[00:01] Katie: Welcome to the Focus B show, where Katie Stoddart, high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.
[00:34] Katie: Welcome to a brand new episode of the Focus Be Show. I am absolutely delighted to be here today with Susan Grant. Susan is a best selling author of her book Drop the MF Struggle. She is also a work life integration expert and focuses on helping organizations and individuals to achieve this work life balance. Needless to say, we have a lot in common in terms of productivity, mindfulness, and energy management. Hello, Susan. Welcome to the show. It's a real pleasure to have you here today.
[01:12] Susanne: Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
[01:16] Katie: Let's dive straight in. I know that you focus on work life balance, and I know that one of your mottos is to work smarter, not harder. What are some practical tips that you give people to help them implement this?
[01:29] Susanne: Well, what I see a lot when I'm working with my clients or with companies as well, is that there's a real mindset ingrained about we have to work hard to be able to achieve our goal. And my biggest tip that I have for anyone who's tuning in today is that success doesn't need to come through this hard work and sacrifice. There are different ways to achieve the things you're after as well. So I was talking to another podcast the other day where I gave the example of weight loss just because many of us have heard about it. So, for example, if you want to lose a weight, you can of course, start challenging yourself to run a marathon, to climb those mountains, to cut back all your food and make it as hard and struggle as this. And that can be very rewarding, by all means, if that fits your personality, I have no problem with that. But it could also be something where you swap certain food items before you park your butt on the couch in the evening, you go for a nice walk around the block. On the weekends, you spend some time with your friend who happens to love Zumba as well. So you go to zumba classes together, and another friend has a dog who loves to play on the beach, which you see on Sundays. So that can be fun, flowy, fulfilling, and there's no right way or wrong way of doing things. I really believe that if you want to have the best tip I can give any of you, it's all about honoring what success strategy, as I call it, is unique to you and what you're trying to achieve.
[03:09] Katie: Yes, that's such a fantastic tip. What is unique to you? Because I think there's a tendency out there to want to follow any advice that we hear, but it might not be suited. So the whole getting up at 05:00 A.m. The 05:00 a.m. Club by Robin Sharmer, that might be great for some people and they might thrive on it. But I've also interviewed people who get up at 10:00 A.m. And they're night owls and they get their best work done at night. So it's not because one successful person out there has done this and promotes a group to do this that it necessarily is suited to you. So this is fantastic. And speaking of books, you're also the best selling author of your book Drop the MF Struggle. Fantastic. In it you promote mindfulness and alignment. Could you maybe touch a few a bit on this?
[03:55] Susanne: It ties in with my answer from earlier where we believe that hard work is the only way to be successful. And as you can figure by the title Drop the Envy Struggle, I share in this book my story about how I believe that struggle, horrible life was part of it and my journey as my badge of honor of look at me, how bad I struggled and where I am now. Because let's face it, as a society we do love our success stories, right? That we go from I lost the word but for rights to riches. That's the one. Yes, that's the one. Those kind of stories. So I subscribe to that one as well and I learned over the years that there's nothing more important than putting alignment first and then take action. And because we're so stuck in it has to be hard, we will not put alignment first because even though we all know that, for example, after good night's sleep you're much more productive, many of us still don't get enough sleep because of whatever reason in our personal life. We don't look after ourselves, we don't drink enough, we don't pee enough, all these small things and added them together. It create a whole big pile of struggle which is effectively unnecessary. So in the book, I really share my own personal story. When I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder at 17, being homeless from where I am now, where I run my international coaching business, where I work, from an individual like yourself to big, large corporations where I help them redefine their success strategy, where we incorporate wellness and mental health as part of the strategy. Because research show is that when we feel great, we produce better work. And it sounds really logical and we all know that but in reality there's not enough people applying it yet. But as we've seen, of course with the last few months this year there's a lot more awareness around how are we actually feeling and what the results are giving us. And yeah, I see a lot of people now personally investing or companies investing in putting wellness and therefore feeling better, the alignment first before taking action because it shows that if you feel great, you get better ideas, you get more productivity, you're much more efficient. So something that would take you, for example, 10 hours to complete because you suddenly have, I need to talk to that person, right, that spark, that inspired idea, it's done in like half an hour and it's sorted. For example, there are all kinds of ways, of course, to work with your alignment and to work with the energies of this universe and work on your mindset. But it basically all comes down to the one belief that we are worthy of things being easy, it doesn't have to be struggle and you don't need to prove yourself that you are worthy of anything effectively. But of course, if I dive in with clients as well, it often comes down to the topic of not feeling like you're good enough or you're not worthy enough, hence the overworking, hence constantly proving yourself. But it's a never ending cycle because there's, no matter how much you do, you will never get at that point where you're actually satisfied because in the end it's about how you feel. Do you feel like a success even though you do absolutely nothing today?
