Tag: health

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Learning Strategy

Building a better way of working: Change the way the game is played

A collection of thoughts on challenging the norm, lifestyle design and doing stuff that makes you happy.

“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it” — this is the single most dangerous sentence in the world today, this thought pattern prevents progression and the opportunity to find happiness.

It seems as a society, we are reaching a turning point in our beliefs on how the world of work should work for us as individuals and not as a basic blueprint that all most follow.

What do I mean by this? I’m referring to the archaic principles that every human on the planet works to, the same shift pattern (commonly 9–5) across the same days (again commonly Mon-Fri) as for whatever reason this is deemed as the only times that people can be creative and other people must be able to see you at those times to make sure you’re being productive and creative — seriously, someone actually said that to me.

But let’s be realistic, the framework for a workday that most of us follow on today’s world is complete BS. You can’t tell someone when they need to be creative, nor can you guarantee that every single person will be productive in the same timespan. It just doesn’t work like that, our minds don’t work like that.

It also makes me chuckle when I hear people say that you need to be in an office to do real work and that you can’t do this from other locations as it not as efficient, again total BS.

I feel like many people and especially those who sit across senior management and leadership positions are often close minded (not all, but a high number still are) to the ways of being agile, adaptable and embracing technology solutions. Today’s tools allow us to be connected like never before, whether that’s through sharing ideas or communicating, this can all be done in real time without the need to be in a physical space together.

Now I’m not saying that you should never come together in a shared space or have physical meetings as many people find this useful and prefer to operate this way, which is fine, yet we do have other options that needs to be recognised too.

Being in an office doesn’t = being productive nor does working remotely = not being able to be productive and creative.

In many ways, this framework and the practice of not wanting to evolve from it are a large form of control. It’s the control that mostly insecure people feel they need to have over other people, as of course controlling everyone and everything will guarantee results right? I’ll leave you to ponder that.

A great deal of this archaic style of thinking is based on a parent-child relationship and I feel sadly a lot of workplaces still run this way, in which employees view their managers as the parent who they cannot defy or disagree with, it’s a cultural theme that runs through many workplaces.

What we should move to is an adult to adult relationship, which is built on trust and of course repercussions if that trust is broken. We should place trust in each other to deliver the work we’ve been given in the way that suits our personal style and of course you would have structure around this in forms of milestones and deadlines, but not to the hours or locations you spend delivering this.

What works for one doesn’t always mean it will work the same for the other. As an example, you may have one colleague who finds that between 8am — 12pm this is their most creative, productive, innovative (add in another other adjective you wish to use) time and that’s great. On the other side, you have another colleague who finds their time for these activities is between 3pm — 8pm, both produce the same high quality of work, yet the latter example will routinely be labelled as not appropriate and this person will generally be forced to move their time to fit the “core” working hours of the business.

You can once again use similar examples for working locations and compare the output of an employee who spends all week in the office and another who spends it in a cabin on a lakeside.

The employee who is office bound can produce the bare minimum in terms of output but they are deemed as productive as they can be seen, yet the employee who resides in the cabin can produce 10x the output, which means better business performance yet they will be labelled as not productive as their controlling leaders cannot see them in front of their own eyes doing the work. It’s a sad state of affairs really and highlights for all the advancement we’ve had in a number of areas, the workplace has remained stagnant when it comes to lifestyle design or at the least, playing a lot of catch-up.

I can imagine a number of you reading this may have the opportunity to work from home once a week and you feel that’s progression, but really it’s not. It’s still a form of control, you’re told that you can only be away from the office for one day and that day is usually determined by someone else.

Don’t even ask to work in another location for one day or have a different working hours pattern for one day in the office because that’s just not right as you’ve already had your one working from elsewhere pass right? Face it, you’re still being controlled.

