The Power of Being Patient

AI-Generated Transcript below. There may be errors.

Claire Davis 0:02

Hello, and welcome back. I'm Claire Davis. And this is Alicia Ramsdale. And if you remember, we had her with us a few short months ago on today's medical sales leader. But when you've got Alicia with you, and she's willing to come back and talk even more about her expertise, you definitely take that opportunity. So welcome back to another episode of today's medical sales leader. I am so excited to have you with us again. Thank you so much, Alicia.

Alicia Ramsdell 0:29

Absolutely. I'm happy to be back. And I'm glad to double down.

Claire Davis 0:33

Awesome. So if, if you didn't have a chance to catch the last episode, let me tell you a little bit about Alicia Ramsdale. She's the founder and CEO of mindful career path, which is a platform that's dedicated to helping people find career fulfillment, when they apply mindfulness to their professional lives. So she is a certified career services provider, a global career development facilitator and holds a certificate in both mindfulness based stress reduction techniques, which I think we're going to talk a little bit about today. And organizational mindfulness. So a lot of things that'll be extremely helpful whether you are a sole contributor, or you are leading a team right now, she's a TEDx speaker. So if you have a chance, go back and watch her TEDx talk, which I think Alicia dropped in March, didn't it? It did. Yes. It's so good, you guys. And she's an expert in career development and mindfulness. And recently, she published her first children's book, The one and only incredible me, which is inspired by her own two children. And it's a book about self love and self care and self acceptance, encouraging children to embrace their uniqueness. So we're thrilled to have her back on the show today to talk a little bit more about mindfulness. Because I don't know about you. But when it comes to the way that the market is today, with the new resurgence of layoffs, it's just the hits keep coming. And the health care market and the medical sales market are definitely not immune to those hits. So I'm really excited to talk with you today. Because there have been a lot of questions coming from my clients and, and job seekers, I see especially on LinkedIn about not just job search techniques. But what are some really practical, positive ways that we can deal with this kind of situation when it comes to mindfulness? So what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that this is a new? Do you think that this is more prevalent to people now because of the market? And because of these layoffs? Or do you think it's something that people have struggled with, you know, all their life and career long?

Alicia Ramsdell 2:39

100% I think that people have struggled with this, at any point in their lives at any generation, right? Whether that's our grandparents generation, today's generation, or our kids future generations, or our future lives, everyone is bound to deal with stressful situations, uncertainty, challenges, as they are in their own world. And just to kind of take a step back mindfulness, for everybody that most likely has heard of it before. But again, it's just being present, being fully engaged in the current moment. But the difference is you want to do that non judgmentally. Right, without distraction. We live through a world of a lot of distraction, a lot of negativity, perhaps just because that's where our brain focuses, unfortunately. But there's even a term called the it's relatively new, the VUCA world V, you see a and so that stands for volatile, uncertainty, complex, and ambiguity, right. And that's just understanding that that's the world we live in. It's fast pace, we're getting a lot of information thrown at us. And I think that's only going to progress. You know, as our generation goes along, and future generations are added in. So unfortunately, it's a part of our world. But at the same time, fortunately, we have things like mindfulness and mindfulness based stress reduction techniques that we can implement into our lives and not just manage stress, but leverage the stress and power through it.

Claire Davis 4:16

I love it. I think that, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even mindfulness was still this sort of elusive woowoo buzzword. But now thankfully, I'm seeing more and more specific coaches that touch on different pieces of mindfulness. So whether it's, it seems to be even more prevalent in my from my perspective, because of COVID. And that year, where we all had to take a step back from what we were doing professionally and personally and carry forward but then the lines seem to be blurred a bit. You know, now we're working from home so the personal and the professional worlds are colliding and our children are there with us and we're still expect To be productive and to lead great teams and to get results. But I think we all found that if we didn't take care of our own selves and our minds that things were falling off the rails, at least I know that it was tough to keep the wheels on the bus at my house. So I'm so grateful that this is coming to the forefront. But I still feel that there is a mystery about certain practices that we can put into place, and things that we can do. So can you talk a little bit about maybe a couple of typical exercises you would recommend or, or maybe even how to know when it's time to start putting some mindful practice mindfulness practices into place.