[07:46] Katie: Yes. The worthiness and the self compassion and the never feeling it's enough, that is such a common trait of all the hyperachievers. And you probably know the work of the sabotage, the nine different type of sabotage anyway, one of them is hyperachiever. And this is really when we link success with what we achieve and therefore we feel worthy in the moment when we achieve something. But of course, as soon as we don't have this success, even if it's temporarily, then the self worth goes down. So it's this vicious circle you're talking about. And of course, once people manage to have this self worth integrated, they're no longer dependent on external results. I did a lot of work on this exact topic with and it's a.
[08:34] Susanne: Very addictive pattern because the way our bodies are designed to work, the way our brain is designed to work, we actually get like a hormonal release when we hit our goals. Right, so you keep going for that fix. Well, if we tweak slightly your mindset and tweak maybe how you break up the goal. So for example, you don't aim for that big massive goal, but you break it up in ten smaller steps so you get ten times that fix. Right? So it's just a continuous flow of you enjoying what it is you're doing instead of working really hard to get to that final goal. It's about the journey, it's about these steps, breaking it up, allowing yourself to be as easy as it can be. And that's of course the key question how much are you willing to give yourself permission? That can I really embrace the concept that I can achieve my goals and it'd be easy? Because that's something I hear a lot. Yeah, but if it's that easy, right, where's the challenge? So then that of course, then all ties in with the mindset, how we grew up, what society was, culture, it all ties in with the different backgrounds and upbringings and things we went through as a person.
[09:50] Katie: Yes. And it's interesting how so many people want it to be hard. I remember the look of horrors on some of my clients faces when I'd say you could take Friday afternoon off and they just look at me like I'm saying something scandalous. And it's just funny to think, why do we believe that we have to work so hard? Why do we? And it comes back to this self worthiness and good enough and having to prove ourselves. And talking about these short days or maybe short weeks. I know this is something you help companies with. They're doing four days a week. How do you help them to embrace this? How do you help them to put this in place?
[10:27] Susanne: Well, the services I provide are basically faced in three different options and really depends on what it is the company needs. Sometimes they just need to give a presentation like this where I share my best tips and tools. Sometimes I prefer to be an interactive workshop so people can ask questions on how to actually do it. And I've got my mid tier where they actually get to do group coaching with me, where we work on these mindsets, on these triggers to bring awareness. And I've got my top offer where I actually work with them privately. So for example, if I work with a team of senior managers who want to do these four day work weeks, how do you manage these mindset? How do you work these different days that we're working? Because what I hear a lot is that people say, yeah, we can't close the business for three days a week. That's not what four day work is about. It's about the long term benefits it has when people work that one day less. So if we're talking about mental health, research shows that people feel a lot more fresh, they're much more productive, energy costs are down, so the work they perform is better. Of course, there's all kinds of technology we can also implement to make sure the productivity stands up. But it's mostly about dealing with us, the motions and the mindset. And yeah, as a company they tend not to have the bandwidth or the skills to do that. So they hire me to help that navigate. So it becomes as easy process as it possibly can be because again, we're all for ease, right? And of course, long term we see it takes about six months for people to get the swing of things and especially parents, children for daycare. Now of course it's in school, not in school, depending on how the wind blows. So especially allowing flexibility within a business is key for creating happiness, wellness in the business. Because it really shows that when companies understand that people have a life behind beyond the desk, it really shows that they for example, if you need to nip to a dentist appointment or you need to pick up your children because one of them fell on the school playground and the knees are bleeding. Drama, but not the end of the world kind of thing. But it's part of the life we're dealing with. And it shows that just by allowing people to have the space to manage that, especially emotionally, just to know if something come up, I can deal with it and still do a good job, it just creates a much better group feeling of we're doing this together and I'm doing my part for the business. But they also understand that there's more than me than just my employee number and that's it, right?
