy or been in a had a sleep study or anything like that. But you know, Roger Federer, you've talked about four, prime of his, you know, the best, I think the best tennis player who's ever lived.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

Um, other other leading tennis players are available, but uh he's he's my favorite. 40, what is he, 41, 42 years old, currently injured, but you know, we'll probably see him again. He apparently reports 12 hours a night of sleep. He is an extreme sleeper, apparently. And like I say, I don't know because I've never met him, but that that is the anecdote. But yeah, the um there is there is a range, and I think there's there's two two terms or two things that again is important to to mull over for anyone who's listening is like what is your sleep need and what is your sleep preference. So some people need eight hours, but they somehow convince themselves they prefer to get six because they they can get they get out early, they get into the gym, they you know, they they can do their emails in the evening or they can go for a run, whatever. But that they need eight. Their body is this is not negotiable, this is genetic, it's something that that you don't train, it's just this, just who you are. You need eight, but you somehow prefer six, or you prefer ten. Like that the aren't really aren't you can't if you need eight and you prefer ten, you'll just lie in bed for two hours, your body will wake up, you know, it will happen. And I think that that's the thing. And and what I was gonna say, the crux of the matter is is that there's there's a disconnect between like the the effects that it has on your ability to do simple cognitive tasks, like your reaction time, your ability to recognize emotion and other people, your your memory, those things are really affected. We see it over and over again. You get a couple of nights of really poor sleep, and your reaction time just hits the skids. It goes, it's much worse. But what we don't see is that subjective feeling. If you need eight hours and you get six, most people like that's. Enough not to be absolutely shattered. So by some point in the day, you know, they might not be feeling 100%. They might be a bit moody, a bit irritable. But for the most part, they're like, well, I'm not tired. I don't feel super tired. Now, if you are feeling really tired, you've got daytime sleepiness. That's a clear sign you're not getting enough sleep. That is the an obvious sign. If you're falling asleep at your desk or at the wheel of a car, I mean, now we're in a, you know, that's really worrying if that's happening, especially if you're in, you know, operate machinery at a car. That's a clear, clear sign that you you like you won't be given a second warning. If you fall asleep at the wheel, that's a big warning and you need to pull over it like immediately. So you know, the daytime sleepiness gives an indication, but a lot of people don't have daytime sleepiness, but do have impairment. And it's that disconnect. So they think that I get six hours, I'm fine. I can do on five, I can work five hours, I'm fine. It's until until we actually then give them tasks that require things like reaction time that you see that they don't do so well. And that's when you see these catastrophic accidents, like you know, ships veering into another ship because the the the the pilot at the you know was sleep deprived and didn't recognize that there's another ship in the way, they just completely miss it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

So some people would have the belief you could train yourself to be better without sleep, true or false. Well, not that they have the belief that you can train yourself to be better without you cannot train yourself to need less sleep.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

You can't, and and and that's not an opinion. There's we've tried it, but not not me personally, the research community has tried and you can't. What you yeah, you just you can't. The the the it's the it's you know you your genes have encoded certain things that your you know the your eye colour. It doesn't matter how much you want to change your eye color or how much you believe you can, the genes that you that were inherited from your parents have have have encoded that you will have a certain color of eye, it's the same thing with your sleep need. It it you it doesn't matter how much you want to train it or how much you you intentionally sleep deprive yourself, you will need you you need that amount of sleep. There it does change throughout your lifespan, and it and it can change because of things like illness. So if you're ill, certain things in your body's build up which makes you more drowsy. Um, and even we we even think it might even change during uh seasonal. So your sleep need can fluctuate. So in the in the summer, higher temperature, um, you might need slightly less sleep. So then that's why I'm talking about these ranges, but it is not if you if you have a sleep requirement of eight hours, doesn't matter how much you want to, you cannot train yourself to need five. It just it just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

So there's a lot of people now working out how they work out or thinking about how they work out what their sleep need is. And I know there's a lot of thinking around that. It's probably one for another day. Uh if I know, just give us a give us a give us a give us a give us a quick oversight of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

Well, broadly speaking, if you've if you're roughly between seven and nine, you're probably you're probably roundabout. So it's not a bad idea. If you know that you're only getting four hours, it's probably not a bad idea to give yourself a bit more of an opportunity. And and and the sales pitch in terms of value in it is you get better the next day. There's no doubt about it. If you are if you are sleep depriving yourself, if you are in that group of people who's cannibalizing your sleep because you think it's making you better at your job, I I hate to say it, but you know, you are probably wrong. And evidence will show you that if you instead of using that three hours to crunch through emails, go to sleep. If you if we're doing this at two o'clock in the morning, you you the the investment, you will get more return on that investment for by taking three hours to rest properly. Your following day, your productivity, your well-being, your health will will be higher.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