Alicia Ramsdell 5:46

And just to hit on what you just said, there are common misconceptions around mindfulness, some people think it's a religious activity, some people think they need to have a significant amount of time to complete it. As an example, there is a book I read, have it with me today. It's called Peak minds. Yeah. And it's written by an I'm sorry if I butchered the name, but Dr. amici Jha, and it goes through a research based approach to you really only need for to be effective 12 minutes a day, and 12 minutes a day to do a mindfulness based practice. And everybody has 12 minutes a day. Even the busiest of the busiest, right, we all have 12 minutes a day. And her research was based on the MBSR Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program, but created by Jon Kabat Zinn. And that's the training program that I went through. And she talked about how she went into fields that were high stress and needed to make decisions quickly urgent decisions quickly. For her as it was, she went into the industry of the military world. And she tried to see what was the most effective, with the least amount of time that you could go to mindfulness training. And the book goes into greater detail. It's an excellent read. But she determined that 12 minutes, in addition to her scientific back research, 12 minutes a day was what you needed. And the strategies that she uses relates to body scan meditation. So as an example, every morning when I wake up, I go into a certain room that I always go into for mindfulness training. For me, it's a mental headspace that I said, You know what I know here. And now this is where I'm doing my mindfulness based training. So body scan meditation, as an example, is you're closing your eyes, and you're kind of going through your body and each body, you're just a body part, I guess. So your head, your arms, your hands, your feet, so forth, you're saying, what are the senses? I'm feeling right now, in that specific moment? And I know that might sound easy or simple, or how does that really help? But when you're focusing on those present moments, on those senses, you can't be distracted by anything else, right? You can't be thinking about, Oh, what am I going to do when I first get into work? Or what about that email that came in late last night that I need to respond to? So again, it's being non judgmental, to whatever senses that you're experiencing within that present moment. So that's just one idea about what you could do daily from a mindfulness based stress reduction point as an individual. And we can get into, you know, how organizations could implement that. But that's, that's one example. So I'll stop there. And you know, feel free to ask questions as I go.

Claire Davis 8:43

Yeah. So. So tell me a little bit more, you know, before the show, we were talking a little bit about Jon Kabat Zinn. So can you share a couple of those things that he has brought to light that have made an impact on your mindfulness work?

Alicia Ramsdell 8:56

Sure. So he created what's called the nine attitudes of mindfulness, right? And there's nonjudging. Patience, beginner's mind, trust, non striving, acceptance, letting go, gratitude, and generosity. Now, with all of those words, it's just a little cue as to how you can focus in on the present moment without letting you know, the digital addiction that we have the hyper focus on all these decisions that we have to make the information overload. So nonjudging typically, when we're involved in a conversation, somebody saying to someone saying something to us, and it hits us a certain way, and we start while that person is still talking, we start judging what they're saying how they're saying it. We're thinking about what they're thinking about, right instead of just letting the information come through accepting In the information, patience is what you would think of, you know, being patient with the process. So whether you're a sales professional, and you need to be patient with the process of, you know, from the getting the pitch or getting the conversation started to delivering the pitch to the whole process and the negotiation that goes beyond that, then there's beginner's mind, and beginner's mind is my favorite. And the reason is, because it's all about having a fresh perspective. Especially I think, as you get older and become more experienced in your role, and the higher up you go in your role. You tend to fall back on this, oh, I've done this for so long. I know how this goes. But beginner's mind allows you to come into a conversation, come into a meeting, come into session with your team and say, whatever people suggest, you know, I'm going to welcome new ideas as if it's the first time not just new ideas, even old ideas, as if it's the first time I'm ever hearing about it. And so that's why I like beginner's mind. Because sometimes we do all of us naturally get into this right up. I know how this works. But if we could take the time to step back and say, let's look at this from a new perspective. Like I'm a little kid again, and I've never heard this before. Right. The other one is trust, Loggerhead.

Claire Davis 11:28

Oh, no, no, that I think that beginner's mind is one of my favorites as well in it reminds me of a conversation I was having with a gal the other day, who was looking to get into medical sales, and she had founder sell for one reason or another, taking care of a family member and then getting into retail. And she really had the heart to get back into health care. And so one of the things that we use to help position her was that idea that you're sharing, which is the beginner's mind, because she was concerned that her lack of linear experience in the field would work against her. But I would argue, and I know many companies who are hiring now are looking for that beginner's mind of someone who can come in with fresh eyes, and do exactly what you're saying. And so we ended up using that in her positioning, and she got an exceptional job. And the the keynote for her was that she has these insights from other places, but also, she could come in with those fresh eyes with that beginner's mind, and help them to build from the ground up. And it worked great.