[13:41] Katie: Absolutely. I think it's so important that they see the bigger picture and people feel heard and understood. I'm really curious, listening to this, I'm really curious about your own practices. For example, do you also work four days a week? And what sort of habits do you have that you implement to increase your energy, your well being, your work life balance?
[14:01] Susanne: Well, actually, I used to work four days a week. I'm from the Netherlands and we have had ingrained in our culture, basically, especially as a mom, you work four days a week and often you see that dads after the kids are born as well, because then they both have one day with kids, and then they tend to go to one set of grandparents the other day. Other set of grandparents the other day, and then one day in daycare, something like that. Right. So every day of the week they have either work or quality time with each other, et cetera. But it wasn't until I moved where I am now when I started my business and I noticed a real difference between female rights and work rights and starts compared to the Netherlands, to where I am in the UK and Scotland. And long story short, that's why I do what I do now, to help others, to actually create that balance that works for them. And I don't work four days a week. I would like to work a tiny bit more, but I'm still in the phase where I wasn't allowed to babysit the recalls of the virus, so I'm still working around. Ironically, even as the UK's award winning work life balance expert, I also had a problem when COVID of course, cleared us from all their support systems. You were not the only one in Brazil. And, yeah, my husband, he works from home on Fridays, so I do my client calls and such on days, so I can just focus. And on days like this, I work around my babies that's time give school transparency. We are looking forward to start hiring help again. But, yeah, that's all up in the air just now. So, yeah, the way I work is that on Fridays I do all my client calls and all the calls where I just need like me as a mother focused and everyone stays outside my door. No mama, mama, mama, mama, mama. All day long and yeah, other days of the week at this time I just need to do what works and like you say, look after myself. Well, I'm prone to stress for my bodies. It's not a great idea. So I need to make sure I sleep enough, move enough. Actually last year, early this year I think earlier this year, I bought a grounding sheet for my bed for anyone who's thinking what it's a sheet you put on your bed and you can plug it into the wall and actually directly grounds you to the soil outside, so to say. And I saw a research from an electrical engineer, it was actually a documentary he made called Earthing. And because of my allergies, what they are saying in there that a lot of allergies are actually caused by inflammation and I knew I had inflammation because of the allergies, et cetera. So I actually started sleeping on that and that for me was like different reality. So if you have anything from inflammation gluten intolerance stuff like that, check out that documentary, it's freely available on YouTube. It's called earthing. And he just explains as an electrical engineer what he realized and then he was ridiculed of course, like how can you think that human needs the ground and then he ended up finding a research department who actually wants to look into it and turned out there was actually something to it. So he highly recommends walking like on barefoot. But I live in the northeast of Scotland now as you can imagine not as cozy does you go, let's go walk outside like -20 right so for me it's a great alternative just yeah. And it's made such a change, especially in the evenings. I always felt bit like anxiety coming up. It just felt really uncomfortable in my own skin. And I think now there was probably just the static friction from the couch. You watch some TV before bedtime and now I'm actually like, oh, I get to go to bed just because I know it makes me feel so much better and ironic that just some new relatively fancy technology is going to have such an effect for me. And I actually do like allergy tests every so six months just to make sure that sometimes stuff flares up and stuff. And when I did it about six weeks ago, it was the first time in 30 years Gluten didn't show up. So whatever that she did has actually showed up in my allergy test that was calm to see those results. But that for me is the biggest thing. So make sure I eat well, rest well, move enough. So it's really the primary basics that we need us as a human being that are also really easy to skip and forget, aren't they?