Here’s some insights from a book I’m currently reading called ‘The Multi-Hyphen Method’ by Emma Gannon to put some perspective on this:

  • Recent research shows that in the UK, we are the least productive workforce in Europe, 27% less than Germany and losing billions to productivity issues.
  • We spend 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings (we’ve all been here) and 73% of us do other work during those meetings (guilty!)
  • YouGov reported in 2015 that 37% of British workers think their jobs are meaningless.
  • The Evening Standard’s survey results revealed that 80% of Londoners hate their jobs.

All of this data has roots in our working culture, the opportunity to work flexibly, smarter and trust between people. We should be looking at insights such as these and taking actions to make things better, not chaining ourselves to ancient thinking.

Be the change

So, now you’ve read all the context and somewhat moaning about the culture of work in many organisations today, you should ask yourself, what can I do to change this?

It’s simple in theory really, you need to be the change, be an example by designing your own workplace lifestyle and changing the way the game is played.

This doesn’t mean quitting your job, going to a startup or becoming an entrepreneur or any of that — that’s not the answer for those of us that enjoy the work we already do. Everything doesn’t have to be about quitting your corporate job to be successful and happy, I 100% feel you can have these things and more working in a corporate career so let’s not get the essence of this piece twisted.

You want to set out to disrupt the norm and change mindsets and the culture of your business in the right way. This can de done in the style of having adult conversations about the realities of work today and how technology, neuroscience and data can support in a healthier, happy, more productive working life.

Ultimately you have to live this and as cliched as it sounds, you have to be the change that you want to see in the world. Nothing ever changes by watching from the sidelines with a bucket full of ideas and not finding the courage to speak up.

What you can do

Let’s look at some tips to help you design a lifestyle that benefits you and make sure that you deliver performance for your company at the same time.

  • Grab a notebook and keep a journal over the coming weeks when you felt most creative, productive or innovative. When were these times? Where were you and what were you doing? This could be as simple as having a coffee with a colleague at 7pm at the office or while hitting a workout at 11am, it’s all personal to your style.
  • Review your answers to identify trends and insights so you can see where/when you work best and what supports this.
  • Schedule a meet with your manager to open the conversation on a smarter working approach for you and how the company can support this. Use the insights you’ve gathered from your research to show real world data, it’s difficult to argue with data.
  • Propose a test period to show how your approach could work.

This is not a complete guide to what you should do and nor have I written this piece to be that, as that is for you to design. These tips are ideas for you to consider when exploring how to live a more smarter working lifestyle.

Change is in the here and now. The way we work is constantly changing due to the brilliance of technology, yet it still seems very taboo to talk about how how we can use the opportunities available to design a better lifestyle for work.

A number of organisations are forward thinking and doing good work in this space, but for many of us, we need to make the conversation bigger. We’ve seen those of my generation aka millennial’s and the upcoming Gen Z challenge more of these stereotypes as they rate benefits of flexible employers more highly than previous generations.

Why should I make the change?

Do you want improved health, relationships, bank balance and maybe even alter the way you view life ?  then change must happen to reach these.

If we take a look through history, all of those who brought about the frameworks, processes and systems we adhere to today were in the minority. As in some corners of today’s world, those who looked to bring about significant change were labelled as mad at the time, yet we’ve come to accept the use of many of those ideas as the norm today.

If you want to change your work lifestyle, to design your own and lead a healthier, happier life ,  then you must use your voice, challenge the norm and change the way the game is played.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”


— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Before you go…

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

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Skills

Disconnection in a connected world

We live in a unique time where technology has advanced at such a stellar pace that it’s enabled humanity to do many wonderful feats.

We can’t deny that right now we have the most advanced methods of real time communication in existence, with the ability to stay connected to everyone and everything, wherever we are in the world — so why are so many of us feeling more disconnected from the world and others than ever?

It would seem the rise of social media has made it simpler to keep connected with current relations and easier to build new social communities too, but with the good has also come the bad.

We see multiple reports of online bullying, information overload, fake news, never ending product placements and more that are impacting our mental health.

It’s also very difficult for our primitive minds to live within smaller tribes for most of our existence and then be thrust into connection with anyone from any corner of our planet, being exposed to data that we would have never come into contact with 20 years ago.

Social media is only one element of a bigger theme of technology and digital innovation, that I feel is creating these larger waves of disconnection.

I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me and think I’m a technology hater, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a total techie geek and have been since a young age, I believe the dawn of new technologies has brought great improvements to our world, yet it’s our relationship and application of these great innovations that should be a cause for concern.

What does the data and research tells us?

As with anything in my life when I’m searching for truth and understanding, I look at data to see what insights it can give me.

So firstly, let’s take a closer look at social media and it’s impact on society in recent years.

It’s reported that 2.46 billion people, that’s roughly 71% of those with access to the internet worldwide are using social media platforms according to research from 2017. This number is expected to jump to 2.77 billion by 2019.

Who’s the king of social platforms?

So which social media platform has the most users worldwide? As of July 2018, Facebook leads the way with nearly 2.2 billion active users and its sister company Instagram has just hit the 1 billion mark.

(You can find updated figures over at Statista if you’re reading this article in the future)

How long are we spending on these platforms?

It’s estimated from current research, that we’ll spend at least 5 years worth of our life accessing various social media accounts. In 2017, the average time a person spent on social media per a day was 135 minutes, this is a 23%increase from 2015 and a 7% increase compared to 2016.

What does this mean for our mental wellbeing and happiness?

If we take a look at the world happiness index over the last few years, it shows us that the Nordic regions dominate the top 5 of this list.

In 2018 the world’s happiest regions looked like this:

  • Finland
  • Norway
  • Denmark
  • Iceland
  • Switzerland

So it seems that the Nordic people are in a state of bliss, but are they all really like this? Even the happiest on earth have their troubles and the Nordic regions are no different.

Recent research into data covering a 5 year span from 2012–2016 in these regions has uncovered a number of interesting insights. It was found that 12.3% of people across these regions had stated they were struggling or suffering.

If we look at at specific group, such as 16–24 year olds the results are even more interesting and especially since this is the first full generation who’ve gown up in the digital world, being constantly connected. The big insight here is that more than ever, mental health issues are on the rise and impacting several generations.

18.3% of people from this group in Denmark said they suffer from poor mental health and this number rose in women from the same age group to 23.8%.

Norway has seen a 40% increase over the 5 year period of the younger generation seeking support for their mental health.
An overall rise across all Nordic regions in poor mental health has been recognised in young people both men and women.

I’m only looking at the Nordic regions in this example, yet I believe we see trends here in the younger generation that are replicated throughout the world with poor mental health and technology addiction on the rise — surely this is no coincidence?

One of the main reasons cited for unhappiness in these countries was loneliness, which I find fascinating as we have so many channels to communicate today, but it feels like many of us are lonelier than ever. We should remember that although these regions are seeing a rise in these issues, they are still amongst the happiest on earth and for good reason. An average of 87% of people across the Nordic regions reported themselves to be thriving, yet the rise in young people reporting to be struggling should be a cause for concern and a warning to take a closer look at the reasons behind this.

We are living in a time of information overload

Why is poor mental health and general suffering on the rise across our population?

I feel we have a couple of themes that are contributing to the difficulties that not just young people, but people from all generations are having to contend with:

Real time digital connection

The last 10 years is really the first time in history, where we have been truly connected to everyone and everything in the world 24/7. It used to be that communicating with your relatives in Australia was dealt with via a postcard or letter that would take several weeks to arrive, but now we shoot a Whatsapp message or jump on a video call — of course this is brilliant, yet not without it’s drawbacks.

This has also meant we can connect and be exposed to multiple streams of content from any corner of the earth in seconds, forcing the primitive operating system in our heads to digest mountains of information constantly.

While great in some cases, it can become unmanageable quickly and challenging for many to navigate, it also makes our world feel a little smaller too. Too much of a good thing can be dangerous and in this case the relationship with being plugged in to all things at all times, is one that needs to be redefined.

Social media — real people, fake life?

The obvious channel that is always picked on is social media and for a number of reasons. Personally, I’d say 80% of what you see on Instagram and Facebook is all fake, fabricated versions of a life people want you to believe they have and want you to sell you too, so you’ll buy their latest product which of course will 10x your life, allow you to travel the world and raise unicorns.

Yet social media is not the big bad and it’s not inherently evil, it’s just how we’ve decided to engage with it as an society. It’s a tool after all, which means our experiences with these platforms are in our control.

We don’t have to get lost down a black hole of Instagram for 5 hours, but unfortunately this happens to many of us and too often.

There are great pro’s for these platforms such as allowing connectivity to friends and family across the world, enabling continuous learning with knowledge sharing on numerous subjects. Sadly though, the negatives seem to far out way the positives due to human behaviours and trying to make a quick buck in an unhealthy way for other people.

Information overload

Bundles of information are coming from everywhere, like streams of water smashing against your face when you’re under a waterfall, constant and difficult to navigate, sometimes becoming uncontrollable without any notice.

Smartphones have allowed us to break free from the chains of our desk bound devices, allowing us to access information at the swipe of a finger and kept up to date on anything we want. Whilst this is amazing for so many reasons, it’s also overwhelming at the same time, with so much to consume, how do we manage this flow in a healthy way? better yet, how do we know what’s real or fake?

Even access to the general gossip of life is easier than ever through services like WhatsApp and endless other messaging products. You can create multiple groups to share reams of information with anyone at anytime so everyone is in the know about everyone’s business, whether you wanted to know or not. The art of choice seems to be lost in some ways with so much content shoved in your face, it’s like drowning from your own consumption.

We don’t see each other anymore, like really see each other

That’s because we are too busy doing it through a screen and hiding behind text messages. There’s an obvious rise in global loneliness and the interesting insight is that social media can actually be a great tool to combat this, yet it seems to be making it worse. But why is this? I believe it’s because we’ve gone too far down the digital rabbit hole and focus so much on our online life that we never look up from our screens to focus on what’s in front of us — our real life.

Yes it’s easier than ever to connect with a friend through your phone, but is this a real connection. I mean, it’s easy to send a text or engage in an emotional conversation digitally without actually showing any emotion, but not so in person.

When was the last time you have met up with a friend in real life to have a 2 hour in person conversation over tea instead of a Whatsapp thread? do you notice the difference you feel when you actually see someone in physical form as opposed to just their latest profile picture popping up on your screen. We are social beings and you’d think social media would enable us even more, but it’s not, we are losing parts of us that make us so unique — our abilities to converse, interact and connect in groups.

Now more than ever, I see people struggle in normal day to day conversation and engaging with other people. I see this even more in the younger generation, those who truly are digital natives. It seems they’ve been so stuck in their technology and communicating through devices, that they’ve not learned how to have a real conversation with anyone but Alexa or Siri.

We don’t know how to manage our relationships with technology

I’m hoping you’ll be in agreement with me on this final point. The types of technological innovations we have experienced in the last 20 years have come fast and evolve so often, that we’ve yet to really define how we work with them, rather than these controlling us. As in any good relationship, you need a framework of trust and boundaries.

The big thing I don’t see from people is setting boundaries with their use of technology and understanding the physical and mental issues that can arise from such intense experiences. We only have to look at the increase in reports of phone addiction globally to see we have a problem, we even have rehabilitation centres now that specifically focus on social media and technology addiction due to the out of control relationships we have with these products — who would have thought these would be the problems we face 20 years ago when the Nokia 3310 first appeared?

What to take away from this

  • Social media isn’t bad, it has the power to do so much good if used in the right way.
  • Technology is not bad, again it’s how it’s applied and your relationship with it that will determine what experience you have.
  • There is always Yin and Yang — you cannot have good without bad, there always needs to be balance in anything in life.
  • Manage yourself, define your relationship with technology — discipline equals freedom.

What can you do

You have lots of opportunities to help yourself and others in creating healthier relationships to enable a culture of real connection, not one of disconnection through the realms of the digital world.

  1. Focus more on your real life, not just your Instagram profile
  2. Meetup with friends and family in the real world, not just through your phone screen
  3. Define the relationship you’ve created with digital services/platforms and find a healthy way to manage it with set boundaries.

Ultimately, the digital world and all the cool innovations we have access to are amazing, we all love them, but it’s clear that we need to evaluate our relationships with these things to make sure we aren’t disconnected too.

We have a big world out there, full of people to share stories with, experiences to be part of and much more.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Skills

The benefits of microdosing my workouts

Burnout, overworked, sore — maybe your familiar with these words. Maybe you’ve used these words as part of the narrative that runs through your head on the way to your workout.

Continue reading “The benefits of microdosing my workouts”
Categories
Skills

Why sleep is the best natural PED

Sleep series #1 — the not so dirty secret

In a society that seems to encourage and celebrate the ability to have little sleep and work on your thing or hustle or whatever you want to call it — I’m telling you that your severely crippling your ability to be at your best if your screwing up your sleep.

Sleep is one of the most important functions of our body. It allows us to repair physically and mentally, cement new skills, restore energy levels and so much more. I recently listened to a podcast with the great Joe Rogan and sleep specialist Matthew Walker which sparked my curiosity even more on the subject of sleep and just how important it is for all of us. As someone who likes to have as many tools in my kit as possible to manage my own mental health, having a bulletproof sleep routine is a central component to this.

So over the next few months I’ll be writing a special series on sleep, why it’s important, how it affects us and routines you can put in place to make sure you get the best sleep possible — I’m no expert but I hope to open eyes on how important sleep is for us all.

For my first in the series, I’m going to talk about why sleep is the best natural PED that you can ever take for your body. Whether it’s for mental performance or physical performance, sleep is your best friend.

 

What is sleep?

Our friends at Wikipedia provide us with this overview:

Sleep is a naturally recurring state of mind and body, characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscles, and reduced interactions with surroundings.It is distinguished from wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, but is more easily reversed than the state of being comatose. Sleep occurs in repeating periods, in which the body alternates between two distinct modes: REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Although REM stands for “rapid eye movement”, this mode of sleep has many other aspects, including virtual paralysis of the body. A well-known feature of sleep is the dream, an experience typically recounted in narrative form, which resembles waking life while in progress, but which usually can later be distinguished as fantasy.

During sleep, most of the body’s systems are in an anabolic state, helping to restore the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems; these are vital processes that maintain mood, memory, and cognitive function, and play a large role in the function of the endocrine and immune systems. The internal circadian clock promotes sleep daily at night. The diverse purposes and mechanisms of sleep are the subject of substantial ongoing research. The advent of artificial light has substantially altered sleep timing in industrialized countries.

So in a nutshell, sleep is a natural component of our body and also one of most important processes to live a healthy life. During this magical process our body heals itself and restores it’s chemical balance, it also has a massive effect on your mental health and for me this is key.

 

The downside of poor sleep

If everything is lined up and your sleeping well then your body will perform well too, but what happens if we don’t get the recommended 7–9 hours of sleep? let’s take a look.

  • An adult sleeping only 6.75 hours a night would be predicted to live only to their early 60s without medical intervention.
  • Weakened immunity — too little sleeps weakens your immune systems defenses against viruses.
  • Impaired cognitive functioning — studies found that just a little sleep deprivation, left participants with poorer performance on certain tasks that required attention and short-term memory.
  • Mental health risk — depression and anxiety has been shown to increase directly through sleep deprivation, if you’re sleeping less than 6 hours a night you could fall into this category.

And the list goes on and on, the negative impact of not respecting the sleep process has overwhelming evidence.

 

What sleep can do for athletic and mental performance

We all want to be in the best state possible to tackle the challenges of life, so what will 7–9 hours of quality sleep do for you.

  • Optimal learning and memory function
  • Improves chances of longer lifespan
  • Decreased inflammation in the body
  • Lowers stress levels
  • Increased focus and cognitive functioning

If you’re focused on athletic performance or putting on muscle than sleep is essential for you. Sleep is your body’s natural healing and repair process, so all that damage you take on the court or in the gym needs that magical process of sleep to repair and make you better. In simple terms, crap sleep = no gains.

Quality sleep has shown to improve athletic performance in a variety of ways. A number of athletes even have sleep specialists as part of their teams, which shows just how serious sleep is taken in the sports arena as that 1% can be the line between winning and losing.

Many people are taking supplements and drugs to improve their performance whether that’s in sports or just their corporate job, but what they don’t understand are all those sleepless nights they shout about as a badge of honor are a form of self sabotage.

The bottom line is if you want to perform and be the best version of yourself, you need to sleep. It’s a free and very powerful performance enhancer and the best part is that it’s within your control.

Before you go…

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can subscribe to my weekly “Steal these thoughts” newsletter here.

Every week I share a dose of my own writing and interesting content that has caught my eye, it’s free, no spam, unsubscribe whenever you want.

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Daily Thoughts

What you read is just as important as what you eat

I’ve always been really into making sure my body is getting the right food to fuel me for physical and mental performance. I am that guy who will refuse a cookie and take a handful of cashews instead, much to the disappointment of those around me who would like me to partake in the cookie feast and look at me like I’ve just murdered their cat.

You see, providing my body with the right nutritious food, allows me to be at my best — the right input ensures I get optimal output. Plus on top of this, I feel good and look good and when you feel like this, life’s challenges seem a little easier to navigate.

Now most of us spend time making sure our body has the right fuel to perform, but what about the mind? what about the most powerful operating system known in existence, that’s sitting in your head? what are you letting this consume? hopefully it’s not just a 24/7 news station.

Our minds are super powerful and amazing, it’s so advanced even Apple products bow down to it. Just like our body, our mind needs the right input to get us in the right mood to achieve what we want. You wouldn’t put diesel into a Ferrari and expect it to run at 100% so why would our minds do the same on poor content consumption. As much as we all love reality TV, general mindless programmes and scouring through mainstream news sites, they aren’t doing any favors for your mental wellbeing and a number of studies are starting to show how this can impact us in a negative way.

Think about it, if you watch a 24/7 news channel all day filled with drama, celebrity gossip, death, murder and generally the worst of the worst from humanity then of course your going to feel like crap and think the world is terrible. But this is merely a snapshot of reality, a tailored snapshot bought to you directly and designed in a fashion to prey on your emotions and get you hooked. Same goes for 90% of the programmes on TV nowadays, I struggle to find something that has an uplifting tone out of what seems like the thousands focused on serial drama and murder mysteries.

Lots of people report feeling like crap from consuming mainstream media and I was like this myself for many years. I would read the latest news everyday, whether this was on my TV or apps on my phone, I was connected to everything that these channels wanted to tell me — but was it really vital for me to be exposed to all of this content, well no, not really.

We have a choice on what we choose to consume and allow into our head space, it’s very important that we understand this and that one version of the truth is hard to find. You need to see there is balance to everything and with all these negative stories of course there are positive ones too, sadly though, positivity doesn’t sell or keep eyeballs glued to a website. This is a real shame and says a lot about society in 2018, however, like I said, you have a choice on what and how you consume from the world.

We need to take the love and care that we give to our physical body through the form of healthy nourishing foods and physical activity and apply this to the mind. You must be ruthless in what you allow yourself to consume, whether that’s watching, reading or talking. The advanced software in your head is constantly evolving and it will develop dependent on what you feed it, providing it with good upgrades is key and this is done by controlling your information flows.

Figure out what’s important to you, what content makes you feel good and helps drive your performance too, what inputs provide the best outputs — find those and consume more of them, you’ll have yourself a healthy, happy and open mind for it.

Before you go…

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can subscribe to my weekly “Steal these thoughts” newsletter here.

Every week I share a dose of my own writing and interesting content that has caught my eye, it’s free, no spam, unsubscribe whenever you want.

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