Alicia Ramsdell 12:34

That I mean, that's an excellent story. And I think with that as well, if you're a leader accepting that person onto your team, I think it builds resiliency for yourself and for the teammates around you to say, we're open to new ideas. And although it might be challenging to implement those new ideas, hearing them and being open to them, provides, like I said, resiliency going forward.

Claire Davis 12:58

That's an art, isn't it? To go there and say, Okay, I know, I'm the leader of the troops here. But I need to be open to letting the ideas flow up and down.

Alicia Ramsdell 13:13

Yes, and there's an I want to see it, Amazon, and I could be wrong. So I apologize if I am. But it's one of those very well known companies. And I want to say it's Amazon, and the Amazon. I think it is, but they their policies are gonna come down to the show. So I apologize. But there's a big company. And it's, there's a policy that you can't say no to new ideas, or new ideas, new concepts are sure. And if you can, the only way you can you have to write, let's call it a one page paper on why you think it's not the right time or not the right idea at that moment. And then you have to then present that. Right. So it prevents people from just automatic Nope. Right, that automatic. It's not going to work. It's never been done. We can't do that.

Claire Davis 14:01

Oh no, I want to find out who that is. Yeah, I know, if you. Email us after the show. We want to know if it's you.

Alicia Ramsdell 14:12

Really, yes. Anyway, so then you have trust. And again, that's similar to being patient. It's just trusting yourself, trusting the process, in, in your life, in your career, and so forth. And then the other thing that I think is kind of funny, and it almost sounds counterintuitive to the way this world works and like the hustle culture, right? Is non striving. And really, that's just letting go of this constant need for a constant desire for more. Right? It's, it's as if we're never just stopping to take a moment to say, I like where I'm at right now. I'm comfortable where I'm at right now. And it's not to say you don't have goals and long term goals, but I feel like we're always in this zone of we need more. We need more. We need more and we're not again appreciating the process.

Claire Davis 15:01

Yeah, the next one is okay. Yeah, the thing that last, the last five years, one of the biggest changes that I saw to content on LinkedIn, and you know, we're on LinkedIn all the time, especially marketing, but was celebrate the small wins, the small wins, everyone celebrate the small wins. And I sort of feel like that's in parallel to what you're talking about, because it sort of forces you to sit down and analyze where you are now in respect to where you were, then. And to appreciate something. It could be just getting up and doing it again. You know, so I really, I like that one. I think it's important.

Alicia Ramsdell 15:37

Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I just think it's kind of counterintuitive to everything that we hear nowadays about the hustle culture. So I'm glad it's, it's out there. Yeah. And then the other one was acceptance, right? Like it what you would think, right, accepting things as they are, and feeling that, hey, we can let go this, we don't have to be resistant to you know, what's happening, it is happening. And then we can pivot from there. Right. So the last one is less or not less than one of those that's related to it is letting go. So again, there's always this feeling of were attached to an idea, we're attached to a career, we're attached to how something is supposed to go the process of sales, the process of this, letting go to any of those attachments. And that, to me is a big one. And the reason I think about it being a big one is if you think about how we breathe, so when we breathe in, every time we have to breathe out. Now obviously, if we didn't breathe out, we wouldn't be living. So it's the same thing with stress ever, we're always taking stress in. And we just hold it there. And we never let it go. The style of our lives, how we live, it's just unimaginable, compared to if you let things go, and you can actually release it and then move on in a positive direction. It's just that much better. So I really, I really like the two together the acceptance in the letting go, which is a struggle for the most most of us, right? I think that letting things go sometimes, especially in our careers, especially in the process. So this is not what I anticipated, or not how I anticipated this would go letting you go and set for a new, maybe a pivot but a new positive direction.

Claire Davis 17:31

Ooh, yes, absolutely. And you know what, I'll tell you what I feel like, there's nothing like, you know, we were talking about layoffs in the beginning, but there's nothing quite like being let go, to be forced to let go. Because of so many people who I've worked with, who have gone through layoffs, as I have. What's interesting to me, is that almost all of them, after a certain amount of time, will tell me, You know what, Claire, I'm actually glad it happened. Because I had really been needing a shake up in my life, or I had been meaning to leave for a long time, but I just hadn't got around to it, or so on and so forth, you know that I didn't appreciate the culture anymore. It's not what I believed in, I was getting bored, all of those things. And I think, do you feel like it's so difficult to let go of who we are in our career, because we almost define ourselves as our career for such a long time. I mean, goodness, we're there 75% of our lives.

Alicia Ramsdell 18:40

100% you're so invested in this identity, that you almost feel guilty, leaving it moving forward. So I 100% agree with you. Personally, I experienced that. But I think that's a common theme. Right? I went to school for this, or I've been in this industry for so long, or I've been in this style of a role for so long. How could I possibly pivot? And there's almost like, you feel a sense of guilt, or at least I felt a sense of guilt, leaving a certain identity within my career. And I it's unfortunate that we experienced it, you could everyone can relate. I feel like you can see why because is that the years of experience or the time that you invested the energy, maybe financially, what you invested. But but especially with the layoffs, like you're saying, I've heard the same thing, that after a certain amount of time, you know, to digest the information and to experience the emotions. When people typically have moved on to that next career role. They've said it was actually a good thing. Right? A blessing in disguise. Yep. blessing that happens for most Yeah.

Claire Davis 19:52

Yeah. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about your story, so tell us about that pivot. So where you were born and then the Unexpect To change.

Alicia Ramsdell 20:01

In short, so I was in my education, my background was Accounting and Taxation from undergraduate degree as well as master's degree. And I started in public accounting, I continued on for 15 years or 15 plus years in the accounting tax industry. And people might say, Wow, that's crazy you because I knew, almost right away, that I really wasn't for me. But I was able to work for an organization that I stayed there for 11 years. That was, for the most part. Wonderful, right? I had some really incredible leaders, I really enjoyed the work that I was not the work necessarily, but I really enjoyed the people that I was working with. Sure, right. And that's why I believe I stayed so long, in addition to financial stability, job security, I mean, what's more secure than accounting and tax? So people like no, I desperately need people like you.

Claire Davis 20:58

So yes.

Alicia Ramsdell 21:02

So I enjoyed that. But there was a point where I left my role. You know, I had small kids. So I moved to another role that was close to home, and everything kind of seemed perfect on paper. But it was high stress, right? It was 24/7. And even though it was supposed to be like a part time role, I felt that my mind was on it full time. And it was very stressful. And it was at that transition in my life, that I started to get started feel an overwhelming amount of stress, I play soccer for fun, and I was playing in a UN, I call it the old lady League of soccer. And I was at a game and usually when I played in these games, I was carefree I was, you know, just doing my thing. And I remember being on a soccer field one night and just, I couldn't stop these overwhelming negative thoughts. And I said, this isn't right. And I've experienced stress, obviously, in my past, but I was able to move through it somehow where it with no set agenda. But this time, I couldn't just move through it. So I started exploring and having conversations with various people. And one book that somebody recommended that I read is called strengthened stillness by Bob Roth. And that book is the introduction for me to Transcendental Meditation. And its mantra style meditation. And what I was doing was 20 minutes at the beginning of the day, 20 minutes at the end of the day of this mantra meditation. And this book goes through all of these, I think we'd like to read about famous people. But all of these famous people that implemented Transcendental Meditation, I think Seinfeld was one of them, and many others. And so that was my start in meditation. And from there, I started the MBSR training course, with Jon Kabat Zinn. And then just recently, I finished the organizational mindfulness class, which is, if you think about it a spin off of the MBSR training course. So but more focused on the workplace, and so forth. So when that all happened, I was still in corporate America, I ended up going back to my old company. And I started to self reflect and say, Why am I here? What do I want out of this? Is this the inspiration I want to give to my kids and kind of leave with this world? You know, years and years from now when I'm well and gone? And I said, Well, no, but what is it that I want to do, and that's when career development came up. And fast forward, I started my whole career path. And I want to expose clients to these ideas of how mindfulness training within our careers is fundamental at this point of not just managing stress, or figuring out how to deal with it. But leveraging that inevitable stress that's going to come along the way.

Claire Davis 23:57

Oh, that's so powerful. We talk a lot about how being prepared before it's necessary is the way to be successful in life, whether it's your career, your family, your your home, life, your whatever you're doing. And I'm so inspired by what you're doing, because you're giving people the tools to navigate whatever they need to productively and so that we don't get caught on the end of that spiral of stress, like you were at your soccer game. And so, you know, we I personally think about meditation, Transcendental Meditation, yoga, mindfulness as a personal practice, but can I know you're doing it for organizations now, too, so can you talk a little bit about how some of these things are applied at an organizational level? And what are some of the benefits that people see when they do this?

Alicia Ramsdell 25:00

Sure. So there's a couple of ways that organizations could implement mindfulness based strategies, right, you can actually conduct a mindfulness workshop and training session for employees, because some people, you know, they might not really understand kind of how that how is this going to help them in their role? How is this going to help the overall organization, you know, from a profitability standpoint, right, because a lot of organizations are for profit, and people might not see the connection. So just running a training, running a basic training of what it is, and how it can be effective, right, and how it can be incorporated into your daily routines. As an example, if you're a sales professional, or somebody that typically leads presentations, right, there's the 5 4 3 2 1 technique, which is something I use often when I go into a presentation, and what it is, as you say, you know, in your head or out loud, but five things that you can see and say them out loud, then you say four things that you can touch, three things that you can hear two things that you can smell, and one thing that you can taste. And what this does this technique does it grounds you in the present moment, when you're, you know, looking at the five things, touching the four things, hearing the three things, and so forth, you can't possibly be thinking about what you were worried about before, or what you're worried about in the future. So what grounds you in the present moment, to then move forward into that sales pitch, move forward into that presentation. And that and that's just that's just one example. But that's, that's things that an organization could help train based on the industry that they're in based on the type of work that you're in. Another thing that, I think naturally, people are, you know, love a good challenge, or sometimes we can be competitive. So you can develop a mindfulness Challenge program, you know, for your employees, everybody practices, certain mindfulness exercises, and they track their progress, you can incentivize it and give away prizes, and so forth. But if you make it more about fun, rather than just, we're going to sit down for 20 minutes and be really quiet. And still, you know, some people that might not sound enticing, but if you put a competitive edge to it, the people that might not be into it would be.

Claire Davis 27:25

Being that this thing, medical sales podcast, they're deaf, we're, we're in for a competition. So give you a game plan, and I will crush it. I love it. I'm always taking tons of notes. When you're on the show, by the way, I just realized I'm looking down because I've got already three pages of notes, my notebook. Okay. I love that making it fun. That's a great idea.

Alicia Ramsdell 27:44

Yeah. And then the other thing is, if you think about the people that want to do it, but they're a little bit shy about how do I practice mindfulness exercises, is creating a space within an hour. It's funny, because not not everyone's back in the office. But let's say you're back in the office, create designating a quiet space in the office, you know, for people to practice mindfulness exercises, maybe they offer, you know, you know, headphones and guided meditation sessions that you can use, while you're in the office, have that dedicated space, so people can walk in there and be surrounded with, you know, like minded individuals who also want to practice mindfulness exercises, and maybe they can have conversations within they're like, Oh, what do you what exercise have you been doing? What's been working for you, and really promote the excitement for it. And then the other thing that I think about is hosting, you know, weekly meditation sessions, you could do that, and having an open line of communication, right? So if if it always starts at least my perspective, and that might be, it might not everyone might not share the same perspective, but my perspective is always that you know, top down so if leaders are saying that, hey, we hate we have an open lines of communication, to talk about. Work on you first, right, your mental health, your stress levels, if you need a you know, that mental break, we're we want to have everyone take, you know, whatever, whatever it is, every 25 minutes, just take a break from what you're doing, you know, walk around, have a five minute break, and then come back to your work reengaged there's the whole Pomodoro technique, where you work for 25 minutes, break for five, do that four times and then take a longer break for 15. But when you are present, and you mentally aware of where you are, what you're doing and why you're doing it and free from distraction, you're able to be obviously more focused, but more productive and build resiliency within your long term goals in your career.