[19:11] Katie: I've never heard of this sheet and this. I mean, grounding walking barefoot. I've heard a bit about that's being good and obviously reconnecting with nature, but I love this. This is fantastic. I'm definitely going to put a link in the show notes and check out the documentary.
[19:24] Susanne: Highly recommend it if this piques your interest.
[19:29] Katie: Yeah, definitely.
[19:29] Susanne: And if you call me crazy, that's fine, too. But look at the research. It's really well done.
[19:34] Katie: Yeah. I often think people are called crazy or considered crazy when they show something that's still new and different and people don't understand it. So before maybe, I don't know, 1020, 30, 40 years ago, people who were into meditation mindfulness, maybe they weren't seen as crazy, but it was weird. Let's put it this way, weird. And nowadays it's just so common, it's become the norm. So I think I mean, I think of it as the norm. Maybe it's still not the norm.
[20:01] Susanne: It should be the norm, depending on who you ask. Probably.
[20:05] Katie: I feel everyone meditates. Obviously not everyone, but everyone I speak to seems to I think maybe this will be the same later in the future. Everyone will be talking about these grounding sheets. And you were there first. This is fantastic. I also saw on your LinkedIn profile that you did this course on tetra healing, and I was wondering if you could talk a bit about this, because I know about the teta waves and this is something that we have when we meditate. And I'm wondering, could you tell us a bit more? Like, what is tetra healing and how can that help people?
[20:36] Susanne: So, if you're into things like meditation, I think meditation, you usually use the alpha brainwaves, but the five different brainwaves. And I don't use this information that often, so I can't mention it at all. But it's alpha, beta, gamma, theta and there's the fifth one, isn't it?
[20:56] Katie: Delta.
[20:57] Susanne: No, delta. Yeah, probably because that's five. Right? Delta sounds logical, but data is when we are most perceptible for changes. So if you're in McCarthy, the data therapy. So if I help a client make changes, we can actually physically change our energy at our core by making these changes. And if you're in Tata brainwaves, the easiest way to actually make permanent changes in how we believe to be about something. So, for example, you believe you have to work really hard for very little results. If we dive into your energy, we may find that your great great grandfather, who fought in the First World War, had the belief that when he was in the trenches in France fighting the enemy, that's when he decides we need to put in so much work and we're only making this much progress, right? And these kind of belief systems get passed on through generations. And now you're here, standing in 21st century, but still that belief from all the way back then, how life functions now, is completely different than one generation two generations ago. And even further right, where we have so much technology advantages and changes and stuff. Yet a lot of our mindset belief systems are actually generational. So what our grandparents believed is actually for us, our mindset. So it's part of the epigenetics, it's in the middle of our brain where these information gets restored. So if you're operating on something from the Second World War now, it may cause some problems if you're constantly hitting on that same plateau. Right? No matter how much I do, no matter how much productivity apps I download or how many journals I get, I keep getting the same results. It's just because there's something in your energy that's somewhere, either you consciously decided or something you've been passed down through the generations. That just ingrained, as in for you to be the ultimate truth, which isn't because there are a lot of different energies available for you to choose from. But when we dive in through, for example, Tater or other coaching techniques that I use, we can just see what the core is in that belief and help through these techniques to shift that. And as I say, upgrade it to a 21st century belief system that actually serves you. Because some of course, are actually helpful that we could pass on through the generation. That's probably why we survived. And we don't eat poisonous berries and stuff like that. So we don't want to dismiss all our ancestral information, but there are some that we can through the coaching just by creating the awareness. Like okay, this is what I believe to be true, but what else can be true? So for example, in God's sort of hard work, are there things that come easy to you? Can you give me an example of something that you really enjoyed it for example, you love to cook and you give me ten minutes in the kitchen and I cook up a most fabulous meal. Well, anyone watching you is like whoa, what did you just do? Right? This would cost me 3 hours. So there are all kinds of different things for you as a person that some comes easy, some success comes easy, while some you believe you have to struggle. Well, through data and other techniques that I use, we can just shift these in your energy and yeah, make it as easy as you want it to be. I prefer to say sounds like magic to me.
[24:51] Katie: It is.