There, therein lies the problem, isn't it? Because people don't have the value of sleep in the right balance, and the pressure to answer the emails is so much higher because of judgment of people at work. So that and that's a conundrum. And I know we work with organizations on this, and and leadership has got a big part to play on this, and digital distraction, which is again a whole nother topic that we'll we we may scratch in in a in a few moments. But a lot of people listen with thinking, well, I've got a job that just needs me for longer, you know. So what is the best advice for people that sometimes again? I'm again recently working with a law firm that you know an early night is 12:30 at night, and you know, and six hours sleep is a good night's sleep. So, what's the best advice for those organizations that do have to burn all nighters?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Yeah, yeah. I I think the way I I come into sleep, and again, uh I'll I'll make that point. I'm not don't I don't give people advice, I don't diagnose sleep disorders, but I recognize that it's an integral part of human performance, alongside a few other things, but it's a it is an integral part of occupational performance, sports performance, it's it is really valuable. And you know, you can go online and you can find these so-called sleep evangelists or sleep gurus, and they provide sleep hygiene, telling you, you know, dark rooms, comfy beds, leave your iPads out, leave your phone, don't use your phone's alarm, all these kind of do's and don'ts. And I think the way I've come into this research is working with people like you're talking about who don't have the luxury of sleeping in a nice warm bed and drawing their curtains. The reality of some of the people that that uh that I work with is that you'll have many stories like this, but you know, yeah, up a mountain, sleeping in the daytime, sleeping in the hot, sleeping in the cold. Um, the fact that you're on a night shift, so you're trying to sleep during the day and work at night. So there's load, there's loads of things that we recognize that uh in an ideal situation, these are the things that you should be that you should think about doing to improve the quality of your sleep. So these are things during the daytime that if you can do these, if you can, and that's that's your typical sleep hygiene uh recommendations getting natural light um early in the morning helps set your scaling rhythm. Um a good balanced diet, good like hydrating yourself, thinking about thinking about caffeine, not saying don't drink it, just just recognize that if you know that you you are a bit jittery, don't drink it late at night. You know, just common sense. And then in sleep hygiene, it's about creating a personalized approach to your sleep. And with that in mind, if you if you if we're personalizing your sleep hygiene, I don't really like that that that phrase, but if you're if you're trying to create a sleep, an optimal sleep system, and you are a um someone who works really long shifts, we just need to factor that into your personalized system. Number one, the number one countermeasure for sleep, uh sleep-related fatigue, sleep in sleep-related impairment, the number one thing you can do is go to sleep. So, no doubt about it. If you can sleep properly, you should. So don't don't you don't take caffeine to replace sleep when you can actually sleep. Don't don't try and force yourself to stay awake, like if you can sleep. So that's number one. If you can't, there are things you can do. So, yeah, we've mentioned caffeine. Caffeine does uh is an alerting substance, it it will it will keep you awake, but there's a consequence to it. There's a caffeine crash, you be it's a it it's addictive for some um to a degree that you get um reduced return. The more you have of it, the more body your body gets used to it. So it doesn't work as well. So use caffeine strategically rather than habitually if you're going to use it as part of your sleep system. You can use light to to uh as an alerting tool. You uh if you if you're working nights, you don't have access to natural sunlight, consider one of these SAD lamps, these these um high light intensity boxes. That that kind of thing could could help you. But again, if you can get outside, that's what you should do. If you cannot get outside, that is the next best thing, it's an alternative.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

And I guess that's the balance, isn't it? Many people will say, oh, my work or my job doesn't allow me to get outside through the day. I go in, especially this time of year, people are going into work, it's dark when they're going into work, they're leaving the office um and it's dark again, and so they're not getting this natural light, and so their body clocks uh are out of shot with the the circadian uh rhythm. And but it's accepting that there are things they can do in their workplace, they can they're allowed breaks. There's there's European legislation that uh is it dictates they're allowed breaks, and it's what they choose to do in those breaks. You know, even the the harshest of bosses will allow you to go outside and get some fresh air and just 15 minutes and just 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, your lunch break, etc. Things you can choose to do in those periods of time that not only are good for you, but are will make you more productive.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it it let's say it's personalizing this system for each each person, each individual, because it some things work for for one person, they don't work for others. Napping, some people, I I love a good nap. I think the COVID pandemic has like helped me get naps almost every day. I I I feel more energized and creative after them. And I'm talking like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. It's all it is. Literally, just put your head down, get into your first stages of sleep, uh, like light sleep, wake up, don't feel groggy because you've not entered that sort of deep sleep, you don't get sleep inertia, and and it works for me. Doesn't work for everyone. Some people can't nap, they don't like it. Some people have a real bad reaction to caffeine, some don't have a reaction at all. So we it's a developing that system. But you're right, yeah, you can instead of going and grabbing a coffee, go out, just go outside. Just do just go for a little, just literally combine light exposure with a bit of a walk, that that's gonna have a positive effect. But I think that the the when we're talking about these environments where where sleep is it um you can't sleep how you would maybe want to sleep, yeah. It's really the the key message is to recognize that there is a consequence. We it doesn't it doesn't matter how tough you think you are or or how good you are at your job, there is a consequence. And I think that's where we've got to look after each other and say, if you've got if you're working in an office with someone who started at seven o'clock in the morning and they are working all the way through and finish at two o'clock in the morning, there's a really, really, really um elegant study that really that showed that that level of wakefulness, you the level of your impairment is equivalent to someone who's legally drunk. So the drink drive limit in terms of your ability, your reaction time and things like that. So if you're if you're looking across the desk and you're seeing your friend who's been in that situation, and then they they say, right, I'm off home, and they go to get in their car, you know, you wouldn't you wouldn't let them do that if they were if they'd had a few beers. You'd stop them because you know they're impaired. And a lot of people don't really recognize or don't don't really um understand that that people who are sleep deprived are impaired. So we need to look after each other. And in the in these jobs, part of what we need to do is factor in the the fact that that performance will will wane as they are going through the day, as they are more sleep deprived. And actually, when when they are not performing that well, the reason they're not performing that well is probably because they're not sleeping that well or they're not sleeping at all. And and can we do things to maybe mitigate? So can we can we create um the the kind of the work rest schedule and the shift pattern that overlaps a little bit? So there's other people come in as they people, as those people dip. Um, can we make can we can we provide taxis for our workforce so they're not driving home? Because you know, the statistics on junior doctors, for example, doing ridiculous long shifts and driving home and dying and being killed in road traffic accidents, it's frightening. You know, we need to look after our friends and our our workers and understand that there it I appreciate some jobs require you to have really fragmented poor sleep. And that's because, like I say, if you don't in certain jobs, if you don't fragment or or or limit your sleep, there is a consequence in terms of it's now dangerous to you, to the people around you, to you know, there's now no ambulances on the street. So we now we have to have these jobs, but we also have to understand that that there is a there is a health and performance consequence of that sort of enforced wakefulness. And good leaders, good teams, good organizations will factor that in, the factor the consequences in so that we are not um we're not wrecking people long term, either in those, there's those accidents the next day or that long term.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

I think also championing people that have worked that long day, you know, as though that's uh that's something necessarily good to aim at. You know, there's a time and a place, of course, it needs to happen sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

Um it comes back to it. Is it enforced? Like, do you have to do it? You know, I I I think if you think kind of some some military operations, you know, you have to stay awake for 24 hours. Because if you don't, there's a risk, there's a risk to you, there's a risk to your team, there's a risk to you to the operation. You have to stay awake. And there are other times when you don't have to, you just think you do. You think you have to get this email done. But if you don't send that email tonight, who's gonna die? And I think if you if you maybe if you if and that's a very extreme example, but it it I sometimes think, well, if you if you put it this way, if you're working at two o'clock in the morning, you're convincing, you're cannibalizing your sleep, and you're convincing yourself that what you're doing is so important that it's worth driving home where you effectively drink driving. You so in that moment, you're you're thinking it's that important. Ask yourself this question. In a year's time, will I even remember it? In a year's time, I look back at this situation and still think it was super deep, like super important that I have to do it. And if you're looking in the future thinking, well, actually, it's it's probably not that important. No one's gonna die, I'm not gonna lose my job. The company's not suddenly gonna go bankrupt if I don't do these little tasks. I might get a bit of a telling off from my boss, but hopefully your boss would be understanding that sleep's really important. And if you can get those those um those things in place, and maybe I'm describing some kind of utopia that that could never exist because I don't work in in those environments, but it it make it makes sense to me that if you understand that good sleep improves performance, then why would you cannibalize it?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:23

Yeah, I do understand the um it's clear, it's a clear message. There are still lots of organizations out there that work for billable hours. And when you've got your metric of work or success in some cases, is the amount of hours that you've put into something, then then you're starting to fail before you've even started, right? You're beginning to fail. I am uh you were describing some situations then again, just a couple. I know some people that could literally get their head down on a chicken's lip, you know, it takes them nothing to get to sleep. I was always one of those people that it took more effort to get to sleep. And I've learned now, especially that I need a bit of a routine. I'm need probably the wrong word, but I benefit from a bit of a routine, which is which is what I help people understand themselves. Um, but I remember when early on in my my military career when I was up in uh uh I was up in Scotland, and we used to be based on the East Coast but work on the West Coast um for a period of time. But uh if you've ever been there, between Dundee and our broad, there's a stretch of road, and there's just about a mile of dual carriageway, then a roundabout, a mile of dual carriageway, then a roundabout. And because we all had to be in work for Monday morning, eight o'clock, whatever it was, most people would drive that were um everyone's southern to uh the Scots, aren't they? But um from England, we would all have to drive up on Sunday night. And it was, I'm I was gonna say weekly, it probably wasn't weekly, but it was definitely a monthly um occurrence that people would just launch themselves over these roundabouts in the middle of the night. And as an organization, uh 4.5 uh commando, as it was, as it is, as it was, I'm not sure, um, they then changed the rules that people could turn up for for Monday 12 o'clock. And the outrage amongst the wider kind of you know, units were like, What let's start in late? Well, but no, but it's in it's really being quite observant. Look, what are the things that is literally killing your people? What is the thing that's breaking them the most? Let's not ignore this thing we we have to do because is it is it as important most of the time? Well, no, it isn't. Um, and making those changes. Uh, I think I think there's there's loads of value. And a lot of organizations could look at practices that they have that is literally breaking their people because it's forcing them to work elongated hours, and people genuinely don't know how to switch off. And we're gonna come on to that now.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:48

Yeah, I think another another example, you we said you go to out you go out to the leading business schools, you recruit the top, you go to the leading law schools and you recruit the best, and and you think this is an asset, this is a person who is clearly doing really is gonna do well. You recruit them because you think they're gonna do well, and then you're putting them in a situation that maybe after two or three years, they then leave that organization, and it's almost like, oh, we accept that we have attrition, that people will come out, come into the company or come out of the company. But you know, it's cost it's the time implication of training that individual, of letting them learn the systems. And the reason that they are there's maybe loads of reasons whether not maybe not performing or maybe maybe want to leave the organization. But if you could say that, but by creating these personalized sleep systems, helping people uh value and optimize their sleep and and the nutrition and other health-related behaviors, that that actually that person not only stays in your company, but their you know, their productivity and their performance is what you thought it was going to be when you recruited them. Yeah, and we often see you know, sometimes it can be again these these cognitive biases where you think, oh, we recruited that person, they were awesome at interview, and they've not really performed that well over the next few years. So I think we should let them go. But the reason they're not performing might be because that you know um and we keep talking about sleep, but you know, your your cognitive abilities are affected. Like you don't think that well. And if you're in if you're in this in a knowledge industry, if you are reading information, interpreting information, and you're trying to put puzzles together, like you just don't do it that well when you're not sleeping very well. And so it's kind of obvious that, or at least to me, that that the you know what's good for the bee is good for the hive, and vice versa. If you look, if you look after those those individuals, the company will improve because they're more productive. And I know I know if you talk about billivel hours, but the quality of each of those hours goes up.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

Yeah, absolutely. No, you you you bang on. Um, one thing that I speak to execs and clients about is is they're busy people. And often when they last one on sleep, they they will fall asleep, they'll go to sleep, and then they'll wake up in the night and their head is just spinning with things and stuff of things they've got to do, and they they struggle to then re-switch off. So, have you got any advice or what's the best advice going at the minute with regards to um that?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:21

Well, that I mean that that that is a hallmark of of of insomnia, that that that kind of waking up in the night and not being able to get back to sleep. So the if it's if it's persistent, it's something that's happening a lot over a number of months, that it you can get help. You can get that is a that's there are medical professionals who can do things. So if it if it's a persistent thing, then I'd say go go to GP, go to a sleep specialist. The best approach is something called CBTI, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. There are apps, there's a really good app called Sleepio. Um, or there's there's medical people who talk. So if it's persistent and you are and it's and it's having a real knock-on effect in your daytime well-being, go to a doctor. If it's just the odd thing, if it's just the odd day when you're super busy, super stressed, it's not causing big, big um disruption to the rest of your life. It's just a transient awakening. The thing that number one, I'd say if you're if you're in bed, lying awake, staring at the ceiling, get out of bed, like go somewhere else. Don't go and set up set up the iPad, don't get on your phone, just go somewhere calming, dark, go and sit in a In an armchair downstairs and just do some requirements. See if that if you can, if you start yawning and you generate that sleepiness, at which point go back to bed. Try and clear what's going on in your head. So a a good a good a good practice, I think for people who have sleep problems or not, is to close the day down. So have some kind of diary, have a little pad of paper, um, and have a routine. So, you know, say if you if you can again, it's not a bad idea to set to have a regular bedtime and wake time. Again, not not getting too religious over it, you know, have be adaptable. But generally speaking, it's not a bad idea to have the same same sort of bedtime. So if you can set a routine that says half an hour before my bedtime, you just kind of close your day down by putting putting your thoughts, your concerns, your plans into that written format. You know, and you use it all, you use the saying all the time, think think with ink, do that, get them out of your head onto paper. If you then wake up in the middle of the night and your head's whirring, and and for the most most part, I think we can really those types of thoughts tend to be um kind of future-oriented thoughts. What am I going to do tomorrow, Thursday, next week? Or they're kind of ruminating thoughts, where it's oh, I can't believe that happened before. So get them out onto paper. And then if it's a ruminating thought, you can maybe say, This is what I keep thinking about. So maybe just make some notes of what is and think about what you might do to change it tomorrow. But just get them out of your head and onto paper, just see if that sort of thing works. If that hasn't worked, or or maybe a different one, is try some kind of what we call progressive muscle relaxation. You're just trying to remove the tension from your body. If you're waking up because you, you know, you're wired and you can feel your kind of, you know, the tension throughout your body, we can you can learn relaxation techniques. Um, a lot of mindfulness therapies, like headspace, they kind of go through these very similar sorts of things, just like these body scans, these muscle relax relaxing. So I think the combination of of those things, don't lie in bed, don't just stare at the ceiling. If you if you if you have not fallen, if you if you wake up, and every this is the thing, everyone wakes up in the nighttime. Everyone has these transient periods of wakefulness, just most just don't remember them. Most of the insomniacs or people with insomnia often remember them because you attach something to it. So you see the clock and you see the time, and now you remember it because you've got some kind of environmental signal that reminds you of that time. So, yeah, just get out, get out of bed. If you are awake, proper awake, don't stare at ceiling, get out, avoid your your your phone or your your iPad or whatever, or avoid your laptop, open your laptop and think, oh, here's a good time to do my emails. That's not gonna help you get back to sleep. Um, and and you and use those journals to get get some uh of those stresses out of your head onto the paper.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:40

No, massively. Um there's gonna be a load of people um thinking, oh, that's that's sound advice because that's me. Um, and I guess I did say that was the last question on sleep. This is the last question on sleep, I guess. And we'll make it a yes or no one. Um, is shift work bad for us? Yes, yes, so shift workers out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

Yeah, we so yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:04

So so so shift work is bad for us. Um, and the World Health Organization recognizes it as such as well. So if for those shift workers you want some practical advice, please reach out. And again, um Martin is the expert here, and we can we can get a uh a worksheet together that um can can uh help you kind of do the things that um will help you best. I think that's that's worthwhile doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:30

To elaborate on the on the yes, it's unavoidable. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do shifts because some the you there are some jobs where they're the shifts are important. You we we have to we we can't just say it's bad for you, don't do it. Like shifts are shift work is important and it's the it is the nature of the beast for a lot of people. Um and the but there are things you can do to make it better. It's not it's never gonna be great because we have we have evolved to live on a planet where the sun comes up and then we're awake during the day, and then when the sun goes down, we sleep at night. We do that every day. You know, our 24-hour circadian rhythm is based on on the fact that that's how long it takes for the uh for our our days 24 hours. So we your shift workers are are going against biology, and we can maybe in the future there might be some signs of technology that hacks that biology, but at the moment it doesn't exist. So there are things we can do to sl to improve the situation, but it will never be perfect. So it comes back to do you have to do shifts because of your job? If the answer is yes, then there are things we can do to mitigate some of those effects. If you are enforcing a shift pattern on yourself because you for whatever strange reason that you actually don't need to do it, and you you know, you're choosing to to create this sort of fragmented sleep pattern because you think it's going to be better for you, change your choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:07

Yeah, and and again, there's a lot of work there. There's there's work with people's beliefs, isn't there? A lot of people believe they're a night owl, and there may be some truth in that, but there's a lot of people that nah, you're the same as everybody else, and the sun comes up, you should be awake, and the sun goes down, you should be asleep.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

But uh, yeah, you think you're a night owl, get into a tent, go into Dartmoor, don't don't have no lights, have no natural light, just go and sleep in the peak districts, Xmoor, Dartmoor. See if you're a night owl, then yeah. And if you if you if you genuinely awake till three in the morning when it's pitch black outside, then yeah, you probably are. Most people aren't.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:42

Yeah, no, absolutely. Uh, there's a there's a ton of stuff we could literally talk about. It's it's it's a topic that I've found myself deeply interested in uh for some time now. And again, it's always fascinating talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:54

You've been involved in it for a third of your life, no, over 10 years of your 100% of my life.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:00

Uh I've I've been interested in sleep, I can assure you. Um uh when I talk a lot of with people about resilience, and we, you know, that's a it was a hot topic um 18 months or so ago when people are being stretched in cognitively, mentally, physically, with regards to the way the the world, the working environment was changing. Um I something I often say to people is when it comes to resilience, sleep is the cake and everything else is the icing, right? Because it's um it's so vital that we get that component good, not perfect good that was that will serve you so well. Um, and but one of the things that the modern work environment's throwing at us now is this term that everyone will be familiar with, but maybe not fully understand would be burnout. Um, and I know you've we've done research and you've written some papers on burnout, and I'm keen to kind of explore some of that. So, for people listening and for those that have got some sort of thoughts already, what you know, what is burnout?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:02

So, what's burnout? It so to understand burnout, you have to understand stress, which you said at the stress is that on that that you the unequal load of demand and resource. And burnout is effectively the accumulation of that stress. So when you when you when you're consistently out of balance, um that that's that's basically burnout. And what we what we see from burnout is um you get sort of this motivational loss, you know, you just lose your interest in an activity, you lose the drive that you get very cynical, you get kind of emotional exhaustion, um, devaluation of what you're doing. Um that's burnout. I take what it's what it's not, uh, and sometimes burnout can be confused with a few other things like fatigue or overtraining. Um it's not those things because you get that motivational loss. And I'll give you an example. I worked with a um a professional, professional athlete, he was a cyclist um a number of years ago, came to me, had over-training syndrome, just destroyed himself on the bike to the point where his body effectively was cannibalizing itself because it because he was just training way too hard and not resting enough. He was desperate to get back onto that bike. So his body wouldn't let him. He was a he had like a chronic fatigue sort of thing, but he he was wrecked. But he was desperate to ride that bike again. That is not burnout because people who are who this is the the difficulty with studying burnout is they've gone. You don't see them anymore. They've left, like they they want nothing to do with the environment anymore. They have completely they devalue it, they're very cynical about the situation, they've lost their motivation to be there, they've gone. And it's that accumulation of stress that that that um over time it happens. The difficult thing with burnout is we see burnout because they've left. We don't see burning out, like we that it's very the process of people who are who are who are trying to manage this ongoing stress. We don't often we don't always see it. We don't often we don't always say that see the behaviors and the actions of people who are burning, we just see them when they break and they go.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:17

I think that's really interesting, but I I'd argue we probably are seeing them, but not connecting it with, well, this is where it's heading, right? Because we're familiar with them. We've been talking about them for half an hour, maybe. Um, some of them, and what some cultures, some environments um practice on a regular basis, as this is this is what we're looking for, or this is what we're asking you to do, that is leading into a certain direction. And I think the modern working environment, this the way we're communicating via Zoom today, um, but video telephone conferencing, it's it's brought a busyness to people's lives that they never had before, and email and the the frictionless way that people can communicate now. So, what are the signs and symptoms of an individual that they're burning out?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:08

Well, no number one, burnout, burnout is a is a is a kind of a weird situation because so we we sometimes think of it as motivation gone awry, or it's like the dark side of performance, in that you you you don't burn out if you don't care. And actually, the first the first studies that were done in like 70s, they were there were young doctors who were volunteering in like drug rehabilitation clinics. You know, they were really, you know, they were keen to do the job, they were they saw it as something meaningful, it was really important to them. And and that's that's one of the up, that's one of the symptoms of burnout, ironically. That the people that just turn up and don't don't care, don't burn out. It's the people that really care, that they're really trying to do something. So, first of all, we need to we need to support those people who who are really you know motivated and and and passionate about the things that we're asking them to do, because that that's the almost that's almost the first step to getting burnt out, unfortunately. It's is a it's a kind of a that's I mean it's a strange syndrome that you have to be engaged. You have to be, you have to you have to skin in the game. If you don't have any goal, if you don't, if it's not important to you, you you don't get that stress. What then happens, I think, over time, and this is this is going back to those drug, the those young medical workers, it's been replicated in sport, different business. It's when I want to do something here, I want to give my all and and make a difference and do something. And now something's in the way. And that's that's probably the stress bit that I've got a goal that I'm aiming for. I've got something I desperately want to achieve that is really important to me, and I'm I'm motivated, but something's in the way. So that that's that demand resource. The the demand is something's blocking me. That could be could be anything, it's individual. I'm on this side of the wall, I want to get to that side. Something is blocking me. That happens again and again and again and again and again. And over time, the inability to break through those walls, that is that accumulated stress because I just want to get this done. I'm so passionate about this project. I want to do this, I want to be a good lawyer, I want to be a good athlete, I want to, you know, do something, but you could you can't. Something is stopping. And that and and and so we need to understand what's that blocker. But then you start to you might start to see, you know, I guess the the symptoms, I guess, of burning out is you you might start to see people just dropping off tasks that they that when as soon as they hit that wall, they stop trying to break the wall down, they just disengage. I think you you probably start to see that. I think unfortunately, at the extreme, I mean again, this is why it's a it's a really tricky syndrome because people are motivated to break through the walls, so they'll keep going. They've that's what I mean. You've if you've got skin in the game and you're motivated, you'll keep going despite those stresses, you'll keep pushing, you'll keep pushing, and they just keep the stresses keep pushing back and pushing back. And that's when you start to see. I mean, there's a there's a physiological component of chronic stress, and people physically break down, they just can't handle it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:30

Um, I'm listening to what you're saying, and um, I'm thinking to myself, one of the things that we kind of help organizations do, and leaders especially do, is have those meaningful connections and meaningful relationships within their teams, which is incredibly difficult via VTC or kind of any medium over the phone or email. It's you know, it's next to impossible to build those meaningful relationships. But if you know people and you're having time with them that isn't in meeting via Zoom or whatever, as an example, good friends of mine, I've known them a long time, uh school friends. You know, once a once once a fortnight, roughly, we go and have breakfast together um just once a week, um, or once a fortnight. And you know, I can tell when they're because I've getting that 45 minutes hour, whatever it is, with them, you can tell if where they're at. You know them, you've got that experience, and you're listening to words they're saying, you're listening to kind of situations at work, and you can recognize if that's trending upwards or trending downwards, right? And I think for organizations to adopt or to switch their environments so that people are having those meaningful conversations, I think back to my old organization. We ate together, we all ate together, right? And when you sit down and you you chat about the works, issues, and things that you're facing, not only do you reason it out yourself, it goes right back to the start of our conversation of teaching and learning yourself, isn't it? Even putting the words into a kind of coherent sentence to explain what the problem is to when you explain this to somebody else is helpful for you to piece all that together. But then as a double uh double-edged sword effect, you know, you're getting responses of people back that you trust that are in similar situations that actually can um under they understand first and foremost. So they empathize with your situation, and some will have solutions to some of your problems or parts of it. And I think that's what work environments are missing now because people are in their work, they're on the meetings, they're having these chats, it's about work, it's meaningful, but it's not oh, after the meeting, the sigh. Now, what does this mean? What have I got to do? Well, actually, they're back to back into another meeting, and then they're eating by themselves in their room or with their family that don't fully understand, and then they're working all night and going to bed, reset, re rinse, and repeat. And it's just this cycle of never really having that explanation or that conversation with people that fully understand. So, how can organize is you know, with firstly, do you is there sense in that?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:07

Yeah, yeah, there is a lot of sense in that. I think that there's there's a I think we can you know, we talk a lot about organizations and culture. I think we we have a personal responsibility, and I think if you know in you, you know in yourself when you're not right, when you if you know, and I think it's again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a clinical psychologist either. I'm not trying to provide treatment here, but I think we know that when if you're not right, and you know, that there's certain if there's certain thoughts that you know you you recognize in yourself that that then that's not you, it's yeah, you you're in a bad place. Get some help. Because I mean that that is then burning out the the you it might be that recognizing that you're having you're not having a you're not enjoying your job anymore. That that's a if you if if it's some you know, we all have bits of our jobs we think, oh that does my head in. But if you're consistently not enjoying what you're doing, that that's that's and you did used to enjoy it, and you used to be really engaged, and now you don't, and you don't want to go to work, and you start to dread opening that email, that that's a clear signal that something's not quite right. And I think you've got there's a personal responsibility to take ownership of that and and seek help, but but but we look after each other as well, and and I think because, like you say, if if I'm sat with my mates and I and I'm looking at him thinking, he's putting on some weight, or he's drinking a bit more than he than he ever used to. Um, you know, we we can pick up things on in behaviors in our friends because we know them and and support each other that way. So that there is a there's an organizational aspect to it, there's an individual aspect to it. And it's very I think the the the online age makes it very difficult because I think the those those those blockers, those things, I I experienced this. I've got things I want to do that I'm that I'm motivated to get done, and then I'm hit constantly by other tasks, and and that's the stressor that I'm distracted into doing other things, and and and that that's a stressor. So you know, there there are lots of there are lots of and to come back to what we've said before, it's personalized to try and understand, and that's where that sort of coaching and mentoring it can be really valuable to try and understand the person and develop a personalized approach to help help people rather than just taking these off-the-shelf solutions, which more often than not don't work.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:32

Yeah, we were um we're talking there a little bit about deep work versus shallow work, you know. You're and I'm the same, you're frustrated. This block is for you getting done what you want to get done and need to get done, depending on our attachment to it, that you're um you're unable to get deep on that. And we as humans, a lot of people, high performance organizations love deep work, and we get our best work done when we're going deep on a on an issue and and and getting progress in it. That really is fulfilling. Um, and I think the modern age prevents that and only allows with emails, etc. You just the the the quantity and tempo that they're dropping in uh only allows you to be engaged on a real shallow basis before this distraction is falling in and your your then mind is flicking between issues. And I think that prevents there's there's lots of things we work on there with with with people, like you said, taking a personalized approach and then with organizations. Um, and I and again it's it's really fulfilling for us and enjoyable work that we do. Um, for those listening that have got an interest in any of this, we've we've covered a number of subjects today from performance, sleep, burnout. Um, we're Martin and I are developing a number of courses, and um, you know, and they will be they will be out there shortly. There are also the this program of the corporate athlete, which is in its infancy right now. There's a few of our clients that are working through it, um, kind of as an introductory phase. Um, but this corporate athlete and an understanding the principles here that we're trying to apply so that you can optimize what you do, perform better at work. Then if if people listening are interested in the uh corporate athlete program, then just reach out via email um at Gary at Duratusuk.com and and we can send you some more information there or get you on that waiting list for when that uh that course drops. But um, but yeah, it's fascinating stuff, and it's always fascinating talking to you, Martin. I'm trying to draw this to a close because there's literally, you know, we talk, we do talk for time over this, and I've been fortunate enough you know to get you involved in some of our workshops. And um, you know, it's always fascinating uh listening to your insights, very pragmatic and logical kind of concepts behind it all. Um, but just kind of to try and close this down, I've got a got a few kind of questions for you personally, you know. Um, books and podcasts, Martin. What what are you listening to? What where is your kind of focus been recently? What have you found that you've really enjoyed?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:00

Well, apart from apart from your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:02

Of course, it goes without saying thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:05

Um well, I'll tell you, I I I get right into audiobooks. I I I do I do hammer through a lot of audiobooks. Um so yeah, I I I so this time last year I was doing a lot of sort of philosophy, uh a lot of philosophy books. I do read a lot on sleep, um, surprisingly enough. So I've got a lot of sleep, sleep books. Um, so the last sort of things that I've read though. So the book I'm reading at the moment is um a book called The Drunkard's War. By a guy called Leonard Nodinoff, who's um basically he wrote he wrote a book with Stephen Hawkin. And it's just a book about randomness, a book about chance, and to try and understand things that we think are cause and effect, which actually aren't. So it's trying to understand that sort of idea. Um, another a book I'd highly, highly recommend. We've already mentioned Victor Frankel Man's Search for Meaning. Yeah, highly recommend that. That that's a is a short read. It's a taxing read. Like it's a story's it's not nice. I mean, I I yeah, I um I'll say I've I've read that a number of times. Um so definitely recommend that. Another one I think is really good, uh, is a is a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Um, very very accessible, really easy to read. Uh it just gives you an understanding of of science of because a lot, you know, we talk about a lot of what we talk about today, evidence-based. And if you don't really understand the the science, the evidence, it's like reading a new language. And and bad science kind of talks you through some of the tricks that scientists play that that so you you can understand you can you you become a consumer of the science a bit better. So, yeah, bad science, Ben Goldacre, really, really good book. Another one similar to that is a book called Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Again, very very similar kind of teaching, trying to help you understand how statistics can be um could be flawed sometimes, what to trust, what not to trust. Um so those those books I think really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:10

Brilliant. And we again I I speak with a lot of uh corporate execs and um around hard work, doing what they do better. Um, and one of the things that we often find is that they struggle to really relax or know how to rewind, get into that green space, um, the heart rate variability recovery phase again, all part of the corporate athlete stuff that we we talk about. But you know, how do you personally what's what's what's green space for for Martin?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:42

Yeah, um, well, it it literally is green. I live on the edge of Dartmoor, so you know, I get out, I get outside as much as I can. Um, I've got a young family, um, spend time with them. You know, I I I jumped on the the COVID dog bandwagon and got a dog at the beginning of lockdown. So I take her for all, you know, we take her out. I'm I'm really lucky where I live is very close to the sea, it's very close to Dartmoor. Um I live in Exeter, beautiful city, loads of green space. So I and I I you know, all joking aside, being in nature, in in in in the woods on the moor, like that is for me better than just walking into the town center. Like it is a combination of physical activity in an in a beautiful place. That that that's uh that's what I enjoy doing. Oh, and riding a bike as well, that kind of thing. It's not just walking.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:37

No, no, brilliant, mate. Brilliant. Um, remember that a dog's not just for pandemics, right? It's not just for pandemics. Uh but yeah, no. No, brilliant. Um, mate, it's been again, as always, super insightful. Um, uh, and I know that there's a lot of what you've spoken about that will be uh loads of benefit for people listening, and there will be a ton of questions I know on the back of some of the things that we've said that I know you're more than happy to answer. So we'll collate those and get something um together for you. Um so yeah, have you got any kind of final thoughts or comments for anyone listening? How they can reach out, see more of what you do, etc., if that's on the cards. Uh well, yeah, just you know, con contact contact you.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:20

I'm I'm happy to to to kind of you know for you to to be that conduit if if people are interested in talking to me a bit further. I think yeah, that the take-home message, you know, we we need to recognize that we are all we're individual, we have different needs, different developmental trajectories, personalize a lot of of what we're trying to trying to do in terms of that human performance. But uh yeah, just to hammer home that point, uh I think I think I've already done it already, but you know, sleep is really important. And you know, if you could only do one thing to make yourself healthier, you couldn't go far wrong, especially if you are sleep deprived. You can't go far wrong um when it comes to actually improving your health by just giving yourself better sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:05

No, you heard it here first. Uh, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy, right? Um, but there's a lot of people that can really benefit. Martin, thanks very much for your time. Uh, it's been a pleasure as always, and uh I'll I'll speak to you soon. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:20

Thanks for having me.