Claire Davis 29:51

I love that it's it's the intentionality of it. Isn't it like making it? Something routine expected setting the stage It reminded me of a breathing technique that I was looking at, probably six months ago. And this gentleman was this incredible breathing technique trainer. And he was saying, No, listen, only do this, well, I'll get to that part of it. So he shows this breathing technique, and essentially, you're holding it for a few seconds, and then you're letting it out for a few seconds in a certain way. And so I'm trying this, also, I'm driving. I realized Alicia is not the place. So when he's talking about how to set these stages, right, a lot of medical salespeople are in the car all the time, I caution you against maybe the deeper breathing techniques and things in the car. But there are so many other places like if you're in a case, if you're in that, or you know how long it is between, you know, when they're opening, and they're using your product, and you know, you're kind of working the room, but there are downtimes. So taking those downtimes, that could be a really great place to say, Okay, I've got those 12 minutes, right, I've got six minutes here, I've got six minutes while I'm waiting outside, at the scrub sake. Maybe before and after you have a call with the manager maybe before and after you go into an office and you're sitting in that waiting room and hopefully networking on LinkedIn or looking at some of the magazines to chat up the front desk. But there are plenty of times when we can set intentional routines for ourselves. So so if somebody wanted to start this, if say someone's never meditated at all, mindfulness is new to them. Now we've kind of debunked that it's not this scary fufu thing. It's It's really incredible thing to how should they start? Where would you say some a newbie would dip their toe in?

Alicia Ramsdell 31:56

Sure. So there's, we were just talking about, you could do this anywhere daily. And maybe not driving a car with a deep breathing, but, but even just if you if you are going to take a walk, whether you work from home, and you're walking around your neighborhood, or you you work in the office, and you're just walking from one floor to the next, mindful walking, feel your heel and your toe touch every time you walk by just concentrating on that sensation. If you just want to start there. That's one spot. If while you're eating, let's just say you're eating by yourself and not having a conversation with someone else. But if you're eating alone, mindful eating. So every Chew every bite, and sometimes we'll just walk down our food because we get to go to the next meeting. And the next thing, right, but sensing we did this during actually the MBSR program, we took like what they asked us to get like a little snack and I had like an m&m. And it was like, it was like a five minute process. It was one m&m, but it was like, you know, what is it tastes like? What is what is it? How does it feel in your mouth? What it you know? So again, it sounds silly when I say it out loud. But it really works. Because you're like, Wow, I've never tasted an m&m like this before.

Claire Davis 33:06

Here's the question. Did it melt in your hand in those five?

Alicia Ramsdell 33:12

Although, yes, it did. Actually. I need to put it. But so so that's, that's the start of it. But the the peak mind book is great. And, you know, some people like I don't have a lot of time. It's, it is a thick book. But this book is great. And what I love about is even if you don't read the whole book to start, because you're busy. There is a breakdown of week one, week two, week three, you know, day one through day seven, and it goes into No, you guys can't see that. But it goes into here's the core practice that you're going to do. You know, find your flashlight for 12 minutes, and then even tells you what page to go to, to learn more about what's the Find your flashlight. So let's just dive into that for a second. Sure. If you're if you're a newbie and you say, all right, Alicia, I have five minutes in the morning. That's all I can dedicate fine. What you can do is you can let's say you're lying down and you're seated in a comfortable position. I want you just to be present with your thoughts are so focused on your breath. And when your thoughts take over, and you said think oh, I have to respond to that email. Okay. Pay attention to that for a second. You're aware that you're now distracted and thinking about your email. Bring that flashlight back to your breath. So imagine a flashlight and where that light is focused on. Bring the flashlight back to your breath. And then every time your mind waters again, bring that flashlight back to focusing in on your breath. That light should be focused in on your breath. That way, yes, you're going to be distracted. Don't judge yourself for that. That's okay. Except the fact that you have things going on in your life right now and your mind might be taken to those places, acknowledge it, and then bring that flashlight back. So that could just be a five minute practice. What Dr. Ameche Jha discusses is to be effective 12 minutes is the ideal to get to from a minimum perspective. And then of course, you can build on that, as an example, the MBSR training course, we were practicing 45 minutes daily, right. So every morning, when I would wake up, it was 45 minutes daily of body scan meditation, there was, you know, sitting meditation, walking, meditation, and so forth. So it really just depends. But if you're a newbie, and you just have whatever it is, you have five minutes, start with the Find your flashlight, exercise, and focus on your breath. And every time that thought comes up, acknowledge it, accept it, and then bring that flashlight back.