[24:52] Susanne: It is really magical. But if you understand actually how our bodies are designed, and I don't know if you've read the book where I dive actually in into this, almost everything is from this world. I don't know if you can see all the zero. So it's a big percent of the world is made of energy, only that, et cetera. 42 is about matter. So matter is like us as a person and all the things we see around everything else is energy. And with our minds with our bodies, we can actually decide how we view this world around us. And that's why if we change our mindset, the world, how we see it around us changes. So if you have to believe that things have to be hard, then the world will be presented to you that it has to be hard because we have free will in this world. The universe is like, we'll back you up regardless, right? We got your back. So if you feel like it has to be hard, it will be hard. And that's why if you're looking at other people, you might get like jealous, like, yeah, but when they do it, it looks so easy. It's because they probably have to believe this is easy. I'm good at it, it just floats for me. And yeah, it's something you can talk about for hours. But I will explain that in depth in the book, how this works and how you can make it work for you by working on these energy levels to create the success you want from a perspective where you choose how you feel on the inside and then the world around you changes because it reflects what you believe to be true. And that's why I always say work harder, not smarter. Because it ties in with if you believe, it can be as easy as can. And you know when to use your energy, when to go for something or when to pull back. And of course, it's really unique to you as a person when you go for something or you're like, you know what, I'll wait. And it's learning that finesse and your body will tell you how it's really feeling based. And of course, I don't know about you, but I didn't particularly get taught how to use my body or the information it gives me or the emotions on how to use this. And as I explain in a book, is that we can use these things that happen to us even if they're really painful. We can use them as a stepping stone to something better. But of course, how it's for another time, isn't it? Or read my book.
[27:51] Katie: Yes, wonderful. Wonderful. The energy and the fact that it's only zero point, lots of zeros 42% matter is something that we all seem to forget because we see the matter, we can touch the matter. And so it's so easy to forget that so much of it is energy and linking the energy to our belief system and the mindset and our perception of things. And then also we didn't touch upon it as much right now, but obviously our emotions and where we feel them in the body and our intuition and all of these things are all energy. And I feel that, like you also said in your profile, you're an intuitive coach. I feel in general, most coaches are. And it's because they've learned to pay more attention to their intuition, they've learned to feel the energy that people have that they have on the moment. Once you start to connect on that level, I think that's where change and transformation is really possible. Because if you just do it in the matter, in the physical world, then that isn't as.
[28:59] Susanne: There's no amount of tools I can give someone if they don't make them their own, if they don't know how to embody it and make it work for them. So I can give you here, like my ten productivity tips, but then what it needs to be aligned with you, make it work for you, apply and embody and make it your own, and then take it as far as you want to go, by all means. Right, you got my vote. But it really is about letting our bodies tell the story. And our bodies are so immensely powerful, but because we're always so busy, those empowerful information, those notches, everything we get from the body gets usually only unless the body starts to scream because it's in pain or has all kinds of reactions or throbbing, or you can't walk or you throw your back out or whatever it is. That's when we start listening. Well, I try to encourage the people I work with, and of course, at bigger companies as well. How about we put wealth and well being first and create from there? Because, like I said, research shows there's so much benefits from mental health well being in regards for the businesses, you create less risk. Research shows that for every pound you invest, there's a five pound return. So even for the bottom line, it's great to put yourself and your people first. And I believe it was Henry Ford who actually was the one who was the first in the world to implement the five day work week from six, I think it was 1927, but don't quote me on that one. And, yeah, he said that, yeah, people are more productive when they feel great. So almost 100 year later, we're trying to do the same in regards to the mental health aspect.
[31:01] Katie: Yes. That's such a wonderful note to finish on. Thank you. Suzanne, this has been amazing. Thank you for reminding me why I do a podcast. Listening to you or getting to talk with people like you is a reminder that this is so wonderful. It's so inspirational and it's so interesting tying together all these different nuggets in terms of our well being and company well being and energy, and we touch on so much in half an hour. I don't even know how you manage that. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Susan. It was amazing. Thank you.
[31:32] Susanne: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[31:38] Katie: Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzzing.