00:00:43Welcome back to the show. Patricia Thompson. PhD is a corporate psychologist and founder of Silver Lining psychology. A management consulting firm devoted to helping organizations, to achieve better results by applying psychological principles during her 15 plus years of Consulting experience. She has worked with clients such as the Home Depot, Chick-fil-A SunTrust Banks, the United Way Habitat for Humanity, Baylor Scott & White Health, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and many others. Assisting them with Executive coaching team building leadership development and enhancing emotional intelligence through mindfulness. She's also the author of the consummate leader, a holistic guy to inspiring growth in others, and in yourself, and a creator of the executive mindfulness. Online course, a self-paced course to teach professionals how to apply mindfulness practices in the workplace. Her work has been featured in The Harvard Business review.

00:02:43How do I link you to be honest and kind of fell into it, but I think the one thing that I really love about it is that I feel it when I work with leaders, I can have effects that really Ripple out. I feel like my impact to be great because I'm working with the leader that person's becoming more effective and hopefully, you know how if you were better at their job and then obviously the people who report to feel that. And so they could be happier and better at their jobs and have a better infection. The organization is that just because people spend so much time at work. So when they're not happy, you know, it really has an impact on everyone around them. And so it's just a really gratifying to see the effect that I can have it by working just with one person.

00:04:11supposed to be fun or work is supposed to be unpleasant and you know, it's kind of like you'll come across them Wednesday in the elevator. And you say how are you doing in the whole? It's Monday and that's all they have to say. And you know what that supposed to mean like work is supposed to stop basically trying to be able to give people a different perspective but help him to see that when it's actually more pleasant. You can get better results if it's a really fast I think for me to do. Oh, yeah, I bet. And I love those commercials because I think it's so true. Those kind of pay it forward commercials. You know, we're like one person does something nice and then they follow the person that had something nice given to them, and they continue to pay it forward. And if I'm hearing you right, what I think you're saying is, you see that ripple effect within organizations to, and I mean, that's just a beautiful thing. If, if everybody just feels a little bit better. They're more willing to collaborate and work together.

00:06:11Vulnerable, if you need to be there. And so I think, when you think about that concept of psychological safety, it means that a positive work environment where there is your stats, you know, where there's compassion and compassion, doesn't mean I'm not asking people to do their jobs or having low standards, but it means that when you have to give people feedback you dude, and caring and compassionate way, I think all of those are important and I think I focus on results obviously too is part of a strong organizational culture, but I think the results are less like fear base.

00:07:51I feel like we're a contributor in a collaborator as opposed to just I don't know minion.

00:08:03You have to think about the people who are doing the task and I think sometimes for leaders, that can be hard because they have so much on their flight and they can just get very task-focused. But when they take a step back and think about the people and their motives, and their needs and like, how they can develop them and do things to create a more meaningful work environment. I think that's positive thinking about people at the whole obvious, but my experience is that people can just get so stressed out and absolutely and soft skills are just so important. And yeah, it it almost sounds like a lot of leaders. Get stuck in the managerial Rat Race instead of the aspirational visioning. How are we going to actually achieve all of the tasks right? Like its meaning like in the bigger picture as opposed to this person does that

00:09:12And so with that in mind how can mindfulness be transformative? I think a lot of us can if we're not careful, just ended go from thing to thing in our lives and be very reactive and not take a step back to think. How are we going about our lives or why are we doing the things that working? And I think especially in the work world where everyone is so busy, very often people don't even have the time. They don't make the time to take a step back, if you felt like, why am I doing things this way? Or how am I responding in the situation? And so I watch

00:11:02Don't even think like that. My working on the right things at any given point in time because they're again, just reacting to what's in front of them. If they're not taking the time to prioritize and be more intentional. Absolutely. Yeah, and I love that you mentioned prioritize, because I know that one of your big things is that, like, my phone disconnects? Ali, increase your productivity. So when you think you're being reactive, and you're actually responding and doing sometimes, you're actually reducing your productivity, right? So like what's, what's the connection between mindfulness and productivity? Starting my phone, this initially, it's through meditation. The fun way that a lot of people learn it and typically the exercises just to kind of close your eyes and focus on your breathing and focus on your breathing and Abby have a thought two men. You noticed the thought and then he's going to let it go and focus back on your breathing and that's going to happen numerous times while you're trying to meditate, right?

00:13:02You relearn eliminating distractions in the workplace so that you can do like deep work. If you have something to write or a job, like a professor or a computer programmer or even a leader to engage in some deep thought how how we can actually retrain our brains to engage in that and eliminate distractions for periods of times theories of time throughout the week and testing it out. It actually has made me much more productive because I just set and attention for what I'm going to do instead of side A. Of time to to work on it. It's like a different. Just like mindfulness and in the workplace, it feels good. Right? So it's, you feel more grounded. And so you might be more prone to do something. Like turn off your notifications for a while and not have

00:15:02See how it feels for you. And it tends to be something that once they try it out. They can see the benefit, right? Yeah, and don't get me wrong. I think where it's at actually like, increasing communication, emotional intelligence, all of that. So, thanks off skills. I don't mean it and

00:16:23What is happening with you in any given moment? And what's happening with paying attention and paying attention and non-judgmental waste? You just kind of noticing what's happening and I think in a conversation that so powerful because if we're getting me know, someone for one of our buttons, you might at least notice that like if your mindful of your body you might notice. So my heart rate increasing right now, maybe I need to be more careful before I decide what I'm going to say that. You know, or maybe let me listen a little bit further to understand what this person's really trying to get at. So it's really just this concept of awareness and I think really helps you to be a better listener, as well as to be able to be more present with the other person. Might not be looking at your email.

00:18:23Yep, you're hitting on all the toys. I had a boss who would like to play with his phone or tablet while we were in the middle of a meeting. Like one on one on one meetings or even when we were meeting with some of our other collaborators. And and then his questions were just so off point, you know, he was the head like I worked for the leader of the organization and then it was clear. He wasn't paying any attention. And then his questions were

00:19:00Off-topic for off base. And it was a it was a hard, a hard situation to navigate. Actually, as someone trying to support that leader of this exercise bike. Why are you even pretending to talk? You know that I think it makes you feel?

00:19:35Bearing in mind that a lot of leaders are very task-oriented or like, okay, mindfulness, go. How do I do it? I'm sure not. Everybody is like that but you would probably run into. So, how how can we be more mindful As Leaders knowing that, that there's so much pressing on our time. I mean, so I recommend starting with the my phone has practice of, you know, deep breathing. I recommend starting with like 5 minutes a day or something that seems really doable so that, you know, everybody can find five minutes and their dates at least to start to try something like that. And it's about this one thing that I start with and just ask them how it feels and typically like if you actually make the effort to do it, you see the benefits for relaxation. I know you might feel some challenges with distractions coming in but, you know, a lot of people who are achievement oriented

00:21:35Going to go from there. Yeah. It's so interesting because

00:22:31Yeah, so can we talk a little bit about some of the amazing work we've done with your clients? Or like can you tell us a little more about what it's like to work with you and how you kind of combined like all of the data with, you know, learning all these cool new skills like mindfulness. I just think people be really interested in that Art and Science to working with me and I like to use data. And so a lot of times when I'm working with someone will start by doing some personality measures and you know, some of them are more user-friendly like a Myers-Briggs. That's probably a lot of people lived on others are less user-friendly, but I can use the data and kind of use it. I understand them, and really hilarious, that they might want to work on either strengths that they might over play into my abilities at times. Those kind of things just to get a really well-rounded you of who they are as a person.

00:24:30The road is when they try it out in the real world and then based on that, we can kind of cheese. And you know, it just based on that. Lol. That sounds great. Do you have any examples of results that you seen or anything like that? You'd like to share?

00:25:51Temptation all the timer feeling under pressure. She was managing her stress and innocence having more fun at work by getting to relate to people and so they were still getting done and we're working for her acts even more motivated because they were working for a better boss in the sense. That is so amazing. I think people don't realize how sometimes our work bleeds into everything.

00:27:25I'm a lot of the different things that I talk about related to Stress Management, you know, Finding we're meeting in your work. A lot of positive psychology is there as well and so episode of stage, 20 minutes or less become a focus on the topic, talk about some of the research and then talk about practical ways to apply to research so that you can have you no more. Joyous. I love that. That is so awesome. Do you want to talk a little bit about how people can contact you or if you have anything to offer our listeners are lining psychology.

00:29:03Thank you for listening to the third pedal podcast. Be sure to catch every episode by subscribing on iTunes, to learn more. Check out our website at www.ge.com. The third pedal podcast, is sponsored by Foster growth, LLC online at, ww.w. Buster, gross.