Claire Davis 35:53

Oh, my gosh, this is powerful stuff. I feel like this. I mean, we've been chatting for what, 40 minutes. And this is sort of a mini masterclass on things you can try right now. Maybe not driving, but yourself. And your team so. So to kind of bring it full circle. Alicia, can you tell us, you know, when you've guided people into mindfulness teams into mindfulness and these different practices, what are some of the things that you're seeing them discover or benefits that they're getting? On the other side of this, these things?

Alicia Ramsdell 36:29

Sure. So one of the things that I've realized is that our attention is what's been taking away from us as individuals, right, whether that's in our careers or in our lives, in general, again, we mentioned before digital addiction, workplace distractions, you know, decision fatigue, we're, our attention is the scarce resource nowadays. And so one of the exercises that I learned recently, and then I've been, you know, talking with my clients about is this idea of stop the acronym. So S stands for stop, whatever you're doing, if you're feeling stressed, right, just stop, S stands for stop, whatever you're doing and pause. T stands for, take some deep breaths, center yourself in the present moment, you know, it is what it is, it's happening, center yourself in the present moment. Always observe your environment without judgment. So wherever you're feeling stress, as long as you're not in harm's way, but wherever you are feeling stressed, and observe what's happening, right, whether it's, you know, workplace issues, or whatnot, but observe what's happening. And then P is proceed, or I like to say pivot in a positive direction. Because sometimes we, we ruminate on what it is, it's happening, and then we go down this rabbit hole of this is happening because of this. And now, you know, my career is going down the tubes, when all it was was the person on the other end was just having a bad day. And it really meant nothing. So just using as a simple example, but I see when I'm working with clients that it's our attention. And what we focus on is what we become. So if instead of allowing our attention to focus on all of the negative, and we're able to just stop and read, focus or pivot into the positive, whatever's going on, it's well during that given time. That's what benefits most individuals that I work with is just retraining where your attention is. And building from that. And again, just changing that pattern, just changing where we focus, our attention can go a long way. And that's, that's, I would say the majority of what happens when I work with clients and how they're able to move away from this, this negative mindset.

Claire Davis 39:00

I feel like that is going to open up so many doors. Because when we are in the medical selling situation, for example, right, we're getting input from physicians from the higher ups in our company, from the marketing team, from our colleagues, and then not to mention every other piece of that circle of care that we touch with every single interaction. It's a lot. And so being able to remember, okay, this is how I'm feeling. I'm feeling I'm feeling this way, or I'm stressed by this thing, or this is there's so much on my plate. I love this stop exercise, because I think that it gives that mental space for us to really evaluate what's going on and kind of almost, from my perspective, organize what's coming at us, and then see if really how we're feeling is just a reaction to our environment or if it's something else, and helps I can imagine this would help people be more productive have better communication, having better communication with their teams. Really powerful stuff.

Alicia Ramsdell 40:08

So when you look, if I add one thing to that, nurse, yeah, and another, another book and recently finished, which is, I think, a great read, again, a long book, but it's called The Four Hour Workweek, which I'm sure many of you have heard about. But what I one of the things, it's not technically a mindfulness activity, but I view it as one, I guess, it's not really advertised as a mindfulness activity. But I view it as one is setting a timeframe for you talk about digital distraction or emails, or, you know, the worst. So, but if you set an out of office on your email as an example, and let's just say you want to respond to emails that you know, 10am and 3pm. Putting that as you're out of office all the time putting that as you're out of office, I will respond, I will be viewing emails and responding, responding in such a way at 10am and 3pm, Monday through Fridays, if this is an absolute emergency, here's my number. Now, what this does is people like well, then everyone's gonna start calling me know, what it allows people to do is actually on their end, think through stop and think through, is this an emergency? Do I really need to call them right now. And I would say, let's call it nine times out of 10, people aren't going to call you because it's not an emergency, right? And they realize, okay, this isn't a top priority right now. So there's no need for me to call you. And on the off chance that they do call you, then you can handle and discuss what's a priority, or if there are conflicting priorities. But I thought that from a workplace perspective, that's what I would view as a mindfulness exercise that you can actually implement. And if you commit to that, you can then just shut off your email. So you're not getting distracted with these, you know, digital dings and digital beeps of trying to get your attention. Right. That's a that's a big one. And then even from like, a personal perspective, within your career, we all have cell phones, right? I put my cell phone on airplane mode during the timeframes that I'm working, and it doesn't allow people outside of what I'm looking to get done to distract me.

Claire Davis 42:26

Yes, yes, the constant dings as I know, a dangerous came through right then as we were talking about the day, perfectly timed. But But you're right, I noticed for, you know, I noticed for myself is that if I can, if I can carve out certain windows, when I'm not when I can really focus on one task. And as a as a, as a mother, as a, as a resume writer, as a career coach, as a business owner. That's challenging. But the first three years of business, I didn't do that. And now I'm getting better about setting my schedule up in those blocks, or time blocking, or however, you know, how people have anyone wants to call it, it's incredibly helpful. And I was shocked at how much more I could get done in that, say, 45 minutes, then I was getting done, because I had been context switching or trying to do so many different types of tasks at the same time.

Alicia Ramsdell 43:26

So and I think there's scientific research to that if you switch between one task to another, no matter how small it might seem, you're just trying to respond to a quick five minute email and then come back to do whatever it is you were doing. I think they said technically, it takes 23 minutes to get back to being fully engaged where you were before. So even if the task only takes five minutes, the scientific research behind it is that it takes something like 23 minutes to be back and fully engaged. Wow. So that's, that's, that's that cost of task switching, rather than what we think is multitasking. Wow,

Claire Davis 44:03

Wow, I know, we, we pride ourselves on multitasking so often, and it's really hurting us in our productivity.

Alicia Ramsdell 44:11

Okay, so even in job descriptions to it'll say, you know, ability to multitask, yes.

Claire Davis 44:14

You're like maybe that's not the place for maybe, maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe it's an opportunity, though to go in and, you know, kind of share a strategy for how you do productivity, right? Or how exactly it oh my gosh, Alicia, I could talk to you for for days like every time we have a conversation. I'm thinking well, we could do another episode on this for that. So thank you so much for walking us through so much on mindfulness today. I mean, you guys we've talked about the five the Find your flashlight, exercise, the 54321 exercise, the heel to toe step if you just want to get started and try a little bit of mindfulness and and see how it works for you. And I encourage you everyone listening if you have a chance after you've listened to the show If you try any of the things that Alicia mentioned today, please let us know. You can hit us up in the DM send us a message, you can send it right to Claire at traction resume.com. But I want to know and hear from you do these mindfulness techniques really help you? I know that some of them and similar ones have been monumental in the shift that in the benefits that we've, you know, been able to see. So I want to hear from you, and how they work from you. So if people want to find out more, Alicia, if they're looking to get a little deeper on this subject, or maybe they're thinking, Oh, my gosh, please come and coach, me and my team come in and share this wisdom with us. Where have you been all my life? Where can they find you? Sure.

Alicia Ramsdell 45:44

If you go to mindfulcareerpaths.com any of those social media outlets that I'm connected with, or the companies connected with? They're right there. You can email me at Alicia RAM cell at mindful career path.com as well as I live on LinkedIn, so you can DM me there. One of the things I want to mention as we went through the nine attitudes of mindfulness by Jon Kabat Zinn, but we didn't get to the last two, so I just wanted to quickly say them out loud, but it is gratitude and generosity.

Claire Davis 46:19

Next show. In fact, I would love to do a gratitude show with you. That's a that's a huge tenant of our core business principles. And it's it's magic. Gratitude is is truly magic. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for everything you've shared. Again. Here's to I guess, round three, when we talk about gratitude and generosity. And really, Alicia, we're so excited by what you're doing out there. It's so important what you're doing out there. And thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us.

Alicia Ramsdell 46:49

Hey, it's my pleasure. And anytime I get to talk to you, Claire. It's a good conversation.

Claire Davis 46:53

Oh, I totally agree. Well, thank you, everyone, for thank you for joining us today. Alicia, you're a gem. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom with us. And please take a moment. Find out more about Alicia Ramsdale. On LinkedIn, go check out her website and get in touch with her because if you're not practicing mindfulness yet, as you can see here today, there are a lot of very simple and easy ways that you can get started and incredible, incredible benefits on the other side. So until next time, thank you, everybody for listening to today's medical sales later. And Alicia, thanks again for joining us.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai